Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id MAA24150 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 18 Oct 2000 12:30:54 +0100 Message-ID: <00c801c038f0$24730c80$1000000a@w95002> From: "Wendy" <wcreed@bigsilver.win-uk.net> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: Fw: memetics-digest V1 #413 Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 11:42:41 +0100 Content-Type: text/plain;charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 X-Server: VPOP3 V1.3.0c - Registered to: Bigsilver Technology Ltd Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
I'm taking this opportunity to introduce myself, whilst responding to
William's comment.
I've been following the list for some time and trying to find a space to
dip my critical toes in the water. I'm a PhD researcher at the University of
Greenwich, London. My thesis, examining the publication history of 10 C18
novels through to C21 (including computer technologies) contains an
underlying discussion contrasting reader response and memetics and which
focuses very heavily on culture. I have chosen this moment to interject
because although I consider myself aligned to reader response theory, I find
memetics not incompatible with this theory and I don't quite agree with the
comment:
'no card-carrying memeticist seems to know much of anything about
culture[...]',
My exposure to memetics is through Dawkins and Blackmore and it seems to me
that in applying their hypotheses to C18 culture and beyond, that they do
have exactly that - a very good grasp of culture, and perhaps more
importantly the organisms, which create a culture. As with every theory,
whether it be in the sciences or the Humanities, the problem of
interpretation resides within the feedback loop of the individual, or the
group to which an individual may contribute. It is my experience as a
facilitator, working with groups to
find solutions to work-based problems, that all groups can be subject to
circular or incomplete arguments. However, observing how this group
occasionally functions, responses can seem more pragmatic [and sometimes
aggressive] due not only to the intensity and conviction of the responders,
but because they will answer points raised with great detail or dismissing
what they perceive as irrelevancies. To be honest I see this in all areas
of academe, even those of us who aspire to an holistic view of theoretical
life. Memetics is a relatively new theory and will not only influence but
also be influenced by other critical minds. If I can illustrate this point
quoting an email sent to me by Norman Holland, whose book 5 Readers Reading
altered the way in which theorists perceived the act of reading:
> "re memes and r-r. I had gotten the impression, by not reading any of the
original folks,that they were treating memes as fixed quantities passed on
from individual to individual. This would trouble me as a r-r critic, since
we> know (neurologically, in fact) that people re-create or re-constitute
even their own memories let alone stuff they get from others. The Sci Am
piece by Blackmore, and some of the critics, clarify this. The meme is
"imperfectly" transmitted or transmitted with variation. That brings it
within my frame of reference. At that point, the evolutionary paradigm of
replication, variation, selection makes sense. Variation becomes key for
me."
>
He has taken what makes sense to him as an rr critic[or is now the host of
that meme] and will incorporate it somewhere in his work [as a meme it has
already been passed on to his newsgroup]. I find Holland's position, whose
canon of work over the last 40+ illustrates how positive theorising can
advance and embrace other ideas, a cultural driver not an inhibitor and it
is why I subscribe to rr yet am able to countenance other theories. Whilst
you might feel that
It's all just self-involved recirculating chatter about mental memes.>>
the very fact that Memetics is here, and is already part of our culture is
largely due to these self-involved chatterers, who have made a contribution
to the arrest the progress of blinkered thinking - even though you may feel
that their theory is just that, and serves no purpose in cultural evolution.
I on the other hand prefer to acknowledge their contribution.
Regards
Wendy
[..]there was no rule in the world to be made
for writing letters, but that of being as near
what you speak face to face as you can
The Tatler, no.30, 1747
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