Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id NAA02787 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 3 Aug 2000 13:54:24 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D310174597A@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: memes in minds, or memes in media? Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2000 13:52:01 +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
You said-
>'I am not interested in expanding the subject to cover plural noun
forms or
> the quantitative analysis of horizontal versus vertical transmission. (The
>
> latter is covered in my 1998 paper and some post-publication commentary at
>
> http://www.mcs.net/~aaron/UEDerrata_addenda.html.) My only question
> relating to my book had to do with wording, and it was an extremely
> limited
> question: Can you find one (and just one) sentence where the word "meme"
> was crucial to saying what was said. I don't see such a sentence quoted
> above.'
>
Well, I haven't finished reading the book yet, so give me a chance!
But I still think it's semantic point assuming you mean you're going to
change meme for thought contagion. You're still talking about a mechanism
of belief tranmission, which requires definition and explanation.
You go on-
>'As it happens, I already feel confident of my ability to rephrase
> things said in my book without the word "meme" for three reasons. First,
> my
> unpublished work, including chapters of a more technical book, went
> without
> the word "meme" for a long time before 1988, because I already had a
> problem with the definitional vagueness in _The Selfish Gene_. '
>
So you had problems with the term in 1988, but still used it in the title of
a book, and throughout, which you produced 8 years later. And the
motivation for this was?
Then you say-
>'Second, forthcoming works that do not have the word "meme" have
not caused problems with editors or reviewers. Third, a book that does not
use the word "meme"
> at all generated only a few mild words of complaint for not citing the
> meme
> literature in an otherwise laudatory review in _New Scientist_ by Paul
> Marsden. I think the book (Gladwell's _The Tipping Point_) also received
> some good reviews from people who do not use the word "meme." In any case,
>
> I see little to indicate that omitting the word "meme" caused any
> communications problems for Gladwell among memeticists or
> non-memeticists.'
>
I saw Paul's review where he makes the link between Gladwell's ideas and
memes. I look forward to reading Gladwell's book, and have no problem with
him not using the word meme. I don't see it as a life or death term. As I
said in the original post, my point was nothing really to do with 'meme' as
a term, but in trying to re-legitimise sometimes highly problematic work in
other fields because it appears to fit into whatever conception of memetics,
thought contagion, cultural evolution, evolutionary epidemiology of ideas or
whatever else people want to call the very broad area we're all interested
in here.
This was not a criticism of your work, as the kind of claims I was
criticising don't really feature in what you've written. But many others do
persistently see media-determined behaviours (with the most extreme versions
being the likes of Phillips seeing this even in things like car crashes)
which begs all sorts of cause-effect questions which those of us in mass
communication/media studies have been considering and analysing for a very
long time indeed.
We all have our hobby-horses, and this one's mine. I don't see in any of
the memetics material I've read (and I want to Read Gladwell's meme-free
theory to see if it too suffers from this) any detailed awareness of media
theory or the body of empirical knowledge gathered over at least the last 70
years about the media. Some of that theory, and particularly some of the
empirically gathered data, would undoubtedly underscore people's theories,
some of it- more than a lot of people might think- would undermine it. The
same is true in the other direction also, and even if memetics itself turns
out to be a red herring, then at the very least it may have served a purpose
in briding the gap between scientists and social scientists.
The important point in any argument is the weight of evidence. Any argument
is only as strong as its weakest piece of evidence. Terminology at the end
of the day is meaningless if the evidence doesn't stand up, and my original
post in this thread was about evidence, not about terminology. Moreover, it
was a criticism of a particular piece of 'evidence' raised by Paul Marsden,
in his discussion of the work of Phillips. That's all it was, no more, no
less.
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Aaron Lynch
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Wednesday, August 2, 2000 5:41 pm
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: RE: memes in minds, or memes in media?
>
> At 12:32 PM 8/2/00 +0100, Vincent Campbell wrote:
> >It's funny you should say this-
> >
> >'Yes, I am pleased that you finally have a copy of TC. If you find a good
> >example of something in it that really needed to be expressed with the
> word
> >"meme" instead of some alternative wording, do let me know.'
> >
> >As I was continuing to read your book last night, with your previous post
> in
> >mind, I started wondering pretty much the opposite to this, in other
> words,
> >what term would you use to replace the term 'meme' as it appears in the
> >book, which after all is quite a lot.
> >
> >I'm sure you're right that there is disagreement over the replicator part
> of
> >the theory, as much as any other part. Avoiding the term meme, and
> >favouring the term 'thought contagion', doesn't take away such problems
> >though does it? You still have to identify the process by which though
> >contagions spread, and the mechanism/agent of that process.
> >
> >I think there is a clear difference in emphasis, in your book at least,
> in
> >that you seem to focus heavily on thought contagia (is that the right
> >grammar? meme to memes is easy, contagion to contagia or should it be
> >contagions?) that influence birth rates. I personally don't think this
> is
> >the interesting part, rather too close to evolutionary psychology or
> >sociobiology for my tastes (and therefore potentially unncessary to have
> any
> >new term). For me, the interesting part is horizontal transmission.
> After
> >all, name me a religion than began through vertical parent to offspring
> >transmission- not judaism, not christianity, not islam, not buddhism.
> >Indeed, I'd argue that vertical transmission of thought contagia only
> >emerges (and cannot be relied upon, hence most religions demand ritual
> >behaviours than bring people into contact with proseltyisers e.g. going
> to
> >church), once it has spread horizontally to the majority of a population.
> >That's why the Amish aren't going to take over the world- they are
> >isolationist and aren't into evangelism or proseltyism, or for that
> matter
> >into holy wars.
> >
> >
> >Finally, I found this statement of yours very interesting:-
> >
> >'I have some original things to say about important subjects'
> >
> >hmm... well I'm sure we all think that about ourselves. (The problem is
> that
> >we can't all be correct in thinking that, and it is for others to judge
> in
> >the long run).
>
>
>
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