From: Scott Chase (osteopilus@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed 20 Jul 2005 - 10:21:28 GMT
--- Kate Distin <memes@distin.co.uk> wrote:
> Scott Chase wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Alan Patrick wrote:
> >>
> >>>On another board we were talking about why Harry
> >>
> >>Potter has raised the
> >>
> >>>ire of religous fundamentalists, whereas Philip
> >>
> >>Pullman's kids series,
> >>
> >>>which is far more anti religion etc, has not.
> View
> >>
> >>was that perhaps the
> >>
> >>>anti Potter thing is a memetic parasite, the
> >>
> >>Potter mindspace being
> >>
> >>>larger and thus better to colonise. (Of course,
> as
> >>
> >>Pullman is for older
> >>
> >>>kids it just may be that the moralists find it
> >>
> >>harder to understand.....)
> >>
> >>>Any views on the lifestyles of Memetic
> >>
> >>parasites....for eg are there
> >>
> >>>differences between species, say between fad
> >>
> >>parasites and those leeched
> >>
> >>>to longer term memes?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> [big snip]
> >
> > Fundies despising the Potter seres harkens back to
> > their forebears squashing pagan beliefs like a bug
> as
> > Christianity spread through Europe. They don't
> like
> > the competition.
> >
>
>
> Although I don't share these Christians' objections
> to Harry Potter, I'm
> not sure that this analysis is quite fair. It seems
> to me that there's
> a difference between evangelism, as such, and a
> reflex objection to
> anything that has a certain word in its title (be
> that magic, evolution,
> or whatever).
>
> I think the difference hinges on the choice that
> religious (and
> political, etc.) people make between speaking about
> what "I" believe and
> always referring to what "we" believe. The
> fundamentalists of any
> religion tend to use "we", in a way that implies the
> beliefs of that
> religion come as a job-lot and you have to buy into
> them all in order to
> be a member. This then enables powerful religious
> leaders to issue
> dictats which all followers must accept. In
> contrast, when you hear
> people talking about what "I" believe you can bet
> that they accept the
> possibility that they might be wrong; that there is
> a valid spectrum of
> opinion all of which can be embraced within that one
> religion; and that
> each one of us is responsible for his own decisions
> about these things.
>
> This must tie into the suicide bombers' mentality
> somewhere along the
> line. If memetics is true then it must be able to
> account for what's
> going on there, which is surely memetic to some
> extent. Any insights,
> anyone?
>
I still think it's about dislike for what are
perceived to be competing views (memeplexes perhaps).
Thus fundie X-ian objections to Potter infecting
children with pagan or occult beliefs is parallel to
fundie Muslims objecting to Western views encroaching
on their value system. One is taken over by a
totalizing worldview and anything that departs from
this must be nipped in the bud before it corrupts
society. For fundie X-ians reading the Bible or maybe
the LaHaye/Jenkins "left Behind" series for kids would
be OK because it supports the mindset, but Potter and
evolution are not OK because of the competition these
forces present as a perceived challenge to doctrine.
There could be a "we" versus "I" thing going on. If
people hold to a personal belief system instead of one
they feel pulls them into a larger community sharing
the same belief system, they might be less apt to
fight for the glory of the team and the purity of its
beliefs and might tolerate more diversity in the
beliefs of others.
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