From: Van oost Kenneth (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Mon 17 Mar 2003 - 21:16:10 GMT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alan Patrick" <a.patrick@btinternet.com>
> > Memes can't pervert their hosts. Perversion is strictly psychological.
> > People are perverted, not memes. Memes just promote themselves (and
> thereby
> > crowd out competitors).
>
> I wonder....what I'm getting at is - are there memes that can distort your
> view so that you are less able to see reality, and thus test and replace
> that meme. I do agree with your point that the really informative study of
> memes is in looking at unhelpful or harmful ones. For this reason I find
> religiously based memesets most fascinating, especially those like the
Amish
> & Shakers which define totally different modes of life.
Hi Alan,
Don 't know if the following shed any light on the matter, but in Belgium,
we have something called an ' irresistible urge ".
The term is used in legal cases where a man or woman killed someone,
most of the time there partner.
The term is explained as something you can 't control.
In most cases the offender is acquited and walks freely.
In such a perspective, IMO, memes ( if those are the ones causing
the urge) blur your view and existing ones are completely overthrown
by the - plex to kill...
So, yes, these people were to be perverted by their memes...
Although, such thing works only for murder, where for example
kleptomania comes in sight it is considered as a ' malfunction ' of
one kind, not an ' urge ' you can 't resist.
Something to think about....
Kenneth
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