Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id JAA05181 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 20 Jun 2000 09:23:23 +0100 Message-Id: <4.1.20000620011153.0205f790@mail.rdc1.bc.wave.home.com> X-Sender: dplante@mail.rdc1.bc.wave.home.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.1 Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 01:22:01 -0700 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Dan Plante <dplante@home.com> Subject: RE: Cons and Facades In-Reply-To: <20000618215648.AAA8615@camailp.harvard.edu@[205.240.180.74 ]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
At 05:56 PM 18/06/00 -0400 Wade T.Smith wrote:
[LHdB]
>>My sense is that the field is still very young, and that we are all still
>>in the throes of defining the basic elements of what we are dealing with.
[WTS]
>- which is where, at the moment, I am content to leave these undefined
>elements, while the method of analysis we are calling memetic continues
>to refine. I still shiver when I hear people claiming to have found a
>meme, much less engineering one....
I agree with the essence of the above from Lawrence and Wade. Since the
basic premise of memetics is, as far as I'm concerned, inarguable, I'm sure
the usual motivators (economics, peer recognition, fame, etc.) will
eventually find the field well established and relatively Barnum-free.
However, the apprehension I feel from some on this list has, I believe,
less to do with "if", and more to do with "when". I get the vague sense
that "it's time for memetics to grow up". Well, maybe it _is_ time.
Memetics as a concept has been around for, what - two or three decades now?
Surely long enough to generate a cobbled concensus around a wobbly theory
with some marginal testability and explanatory power....yes?
I think the impatience with the pace of development in this "field" is felt
most acutely by the actual stakeholders - those who are published, or have
otherwise invested a lot of time and soul in this endeavour. Who can blame
them? I know that if I were vested in memetics to that degree (and I'm not,
so keep the salt shaker handy) then I would certainly want some sort of
payoff for my years of effort (preferably before the "diapered n' drooling"
stage of my life). If that's the case here, then any hint of snake-oil,
real or imagined, would certainly elicit a negative reaction.
As I see it, established institutions (including fields of science with
publicly recognized peer-review bodies) go through certain phases during
inception. First comes the "popularization" phase. This mostly takes place
in the social sphere, and you might say that memetics has already been
there. Next comes the tricky phase where the pop is turned down while
simultaneously turning up the politics, applied in a cultural framework -
things like establishing officially sanctioned "societies", lobbying
academic institutions to have memetics included in graduate-level research
in some way, establishing research-funding channels with grant foundations,
etc. In short, the "memetics gene" must be adopted by the regulatory
framework of the parent culture. After that, things follow along
automatically, which is, of course, the defining distinction between
"social" and "cultural".
So, if acceleration of this nascent field is what is desired, it seems to
me that the stake-holders need to:
a) get together and agree on what they can agree on,
b) package the result into an organelle that won't be rejected by the
parent cultural organism, which requires that
c) the popular rhetoric fades, and you
d) integrate the result into the autonomous bodily functions of the culture
by establishing communications channels to statutorily derived organs like
trusts, foundations and academic institutions.
Which brings me to the point I wanted to make at the outset (I know, I
belabour my points - sorry):
The terms "engineer" and "engineering" have specific meanings and specific
functions for a technologically advanced cultural organism - *critical
functions*. At the social level, these terms cary vague expectations of
some sort of qualifiable and quantifiable scientific foundation. At the
all-important cultural level, the same terms are defined - and these
definitions are prescribed and defended - *statutorily*. Any attempt by an
officially sanctioned body (a memetics society, for example) to use the
term innapropriately will be rejected by the host culture (i.e. it's
against the law or skirts the law - at least in all the states and
provinces I'm aware of).
So, at the cultural level, use of the term by the "memetics community" will
cause an immune response, and at the social level, the same community will
lose "social currency" (the analogous dynamic at the social level) when the
"public" finds out that this purported "applied science" - which is the
actual definition of engineering or engineering technology - has no
rigourously defined "science" behind it after all (at least not yet).
So if cultural acceptance is important to you, you might want to curb the
use of the term "engineering" vis-a-vis memetics. Remember, this is just my
opinion - I'm not an expert in the law or social "sciences" by any stretch.
Dan
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