Re: Henson on the Nazi meme

From: Kenneth Van Oost (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Fri 08 Apr 2005 - 19:08:40 GMT

  • Next message: Kenneth Van Oost: "Re: Durkheim redux"

    ----- Original Message ----- From: Scott Chase <osteopilus@yahoo.com> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 12:54 AM Subject: Re: Henson on the Nazi meme Scott you wrote,

    > I dunno. This issue is pretty complicated for me, so
    > just looking at the US alone would be quite a chore. A
    > cross cultural comparison would be beyond my present
    > ability. Michael Moore did a comparison between the US
    > and Canada wrt gun violence on "Bowling for Columbine"
    > but I'm not sure that comparison would qualify as
    > scientific.

    Hm, guns don 't kill people, people must pull the trigger is a phrase I often hear, and in a sense that is true of course ! But don 't you think that what is written into American Civil Law about ownership of guns is a piece of the puzzle !? The almost mythical meaning of owing his own guns, and have the right to_ something I link to American 's ( historical) struggle for freedom is something what is non- existent in Europe.

    Does secularitation plays a role !? What in Europe is a fact ! Nowadays a religious upheavel is on the move in the US. Again I see a difference between the US and Europe.

    Selfpreservation and ( hyper) individualism are on both sides of the water common facts, but wherer I see for the European individual a more personal approach for the problems he is faced with, the American one is still more
    ' community ' bound_ he lives in a society of ' groups '. And we all know what ' groupscontrol ( tribalisation !?) can do to an individual !!

    Is wearing ( and using) guns and arms than a way to sttle an identity for themselves !? It looks that American people have a hard time to find their own identity and selfrespect and their own place into the world_ living in groups that is. Is that the reason why US citizins see their therapeutist so often !? Do possess US people really a ' backbone ' to make choises for themselves !?

    Settling the score with gun violence is and can be an option, at least if we consider the amount of weapons around, but doesn 't that show the weak- spot of them all !? Guns are direct, no argumentation, no vocabulaire, no discourses are needed, no involment of any schrink is appreciated. Is the final use of guns a psychological treshold they surpassed....!?

    Regards,

    Kenneth

    =============================================================== 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

    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri 08 Apr 2005 - 19:27:30 GMT