Subject: Re: malicious gossip
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 22:01:36 -0400
From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
>I'll offer a provocation: no one is beyond the reach of _any_ meme, if it
>is designed well enough.
Or, rather, no-one is without their price....
Certainly the conditions and the situation the person is in, culturally
and financially and emotionally and intellectually (personality 'types'
;-> ?)- the 'mise-en-scene' of their life, is where the memes can find
their soil, their nutrients.
Religious memes spread rapidly thusly because they _can_ flourish in
their own cultural milieu, a protected plot for millenia.
What I seem to not see is how one can design a meme in the absence of an
intrinsic culture. (I would as well claim that a meme cannot be designed,
but I could be completely mistaken about that.)
No-one is within reach of the totally alien, regardless of design. I, for
instance, cannot be touched by a meme designed totally within an
aboriginal culture- I would not, for instance, be cured of any sickness
by a spirit dance, or the knowledge of how many days the shaman went
without food or sex to cure me, or how many animals died, or blood was
drunk... but someone within that culture, who had this designed for them,
would be.
- Wade
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