Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id NAA17276 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 17 Jul 2000 13:11:49 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D310174592C@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: memetic engineering Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 13:09:57 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Yes, this is an interesting answer to the situation.
Your response reminds me of a book by Howard Bloom called 'The Lucifer
Principle' (1995), which our American colleagues may be familiar with. He
talks about how memes give us the illusion of control within the hierarchies
of societies (i.e. within the pecking order). What memes do is help us
accept our position, which for most of us is subordinate to those with
power, through things like the the promise of a better life after death.
But what underlies all societies is a hierarchy, no matter how overtly
egalitarian, fair, etc. etc. a system claims to be, hierarchies emerge.
As well as those at the top of the hierarchy getting the best access to
resources (primarily food and sex), there is also the resource of knowledge.
In the Industrial Revolution, for example, mill workers could be fired if
they could tell the time, because in order to keep control the mill owners
had to keep that knowledge/ability secret. Taboos are as much about
knowledge of practices as the actual practices themselves. In the UK
recently, there has been much debate about the mentioning of homosexuality
in schools, banned by 'clause 28' in the 1980s by the Thatcher government,
and due to be repealed by the Labour goverment, to much opposition
particularly in Scotland. The hysteria generated in some quarters of the
press and the public about this issue was incredible. It was as if people
thought that children being told there was such a things as homosexuality
would make the children gay.
I don't know if this advances our discussion or not; just some idle
thoughts.
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Kenneth Van Oost
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Saturday, July 15, 2000 8:31 pm
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: memetic engineering
>
>
> ----- 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)
>
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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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
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