From: Kenneth Van Oost (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Thu 08 Dec 2005 - 20:47:28 GMT
----- Original Message -----
From: Scott Chase <ecphoric@hotmail.com>
> >
> Just as a mental exercise, what exactly is "the Nazi meme". We hear
> proclamations of "the gene for eyes", yet eyes develop due to a cascade of
> genetically influenced cellular processes. In the same sense that it's
> misleading to speak of a gene for this or that, especially when looking a
> phenotypically complex results (such as a structure or a behavioral
> pattern), it might be equally misleading to speak of a meme for Nazism (or
> "the meme for Nazism" as if there's a discrete packet of information that
> results in the outcome of someone becoming a Nazi).
>
> In the case of Germany, the events of WWI and its outcome played a role in
> the emergence of Nazism, but things get really complicated and messy when
> you delve into the historic particulars. What influence did Germanic
> Romanticism play? Did Gobineau's pessimistic racial rhetoric about the
Aryan
> decline due to miscegenation play a major role? Did Wagner's anti-Semitism
> serve as an ur-Nazi memetic foundation? What about Haeckel's *Darwinismus*
> and his *Monistenbund*? Did Houston Chamberlain help integrate Wagnerism
and
> the Bayreuth mystique into the emerging Nazi memeplex? What about Hitler's
> failed beer hall putch that sent him to prison? How important was Hitler's
> book (crafted during said prison term) or Alfred Rosenberg's views?
>
> Where does eugenics enter the picture? Galton in England? The
sterilization
> laws in the US? When does eugenics merge with anti-Semitism to result in
the
> Holocaust? The horrid Nuremberg laws were a critical turning point. How
much
> of a role does Germanized evolutionary biology play versus goofy
distortions
> of Nordic myth? Lorenz became a member of the NSDAP not long after the
> Anschluss according to my sources (Ute Deichmann and Theodora Kalikow).
> Lorenz was a hardcore evolutionist, yet some Nazis believed in Aryans
> stemming from Atlantis or some wacked out junk like that. They couldn't
have
> all been one the same page in that respect, so I'd assume it would be hard
> to separate something out of that terrible chapter in history that could
be
> pointed to as "the Nazi meme".
>
> That's the problem when you apply memetics to something as historically
> complex as the emergence of Nazism in post-WWI Germany, the devil is in
the
> details.
Scott,
Well said !!
In my post to Davi I mentioned this that you do need all of the information
to
get a grip on something like the so called ' Nazi- meme ' !!
One detail, one event, one man, one word isn 't enough, you do need the
whole of the package and much more no doubt to understand.
To get to the real sense, the real essence, the real meaning you do need all
of the memes, thoughts and insights about the concept, but what it IS or WAS
you will never know !!
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 : Thu 08 Dec 2005 - 20:59:46 GMT