Hey. This is L3 but I think it's an interesting topic. This is a little
scattered (what do you mean, what else is new) but I want to get it out
before I leave. I won't be able to wade into the ruckus again till I get to
Saskatoon, though, so bear with me. I am VERY interested in this
discussion, come what may...
As a precis, I am trying to demonstrate the relativism (moral, cultural) of
some kind (although not the strawmannishly bad disreputable version that
often gets presented here) is implicit in the idea of memes. I also make a
few arguments about what is missing in memes that could be supplied by
pairing the parallels from discourse analysis and the reams of theory about
ideology, as well as analysing the history of certain components of
ideologies, which I identify with individual memes.
At 9:02 PM -0400 12/12/2000, William T Goodall wrote:
>> 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.
Which means, in essence, that it's just a neat metaphor for a concept that
(at least until it began to become in Right-wing US-speak synonymous with
"communism" or "utopianism", ignoring the fact that EVERYONE has ideology,
including capitalist republicans) served perfectly well: "ideology."
But how can it be that "ideology" or "memes" don't necessitate relativism?
How is relativism not implicit in the idea of memes? If all ideas spread
because of their advantages and disadvantages to their hosts, and the only
way they relate to the world is through the effects of their being held by
a given host in a given environment (rather than any inherent truth or
validity in the idea), and one speaks of memes in any totalizing way (which
it seems is done here quite often), then how can one then turn around and
assert that one's ideas happen to be "true"? That's hypocritical.
Sure, with models of the world and maybe even with models of the self we
can experiment, refine, and falsify certain things. But those are the
*easy* questions, the convergent questions. [I don't seek to demean
science, as much as to say that when scientists look for an answer, there
is a sense in which they are hunting "it", something that actually exists
and can be found and verified and demonstrated. The pre-existence of one's
"solution" makes the job "easier" in that a solution is known to exist for
every question, even if it's very complex and could potentially take
forever to find.] When you look at divergent questions -- generally, the
ones that tend to be the subject of philosophy, literature, the arts, and
religions, such as "what does human mean?" or "what is good and what
evil?", you find that the closest we can get in any kind of scientific
exploration is to see that most (all?) human societies have a certain set
of things that they are interested in and anxious about, and thus have
rules about.
For example, if all moral codes have to do with exposure to memes, and
nothing to do with any absolute right and wrong, then one cannot take a
stance other than relativist with any reasonable consistency. That doesn't
mean that one need surrender and say it's okay for cultures to practice
infibulation on their girls, for example. Far from it. But one cannot call
upon any perfect source of wisdom or moral authority with which to condemn
such an action. One *can* draw upon observation to note that women who
undergo such procedures tend to be in poor health for a long time, and that
it is painful, and so on. Likewise, some people in cultures that practice
infibulation will draw upon their "observation" and say that it cultivates
modesty and sexual propriety among women to degrees unseen in the West, and
that this is good for the whole society which is more stable and "good"
morally. [This is simplistic of course because no culture is monolithic.]
You see their explanation and think it is wrong. I see it and think it is
wrong. We agree. But we have no sacred moral authority from which to
denounce it. That is what relativism proposes. It does not mean that we
cannot attempt to encourage an adoption of values that we see as more
"democratic" or "realistic" . . . for example, we could provide, through
local sympathetics, a huge amount of information discussing the negative
effects of infibulation, or oppression of women in general. But we are
talking off our soapbox, and they theirs.
Does that mean I think infiblation is neither right nor wrong? No. I think
infibulation is wrong, but I think that from within my own "ideology". My
versions of right and wrong rest not upon any "true" authority, but upon a
whole bunch of assumptions and inherited values, some (but not all) of
which I have hopefully assessed rationally, but not all of which have been
rationally appraised by me or others sharing my ideology or "meme-set".
That's also the point with cultural relativism: that nobody can argue his
or her ideas are perfectly rooted in any absolute truth, and thus their
arguments against others' ideas are grounded only in unstable roots. I'm
not taking the most strawmannish version of the idea as the real one, by
the way, just as you shouldn't (and aren't) with regard to memes.
>> 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.
Well, the idea both of memes is that they usually simultaneously exist
individually and in interdependent connection to networks of other memes in
meme-sets (read: an ideology).
>> 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.
That totally misses the point of the CONTEXT in which such "memes" or
ideologies flourished. Go look at 19th Century novels in Britain and tell
me that there wasn't an empire meme, and one that was rampant in England
among those who stayed at home and benefitted most from empire. If
colonials are the only people who had the "frontier" meme, you'd think that
by now it would be dead. But it is transmitted into different narratives.
Now space is the final frontier (so is the sea in some stuff, and so is
Montana, and so is cyberspace, or what have you). The frontier meme is one
part of a larger set of memes that almost always define identity and often
in my experience link identity to the mother country.
The interplay of memes or "ideological components" cannot be simply and
reductively analyzed in any discrete way. They interact in sets, and are
often mutually contradictory. For example, the colonial memes that cause
the colonial citizen to (a) identify with the mother country and (b) eschew
too close identification with the mother country (either via ridicule, or
via asserting colonial superiority). I've seen both aspects of this play
out in several ex-residents of African colonies, and when you put a few
together, hoo boy. They are British as the British to themselves, but
better too. Yet news in England, English politics, all of that is as
important to them as the politics where they currently live, or more so.
>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.
How do people obtain such a meme? I thought you said that people had it to
counteract the shite-value of life in exile.
I would argue that such "memes" are spread by exposure to all kinds of
media; the novel of the 19th century in many ways was a powerful medium for
the safeguarding and celebration of the continually asserted right of
Empire enjoyed by Britain. Advertisements offering cheap land also enact
certain aspects of some memes, such as the conception that "waste-lands"
could be reclaimed and made to produce bounty.
Wait, doesn't the notion of the reclamation and prospective bounty of
"waste-lands" date back to the early middle ages, at least in the British
Isles?
Why, yes, but in fact it dates back much farther than that! It dates back
at the very least to the ancient Greeks, who had a whole set of
justifications for their brand of expansionism (which is discussed in
*many* sources, including Adam Smith's economics writings (is it _The
Wealth of Nations_? It's been a while.) and Pindar's epicinian (or however
you spell it) _Odes_).
Ideologies have histories, just as Dawkins asserts memes mutate over time.
The contexts and histories of these ideological components must be
considered as well . . . for example, where do we see the strongest
re-assertion of the frontier meme? In the Internet-business world, I'd
argue -- it's totally tied up with economics. Funny how Adam Smith also
wrote about frontiers and their relationship to the wealth of nations.
So maybe what I'm getting at here (as opposed to the main point I was
trying to make before) is that your analysis neglects the context and
purposiveness of ideologies, which is one thing I think is a weakness in
the way I've encountered thus far -- has anyone extended the analogy to
include things like meme-warfare? One would see intracultural and
extracultural memic warfare going on if one applied the insights of
discourse analysis, or, in the language of another set of disciplines, the
insight we get from analysing "ideology" as an expression of "class" and
"power".
>> 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.
Are you sure? I think in Canada that a lot of it had to do with cheap land
(which was not to be gotten in their homeland). Some religious groups went
with utopian ideas glimmering in their eyes, and for them the frontier meme
was fused to the kingdom of God meme (such as the Mennonites and
Hutterites); still a huge majority of the population just went for cheap
land. Which, either way, problematizes your whole claim that the "frontier
meme" aided and abetted the movements of those who were cast out: I have
trouble imagining either hardbitten settlers or misfits and rogues being so
romantic-minded as to buy into any meme that would survive a -30 degree
winter in a sod house in Saskatchewan in, say, 1870.
Also, it's very clear that the frontier meme was seeded by those who saw a
stake in the Empire as worth holding out to citizens:
>> 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.
In other words, that ideas become popular on bases other than absolute
truth or even in many cases pragmatic validity. Which is essentially the
key point in any version of relativism -- in that relativism simply asserts
this about all ideology, including that held by the person who is invoking
the relativism. All that means is that, if one uses the concept of the
meme seriously, and believes in its validity, they would have a very hard
time reconciling it with any kind of belief in absolute truth or morality.
To really believe in memes, you've either *got* to be a relativist, or
you've got to be an arrogant bastard who thinks he or she is above the
meme-infestation that everyone else is subject to.
>> 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'm familiar with a wider variety of experiences, I guess. I know a few
clerics I've known have had to struggle . . . and by the way, maybe the
reason they seem so long-lived is because they're increasingly old, as in
young people are less and less willing to take on the life that is offered
in such a position. And I did say "priest", by the way. Different set of
expectations that some other clerical orders.
>Perhaps they are in the wrong religion?
Well, maybe. You know what I think about that, I'm sure. :) But I think all
religions involve certain kinds of leaps of faith, and some people agonize
more about them than others. But I'd say people who can make leaps of faith
in one area, usually can handle them in another, so maybe it's just
circumstance that renders this or that meme-set the one that they find
amenable... maybe the adherents of, say, Christianity on this list would
have made good Muslims or Buddhists if they'd been born to it, and maybe
that religion would have served by resolving roughly the same types of
existential problems in similar ways, such as asserting the existence of
absolute morality (the specifics of which happen to differ).
