From: Van oost Kenneth (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Sun 07 Nov 2004 - 17:45:25 GMT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Keo Ormsby" <chor02@xenomexico.org>
> In the case of absolutist memes, I believe that the
> "all or nothing" aspect of it is also a strategy that
> should appear only under certain conditions. For
> instance, Nazi memes were forcefully imposed over other
> political memes in the public arena, but I am sure that
> in many (if not most) instances where parents and
> school personnel transmitted them to children, they
> used a more rationalistic and loving approach. It is
> the right combination of these strategies that makes
> them evolutionary stable.
Keo, greetings,
I have to disagree here on the fact that the ' all or nothing'
aspect is something that goes along with certain conditions/
situations.
It is not so that if parents or schoolpersonnel transmit memes
that they ain 't absolutist ones and moreover that the way to
transpone them over was or were rational of loving.
I ain 't keen on the fact that absolutist memes, the ones we talk
about here, are in one way or another connected to war, like
Keith does or Nazi- propaganda or to how people in general are
getting them transponed.
In my view, even daning the tango is an absolutist meme in its
own respect, the driving- cars- meme is it also, being political
correct is yet another, and even transmitting Nazi- political-
memes in order to get the kids known what its all about, is an
absolutist meme ! Why can 't you transmit Nazi- memes to
schoolkids in the same way the Nazi's did transmit theirs onto the
German people !? The way by which you try to get the message
across is in itself an absolutist meme, that is my game !
Playing American football or soccer, or how a good made burrito
should be taste like are absolutist memes. Playing the game otherwise,
or if you try, as a player, to bend the rules far more than it is
allowed to get a game in the first place, and you will be thrown out !
These are the rules by which the game is played and each take or
part is in itself an absolutist meme.
Meaning of words and how the meaning can or may change with
a changing context is an absolutist meme. Changing the significance
of 9/ 11 or the use of these in a complete different setting won 't be
allowed. You can 't say, today it is the 9/ 11 of fashion !
Its meaning is fixed and therefor it is an absolutist meme !
Anything / everything can be an absolutist meme, it is just how and
why and in what a kind of perspective they are/ were transmitted
and in which situation they are set.
When we speak, say something, use a tool, show a behavior, ex-
plain how things work, eachtime and again and again we use
absolutist memes which are personal, unique and thus on their own
behalf absolute.
Each word, sentence, tool, gesture, discours, technology we use,
we need to " deconstruct " [ Derrida's term]_ you will find that
each now used, spoken, explained word/ something is the top of
a hierarchy of past ' absolutist ' memes.
The clear meaning/ essence can 't be known [ differentiation]_ it
is the above line of how and why and in what a kind of perspective...
that makes a meme " absolute " in the kind of context we all know
to exist. That memes which are said to be absolutist ones depends
on the situation or context is true, only then in the understanding that
each meme has in its own respect ' an all or nothing ' aspect inbedded.
Meaning and thus how " absolute " something is, how each meme is,
depends on the difference between something or someone and some-
thing else.
How a good made burritto should be taste like depends on so much
different elements ( and even social and political ones can count) that
the way it SHOULD be is an absolutist meme.....!!
Regards,
Kenneth
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