Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980830114805.00b7477c@popmail.mcs.net>
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1998 11:48:05 -0500
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Aaron Lynch <aaron@mcs.net>
Subject: Re: Feminist drivel and memetics
In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19980830080729.00709e3c@mail.iinet.net.au>
Stephen Springette Wrote:
>At 05:11 AM 8/29/98 +0800, Aaron Lynch wrote on the Emotional Memes thread:
>>At 03:14 PM 8/28/98 -0400, Derek Gatherer wrote:
>>
>>[snip]
>>>It's more than that. The issue is: what is memetics all about? It's
>>>been going for 22 years now, and has made not exactly impressive
>>>progress, because we are chasing things which aren't there, or rather
>>>they are right under our noses, but we insist on looking for them
>>>elsewhere.
>>[snip]
>>
>>Actually, the slow progress must also be attributed to delays in getting
>>people to take up the subject as major parts of their careers. Dawkins, for
>>instance, could only devote a small fraction of his time to memetics given
>>his commitment to biological sciences.
>
>Actually, one key to understanding why memetics has not progressed very far
>lies in the success of feminist claptrap. We do not understand the nature of
>cognition or the way that living entities make choices from the ecologies
>within which they reside (for human beings, that ecology is culture). Men
>and women make choices from their cultures - to be more specific, women
>choose the types of men that they would like their sons to be (without going
>into detail, men are the producers of variety and women are the filters of
>variety).
As a counter-example, consider the works of memeticists Susan Blackmore and
Liane Gabora, both of whom have produced important new lines of memetic
thinking, and both of whom have done much to disseminate memetics thinking.
(Gabora has an article in this journal, and Blackmore's work can be found
at the 'meme lab' page of
http://www.memes.org.uk/meme-lab/WELCOME.HTM)
Regarding "slow" progress, bear in mind that it took decades for Darwin to
produce a first book on biological evolution theory after his voyage on the
Beagle. Fast progress in science usually results from many full-time people
working jointly or in parallel. But it usually takes a major work to
convince people to devote their full efforts to a new branch of science.
The US library of Congress did not even have a classification for memetics
(i.e., Contagion Social Psychology) until late 1996. And the Journal of
Memetics did not start publication until May of 1997.
[snip]
>When we understand these sorts of basic issues, everything else will fall
>into place with crystal clarity. And there will be no gender-supremacist
>movement.
The idea that men should speed-seduce and then control women certainly
strikes me as gender-supremacist. I think that clarity would be well served
if it were not promoted in future memetics newsletters.
--Aaron Lynch
http://www.mcs.net/~aaron/thoughtcontagion.html
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