Message-Id: <3.0.1.32.19990521121801.00b69790@popmail.mcs.net>
Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 12:18:01 -0500
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
From: Aaron Lynch <aaron@mcs.net>
Subject: Re: "Speed Seduction" revisited
In-Reply-To: <Pine.OSF.3.95q.990521120024.23018E-100000@wolfe.umd.edu>
At 12:13 PM 5/21/99 -0400, Lawrence H. de Bivort wrote:
>
>Greetings,
>
>I am new to this list, wish to say how much I have enjoyed the discussion
>to date.
>
>This matter of "seduction" prompts me to write.
>
>The creation of rapport or linkage between two people has little, I think,
>to do with memes. Rapport is simply a matter of creating the (real or
>false) sense of similarity with another person. This can be achieved
>deliberately and simply, in the ways that earlier writers have referenced,
>through the exhibition of similarities. This creates in the 'subject' the
>sense of being recognized and 'seen'. In a world where people rush around
>and ignore each other, this feeling of being seen is powerful and
>attractive, and can pave the way to seduction, or any of a number of
>relationships that thrive when people develop trust, whether they do so
>for real or false reasons. Conversation, specific topics like astrology or
>gardening or the euro can all serve this purpose of establishing linkage,
>as can what one wears, or one's activities, etc. Linkage in itself does
>not equal influence: rather, it only creates the conditions in which
>influence may be better exerted.
>
>Memes are something else: they are artifacts that disseminate themselves
>through the medium of people and other social organizations. They have
>several properties that enable them to do so. They _may_ utilize the
>dynamics of linkage to do so, but do not require it. Either way, linkage
>or rapport as such do not have memetic properties.
>
>Lawrence de Bivort
Basically I agree, except on the terminological point of whether
artifactual replicators should be called memes in addition to or instead of
brain-stored information.
The question of whether "Speed Seduction" tactics create rapport is a
matter of debate, however. And there is the matter of sexism, too.
The last time this subject came up, someone sent me an article that shed
more light on the specifics. In no less revered a journal than the July,
1998 issue of _Playboy_, writer Peter Alson describes some of what "Speed
Seduction" involves so that we can get a glimpse of Ross Jeffries' "Speed
Seduction" ideas without spending $345 for home study tapes, $195 for a
video, or $895 for a three-day "get laid" workshop. The first of the
"seduction" tactics mentioned was for a man to say "My best ideas don't
come from above--the come from below me." The woman is then supposed to
subliminally slur the last two words and think of a sex act. The article
goes on to describe how Peter Alson goes forth and tries to use the "Speed
Seduction" methods on various women, but never succeeds in mating with
them. He eventually breaks down and tells one woman that he is a writer
researching "Speed Seduction" for an article.
I should not, however, be considered a completely impartial commentator on
Ross Jeffries. Back before I had ever commented on his product, he
gratuitously insulted me in alt.memetics by saying that I rely on "Jergens
lotion and resuscitator Annie, your inflatable weekend date," and that I
have a urinary incontinence problem. Jeffries and Brodie, on the other
hand, have both plugged each other's work.
--Aaron Lynch
http://www.mcs.net/~aaron/thoughtcontagion.html
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