Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id CAA20507 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 14 Feb 2002 02:48:04 GMT Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20020213203432.02c93460@pop.cogeco.ca> X-Sender: hkhenson@pop.cogeco.ca X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 21:44:09 -0500 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Keith Henson <hkhenson@cogeco.ca> Subject: Re: Memes Meta-Memes and Politics 1 of 3 (1988, updates 2002) In-Reply-To: <165.862ca61.299c2bd0@aol.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
At 03:51 PM 13/02/02 -0500, you wrote:
>In a message dated 2/10/2002 11:23:12 AM Central Standard Time, Keith Henson
><hkhenson@cogeco.ca> writes:
>
> > But a good fraction of the memes that make up human culture fall into
> > the categories of political, philosophical, or religious. A rationale
> > for the spread and persistence for these memes is a much deeper problem.
> > The spread of some memes of these classes at the expense of others is of
> > intense concern to many readers of Reason. If we are to be effective at
> >
> > [This article was originally written for Reason, a Libertarian magazine.
>A
> > few years earlier I wrote Star Laws for them. Between the time I talked
>to
> > the editor about it and the time I sent the article in, there was a
> change
> > in management and the article was rejected. ("Star Laws Arel" will find
> > this article in Google Groups if you want to read it.)]
>
>Hi Keith.
>
>I don't know if this is beyond Reason, but the next time you send an article
>to a Libertarian magazine, you might try a title such as "Memes, Meta-Memes,
>and Markets." I heard about the furor that your article caused with the new
>editors at Reason. When Thought Contagion came out, it got scathing and
>inaccurate reviews from Libertarian activists writing in three magazines! The
>magazines were Reason, Liberty, and Free Inquiry. The latter is not a
>Libertarian magazine, but the reviewer Thomas Flynn was a Libertarian
>activist.
I really appreciate the history! Let me add a bit to it.
I guess it would have been the election of 1988, or possibly 1992, not
sure. In any case it was the year Harry Browne was running for VP on the
Libertarian ticket. Someone had handed him a copy of Memes, MetaMemes and
Politics. He was much taken by it and called me up, asking me to submit
the rejected article to Liberty, wanted to hold workshops on it, etc.
After the rejection at Reason, I was not keen to send it to Liberty, but
Browne talked me into it. Again, memory is kind of dim on this, but I
think I sent them a paper copy. I don't remember if I called them a few
weeks later or the other way around, but I remember getting a really
hostile blast from the editor of Liberty--which I thought was really odd
after having been asked to send them a copy by a national candidate of the
Libertarian party. He was really upset about it. Seems he blasted Browne
as well. Next time I talked to him, he had way cooled of on the idea.
The rejections from the libertarian publications was odd in another way,
they could not express what their problem with the concepts of memetics was.
It was similar, now that I think about it, to the total rejection of even
the *thought* by a scientologists of applying any kind of scientific
measurement (such as double blind) to scientology. In fact, scientologists
go further. Their minds completely reject the possibility that such tests
are needed for *anything.* The ones who post on the net can't even
describe why you have to take care while making people related
measurements. It is quiet odd, and I have remarked on it in a number of
postings over a few years.
I wonder a bit if what we see in both of these cases is that intense
dedication to a meme leaves you highly defensive about topics which even
hint that the meme that the focus of you life might be just one of the
crowd and not the revealed TRUTH OF THE UNIVERSE.
Another example of people rejecting the very idea of memetics was the
Skeptics. I wrote very early, 1984 or 1985 to them about a memetics
article. If I remember correctly, that article was eventually published in
two parts in the Bay Area Skeptics magazine in 1985 or 1986. The Skeptics
magazine eventually had a meme article more than a decade after I wrote one
for them. I don't remember the details about why Free Inquiry had a
problem with memetics. It may have been due to the single person you mention.
>I believe it was someone at Reason who told me that they still
>remembered your rejected article 10 years later!
>
>--Aaron Lynch
Yea Ghods!
The concept has run into a bit of opposition. Well, it didn't do them a
bit of good to reject it. I posted it on the net and while the count may
be down now, at one time there were at least a dozen web sites where you
could find it. Memetics may not have taken hold at the level of the major
magazines, but it sure has among the people to whom being a libertarian is
just part of a whole complex of future oriented memes.
Keith
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