I was always under the impression, though, that this wasn't the point of
meme theory - although I'll be upfront in pointing out that I haven't read
any of it, nor do I really see the point. But I thought the virus analogy
wasn't about the "staying power" of an idea, but the manner in which ideas,
themes, etc. are propogated.
>> I did a paper on it for my social theory course a month ago (I got an
>> A, yay :) In doing it I really did start with an open mind, but...
>> well... I can't put my finger on it, but there's something that strikes
>> me as 'wrong' about the whole theory.
>
>How so. What bothers you about the idea? Methods of transmission? The
>idea that the human mind, like the body, can become tenaciously
>infected? Just the fact that it appeared recently?
As far as I'm concerned, I think Greg nailed it when he pointed out that
it's downright impossible to empirically prove the validity of meme theory.
It's fairly easy to pluck, say, a bird out of its natural habitat, drop it
on an island somewhere, and observe how it might evolve. And isn't this
notion of evolution key to memetics, i.e. that ideas evolve in order to
survive? But this doesn't translate so well to memes: how does one isolate
an idea from its surrounding cultural complex to show how it reacts to its
environment?
And besides, even assuming that the theories of memetics can be verified, so
what? (And I'm not being entirely cheeky here, I'd really like to hear what
the value of the meme is)
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osadchuk@uvic.ca http://www.xtc.net/~osadchuk/
I do not remember what my father said; all I remember is the excitement with
which this new information entered my life. Gangsters wore hats, and drove
big cars. Gangsters had tommy guns, which they kept in violent cases.
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