Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19980902103206.00c4c348@popmail.mcs.net>
Date: Wed, 02 Sep 1998 10:32:06 -0500
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Aaron Lynch <aaron@mcs.net>
Subject: Re: Question
In-Reply-To: <35ED5931.6DB6A020@sirius.com>
At 07:41 AM 9/2/98 -0700, you wrote:
>Please point me in the right direction. It seems self-evident that not all
>memes have the same affect on the human species' ability to evolve. Those
>memes we learn at the knee become far more persistent than skirt length in
>the fall collection. How we cook, toilet-training habits, notions of self
>and our role in society could be controlled by memes that can almost be
>traced to very specific sub-groups within a society and are far more likely
>to be held over a lifetime and passed to offspring. Is there anything in
>the corpus that either supports or refutes this opinion?
>
I discuss a lot of these life-long memes in Thought Contagion. The chapters
on family memes, sexual memes, religion memes, and health memes focus very
heavily on these things. Included are memes that cause hosts to have more
children or inculcate more children. The opening chapter of the book also
discusses such memes, at http://www.mcs.net/~aaron/tc1.html.
"Contagion" refers as often to what might be called vertical or
"congenital" transmission as to horrizontal or peer to peer transmission.
Lynch, A. 1996. THOUGHT CONTAGION:
How Belief Spreads Through Society--The New Science of Memes
New York: Basic Books.
--Aaron Lynch
http://www.mcs.net/~aaron/thoughtcontagion.html
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