From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Tue 09 Sep 2003 - 00:52:04 GMT
Date sent: Tue, 09 Sep 2003 10:05:26 +1000
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Jeremy Bradley <jeremyb@nor.com.au>
Subject: RE: I find it sad yet hilarious...
Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> >Snipppppp..............
> >An "emtional jihad", a "Stalinist silencing"!? Things must be getting
> >serious. But my only feeling on the matter is this might a better
> >place to discuss memetics than to post articles prosylitizing your
> >political point of view while occasionally tying them to the
> >expressed purpose of this list. I feel well insulated from virulent
> >memes, personally, but despite the insulation from the memes you are
> >intent on spreading, it still takes time to sift through the stuff
> >you post to get to the memetics.
> >
> >Brent
> >
>
> My point exactly Brent.
> However, if we could cut through the 'my meme-team is better than your
> meme-team' diatribe, there is a rich vein of memetic inquiry to be
> tapped into here. My own question of memetics is in the memetics as
> the 'arbiter of appropriacy' area. Why is it that an individual should
> think a course of action, or way of thinking, is right or wrong? The
> problem on this list is that every time we try to get an objective
> discussion going on the collective value system of cultural groupings,
> human artefacts one and all, there is a descent into subjective
> ranting and nationalist self justification. That is my sadness. The
> hilarious side of it is that, knowing what we know about memetics and
> the constructed nature of cultural thought, we don't observe the
> similarity between the great revolutionaries of history. Even the
> reconstructed hero of the 'American Revolution, George Washington, was
> a terrorist to some, a freedom fighter to others. Yet, to an
> objective, non-aligned, observer, he may also be viewed as a self
> serving radical with only a minority support (30%). Have a look
> around, some of the greatest leaders of the world have served
> jail-time for terrorism. Half the first Israeli Parliament,
> immediately recognised by the US Government, was also wanted for
> crimes of terror by the previous legitimate governing body. Terrorism,
> on a non-State level, is the weapon of the oppressed. Terror, on the
> State level, is the quasi legitimised weapon of the oppressor. One
> brings on the other and will continue to do so until we recognise the
> fact that no meme-team is sacrosanct. Jeremy
>
Some things ARE existentially right or wrong, given the obtaining
existential condition of a multiplicity of spatiotemporally finite, self-
conscious and will-possessing individuals sharing a common sphere.
For some of those people, whether they claim divine license to do so or
not, to dictate to the others what they must and cannot do, what
questions they may and may not ask, and what they must and cannot
believe, under pain of death, is wrong. To annihilate freedom by
demanding that every thought or action must be either mandated or
forbidden is wrong. To commit mass murder by using human bombs to
blow up concentrations of clueless and unarmed civilians merely
pursuing their citizen lives in planes or ships or buses or skyscrapers or
stadiums or shopping malls is wrong, no matter who swears that their
god says it is all right. And it is wrong for scientific inquiry to be
forbidden and for evidence supporting doctrinally upsetting positions to
be suppressed because of some dogmatic pronouncement that a self-
styled prophet, of whatever religion, claims was communicated to him
centuries ago.
Unless we acknowledge these existential rights and wrongs, we may
end up endorsing the ascendancy of totalitarian dogmatisms that would
forclose all freedom of thought, action, conscience, doubt and inquiry,
not just (but including) memetics.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> Jeremy Bradley
> 3200 Oxley Hwy Hartys Plains 2446
> Phone:02 65856652 or 02 65856134
> 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
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