Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id QAA06833 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 19 Jan 2002 16:23:49 GMT X-Originating-IP: [209.240.222.132] From: "Scott Chase" <ecphoric@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: RE: Why memeoids? Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 11:19:26 -0500 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <F249ee4fDGCl9FopYC9000230c4@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 19 Jan 2002 16:19:27.0160 (UTC) FILETIME=[10C8FB80:01C1A105] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>From: "Lawrence DeBivort" <debivort@umd5.umd.edu>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
>Subject: RE: Why memeoids?
>Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 10:21:53 -0500
>
>Some thoughts to add to the Turkey pile:
>
> > They have a reservoir of discontented Islamic fundamentalists. I
> > have not
> > looked at the situation in detail, but I think it is clear that most
> > Islamic countries have some. The question is what does it take for
> > memes/groups to become a problem?
>
>I don't think that two of the classic reasons given for insurrection are
>accurate: poverty and over-population. I know that it is almost a given
>that
>these are causal, but in the many years I spent travelling and studying, I
>have not been able to find the correlation. Poor people can be content
>(especially if they belief that everyone else is in the same boat) and
>overpopulation has many non-insurrectional escapes. The factors that I have
>found pront to insurrection are a sense of injustice, whether it has to do
>with the perception of inequality of income, or corruption or among the
>elite, or imposition of an alien culture or belief-sytem (often from the
>capital).
>
>SNIP
>
> > It would be most interesting to study the indicators in the population
> > leading up to a coup. As candidates, I would put forth wealth per
>capita
> > and maybe more important rate of change of wealth. Other
> > candidate factors
> > would be culture being displaced, percentage of later born children,
> > percentage of young men in bonded (or any) sexual relations. Subject to
> > real measurement, my expectation is that falling wealth per capita, more
> > later born children, and high percentage of males without sex partners
> > would all contribute to instability. Another possible factor
> > might be the
> > extent to which wealth is stratified. There may be other factors as
> > important or even more so.
> >
> > Turkey may have escaped some of the factors contributing to
> > instability by
> > exporting a substantial fraction of its population of young
> > people to Germany.
>
>Yes, and add to this that when these workers come home, as most do, they
>carry with them the memes of secular materialism.
>
>SNIP
>
> > That is certainly true. Turkey has a unique history in that one of its
> > most forceful leaders, Atatürk, yanked Turkey into the modern age
>between
> > about 1925 and 1935. http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/History_of_Turkey
>
>Yanked is the operative word here. I spent some time in Turkey a couple of
>years ago studying Ataturk's legacy in Turkey today. I came away concluding
>that while he had forcibly imposed Western behaviors on Turkey, that he had
>done so in such a way that failed to persuade many, especially those in
>rural areas, and that they harbored both resentment and resistence to it,
>that even today serves to diminish the impact of many of Ataturk's efforts.
>The issue is far from solved: massive Ataturk banners (a la Stalin and Mao)
>hang from some public buildings, and in quiet corners of the mosques and
>cafes, people speak with bitterness of the cultural high-handedness of the
>educated elites of Roberts University, now University of the Bosphorus.
>
>
Thanks Lawrence. And those strategic SNIP's have taught me a lot about
elitism.
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