From: Bruce Howlett (brucehowlett@northnet.com.au)
Date: Sun 09 Mar 2003 - 20:33:07 GMT
Hi Jeremy.
Your perception of memes having internationality or being able to be deliberately constructed to achieve an intended result seems to be an accepted view on the list at the moment. I was trying to raise some awareness of the meme's functionality, or in this case, lack of functionality. As a management consultant, most of what I do involves overt manipulation of organisations. That usually means doing a lot of hard work on the areas of training, recruitment, systems, structures and language. If it were possible to inject a meme into an organisation that would fix all the problems then I would be delighted. The reality is that memes do not work this way. What you experienced with the aboriginal group was a memetic event caused by the rapid introduction of a foreign culture. The memes carried in the movies were a result of the culture that made the movies, not intentionally planted to corrupt aboriginal kids.
Good luck with the election.
Regards,
Bruce Howlett
----- Original Message -----
From: Jeremy Bradley
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 6:21 AM
Subject: Re: Memes For Peace
At 09:53 PM 9/03/03 +1100, Bruce wrote:
Snip......................
While I tend to agree with Joe on the humanitarian aspect of the Iraq
situation, there are other issues implicit in the wording of Bryan's post
which cause concern. The least not being the concept of "memetic
engineering", which I think is an oxymoron. Even the opposing forces
within the memetics definition debate agree that a meme is a cultural unit.
Is not culture the conglomerate of inherited ideas, beliefs, values and
knowledge? Have not all attempts to overtly "engineer" culture failed?
Jeremy's reply:
I don't think so Bruce, hasn't Hollywood been active in the production of
memes which reach out across the globe? Is this not memetic engineering?
When I was living with an Indigenous Australian group which had not had a
lot of outside contact, the change in children's behaviour was observable
when they got a VCR and started watching USAnian crap.
For me, memetic engineering is akin to propaganda, but it operates at a
more subtle level.
If we look at the Nazi regime's manipulation of art and theatre, we can see
this effect, and, dare I say, it is observable in poor Joe's foaming at the
mouth replies to any critique of his beloved USAnia's war on Islam.
Making war to create peace is an oxymoron and can never work. War,
especially such a one sided war, will perpetuate violence and only profit
arms dealers.
Sorry to be lurking for so long all. And Joe, don't worry, I am far too
busy to reply too much at the moment as I am running an election campaign.
But, to quote a great USanian memetic construct, I'll be back.
Jeremy the do-gooder
Jeremy Bradley - The Greens' Candidate in Oxley
3200 Oxley Hwy Wauchope 2446
Phone:02 65856652 or 02 65856134
Mobile: 0428 856134
E-mail: jeremyb@nor.com.au
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun 09 Mar 2003 - 20:29:25 GMT