Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 08:22:11 -0700
From: Bill Spight <bspight@pacbell.net>
Subject: Re: implied or inferred memes
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Dear Derek and John,
Many thanks for your helpful responses about the interaction of variation and selection. <s>
About the Cathars:
Derek:
Interesting examples, since the fate that befell the 2 sects was rather different; the Shakers disappearing through non-reproduction and the Cathars being physically repressed and in some cases actually exterminated.
Bill:
IIRC, one of the major reasons for the crusade against the Cathars -- a real crusade, folks! -- was that French noblewomen were converting and refusing to have sex with their husbands. The fear of the social and political disruption that would result from noble French lines dying out was one of the motives for the French kings to carry out the crusade.
Aside: I am always amused when ecopsychologists invoke the Cathars as patron saints. Catharism held all things earthly to be evil. It was diametrically opposed to the ideology of ecopsychology. <g>
Best,
Bill
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