Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id PAA00489 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 29 Jan 2002 15:26:51 GMT X-Originating-IP: [137.110.248.206] From: "Grant Callaghan" <grantc4@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Rogue Males/moral prescriptions Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 07:21:04 -0800 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <LAW2-F86qdGSyMp69YD00013ca7@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 29 Jan 2002 15:21:05.0184 (UTC) FILETIME=[91935A00:01C1A8D8] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>
>Scott said:
>
>>It's been a while since I read G.E. Moore's _Principia Ethica_, but
>>I think that, in short, justification of anything as being adaptive,
>>therefore right or good is a possible case of the naturalistic
>>fallacy.
>>
>>There's also Hume's "is/ought" distinction.
>>
>>How does one make moral prescriptions from descriptions which apply
>>to the factual sphere?
>
>
>But I like Grant's idea of the win-win situation, and looking at the
>*results* of a meme to determine it's "morality." It fits nicely
>into my line of work which is counseling - since it allows me a
>fairly non-judgemental stance, and by exploring the consequences of
>their beliefs and actions with clients, it allows them to develop a
>highly-personalized way of evaluating things. I must confess to
>having read neither of these books, so I don't know how well this
>response fits with what you were trying to say.
>
>frankie
>
I picked that up from Eric Berne, M.D., a psychiatrist who wrote Games
People Play -- a great book for people in counseling. It's part of my
philosophy on memes because he Berne says, "The eternal problem of the
human being is how to structure his waking hours. In this existential
sense, the function of all social living is to lend mutual assistance for
this project.
"The operationsl aspect of time-structuring may be called programming. It
has three aspects: material, social and individual. The most common,
convenient, comfortable, and utilitarian method of structuring time is by a
project designed to deal with the material of external reality: what is
commonly known as work.
"The solitary individual can structure time in two ways: activity qnd
fantasy. An individual can remain solitary even in the presence of others,
as every schoolteacher knows. When one is a member of a social aggregation
of two or more people, there are several options for structuring time. In
order of complexity, these are: (1) rituals, (2) Pastimes, (3) Games, (4)
Intimacy and (5) Activity, which may form a matrix for any of the others.
The goal of each member of the aggregation is to obtain as many
satisfactions as possible from his transactions with other members. The
more accessible he is, the more satisfactions he can obtain. Most of the
programming of his social operations is automatic. Since some of the
"satisfactions" obtained under this programming, such as the destructive
ones, are difficult to recognize in the usual sense of the word
"satisfactions," it would be better to substitute some more non-committal
term, such as "gains" or "advantages."
In my opinion, the way we structure our time is the key to how we transmit
and receive memetic material and what kinds of memes we communicate. The
act of communication is a transaction in which we give something and get
something in return. This is where the situation can be broken down into
the four possible outcomes and can analyzed in terms in what was given and
what was received.
Berne devotes his book to a specific kind of transaction called a "Game." A
geme is a loser's strategy in which the loser persists in transactions that
are less than win-win. He tells his readers how to break out of the cycle
of losing and adopt the win-win strategy. His method is called
"Transactional Analysis."
Grant
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