Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id XAA09290 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 21 Jun 2001 23:19:31 +0100 Subject: RE: World Language Losses at a Glance Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 18:15:47 -0400 x-sender: wsmith1@camail2.harvard.edu x-mailer: Claris Emailer 2.0v3, Claritas Est Veritas From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu> To: "Memetics Discussion List" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Message-ID: <20010621221547.AAA28718@camailp.harvard.edu@[205.240.180.125]> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Hi Lawrence -
>Wade, I suppose that spreading any meme by design is arrogant, and wonder
>how we may help ensure we do so in a healthy, useful and respectful way....
>Ideas?
Yeah, putting most arrogances up to the wall could make it look like any
intentional egression of ideas falls under their influence.
And I can only speak personally about how and why and what a worthy
(helpful, healthy, useful, respectful) meme might be, or how and why that
helpfulness should be the only motive behind any expression, ever.
(The abandonment of arrogance is about as buddha as it gets, this I of
mine.)
And, I will say that once one has cleaned out the cupboards inside
oneself, there might remain some things very deeply kept, very real in
the way they are known, and very brightly standing, that one could not
ever abandon because they are lessons grown from profound failures -
lessons from failures to help in one's past - lessons from failures to
respond, or to love, or to comfort - as well as lessons from profound
successes of response, and love, and comfort.
Lessons from failures and successes of respect, mostly, and I move
politically from respect to democracy and egalitarianism (and, perhaps if
I were from another place and time, to communism). Thus I see such
political teachings as bedrock humanitarian lessons, and would say that
they are healthy, useful, and respectful, and only motivated by help.
The lessons of the failures of theocracies and autocracies and
aristocracies and anarchies and ideocracies lead to democracy, I think,
historically and unerringly.
As to how to move these lessons from one's individual heart to the common
heart of all peoples- I return to first cleansing out the cupboards
inside - finding those things left standing after bitter loss and
miraculous strength, and then, sharing the image of that love.
And it ain't easy. But it is real. It is the art of the heart, and it is
the voice devoid of arrogance we all use to draw a child to the world,
and the world to a child.
- Wade
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