Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id UAA13619 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 15 Jul 2000 20:04:26 +0100 Message-ID: <000b01bfee93$511fb960$8205bed4@default> From: "Kenneth Van Oost" <Kenneth.Van.Oost@village.uunet.be> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745924@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Subject: Re: memetic engineering Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 21:31:00 +0200 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
----- Original Message -----
From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
Sent: Friday, July 14, 2000 2:36 PM
Subject: RE: memetic engineering
> This where evolutionary psychology explanations as to why behaviours
persist
> do becom rather difficult to stomach- like that much criticised American
> book, what was it called 'The Natural History of Rape' or something like
> that.
<< In the Natural History of Rape, Randy Thornhill and Craig Palmer are
saying that rape is somewhat a desperate propagationstrategy of man, who
neither has the money nor the emanation to please woman.>>
> As we agree, the thing is such behaviours have persisted, so how did they
> persist?
<< rape is, accordingly both writers the result of thousands of years of
Darwinian evolution. So, my opinion would shine in the same direction.
Way back in our human history we were nothing more than animals, with
instincts and the ruling process of dominance over others who were wea-
ker and we were destroyed if we were just that.
The next step in evolution was to ' replace ' the ' deathly ' dominance-
process by a process of ' hierarchy '.
The strongest on the top, the weakest below. We still see that process
working in the animal world.
Sometimes fights over dominance lead up to the death of one or both
parcipiants, but most of the time, the most dominant animal ' wins ' and
will lead the group.
The same process can be applied for humans, but with the respect that
the process of dominance has become a more subtl kind of play.Although
some examples express the brutality of that process...
The kind of dominance we encounter today, and also the kind which is
the reason why some behaviourpatterns persist, is the one which is sur-
rounded with a ' beliefsystem '.
That is, we do and still ' believe ' people who benefit the group although
they have behaviours which we don 't like very much, even so we ' believe '
those people even they act against public law.
Like here in Belgium, burning money is a capital breach of the rules.
The former chairman of the Socialist Party did burn money but he is now
minister.
People voting him into office did so believe in his capacities as leader,
not
in the misuse of his power as chairman to divert dirty commision-money
from his books.
We do the same with Kings, big landowners, factory owners, etc, not
due to the fact that they are nice people, but due to the position they
have in society. We are in someway dependent from their abilities to
convey work, money, rules,...
Somehow, that notion, that some kind of dominance-process is still
running in our head. I think we can 't live without that notion, people
' like ' to be lead, ' like ' to see that someone, somewhere is doing
something somewhere for them,...the collapse of that system would be
disasterious...See what happens in Russia these days, people are run-
ning around like chickens without head searching for Father Stalin.
Genetically and memetically they are not yet ready to become indivi-
duals again, in their mind the dominance-process is still playing the
leading part.
Vincent, in your post of 14 july 2000 the post with the paragraph
about Kate Moss, you put the finger on the nucleus of this topic, the
reason why some behaviours persist despite ' they are bad ', is in
peoples mind. I think, not that they are wrong in the true meaning of
the term but that they can' t think otherwise. Their epigenetic rules,
semantic imprints don 't allow another way of thinking,...they ' like '
to be dominated because their memes like to be dominated. That
would be the way in which they can propagate themselves.
But IMHO, that is not a way I should call ' living ', but a way of be
' lived '_others memes are helping to keep the system going...that is you
take away parts of the peoples individuality, you confront them with
solidarity, tolerance etc. in order to keep them under the influence of
some dominant parts in or from the society wherein they live...
Do I make any sense !?
I have to stop here also, because I come onto my particular hobby-horse...!!
Is that an answer to your question, or did I buckled it up !?
Many regards,
Kenneth
(I am, because we are)
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