on 8/12/00 4:30 am, Gord Sellar at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> There are many odd memes floating about American culture. Memes succeed
>> because they aren't a handicap or give an advantage in context irrespective
>> of how daft they might appear in an objective view. The 'frontier' meme in
>> American culture makes people feel better about having been kicked out of
>> the Old World[1], the 'self help' meme saves on social welfare taxes, the
>> 'religion' meme reduces stress by cutting off some of the thornier 'why'
>> questions and so on.
>
> What I find so funny is that, when people are so down on cultural
> relativism and deconstruction and other things PoMo, they can use the
> scientific-sounding version of it, ie. discussing ideas and values in terms
> of "memes", and suddenly it's okay. :) If all ideas are memes, isn't that
> just another way of arguing relativism, albeit perhaps relativism
> enlightened by a sense of the possibility of universal biological
> predisposition for attention to certain issues (such as mating, killing of
> other humans, authority, and so on)?
Not really. One can talk about memes and their spread, and the advantages or
disadvantages they might give their hosts without embracing relativism
because the discussion has nothing to do with whether the memes represent
true or factually accurate ideas. Indeed, that is the whole point.
>
> Here are several challenges to your claims: the frontier meme wasn't *only*
> linked to being kicked out, William.
But it is mostly. And of course it doesn't have to be *just* about one thing
to also serve that purpose.
> It's ironic that you would say that,
> but then you're a descendant of Brits who stayed home, right?
Most people stayed at home, and we don't have a frontier meme.
> Lots of
> people got kicked out, yes, but there was also a massive amount of
> voluntary outward expansion. Well, as voluntary as anything is, which is
> contingent on there perhaps being more fortunes to seek elsewhere than
> here, and so on.
Most people who left got kicked out either directly (deported), almost
directly (left because their political/religious views were not tolerated)
or slightly indirectly (Highland clearance, Irish famine) where they
couldn't stay where they were and the rest of their homeland was full of
people who weren't going to make room. Those people didn't have a frontier
meme either, since they hadn't wanted to go.
> Would you say that the Westward expansion across north
> America is a case of settlers being "kicked out" of the Eastern side of
> North America? That said, there is a highly romanticized, adventuresome
> sense to it that seems to have been heightened in literature and film after
> the fact, and some of it was probably around at the time. How much it
> actually worked to mitigate feelings of anxiety, fear, resentment, and
> uncertainty I can't say, except to suggest it wouldn't do much for me if I
> were huddled in a sod house with only a tiny fire to keep me warm. Someone
> wrote something about adventures along the lines of the following: that
> "They're always very exciting as long as it isn't *you* sitting in the
> woods, wet and cold and hungry and shivering." Daily crap probably erodes
> the adventure/frontier romanticism away pretty damn quick.
But at any time the bulk of the population was in the established settled
areas and the expansion was led by a minority of misfits and rogues.
>
> The self-help meme probably does cut down on social welfare taxes and
> involvement, but I think it's also tied to a whole bunch of stuff
>
The *content* of the meme ties into a bunch of stuff which is irrelevant to
its *value to the host*. The point of the memetic analysis is that the
content of the meme can be true or untrue, but it is the advantage or
disadvantage that it bestows on the carrier that matters for its success.
> Finally, if you think religion makes things easier, try living as an
> ordained priest for a little while.
Most of the clerics I have encountered seem quite happy, and tend to be
long-lived too (a sign of low stress).
> I think the thing that most takes the
> edge off the thornier "why" questions is dismissing them out of hand, far
> more than involving yourself in a worldview that is difficult to
> understand, self-contradictory, difficult to assimilate permanently and
> effectively, and requiring noteworthy amounts of commitment and time. Oh,
> you mean the people who never question it? Who are they? Most religious
> folk I know have experienced doubt, and those who haven't don't seem to be
> often faced by the big existential crises all that much anyway.
Perhaps they are in the wrong religion?
--
William T Goodall
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
