From: Scott Chase (ecphoric@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue 27 Jan 2004 - 00:27:41 GMT
>From: "Van oost Kenneth" <kennethvanoost@belgacom.net>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
>Subject: Re: meme as catalytic indexical
>Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 20:25:12 +0100
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "M Lissack" <lissacktravel@yahoo.com>
> > Bruce raised serious issues about the future of
> > memetics. You ignore them and defend your point by
> > stating that "memes" means.... well it is not the idea
> > of memes whose future was challenged it was the idea
> > that there is a serious study and science of memes
> > called memetics.
>
><< Most list- memebers will ignore the fact that something
>else can replicate external to the mind, you challenge their
>conviction in the memeinthemind- hypothesis !
>
>If I sit down on the bench marked Whites Only, by the
>act of sitting on it, I propagated, replicated racistic memes.
>
We would need to think more about the person sitting on the bench and their
circumstances before we consider them propagating or "replicating" a racist
mindset. If the person sitting on the bench is non-white, they are obviously
not propagating racism, but instead are acting contrary to racist
institutions. This non-white person may have just accidentally sat on the
bench and then would not be propagating an anti-racist mindset. If they sat
on the bench with the intention of bucking the system, we might think in
terms of propagating an anti-racist mindset.
If a white person sat on that bench they might be acquiescing to the mores
of the society. They could be perpetuating the mindset. Maybe they are
copying the behaviors of others and are thus passively acting according to a
prevailing racist mindset. Maybe this white person sitting on the bench is a
civil rights activist holding a sign saying that whites only benches are
wrong and preventing other whites from sitting there. Would they be
propagating a racist mindset then? We might want to take the intention of
the bench sitter into consideration before reaching conclusions about
mindsets being propogated.
If a white person took offense to a non-white person sitting on the bench or
a white civil rights activist holding the sign mentioned above and acted in
a manner that kwpt the person from staying on the bench, that person would
be clearly propogating a racist mindset.
>
>The memeplex, so to speak, is in the bench, not in my head.
>
The mindset would likely be codified into a segregationist law (such as Jim
Crow of the pre civil rights South). It would be written on the bench, but
also remembered by the person sitting there as they have probably learned to
act according to the mores of the local community.
People would act in accord with or contrary to this codification. Maybe
those whites who sat on the whites only bench were acquiescing to the
prevailing law or some whites who sat on the bench may have acted in other
ways contrary to racist laws and mores or helped the cause of civil rights
in some way, but happened to sit on the bench in this instance.
Maybe, in toto, sitting on the whites only bench perpetuates the system as
racist behaviors are superficially mimicked, but there could be instances
where this generalization is not correct.
>
>Memes are somehow inscribed in the situation itself.
>Although, all performative acts involve cognition of some
>kind.
>
And laws. Jim Crow comes to mind. Civil rights activists helped to erase
this vile inscription. We just celebrated a holiday in the States for one of
the greatest, Martin Luther King, Jr.
>
>Some list- memebers will take this as a form of synecdoche,
>they take the part for the whole. Cognition is a part, not the
>general picture. That is their problem.
>And I am stuck in the middle....
>
>Regards,
>
>Kenneth
>
>
_________________________________________________________________
There are now three new levels of MSN Hotmail Extra Storage! Learn more.
http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-us&page=hotmail/es2&ST=1Ξ
===============================================================
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 archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue 27 Jan 2004 - 00:39:18 GMT