Re: Why Europe is so Contrary

From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Sun 24 Nov 2002 - 07:28:26 GMT

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    On Saturday, November 23, 2002, at 09:51 , Grant Callaghan wrote:

    > I call it transactional because it involves a transaction, an exchange
    > of goods or information, between two or more parties. Every
    > transaction is a performance but the word "performance" doesn't imply
    > the exchange of information and the relationship between the parties.

    The comedian who replicates the accidental fall of another as the pratfall of slapstick received or exchanged very little, if any, goods from the victim of the fall, but, performed the pratfall nonetheless.

    There is no need for any relationship between these two, and performance, observation, and replication are all that is demanded in the pemetic model. There is very little, if any, exchange of goods or information in my example- most of the information of the fall is, in fact, ignored, because the comedian needs to practice his fall as totally _not_ accident.

    But, I know this is mostly semantic- the information gained about how to perform the pratfall is somewhat there, in the first fall itself.

    I would only argue, outside of this semantic quarrel, that _no intent_ is required in the performance model, whereas I see it being required in the transactional (and in the memesinthemind) model.

    - Wade

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