Re: Grant's theory of Everything

From: Grant Callaghan (grantc4@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed Jan 23 2002 - 03:46:14 GMT

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    From: "Grant Callaghan" <grantc4@hotmail.com>
    To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    Subject: Re: Grant's theory of Everything
    Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2002 19:46:14 -0800
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    >
    >I find i agree with a lot that you have said, and that we do have many
    >choices in the memes we accept. Where i disagree is that we have been
    >exposed to various memes throughout our lives that we do not neccesarily
    >question without a great deal of thought, and that many people either do
    >not
    >do , will not do it or cannot do it. Hence they accept memes that are close
    >to the one they posses without hte scrutiny that they should deserve, and
    >act accordingly. eg. If i said to you that Hitler was not that bad a bloke,
    >you would likely not agree! (and evryone else hopefully!) :-). But for
    >some reason in the 1930's a lot did. And if they didn't they at least kept
    >stum. This is what i mean by the idea that memetic acceptance/ rejection is
    >one of a spectrum rather than a simple filter that we chose to interpret
    >the
    >world in terms of our 'wants'.
    >
    >Both yourself and Philip are at least attempting to to narrow the field a
    >bit and good luck to you both for trying.
    >
    >As i say i see a spectrum.
    >
    >Look forward to your comments,
    >
    >Steve.
    >
    I agree that although we have a lot of tools available to choose from, we
    most often grab the one we are most familiar with, just as the carpenter
    grabs his favorite hammer rather than the newest and most advanced on the
    market. Nail guns are superior in many ways to hammers but lots of
    carpenters still don't use them. Courting procedures are often scripted by
    the culture in which we live and change comes slowly.

    I was amused today by an article on Shanghai that showed pictures of new
    brides and grooms. They would have looked at home in New York. White gowns
    and tuxedos were on all the principals, and there wasn't a sign of
    traditional Chinese dress anywhere, although the signs and messages posted
    around the ceremony still used the traditional sayings of double harmony,
    etc.

    Chinese women have also been freed from the tyrany of having their mates
    chosen for them by their parents or a rich uncle. Most of them now marry as
    a result of personal attraction to someone. But go-betweens still do a good
    business helping people find a good mate. They just do it for the bride now
    rather than her parents. So new choices are producing new memes based on
    old ones. Some of the new choices have been imported from America, along
    with Macdonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken. The result seems a bit like sex
    between different species that produced something like a mule. It's neither
    horse nor donkey.

    Grant

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