From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@rogers.com)
Date: Sun 24 Jul 2005 - 20:31:33 GMT
At 05:52 PM 24/07/05 +0100, Robin wrote:
snip
>"They're victims of a mind-virus" says no more than "they've been
>converted to a destructive ideology". In fact, it says less. Memetics
>is a way of looking at culture in general -- and it's one that I find
>quite fascinating -- but it has nothing to offer regarding specific
>cultural phenomena. For that we have to rely on psychology, sociology,
>etc.
Bingo!
For example, when the situation becomes ripe for a population to go to war,
they will usually have some meme, some "reason" for the war. There is
little in common with these "reasons" except that they can be binned into
"xenophobic."
The Easter Islander killed off something like 95% of their population (a
necessity) on the basis of ear lobe length.
Best wishes,
Keith Henson
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