From: Vincent Campbell (VCampbell@dmu.ac.uk)
Date: Tue 09 Sep 2003 - 12:05:54 GMT
<Those that advocate the annihilation of personal individual
freedoms (of thought and action) are objectively inferior, existentially
speaking, to those which promote
> the perpetuation of such freedoms. For this reason, although they may
> not be as hooking in such instances (see Hoffer's THE TRUE
> BELIEVER and Fromm's ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM), memes that
> ambrace personal diversity and free inquiry are ethically and
> existentially superior (for those who must live within their purview) to
> memes that endeavor to eliminate same.>
>
I will probably surprise you by agreeing with this totally. Secular
rationalism, and democratic consent are inherently preferable, and superior
to religious fundamentalism and totalitarianism.
The problem for me is what is the most appropriate method for libertarians
to deal with authoritarians? Is it only by shock and awe? Does that not
fundamentally diminish our claims to freedom and virtue in that we can only
defeat those ideologically opposed to us by force? We may win, but winning
through force doesn't make us right.
Indeed, one (of the many) fatal flaw with your position Joe, is that in
identifying islamic fundamentalism as a dangerous memeplex you ignore that
fact that memes cannot be defeated by guns- they are ideas, ideologies,
concepts, and some would say beliefs, that can persist even when all of its
original adherents are dead. Christianity didn't die on the cross, nazism
didn't die in hitler's bunker, and islamic fundamentalism won't die with the
killing of bin laden. Memes can only be "fought" with other memes, and the
memeplex of democracy is not well delivered or well received by people in
full combat armour carrying automatic weapons.
Democracy's fundamental strength is its reliance on power through consent,
which in turn means memetic power- by making people at the very least feel
part of the power process through allowing them space to "have their say"
(or engage in meme propagation and contestation, perhaps).
Vincent
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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>
===============================================================
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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