From: Scott Chase (osteopilus@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri 22 Jul 2005 - 02:23:51 GMT
--- Chris Taylor <christ@ebi.ac.uk> wrote:
> ? No that is a general summary.
>
> Thank you Captain Ad Hominem. Try _reading into_
> what was said,
> as a whole. I can provide you with a lower wattage
> version if
> required..?
>
> What gets memetics a bad name is the lack of true
> analysis or
> predictive power. And unhelpful nonsense like yours.
>
OK guys lets take it down a notch or two. Robin rarely
posts here anymore, so don't go chasing him way with
the 'tude :-)
Anyway, going beyond memetics and EP, I think one
needs to put some historical perspective on whatever
you're addressing and history is notorious for lacking
predictive power (unless you're a psychohistorian, of
course).
The whole cascade started with Kate's innocent
introduction of Harry Potter and the fundie reaction
to it. Can memetics best explain this or EP? Would it
be best to do a lit crit analysis of the Potter series
and then analyze how the themes involved relate to
Christian theology and the history of the church(es).
One could look at the history of how Christians have
perceived witchcraft and how this fits with how the
fundies are dealing with a perceived threat via
Potter. Sadly I'm not very familiar with the series,
but it does overlap with the topic of intellectual
freedom and censorship, so I should get more familiar
with the nuances. There's lots of interesting angles
to take, but I'm not too up on the details of the
witch trials or Wicca or Potter or the rise of
Christian fundamentalism in the US.
The Christian fundies might see a competing worldview
on the rise in Potter. This perception of threat might
be assymmetric, though, since the Muggles aren't all
that concerned with how fundamentalism is competing
with their fantasy worldview as long as they can still
access the books freely and enjoy them. But at some
point organized attacks on Potter spawned by fundie
beliefs are a threat to the Muggles, because their
intellectual freedom is at stake. There are so many
issues, I'm not sure how easily it can be forcefit
into a memetics account.
As far as EP goes, maybe there's some religiosity
module at play that get people really into Biblical
literalism and makes them feel compelled to impose
their maxim as a law upon the rest of society (a
little Kant here I think). Or maybe the emergence of
religion is a spandrel instead, but still with the
same outcome in the case of how fundies react to what
they see as socially corrupting forces.
You can't overlook the notions of paganism and the
occult, not so much because the Muggles are going to
become Wiccans or adherents of Crowley because they
read Rowling's books, but maybe because that's the
imagined outcome that fundies see as a threat. I
learned my Crowley from Ozzy and Jimmy Page, thank you
very much. And the fundies back then played Led
Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" backwards to show
people like me that we were diving headfirst into the
lake of fire and eternal damnation. If you played
Dungeons and Dragons you might have been diving
without an asbestos snorkel and wet suit.
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