From: Scott Chase (osteopilus@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri 25 Mar 2005 - 22:14:02 GMT
Somebody named Keith Henoson wrote an article called
"Memetics: the science of information viruses" which
appeared in the Winter 1987 edition of _Whole Earth
Review_. During the course of his article Henson looks
at the "Nazi meme complex". I've been sort of
interested in what gave rise to Naziism in pre-WWII
Germany, but have only scratched the surface in my
readings on Ernst Haeckel's monism, the volkishness
that captivated many including Jung, the Wotan
archetype Jung commented upon which points to
underpinnings in Nordic mythology, and as an effect of
that movement Nobel winning ethologist Konrad Lorenz's
questionable association with the brown shirts and
writings on racial hygiene. Some antecedents,
including Nietzsche's writings on ubermenschen and
will to power as transmitted by his sister to the
Reich could be considered "sub-memes" (sensu Henson).
Yet this topic is way beyond my knowledge base.
Henson says: "As a replicating information pattern
that has gone through a great deal of evolutionary
honing, it [Nazi meme] still infects susceptible
people today."
After that tragic school shooting in Minnesota, people
have been wondering what led to that event. See:
http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/5310301.html
There's lots of threads apparent here and the FBI is
trying to get to the bottom of it as far as motive.
It's hard to distinguish cause from effect, just as
with Columbine. The kid had some ersonal tragedies to
contend with wrt his mom and dad. He apparently has
been on anti-depressants which have been alleged to
have negative side effects. There's a movie called
"Elephant" which has come into the picture which might
have some content that converges with the events at
the school. The kid was sort of gothish. I'm not sure
goth can be blamed. That could be more of an effect
than a cause as kids with issues might be drawn into a
subculture like goth. Hey, I personally like bands
like "The Cure" and "Nine Inch Nails" and I'm not
wearing black hair or fingernails and such. Even
people whom adpot that lifestyle are probably, ceteris
parabis, not much different than anyone else.
One thread that has caught my attention was a Nazi
undercurrent to the ideational baggage this kid
carried around. Recent news stories about his blogs
and such have addressed this. Yet, is a fascination
for Naziism and Hitler a cause or an effect here?
With school shootings hitting the headlines from time
to time and artists like Marilyn Manson taking flak
along with voilent video games, I think it's important
when speculating about what led to these events to
separate cause and effect.
So what Keith said looks like it's supported by the
facts in this case. A susceptible person may have been
taken in by Naziism. But Did this fascination with
Hitler and National Socialism contribute significantly
to the events at the school or was this fascination a
collateral effect just like a tendency towards Goth
may have been?
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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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