From: <Mark_M_Mills@pc2000dfw.com>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 16:55:44 -0500
Subject: Re: Memes and High Culture
Randall,
>I have a problem with memetics as applied to high culture. There
>was a post a few days ago talking about golden ages and such...
>Intellectual historians make such judgments all the time; ...
> But memetics, if it is to follow the model of genetics, can't
>make such claims. No evolutionist says a species that survives is
>"better" than one that goes extinct. Any comments as to how
>memetics will handle qualitative judgments?
By avoiding judgments over quality! By sticking to population studies!
I doubt that memetics will ever replace intellectual historians.
Historians survived Darwin and the evolutionary revolution. One couldn't
claim descent from Adam any more, but that didn't end history.
Memetics will change the vocabulary of history and the sense of historical
process, but not the message. Knowledge of the past makes a difference.
Mark
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