Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id VAA10345 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 30 Mar 2001 21:56:44 +0100 Message-ID: <3AC4EF57.12ECFDA9@clara.co.uk> Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 21:40:55 +0100 From: Douglas Brooker <dbrooker@clara.co.uk> Organization: University of London X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (Win95; I) X-Accept-Language: en To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: The Demise of a Meme References: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745D3A@inchna.stir.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Vincent Campbell wrote:
> >>Culture is an emergent property of social interaction-
> >>so social psychology perhaps- but memetics, to my
> > >> mind anyway, is about group behaviours not about individuals.
> >
> <Would be interested to hear how such a strong distinction between
> > individual and group behaviour is justified, other than as a western
> > cultural bias.>
> >
> I'm not sure why one would see this as Western cultural bias, since
> I'm giving preference to the examination of social processes over the
> individual. Surely a western bias would focus on individualism not on the
> group or society?
>
> If you mean in the sense of suggesting that there is a distinction
> between the individual and society at all, well, then I mean that only in
> the sense of objects of investigation, not necessarily as objects worthy of
> different value-attachments. One can study individual minds, or the means
> by which different individuals interact, and the consequences of that social
> interaction. Of course the two aren't unrelated, I just think memetics is
> more about the latter. Unlike Robin, and Joe, I believe memetics is
> science- or potentially so at any rate, not merely philosophical (not that
> there's anything wrong with that).
what I do is almost completely about social (legal, political) processes,
specifically collective delusion and denial in law. A part of this looks at how
individual scholars maintain the traditions which perpetuate the denial.
So, I'm not criticising any field of scholarship for its emphasis. But the
question that is of interest is that if we start with a premise of an
individual-collective duality, the questions that seems most interesting to me
relate to the dynamic between the two poles. This requires knowing each pole
quite well, but it also requires acknowledging that the duality is a theoretical
construct. The practice encountered diachronically will always be the two poles
in different states of evolving equilibrium. A unit of study could be a
country, individual or other units. The idea is that if the dynamic between the
two poles was at the centre of the theory, the theory could be applied to either
pole. Generally, though it seems that scholarship is bi-polar.
What could be expected from memetics, then, is a way for those who studying on
the individual side, to have better access to the less emphasized collective
side. Likewise, memetic theory could be a way of assisting those working on the
collective side to have a more precise model of the processes by which
individuals functions as society.
As it applies to what I study, the individual is represented by parties who
litigate, the collective by voters who elect legislatures. The collective
expresses itself through institutions, - legislatures, courts, the executive,
but these institutions are populated by individuals, who have agendas but who
are also restrained by institutional history and procedures. Institution have
sovereign authority to act by law, but law can only confer formal legitimacy.
This requires, in the case of courts, individual parties; and in the case of
legislatures, voters, collectively. These provide the direct or formal lines by
which legitimacy is conferred. The problem area is conceiving the indirect
lines, how they work, for in a democracy formal legitimacy alone is
insufficient. The indirect line for courts, is the collective, for if the
courts judgements don't find an echo in the nation, the court loses legitimacy.
The indirect line for legislatures is the individual. Still unclear exactly how
the individual as individual, rather than collectively as the electorate,
relates to legitimacy. It's a fairly formal theoretical model of law-making,
useful perhaps because it draws attention to the gap in scholarship - the
indirect lines of legitimacy. It seems to want some kind of syncretic
theoretical model of social psychology and individual psychology. Maybe I'm
just trying to create a rational model of irrationality or a localised theory of
everything?
If this sounds incoherent, well, that it may be.
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