From: Scott Chase (ecphoric@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed 25 Jan 2006 - 01:19:37 GMT
>From: "Price, Ilfryn" <I.Price@shu.ac.uk>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
>Subject: Sticky Memes
>Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2006 14:47:02 -0000
>
>
[snip]
>
Kate:
>
> > Also let's not forget the fact that a significant minority *do* learn
> > another language, convert to another religious viewpoint, discard racist
> > attitudes or bizarre Santa-related practices (she's off again).
>
If:
>
>Can you really discard 'Rudolf the red nosed reindeer' or 'Santa' (as
>opposed to certain 'Santa-related practices' out of your
>head. I would call them highly sticky and relatively trivial (logical
>dangers of manipulation and association with over
>consumption excluded)
>
I still remember Rudolf and Santa and the elves as they were a part of my
childhood, especially given the heavy consumption of holiday television
programming with all that Christmas lore (let me give a shout out to "Frosty
the Snowman" representing the crystalline water anthropomorphs). At some
point kids probably think "Mickey Mouse" and "Bugs Bunny" are real too, but
eventually they realize otherwise.
Can we discard colored eggs and chocolate bunny rabbits, neither having
anything to do with Christian mythology, from the symbology of Easter? The
Christians co-opted these pagan fertility symbols, so apprently they have
some staying power. But what's really wrong with coloring eggs and hiding
them on an annual basis, beyond the foul odor experienced due to forgetting
one behind the couch for a couple months? One could do that and eschew the
whole Christian aspect of Easter. Heck it's really about some long forgotten
fertility goddess ain't it?
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