From: Dace (edace@earthlink.net)
Date: Tue 06 Jul 2004 - 21:40:03 GMT
> From: Gene Doty <gdoty@fidnet.com>
>
> Chris Taylor wrote:
>
> snip
> >
> > Capitalism _is_ alive in the Lovelockian/Gaian sense (work with me here
> > a bit) in that it alters its environment to further its own aims (in a
> > completely unconcious way -- good old anthropomorphisisation shorthand).
> > It is composed of lots of selfish memes in the Dawkinsian sense (I'm
> > just Mr Neology today...) that have ended up 'cooperating' (i.e. not
> > screwing each other up) in a thoroughly unconcious way. That's not to
> > say people don't have lots of grubby little conspiracies etc. but they
> > are like the cleaner wrasses / pick-a-parasite of the economic world.
> > Nature red in tooth and claw -- capitalism is just another pattern
> > replicating because it can, composed of lots of little ones replicating
> > still, because they did before.
> >
> snip
>
> > Cheers, Chris.
> >
>
> Chris,
>
> Your assertion of the "living" quality of capitalism reminds me of a
> book I read some years ago. It was written by a Dutch theologian, whose
> last name, I believe, was Berkhof, somewhere in the mid-20th c. I found
> out about it through the writings of the Mennonite scholar, John Yoder.
>
> Anyway, Berkhof argues that the "demons" that the New Testament talks
> about--the "powers-that-be"--are actually social structures like racism,
> classism, and so on. Your comment about capitalism suggests that these
> "demons" could be easily seen as memes. The memetic approach has several
> advantages, of course, not having any aura of supernaturalism or link to
> religious beliefs. I suspect that Yoder, at least, would have been
> receptive to the idea. If anyone is interested I can try to identify the
> Berkhof book and provide some info on Yoder.
Is it Christ and the Powers?
> I was reading them back in the days when I was a left-wing evangelical
> Christian--a la Sojourners or _The_Other_Side_ magazine. That memeplex
> is dormant right now ;-)
Just don't throw the baby (Jesus) out with the bathwater.
Ted
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