From: Gene Doty (gdoty@fidnet.com)
Date: Thu 01 Jul 2004 - 21:28:47 GMT
Van oost Kenneth wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Gene Doty" <gdoty@fidnet.com>
>
>>>What elements of culture survive depends on the environment of human
>>>minds, with these stone age psychological traits. Memes with the "right
>>>stuff" to propagate become more common. We seldom hear of the ones that
>>>don't.
>
>
> Hi Gene,
>
> That is because you look at it from a different corner of your eye.
> I have been, during a long period of time, involved upon this list
> in a scheme called, ' The Self- building via Meme Concept ', mostly
> with L. de Bivort.
> That is, I say I am more individualistic, more an individual than you,
> because, due to the early death of my parents I lacked some basic
> memetic elements in my upbringing_ or gained some...
> Where you and others were raised and cared for, up untill lets say
> your early 20_ I am since my early 16 an orphan, in a sense_ I
> raised myself...trial and error in a word.
Kenneth,
A couple of points here: first, I didn't write the snippet you quote;
second, since you know almost nothing of me or my life, you have no
basis to assert that you are "more individualistic, more an individual"
than I. And, anyway, is being "individual" a clear concept or a
desirable goal?
It's probably a good idea not to use "you" in this kind of generalized
post.
>
> That you were cared for, and I don 't argue against it as such,
> is a good point, but according to David Smail, ' Illusion and
> Reality, The Meaning of Anxiety' ( 1984) and I agree with his
> vision_ just by being brought up with the ' proper ' memes, you
> will lack ( necessarily !?) others that just would give you the edge
> to became an individual pur sang.
> You have been brought up with the memes carried by your
> parents, values and suppositions weren 't your own ideas in
> the first place...in a sense, they were beaten into you...
>
> Smail argues, that the love of the parents for their children,
> and most parents do care, depends on how well their kids
> will behave.. how well their kids will ( must in a sense)
> follow their parents footsteps.
> What the parents need and what they exept ( for their own
> sake) of their children is inversely propositional to the love
> the parents give or are willing to give.
> This sounds a little bit daft, but it isn 't !
>
> If I look closer to the last 20 years of my life...my sense
> of Self; my idea of having a ( strong) identity; a robust self-
> convidience; a high self- esteem...are the results of having
> lacked to some degree parential love.
> Bizar isn' t it !?
> But it is not !
>
> Parents, while their kids behave badly according to their own
> standards, views and values, react in stranger ways than that,
> while in my case there was noone to reprehend my actions.
> I learned the hard way_ other memes still work for me.
> Memes, with the ' right stuff ' for me, I try to propagate them
> believe me_ I am doing it here_ so that they can become more
> common.
> But not hearing of them at all is IMO an illusion, every meme,
> any idea ever sprouted must and does have its own lineage.
> It is not so that you don 't see/ hear/ touch etc one meme,
> that the possibility that it does exist isn 't there and moreover
> that its contents propagates, is a part of a selective- mode,
> does have evolutionary elements written into it...future memes!!
> The ones you seldom hear of are out there somewhere, it just
> takes a different approach to see them....Behind the closed
> doors of what are the ' memes ' there is a complete different
> set of cards to play with, we ain 't allowed to play and more-
> over we ain 't welcome either....Behind the world we perceive
> there is different one, the real one...
>
> Kids learn fast to pretend they can be different, that they
> do understand to satisfy their parents wished expectations_
> and in a sense, to avoid a beating !
>
> Kids and most people don 't have any simple clue how bad
> they were manipulated, abused, misformed, mis- informed,
> pressed and stressed to come in terms with what their parents,
> with what society...culture, wants and demands !
>
> I see thru ' that illusive framework, do you !?
>
> Regards,
>
> Kenneth
>
Well, what you say is all pretty abstract to me--I have a hard time
relating to it on more than an intellectual level, and yet it seems very
personal for you. As a father and grandfather, I have much different
perceptions of parenting than I did as a child, young man, young father,
and so on. What I do understand from your message is that you've had a
difficult life, with a lot of turmoil, and have survived and even more
than survived. I admire that a lot.
Gene
-- Gene Doty http://www.umr.edu/~gdoty http://www.ghazalpage.net =============================================================== 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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