Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id UAA21183 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 6 Jul 2000 20:01:48 +0100 Message-ID: <001101bfe780$5d0e1f60$9000bed4@default> From: "Kenneth Van Oost" <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D31017458F9@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Cons and Facades/memetic engineering Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 21:06:17 +0200 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
----- Original Message -----
From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2000 1:27 PM
Subject: RE: Cons and Facades/memetic engineering
> This is a central question I think, because of the notion of intent.
> There's no doubt that different social systems (political, religious etc.)
> have proscribed behaviours in different ways at different times, and have
> deliberately done so, but the question emerges of where (and why) those
> proscriptions occured in the first place (and how and why those
> proscriptions spread).
>
> I think it depends on the nature of the behaviour. With sexual behaviours
> it is more than likely, IMHO, that the behaviours predate any efforts to
> proscribe them. Other kinds of taboos undoubtedly emerged within a
cultural
> context. I suppose good recent examples would be cloning, and IVF
> technology that allows same sex couples to have babies (or will do in the
> near future).
>
> Cannibalism strikes me, as I write, to be an interesting example. Again,
> this is presumably a very ancient behaviour, predating civilisation. I'm
no
> anthropologist, but I believe today it's only practised amongst remote
> tribes in places like Borneo. Nonetheless it is a human practice, but one
> that is today a major taboo broken only in the most extreme of
> circumstances, such as by serial killers, or in that case of the
Argentinian
> rugby team trapped in the Andes for months after a plane crash a few years
> ago. How did it become a taboo? If it was engineered in some kind of
way,
> why? (and more importantly how?).
Vincent, your questions did not left me untouched.
So, I am trying...
Will people force themselves to view their problems and will they recognize
their problems ?
René Girard says ' don' t bet on it! If it goes about escaping from the
truth,
then all means are inexhaustible.'
That means, I think, that some things in our social/ cultural history were
not
taboos, or became taboos, but were things where people couldn 't get a
grip on.
If this is the case, 'what I suspected all along) then activities like
incest/ sodomie/ cannibalism/... are/were genetic " naturalities ".
In the twilightzone between animal and becoming human things were not so
clear.
We have possible inherited a few ' animal behaviourpatterns '.
Do animals know incest/ sodomie/ cannibalism_I am not sure, but I think
they do !!
So, the peoples powerlessness against such things was so great that re-
cognition of the truth didn 't mean that they had not the situation under
control, but moreover that they give themselves up onto the desintegrating
effects of that situation and people renounced to any kind of normal life.
The whole community took voluntary part into that fusion. This desperate
will to deny the obvious set the hunt after the ' scapegoat ' in motion.
I think to answer the question how a taboo was memetic engineered we
have to look in here. How things became taboos we have to account for
the mystification/ for the sacralisation of the vistim_that is_the
scapegoat-
principle works always on collective ground_always them/us against us/one.
The social cohesion is/was broken down, to make it once again stick the
collective finds a victim, kills it and goes on with their lives in a new,
then
higher social order.
To ' forget ' what they have done they make of the act which trigged the
whole mess in the first place a taboo.
The reason it seems is most of the time fear for something new, for some-
thing horrible, but if members of a group were only afraid of eachother
then the whole structure would collapse easily_the members will kill each-
other in no time.
Girards synthesis is that what is close at hand is/ becomes forbidden,
because
those things are more then others subject to the mimetical rivalry_what can
lead to conflict, violence and murder between family/ group.
To prevent those things from happening they are surrounded by ' taboos '.
Of course, this is simplified, the issue is more complex then that !
Vincent, what do you think !?
Regards,
Kenneth
(I am, because we are) working
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