Re: Purists/ Fundamentalists_ To Derek

From: Van oost Kenneth (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Fri 05 Mar 2004 - 19:59:41 GMT

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    ----- Original Message ----- From: "derek gatherer" <dgatherer2002@yahoo.co.uk>
    > > The purists/ fundamentalists upon this list,
    Derek,
    > and who are these?
    << Chris Taylor says he 's one ! Though he lends his voice to a more dissident point of view..

    > > If those fundamentalists claim that everything has
    > > to do with memes
    Derek,
    > but nobody claims that, the nearest you'll get is the
    > assertion that memetic effects are widespread.
    << Oh, but maybe not in so many words.... Derek,
    > a) posit cultural determinism - ie. that all aspects
    > of human social life are cultural and there is no
    > place for genetic or environmental determination, and
    > no or little culture/gene or culture/environment
    interaction.

    No, I have it here about thoughts, words, assumptions, comments made upon in order NOT to put one's belief right, but to disregard the view of any other ! That is in my book memetic fundamental ! Culture, in that regard doesn 't count, all what they set out to do, is to present how high their truth is. ' They ' only decipher those lines written which has a potential to contradict, or at least jeapardize, critic their view, interests and beliefs.

    Critique, ok, NOT deconstruction_ which as you know, wants to occupy a system/ view from the inside in order to expose it weak spots at the moment where its main conventions/ assumptions begin to unravel. No doubt, there is some justice in the charge, and sometimes it is necessary, but this kind of memetic play of power opposes at least IMO, the fundamental bias of this list. The disinterest, in what others do/ say/ comment upon conveys the discussion/ threads to mere sectoral interests, of some ' interested ' in those matters_ mere all discussions end up in useless trible......

    It is, of course, needed to rid ourselves of unnecessary theorems in our common dialogue, but not answering/ replying at all, or then only by the practice of showing how wrong you were, not by your comments content or its scientific relevance, but by channeling the discourse towards how wrong you use the English language, and how bad your posts are made up.

    That is NOT the kind of discourse I wish I embark myself into. This is NOT discussing_ in the real sense of the word, whatever memetics holds in itself, but this is obstructing potential other interpretations of the subject. This means not translating them in other terms, but seeing if the conditions of possibility can be accounted for.

    I have mere troubles with, IMO the rising neurotic manifestation of a memetic proclaim to get on top of any discussion. All is likely be said and what must be done now is translating the findings in political/ ideological terms in order to set ' culture ' right! I dissociate myself from this view. All the problems of the ' cultural ' and how it comes about, aren 't
    ' solved', but some think this is actually the case ! All is neither recudible to the content of one book neither it is a matter of explaining the forces behind human ambiguities....

    If you are either in one of the positions as above, you are a purist ,or a fundamentalist. Neither case I like very much....

    Regards,

    Kenneth

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