From: Brent Scofield (brent@atomicphotography.com)
Date: Tue 09 Sep 2003 - 01:19:35 GMT
A memetic stronghold is essentially, the ruling class in an emerging or
existing complex society. In a feudal society, for example, the
meme-stronghold would be the feudal lords and those individuals who are
directly engaged in spreading the memes contained within the meme
stronghold. Obviously memes upholding the power and material wealth of
the feudal lords would be a clear candidate for a memes that would
perpetuate themselves by spreading from the security of the stronghold.
As for a priesthood, there are good reasons why a meme existing within a
priest class that was also a meme stronghold would not be subject to the
same selective forces. Examples of these reasons are that priest classes
often derived material benefit from the memes that they themselves
spread. Priest's would have often been the ones who were able to write,
to stand in front of their congregations and preach, and to spend more
time than say, someone subsisting on agricultural labour, communicating
inside their class and providing a richer environment for the evolution
of newer, stronger memes.
I guess the basic thing that I found interesting about the idea of
meme-strongholds, (and more generally the application of memetics to the
problem of why complex societies emerged at all and why they have the
features they do), is that previous theories used to explain the
emergence of civilization have tried to justify it on a largely material
basis. As in, what material benefit did all or some of the members of
the society derive from increased complexity and features such as
monumental architecture, agriculture, writing, etc. But from a memetic
perspective, these things don't have to be explained materially, the
benefit of these things to the reproduction of memes seems really clear
to me. Some examples of the direct benefits of the defining features of
complex society to competitive memes: agriculture - increased population
density resulting in increased horizontal transmission, writing - a
robust for memes to reproduce and travel, monumental architecture -
almost always symbolic of power or a particular memeplex, increased
trade - increased spread of memes, development of a class system - a
class that can be used as a robust meme-stronghold.
And one of the consequences of the memes being the driving force behind
the development of meme-strongholds and complex societies, is that it is
irrelevant whether or not individuals survive or reproduce, as long as
their lives is some way strengthen the meme stronghold or encourage
transmission of the meme. Martyrdom would be an obvious symptom of this,
an example of a person losing their life to fortify the meme-stronghold.
Brent
> -----Original Message-----
> From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk] On
Behalf
> Of Ray Recchia
> Sent: September 8, 2003 5:17 PM
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: Meme-strongholds
>
> Hi Brent,
>
> Give an example of a memetic stronghold and describe why a meme would
> survive within it when it became lost to a larger group. Are you
calling
> a
> priesthood a stronghold or a written document a stronghold? All
written
> documents can have the quality of preserving a meme long after any
people
> hold it. Why would a priesthood not be subject to the same forces that
> cause the meme to disappear among a larger population?
>
> Raymond O. Recchia
>
> At 04:59 PM 9/8/2003 -0700, Brent wrote:
>
> >A while back I was taking an undergraduate anthropology course on the
> >emergence of civilization, or more accurately, the emergence of
complex
> >societies. For my term paper I decided to try to approach the
emergence
> and
> >development of complex societies from a memetic perspective. It is of
> course
> >a huge, and exteremely general topic, so my paper just touched on
some
> basic
> >applications of memetic theory without going into any real detail or
> depth.
> >But still, the application of memetics to the topic seemed to fit so
well,
> >and I was hoping this list would be a good place to develop the idea
> >further, or even better, learn about other, more rigourous,
applications
> of
> >mememtics to this same topic.
> >
> >With the increase in population density, due to the agrarian
revolution,
> the
> >horizontal transmission of information became increasingly possible,
> >resulting in a much greater potential set of hosts for any given
meme.
> And
> >with that, it became a possibilty (maybe an inevitability), for "meme
> >strongholds" to emerge. A meme stronghold, as I think of it, is a
group
> of
> >people that materially benefits from a meme or memeplex, and
therefore
> acts
> >as a buffer against such basic and inevitable things as drought and
> famine.
> >It is easy to imagine that, before extensive horizontal
transimission,
> and
> >before the development of meme strongholds, natural disaster could
easily
> >wipe out memes completely, since the meme-hosts themselves would be
wiped
> >out. The development of a "meme stronghold" class would have allowed
for
> the
> >evolution of a whole new group of memes and memeplexes that
perpetuate
> >themselves through two main mechanisms: 1. protecting their
stronghold
> >against material hardship and memetic competition and 2. encouraging
> >horizontal transmission, particlarly from the stronghold outwards.
> >
> >Almost all of the developments that are considered features of
complex
> >societies, such as increased population density, writing systems,
> monumental
> >architecture, the development of full time "priest" classes, etc.,
are
> all
> >clear tools for increasing horizontal transimission (within a
generation
> >from person to person) of ideas as opposed to vertical transmission
(from
> >parent to offspring) of ideas.
> >
> >It is also interesting that this development of meme strongholds and
the
> >increase in horizontal transmission could result in memes that were
more
> >destructive to their hosts than would have been possible before.
Without
> a
> >meme stronghold, a meme that causes harm to the host is at risk of
dying
> >with the host, or simply being rejected in favour of memes that are
more
> >personally beneficial. But with a meme stronghold, all that is
important
> to
> >the meme is that the stronghold itself survives to spread memes again
> >another day. Those outside of the stronghold could live very
difficult
> >lives, could be sacrificed in warfare to protect or strengthen the
> >meme-stronghold, etc., because their survival is only neccessary in
> support
> >of the stronghold.
> >
> >Well, that is a semi-random smattering of some if the ideas that came
out
> of
> >my simplistic application of memetics to a very large topic. I am
really
> >curious about what others think about the idea of meme-strongholds as
> >catalyst for, if not the main fuel for, the development of
civilization
> and
> >the incredible increase in the means for horizontal transmission in
the
> last
> >few millenia. What meme could be more self-perpetuating than one that
> >encourages communication or increases the means for communication?
Was
> >memetic evolution the main motiviator of the development of
civilization?
> >
> >Brent
> >
> >
> >===============================================================
> >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 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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