Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id LAA26495 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 14 Aug 2000 11:28:01 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D310174599B@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: changing threads Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 11:25:48 +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
Hi,
Michael Billig wrote a book called 'Banal Nationalism', which looks at ideas
of nationalism outside of the most overt displays of nationalism (i.e.
during war or international relations) and more into everyday nationalism,
the kind of thing that goes on in America all the time.
I think you're right to say that America lacks the kind of national
coherence that previously dominant global nations have had in the past.
Exactly why that is difficult to say. One factor I guess is important is
the essentially immigrant nature of the USA- but unlike other nations, it
was very rapid, on a grand scale, and involving many different groups than
arguably has ever occured before. The diversity of these groups and the way
they arrived is also a factor. You had, to give just two obvious examples,
the mix of puritans effectively dimissed from the UK, who had very clear
notions of how to live etc., and then millions of Africans brought over by
force as slaves, and such legacies run very deep within the different
communities. Another factor would actually be the political system, where
the system of check and balances has, in many people's views, basically
collapsed in favour of the federal government, let alone the civil rights
issue. Another factor would be the rapid ascendence economically of the US
and it's impact on behaviours within the nation (land rushes, gold rushes
etc. etc.), prosperity can lead to strange social behaviours- e.g. the tulip
speculation fiasco in 17th century Holland, or the South Sea Bubble in 18th
Century England.
There are probably many more factors as well, of course, but I guess from a
memetics perspective might one argue that the internal problems of the USA
are also a product of the rapid emergence of the USA as a state, before the
cementing of the meme (or memeplex or whatever) of the USA as a nation. If
we compare the USSR for a moment, although its establishment was along
different lines, when it collapsed in 1991, almost immediately feelings of
nationalism that Soviet infrastructure, propaganda and censorship had spent
70-odd years trying to suppress, re-emerged, and continues to do so, as in
Chechnya. So it that sense the USSR state, did not create a sense of USSR
nation, above and beyond the pre-existing notions of Russian, belarussian,
ukranian etc. etc. In America then, a not dissimilar problem emerges in
that the notion of the USA as a nation is a rather paper-thin meme, which is
easily broken down by people whose knowledge and sense of community/nation
is often as much attached to their historical origins, none of which are
that old. Add in a degree of semantic liberalism and that enables people
to creat bi-cultural identities like African-American, Irish-American etc.
A friend of mine has just completed a doctoral thesis on bi-cultural
identity amongst the asian community in Scotland. He found that in Britain
too, where large communities of Afro-carribean and Asian peple have arrived
in the psot-war period, notions of singular identities are breaking down
(terms favoured by the young people he surveyed included Scottish-Asian and
Scottish-Pakistani, for example). Britain, arguably, is currently in a
position that America will go through at some stage in the future (Howard
Bloom thinks America is already on the way there)- a once dominant, stable
integrated society (well nominally at least) that through the loss of
economic dominance, the loss of empire, the loss in influence, greater
ethnic/religious diversity etc., has seen notions of Britishness become
increasingly challenged, less secure, and in a process of redefinition.
Once you acknowledge a diveristy of interpretations of what nationality
means, then problems can being to occur as differing interpretations of what
that nation stands for compete for dominance. One of the reasons I think
that the media's influence is over-estimated, is precisely in these kinds of
areas, where deliberate attempts to control the informational environment in
the case of the USSR, or the kind of less overt ideological thrust of
American media that people like Chomsky see, are not able to unify
populations around common notions of nation-hood, at least not completely
enough to prevent disagreement and conflict anyway. A classic example of
this would be those images of different ethnic groups responses to the OJ
Simpson verdict- the congregation of an African-American church cheering in
delight, the Wasps in the supermarket staring in disbelief.
Another friend, who's an observer on this list, is particularly interested
in issues of nationalism, and I bet he's tearing his hair out at the rather
superifical train of thought above! So I'll stop there for now.
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Kenneth Van Oost
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Friday, August 11, 2000 8:46 pm
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: changing threads
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
> Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2000 1:27 PM
> Subject: changing threads
>
>
> > Hi Kenneth, I hope your holiday was good. [the 'holiday' is a pretty
> good
> > meme isn't it? Particularly the 'holiday abroad' meme]
>
> << It is a nice meme, nothing to do, just thinking how my memes went round
> in my head...but it is not over, I am due to go to work again the 26 of
> August,
> so...don 't worry, be happy...
> By the way, the discussion about that grazy animal with that spider, did
> it
> stop !? The last post about it was on 5 August, is that correct !?
>
> Now, to our wild imaginings...why not, it is fun...!
>
> > I think I might of mentioned it the other day, but there does seem to be
> > something in the notion of the 'nation', if we accept Benedict
> Anderson's
> > notion of the nation as an 'imagined community', that is inherently
> memetic.
>
> << Strange effects, here though !!
> The notion of the " nation " , not only accordingly Chomsky, is just an
> issue
> which has ONLY ONE real idea and that is to secure the nation and that is
> to secure the interests of the American industry and economy.
> That is in shrill contrast with those fundamentalistic groups you
> mentioned,
> more in particular those of the para-military- kind.
> Those groups believe that the American governement is selling out the
> land to anyone who is not ' a real American ' (what that may be).
> How is this to understand in the context that American are above all true
> believers of their own superiority !?
> IMHO it would mean that those Americans believe that they are then more
> superior to fellow- Americans !? I believe strongly that America, while
> they
> try to deal with the problems of the world, has overlooked problems in its
> own borders. And in that respect, if you look at those military-
> movements,
> America will be in for big surprises if someday the bomb goes off.
> (I believe the Oklahoma bomb was placed by one of those guys...see also
> the Internet, you can easily find propaganda, see also the American Nazi-
> Party, and what they have to tell about the American governement_unbelie-
> ble....! )
>
> In that respect, where did those memes came from, something had to change
> in the way those people looked at their governement...and not only them,
> as
> you mentioned the EU is full of concerns, but does little to nothing about
> it.
> What are their memes, European or Americanised, if the last we are in
> trouble.
> If the first, what reason would they have not to stop America !?
> Afraid that the trade balance would collapse perhaps !? Maby...
> But, in that case, I saw a television show this week, on BBC- world, where
> a lady close to the British governement argued over how computers changed
> our ways. She said that they changed not very mush the ways we do
> buniness,
> they did not changed our ways we organise ourselves, that in straight
> opposite
> to a journalist who said, and I agree on that, that we don 't have the
> feeling,
> the notion of the ' nation ', there was no British Microsoft, no British
> Ford,...
> companies/ trade-markets which the American governement subsidized very
> hard...the Americanisation was sucked in with the American milk...
> IMHO I think we lack this,...and if we ever possess it, we are
> nationalists,
> and worse social-nationalists...
>
> Regards,
>
> Kenneth
>
> ( I am, because we are)
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ===============================================================
> 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 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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