Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id MAA24176 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 15 Feb 2002 12:00:35 GMT Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3102A6D25B@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 11:46:03 -0000 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Filter-Info: UoS MailScan 0.1 [D 1] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
<Lots of folks, whether in the US or UK are too busy dealing with
the
> struggles of life, raising a family, working a 40 hr week, taking night
> classes, and escaping into sitcoms and videogmes to bother much with gov't
>
> and foreign affairs. It would take oddles of time to get a grasp on all
> the
> nuances of local, state and federal level politics and what each
> individual
> foreign nation is up to and lots of folks don't have oodles of time. But
> that person who may not have much of a grasp on the intricacies of the
> middle east is the person who might just be the best choice to fix your
> car
> or your plumbing or to help you with your taxes or whatever else their
> speciality is. Ignorance is relative. Let's see some ivy league math wiz
> dig their own drain field for a septic system ;-)>
>
I think you're kind of right Scott, but of course that is a major
conceit of late capitalism, and a highly dangerous one at that. It is why
decades ago the likes of Lippman and Wright Mills, talked about the problems
of the mass society- its complexity leading to its citizens basically being
unable to really engage with the bureacracy of political decisions that
shape our lives, and thus the public opinion that's supposed to underpin
mass democracy is something of an illusion. Two things result from this:
apathetic complicity (through people not voting at the most overt), and
second in order for democratic governments to function, the use of
PR/propaganda by governments. Some writers on propaganda have gone as far
as saying it is constitutive of democracy, an actual requirement for what
Chomsky famously dubbed the manufacture of consent. Of course the real
danger here is that policy decisions become "inevitable", "natural" etc.
etc., as with the "Labour" Party in the UK talking about the inevitability
of the market, and have transformed themselves into yet another party of
capital (trying to sell off everything and anything to the private sector).
But what people lose in going along with the 'life is too hectic to care'
position, is any connection with the decisions that fundamentally affect
their basic rights. And, of course, it isn't really true, as people do have
major, if fragmentary concerns, whether it be about paedophiles in the
community, the safety of MMR, the state of healthcare provision, schools
etc. etc. The means by which people are able to influence decision making
in such areas is majorly being eroded, as when governments show outrage at
people having the gall to protest about things they don't like (seen most
pathetically during the fuel protest in the UK a year or so ago; the
government was clearly offended by the democratic right of people to
protest). The best conceptual treatment of these issues, albeit
significantly challenged since its publication, is Habermas' The Structural
Transformation of the Public Sphere' (although it's a dense read).
For those who would regard things like political ideology as
memetic, Habermas' ideas would seem a useful framework as it places the
dissemination of information, or rather the question of who has
control/influence over information dissemination, at the core of the problem
of contemporary society. I think Balkin talks about ideology and memes at
length in 'Cultural Software', but I haven't read it yet, sitting on my
shelf of memetics/cultural evolution books waiting to be read once I get my
own book (which is a bit past the deadline already, and nothing to do with
memetics) finished.
Vincent
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