Saturday, December 31, 2011
Rabbi State "Zionism Is Racism"
Uploaded by 2628342 on Apr 23, 2009
During the Durban Review Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, the Arab Commission for Human Rights organized a conference regarding the oppression in Palestine, On April 24, 2009 in the International Conference Centre of Geneva [outside the United Nation Office].
Amongst the speakers was Rabbi Ahron Cohen, a spokesman for Neturei Karta UK, Jews United Against Zionism, who stated that Zionism is Racism".
Visit: www.nkusa.org
Tim Wise on "The Perfect Storm for White Anxiety"
Uploaded by OSIBaltimore on Dec 2, 2009
At an event held December 1, 2009 in Baltimore, MD, Rich Benjamin, author of Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America, and Tim Wise, author of Between Barack & A Hard Place: Racism & White Denial in the Age of Obama, discussed white America's struggle to talk about race. The event was part of OSI-Baltimore's Talking About Race series, cosponsored by the Enoch Pratt Free Library. It addresses how we talk (or do not talk) about race from different perspectives and why it is imperative that we discuss this subject openly and thoughtfully.
Tim Wise - Whites See Racism As A Zero Sum Game
I Ignored the shit the guy added at the end of the video.
Friday, December 30, 2011
12th Annual White Privilege Conference
Uploaded by BlackAndRight on Apr 8, 2011
According to the WPC website...
1. WPC is a conference that examines challenging concepts of privilege and oppression and offers solutions and team building strategies to work toward a more equitable world.
2. It is not a conference designed to attack, degrade or beat up on white folks.
3. It is not a conference designed to rally white supremacist groups.
4. WPC is a conference built on the premise that the U.S. was started by white people, for white people.
5. WPC is a conference designed to examine issues of privilege beyond skin color. WPC is open to everyone and invites diverse perspectives to provide a comprehensive look at issues of privilege including: race, gender, sexuality, class, disability, etc. — the ways we all experience some form of privilege, and how we're all affected by that privilege.
6. WPC attracts students, professionals, activists, parents, and community leaders/members from diverse perspectives. WPC welcomes folks with varying levels of experience addressing issues of diversity, cultural competency, and multiculturalism.
7. WPC is committed to a philosophy of "understanding, respecting and connecting."
Who attends the WPC?
The conference is unique in its ability to bring together high school and college students, teachers, university faculty and higher education professionals, nonprofit staff, activists, social workers and counselors, healthcare workers, and members of the spiritual community and corporate arena. Annually, more than 1,500 attend from more than 35 states, Australia, Bermuda, Canada, and Germany.
http://www.whiteprivilegeconference.com/index.html
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible
Making The White Visible from Phyo Win Latt on Vimeo.
Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible
Engage white people in meaningful conversation about race
Use this groundbreaking film and conversation guide in your organization to help bridge the gap between good intentions and meaningful change. Featuring stories from white men and women on overcoming issues of unconscious bias and entitlement, it is an powerful and unique tool in diversity work.
The stories in the film reveal what is often required to move through the stages of denial, defensiveness, guilt, fear, and shame into making a solid commitment to ending racial injustice. This film catalyzes powerful dialogue to support the learning, change and healing of all people who want to undo race-based oppression. Featuring: Tim Wise, Joe Fahey, Peggy V. McIntosh, Marguerite Parks, Gary Howard and many more.
Why this film?
After many years of doing diversity work, we recognized that an unhelpful pattern often emerged in the learning environment. In a typical workshop, people of color were asked to share their stories. The people of color in the seminar had a lot to say and a need to be heard and understood. White people were usually overwhelmed by what was shared, and moved into guilt, shame or denial. That left the people of color vulnerable to judgment or rejection by the white participants. People of color often ended up being the source of ”the problem” without any real learning taking place. An unintended consequence, this pattern blocked healing and reinforced the fracture that racial misunderstanding causes all too frequently. It was clear that to enable participants to move beyond historical and contemporary understanding about race, that pattern needed to change and different tools were needed. This film is designed to support a new, more effective dynamic of learning and healing between racial groups.
How does Mirrors of Privilege change the dynamic? How is it helpful?
First, Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible allows white people to find their own voice, and to reflect on their own experience and understanding. They hear from role models — other white people who have already committed themselves to racial justice. This has been a missing piece in social justice and cultural competency work. And, when viewing this film, people of color have an opportunity to focus on their own issues of internalized racism, should they chose to do so. The film’s Conversation Guide provides structure for equal opportunity learning. In concert with the film, it allows the issue of racism to be discussed in a way that is not at the expense of people of color. Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible provides pathways for learning and analysis that can build real bridges between white people and people of color, who can then have authentic relationships across a racial divide.
http://world-trust.org/shop/films/mirrors-privilege-making-whiteness-visible/
Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible
Engage white people in meaningful conversation about race
Use this groundbreaking film and conversation guide in your organization to help bridge the gap between good intentions and meaningful change. Featuring stories from white men and women on overcoming issues of unconscious bias and entitlement, it is an powerful and unique tool in diversity work.
The stories in the film reveal what is often required to move through the stages of denial, defensiveness, guilt, fear, and shame into making a solid commitment to ending racial injustice. This film catalyzes powerful dialogue to support the learning, change and healing of all people who want to undo race-based oppression. Featuring: Tim Wise, Joe Fahey, Peggy V. McIntosh, Marguerite Parks, Gary Howard and many more.
Why this film?
After many years of doing diversity work, we recognized that an unhelpful pattern often emerged in the learning environment. In a typical workshop, people of color were asked to share their stories. The people of color in the seminar had a lot to say and a need to be heard and understood. White people were usually overwhelmed by what was shared, and moved into guilt, shame or denial. That left the people of color vulnerable to judgment or rejection by the white participants. People of color often ended up being the source of ”the problem” without any real learning taking place. An unintended consequence, this pattern blocked healing and reinforced the fracture that racial misunderstanding causes all too frequently. It was clear that to enable participants to move beyond historical and contemporary understanding about race, that pattern needed to change and different tools were needed. This film is designed to support a new, more effective dynamic of learning and healing between racial groups.
How does Mirrors of Privilege change the dynamic? How is it helpful?
First, Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible allows white people to find their own voice, and to reflect on their own experience and understanding. They hear from role models — other white people who have already committed themselves to racial justice. This has been a missing piece in social justice and cultural competency work. And, when viewing this film, people of color have an opportunity to focus on their own issues of internalized racism, should they chose to do so. The film’s Conversation Guide provides structure for equal opportunity learning. In concert with the film, it allows the issue of racism to be discussed in a way that is not at the expense of people of color. Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible provides pathways for learning and analysis that can build real bridges between white people and people of color, who can then have authentic relationships across a racial divide.
http://world-trust.org/shop/films/mirrors-privilege-making-whiteness-visible/
The Intersection of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity in Higher Ed
uploaded by UOregon on Mar 6, 2008
On 03/01/2005 three scholars providing leadership in the arena of racial and gender equity in higher education visited the UO to speak about ways to move forward in that pursuit. The panel, entitled "The Intersection of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity in Higher Education" is cosponsored by CSWS and the Office of the Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
يهود اليمن يروون القصة الكاملة لما فعله الحوثيون بهم
Uploaded by nabanews on Oct 8, 2009
ما الذي حدث مع اليهوداليمنيين في صعدة؟ في هذا الفيديو يروي الحاخام يحيى وآخرون تفاصيل الحرب التي شنها الحوثي عليهم ، والكيفية التي هجرهم فيها بعد نهب أموالهم وممتلكاتهم وذهب نسائهم ، وبطريقة بشعة لا تمت لأخلاق المسلمين بأي صلة.. وهاهم اليوم قلقون لأن الحوثي يرفع شعار (الموت لأمريكا، الموت لاسرائيل ، اللعنة على اليهود) خوفا من تشجيع بعض الشباب على تشكيل تنظيم ارهابي معادي لليهود المسالمين في البلدان العربية والاسلامية.. والمقلق أكثر أن ألمانيا تستضيف الحوثيين وترعاهم - كما لو أنها تتطلع لإعادة زمن النازية
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Racial segregation in Israeli schools
Racism is israel
Ethiopian-Israelis & Russian-Israelis protest racial segregation in state-sponsored schools in Petach Tikvah, one of Israel's biggest cities, September 1, 2011.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Zionism: The Real Enemy Of The Jews
42:01 mins
Former BBC and ITN correspondent Alan Hart delivers a powerful speech on why Zionism is not only the enemy of the Jews, but of humankind. Find out more via this link: http://zionism-realenemyofthejews.com/about.htm
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Friday, September 30, 2011
Baby Left in Car - Social Experiment
Uploaded by keenermarc on May 21, 2009
Observing the behavior of people who pass by a vehicle with a baby locked in the car. (Staged)
This would connect with both the Physical Aspect of Being and the Emotional. We know that, in several ways, the body and mind works to maintain the status quo or balance(homeoestasis) so it is interesting to see people who seemingly are uninvolved or unaffected by this situation get involved and become a part of the situation. What Motivates them? Their intrinsic cognitive motivation where they do it for their own purposes (intrinsic) and mentally recognize a threat (to someone else in this case) but they cognitively try to eliminate the threat or risk to the infant. Maybe, by recognizing a threat to another human being, especially one who cannot protect themselves, they themselves feel threatened and feel compelled, by instinct? to act? Who knows...
We've also learned that emotions are different from feelings. While emotions are more intense and momentary, feelings are longer-lasting and more general. The reactions these "advocates" have are straight emotional ones - intense states. Does it seem like the man was able to calm down more quickly than the woman, after they were debriefed? We learned that the male parasympathetic nervous system responds more quickly than a womans - that fight / flight system kicks in but can calm a man down more quickly.
So much to consider... now that we've been studying this course!!
Question: How do you think the actress playing the reckless mother felt during each scenario when she was confronted by such passionately angry people?? Would her fight/flight reflex kick in... and would you expect her experience to be as emotional as the people who confronted her?
ALSO! Consider as well the difference between people who act on their own and the people who were acting as a group! We've discussed the fact that people respond differently when they are on their own - they assume it's not their problem and that someone else will deal with it - but in a group you gain motivation because you have that reassurance that others support your belief. It's pretty cool to see three ordinary strangers work together to protect a child they feel is in danger!
Bystander Effect - people watch girl being abducted
Uploaded by keenermarc on Jan 29, 2009
When there's only one person around in a situation, they're much more likely to lend assistance to people in need, whether it's to help pick up something they're dropped or something more important like warn them they're about to step into traffic, etc.
When there's a group of people, though, no one acts. They all expect someone else will do it, so no one volunteers or pauses.
This is honestly a chilling video to watch. I don't have kids but it catches my breath when the two men catch on that something's going on and without any verbal communication between them, only similar body language (ie their mutual movement in that direction) it's amazing to me that, while they're both intently watching the man they are approaching, there is a single second when they Both launch into action, again without communicating anything verbally, but something triggers the same response from both men. How fascinating! It reminds me of wild lions in Africa who are following their prey but something simultaneously all animals involved and they leap to action.
I'm teaching a Social Psychology class right now and am really getting intrigued by the idea of how we send and receive communication without speaking. What is it about that situation that influenced those men though others around them didn't bother? And what was it in that single second where they both jump into a run? Was it that the man let the girl's arm go and started to run off himself? It's amazing to me.
See what you think? I showed this to a fellow teacher who has two daughters. It's scary to think that people would pass. The girl int his video was doing everything right - yelling over and over "You're not my dad! Someone help me!" It didn't do her any good, did it?
20/20 What Would You Do? The Obscene and the Obese
What Would You do? How would you react to a group making fun of someone for how they appear?
Shopping While Black - Social Experiment
Uploaded by keenermarc on May 22, 2009
This experiment turns into a pretty emotional one. While some people are unaffected by the discrimination they observe, others are completely offended on behalf of the victim. One man who objects to her treatment can relate because of his own experiences, but other people (two different white women) seem completely offended by the idea that anyone would be treated in such a way.
Consider (though we haven't talked about this year) what is it about some people that makes them step forward on behalf of a stranger? Some people are content to witness something in their surroundings but are somewhat unaffected by it, while others are compelled to act. What is the motivating factor? Could it have anything to do with each person's place in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, maybe? The stronger ones who are higher in the chart, closer to self-actualization, may feel more comfortable stepping forward while others, less secure in themselves and their level of needs, stand back? If the basis for Maslow's needs is that people act to remove deficiencies or continually move up in the levels, what's the motivating factor when the person themselves are not in danger? Ie: If you want to move to step three (social needs) and therefore have attained safety / security, would you feel threatened personally if someone near you were in (a type of ) danger like this woman? Or maybe they're at the fourth level (esteem needs) and taking responsibility of their surroundings.
You may notice, as well, the three things necessary in Motivation: 1) Arousal (something triggers your attention), 2) Direction (a goal-oriented movement to act) and 3) Persistence (affecting the intensity and duraction of your action).
Maybe some people are just especially emotional - is it by their hormones (biological), their mental and emotional empathy for others(Cognitive), or maybe they are just weaker and more insecure than others and threatened by things they see (again... cognitive). What do you think?
You could also reflect on the facial expressions, as seen on the woman's face before the video plays. She's very effectively communicating her response.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Saturday, April 23, 2011
What is a Meme ?
Meme
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Meme (disambiguation).
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2009) |
/ˈmiːm/[1]) is a relatively newly coined term which identifies ideas, behaviors, or styles that spreads from person to person within a culture.[2] The concept comes from an analogy: as genes transmit biological information, memes can be said to transmit idea and belief information.A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes, in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures.[3]
The word "meme" is a shortening (modeled on "gene") of mimeme (from Ancient Greek μίμημα Greek pronunciation: [míːmɛːma] mimēma, "something imitated", from μιμεῖσθαι mimeisthai, "to imitate", from μῖμος mimos "mime")[4] and it was coined by the British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976)[1][5] as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Examples of memes given in the book included melodies, catch-phrases, fashion, and the technology of building arches.[6]
Advocates of the meme idea say that memes may evolve by natural selection, in a manner analogous to that of biological evolution. Memes do this through the processes of variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance, each of which influencing a meme's reproductive success.
Memes spread through the behaviors that they generate in their hosts. Memes that propagate less prolifically may become extinct, while others may survive, spread, and (for better or for worse) mutate. Memes that replicate the most effectively spread best. Some memes may replicate effectively even when they prove to be detrimental to the welfare of their hosts.[7]
A field of study called memetics[8] arose in the 1990s to explore the concepts and transmission of memes in terms of an evolutionary model. Criticism from a variety of fronts has challenged the notion that scholarship can examine memes empirically. Some commentators[who?] question the idea that one can meaningfully categorize culture in terms of discrete units.
Contents[hide] |
History
Origins
Max Stirner's 1844 The Ego and Its Own puts forth the idea that the individual is dominated by illusory concepts ('fixed ideas' or 'spooks'), which can be shaken and undermined by each individual, though he does not use the term meme for this. He offers examples such as nationalism and religion.Historically, the notion of a unit of social evolution, and a similar term (from Greek mneme, “memory”), first appeared in 1904 in a work by the German Lamarckist biologist Richard Semon titled Die Mnemischen Empfindungen in ihren Beziehungen zu den Originalempfindungen (loosely translatable as “Memory-feelings in relation to original feelings”). According to the OED, the word mneme appears in English in 1921 in L. Simon's translation of Semon's book: The Mneme.[9]
Laurent noted the use of the term mneme in Maurice Maeterlinck's The Life of the White Ant (1926), and has highlighted similarities to Dawkins' concept.[10]
The analogy between culturally transmitted information and genetically transmitted information was perceived clearly enough by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza and Marcus W. Feldman to allow them to formulate and analyze quantitative models of cultural transmission and selection. They published a series of papers beginning in 1973.[11]
The word meme originated with Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene. To emphasize commonality with genes, Dawkins coined the term "meme" by shortening "mimeme", which derives from the Greek word mimema ("something imitated").[1]
Dawkins states that he did not know of the "mneme",[citation needed] and said that he wanted "a monosyllable that sounds a bit like 'gene'".[1] Dawkins wrote that evolution depended not on the particular chemical basis of genetics, but only on the existence of a self-replicating unit of transmission – in the case of biological evolution, the gene. For Dawkins, the meme exemplified another self-replicating unit with potential significance in explaining human behavior and cultural evolution.
Concept
Dawkins used the term to refer to any cultural entity that an observer might consider a replicator. He hypothesised that one could view many cultural entities as replicators, and pointed to melodies, fashions and learned skills as examples. Memes generally replicate through exposure to humans, who have evolved as efficient copiers of information and behaviour. Because humans do not always copy memes perfectly, and because they may refine, combine or otherwise modify them with other memes to create new memes, they can change over time. Dawkins likened the process by which memes survive and change through the evolution of culture to the natural selection of genes in biological evolution.[6]Dawkins defined the meme as a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation and replication, but later definitions would vary. Memes, analogously to genes, vary in their aptitude to replicate; memes which are good at getting themselves copied tend to spread and remain, whereas the less good ones have a higher probability of being ignored and forgotten. Thus "better" memes are selected. The lack of a consistent, rigorous, and precise understanding of what typically makes up one unit of cultural transmission remains a problem in debates about memetics.[12] In contrast, the concept of genetics gained concrete evidence with the discovery of the biological functions of DNA. In the context of the natural or life sciences, memetics suffers in comparison because, unlike the idea of genes, memes do not necessarily have or need a concrete medium in order to transfer.
Transmission
Life-forms can transmit information both vertically (from parent to child, via replication of genes) and horizontally (through viruses and other means). Malcolm Gladwell wrote, "A meme is an idea that behaves like a virus--that moves through a population, taking hold in each person it infects." Memes can replicate vertically or horizontally within a single biological generation. They may also lie dormant for long periods of time. Memes spread by the behaviors that they generate in their hosts. Imitation counts as an important characteristic in the propagation of memes. Imitation often involves the copying of an observed behaviour of another individual, but memes may transmit from one individual to another through a copy recorded in an inanimate source, such as a book or a musical score. Researchers have observed memetic copying in just a few species on Earth, including hominids, dolphins and birds (that learn how to sing by imitating their parents or neighbors).[13]Some commentators have likened the transmission of memes to the spread of contagions.[14] Social contagions such as fads, hysteria, copycat crime, and copycat suicide exemplify memes seen as the contagious imitation of ideas. Observers distinguish the contagious imitation of memes from instinctively contagious phenomena such as yawning and laughing, which they consider innate (rather than socially learned) behaviors.[13]
Aaron Lynch described seven general patterns of meme transmission, or "thought contagion":[15]
- Quantity of parenthood: an idea that influences the number of children one has. Children respond particularly receptively to the ideas of their parents, and thus ideas that directly or indirectly encourage a higher birthrate will replicate themselves at a higher rate than those that discourage higher birthrates.
- Efficiency of parenthood: an idea that increases the proportion of children who will adopt ideas of their parents. Cultural separatism exemplifies one practice in which one can expect a higher rate of meme-replication — because the meme for separation creates a barrier from exposure to competing ideas.
- Proselytic: ideas generally passed to others beyond one's own children. Ideas that encourage the proselytism of a meme, as seen in many religious or political movements, can replicate memes horizontally through a given generation, spreading more rapidly than parent-to-child meme-transmissions do.
- Preservational: ideas that influence those that hold them to continue to hold them for a long time. Ideas that encourage longevity in their hosts, or leave their hosts particularly resistant to abandoning or replacing these ideas, enhance the preservability of memes and afford protection from the competition or proselytism of other memes.
- Adversative: ideas that influence those that hold them to attack or sabotage competing ideas and/or those that hold them. Adversative replication can give an advantage in meme transmission when the meme itself encourages aggression against other memes.
- Cognitive: ideas perceived as cogent by most in the population who encounter them. Cognitively transmitted memes depend heavily on a cluster of other ideas and cognitive traits already widely held in the population, and thus usually spread more passively than other forms of meme transmission. Memes spread in cognitive transmission do not count as self-replicating.
- Motivational: ideas that people adopt because they perceive some self-interest in adopting them. Strictly speaking, motivationally transmitted memes do not self-propagate, but this mode of transmission often occurs in association with memes self-replicated in the efficiency parental, proselytic and preservational modes.
Memes as discrete units
Richard Dawkins initially defined meme as a noun that "conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation".[6] John S. Wilkins retained the notion of meme as a kernel of cultural imitation while emphasizing the meme's evolutionary aspect, defining the meme as "the least unit of sociocultural information relative to a selection process that has favourable or unfavourable selection bias that exceeds its endogenous tendency to change."[16] The meme as a unit provides a convenient means of discussing "a piece of thought copied from person to person", regardless if that thought contains others inside it, or forms part of a larger meme. A meme could consist of a single word, or a meme could consist of the entire speech in which that word first occurred. This forms an analogy to the idea of a gene as a single unit of self-replicating information found on the self-replicating chromosome.While the identification of memes as "units" conveys their nature to replicate as discrete, indivisible entities, it does not imply that thoughts somehow become quantized or that "atomic" ideas exist that cannot be dissected into smaller pieces. A meme has no given size. Susan Blackmore writes that melodies from Beethoven's symphonies are commonly used to illustrate the difficulty involved in delimiting memes as discrete units. She notes that while the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (
listen (help·info)) form a meme widely replicated as an independent unit, one can regard the entire symphony as a single meme as well.[12]Some critics[who?] have seen the inability to pin an idea or cultural feature to its key units as an insurmountable problem for memetics. Blackmore meets such criticism by stating that memes compare with genes in this respect: that while a gene has no particular size, nor can we ascribe every phenotypic feature directly to a particular gene, it has value because it encapsulates that key unit of inherited expression subject to evolutionary pressures. To illustrate, she notes evolution selects for the gene for features such as eye color; it does not select for the individual nucleotide in a strand of DNA. Memes play a comparable role in understanding the evolution of imitated behaviors.[12]
The 1981 book Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process by Charles J. Lumsden and E. O. Wilson proposed the theory that genes and culture co-evolve, and that the fundamental biological units of culture must correspond to neuronal networks that function as nodes of semantic memory. They coined their own term, "culturgen", which did not catch on. Coauthor Wilson later acknowledged the term meme as the best label for the fundamental unit of cultural inheritance in his 1998 book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, which elaborates upon the fundamental role of memes in unifying the natural and social sciences.[17]
Evolutionary influences on memes
Richard Dawkins noted the three conditions that must exist for evolution to occur:[18]- variation, or the introduction of new change to existing elements;
- heredity or replication, or the capacity to create copies of elements;
- differential "fitness", or the opportunity for one element to be more or less suited to the environment than another.
Unlike genetic evolution, memetic evolution can show both Darwinian and Lamarckian traits. Cultural memes will have the characteristic of Lamarckian inheritance when a host aspires to replicate the given meme through inference rather than by exactly copying it. Take for example the case of the transmission of a simple skill such as hammering a nail, a skill that a learner imitates from watching a demonstration without necessarily imitating every discrete movement modeled by the teacher in the demonstration, stroke for stroke.[19] Susan Blackmore distinguishes the difference between the two modes of inheritance in the evolution of memes, characterizing the Darwinian mode as "copying the instructions" and the Lamarckian as "copying the product."[12]
Clusters of memes, or memeplexes (also known as meme complexes or as memecomplexes), such as cultural or political doctrines and systems, may also play a part in the acceptance of new memes. Memeplexes comprise groups of memes that replicate together and coadapt.[12] Memes that fit within a successful memeplex may gain acceptance by "piggybacking" on the success of the memeplex. As an example, John D. Gottsch discusses the transmission, mutation and selection of religious memeplexes and the theistic memes contained.[20] Theistic memes discussed include the "prohibition of aberrant sexual practices such as incest, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, castration, and religious prostitution", which may have increased vertical transmission of the parent religious memeplex. Similar memes are thereby included in the majority of religious memeplexes, and harden over time; they become an "inviolable canon" or set of dogmas, eventually finding their way into secular law. This could also be referred to as the propagation of a taboo.
Memetics
Main article: Memetics
The discipline of memetics, which dates from the mid 1980s, provides an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer based on the concept of the meme. Memeticists have proposed that just as memes function analogously to genes, memetics functions analogously to genetics. Memetics attempts to apply conventional scientific methods (such as those used in population genetics and epidemiology) to explain existing patterns and transmission of cultural ideas.Principal criticisms of memetics include the claim that memetics ignores established advances in other fields of cultural study, such as sociology, cultural anthropology, cognitive psychology, and social psychology. Questions remain whether or not the meme concept counts as a validly disprovable scientific theory. This view regards memetics as a theory in its infancy: a protoscience to proponents, or a pseudoscience to some detractors.
Criticism of meme theory
An objection to the study of the evolution of memes in genetic terms (although not to the existence of memes) involves a perceived gap in the gene/meme analogy: the cumulative evolution of genes depends on biological selection-pressures neither too great nor too small in relation to mutation-rates. There seems no reason to think that the same balance will exist in the selection pressures on memes.[21]Luis Benitez-Bribiesca M.D., a critic of memetics, calls the theory a "pseudoscientific dogma" and "a dangerous idea that poses a threat to the serious study of consciousness and cultural evolution". As a factual criticism, Benitez-Bribiesca points to the lack of a "code script" for memes (analogous to the DNA of genes), and to the excessive instability of the meme mutation mechanism (that of an idea going from one brain to another), which would lead to a low replication accuracy and a high mutation rate, rendering the evolutionary process chaotic.[22]
Another critique comes from semiotic theorists such as Deacon[23] and Kull[24] This view regards the concept of "meme" as a primitivized concept of "sign". The meme is thus described[by whom?] in memetics as a sign lacking a triadic nature. Semioticians can regard a meme as a "degenerate" sign, which includes only its ability of being copied. Accordingly, in the broadest sense, the objects of copying are memes, whereas the objects of translation and interpretation are signs.[clarification needed]
Fracchia and Lewontin regard memetics as reductionist and inadequate.[25]
Potential lack of philosophical depth
In his chapter titled "Truth" published in the Encyclopedia of Phenomenology, Dieter Lohmar questions the memeticists' reduction of the highly complex body of ideas (such as religion, politics, war, justice, and science itself) to a putatively one-dimensional series of memes. He sees memes as an abstraction and such a reduction as failing to produce greater understanding of those ideas. The highly interconnected, multi-layering of ideas resists memetic simplification to an atomic or molecular form; as does the fact that each of our lives remains fully enmeshed and involved in such "memes". Lohmar argues that one cannot view memes through a microscope in the way one can detect genes. The leveling-off of all such interesting "memes" down to some neutralized molecular "substance" such as "meme-substance" introduces a bias toward scientism and abandons the very essence of what makes ideas interesting, richly available, and worth studying.[26]Applications
Opinions differ as to how best to apply the concept of memes within a "proper" disciplinary framework. One view sees memes as providing a useful philosophical perspective with which to examine cultural evolution. Proponents of this view (such as Susan Blackmore and Daniel Dennett) argue that considering cultural developments from a meme's-eye view—as if memes themselves respond to pressure to maximise their own replication and survival—can lead to useful insights and yield valuable predictions into how culture develops over time. Others such as Bruce Edmonds and Robert Aunger have focused on the need to provide an empirical grounding for memetics to become a useful and respected scientific discipline.[27][28] A third approach, described[by whom?] as "radical memetics", seeks to place memes at the centre of a materialistic theory of mind and of personal identity.[29]Prominent researchers in evolutionary psychology and anthropology, including Scott Atran, Dan Sperber, Pascal Boyer, John Tooby and others, argue the possibility of incompatibility between modularity of mind and memetics.[citation needed] In their view, minds structure certain communicable aspects of the ideas produced, and these communicable aspects generally trigger or elicit ideas in other minds through inference (to relatively rich structures generated from often low-fidelity input) and not high-fidelity replication or imitation. Atran discusses communication involving religious beliefs as a case in point. In one set of experiments he asked religious people to write down on a piece of paper the meanings of the Ten Commandments. Despite the subjects' own expectations of consensus, interpretations of the commandments showed wide ranges of variation, with little evidence of consensus. In another experiment, subjects with autism and subjects without autism interpreted ideological and religious sayings (for example, "Let a thousand flowers bloom" or "To everything there is a season"). People with autism showed a significant tendency to closely paraphrase and repeat content from the original statement (for example: "Don't cut flowers before they bloom"). Controls tended to infer a wider range of cultural meanings with little replicated content (for example: "Go with the flow" or "Everyone should have equal opportunity"). Only the subjects with autism—who lack the degree of inferential capacity normally associated with aspects of theory of mind—came close to functioning as "meme machines".[30]
In his book The Robot's Rebellion, Stanovich uses the memes and memeplex concepts to describe a program of cognitive reform that he refers to as a "rebellion". Specifically, Stanovich argues that the use of memes as a descriptor for cultural units is beneficial because it serves to emphasize transmission and acquisition properties that parallel the study of epidemiology. These properties make salient the sometimes parasitic nature of acquired memes, and as a result individuals should be motivated to reflectively acquire memes using what he calls a "Neurathian bootstrap" process.[31]
Religion
See also: Evolutionary psychology of religion
Although social scientists such as Max Weber sought to understand and explain religion in terms of a cultural attribute, Richard Dawkins called for a re-analysis of religion in terms of the evolution of self-replicating ideas apart from any resulting biological advantages they might bestow.He argued that the role of key replicator in cultural evolution belongs not to genes, but to memes replicating thought from person to person by means of imitation. These replicators respond to selective pressures that may or may not affect biological reproduction or survival.[6]As an enthusiastic Darwinian, I have been dissatisfied with explanations that my fellow-enthusiasts have offered for human behaviour. They have tried to look for 'biological advantages' in various attributes of human civilization. For instance, tribal religion has been seen as a mechanism for solidifying group identity, valuable for a pack-hunting species whose individuals rely on cooperation to catch large and fast prey. Frequently the evolutionary preconception in terms of which such theories are framed is implicitly group-selectionist, but it is possible to rephrase the theories in terms of orthodox gene selection.
In her book The Meme Machine, Susan Blackmore regards religions as particularly tenacious memes. Many of the features common to the most widely practiced religions provide built-in advantages in an evolutionary context, she writes. For example, religions that preach of the value of faith over evidence from everyday experience or reason inoculate societies against many of the most basic tools people commonly use to evaluate their ideas. By linking altruism with religious affiliation, religious memes can proliferate more quickly because people perceive that they can reap societal as well as personal rewards. The longevity of religious memes improves with their documentation in revered religious texts.[12]
Aaron Lynch attributed the robustness of religious memes in human culture to the fact that such memes incorporate multiple modes of meme transmission. Religious memes pass down the generations from parent to child and across a single generation through the meme-exchange of proselytism. Most people will hold the religion taught them by their parents throughout their life. Many religions feature adversarial elements, punishing apostasy, for instance, or demonizing infidels. In Thought Contagion Lynch identifies the memes of transmission in Christianity as especially powerful in scope. Believers view the conversion of non-believers both as a religious duty and as an act of altruism. The promise of heaven to believers and threat of hell to non-believers provide a strong incentive for members to retain their belief. Lynch asserts that belief in the Crucifixion of Jesus in Christianity amplifies each of its other replication advantages through the indebtedness believers have to their Savior for sacrifice on the cross. The image of the crucifixion recurs in religious sacraments, and the proliferation of symbols of the cross in homes and churches potently reinforces the wide array of Christian memes.[15]
Memetic explanations of racism
In Cultural Software: A Theory of Ideology, Jack Balkin argued that memetic processes can explain many of the most familiar features of ideological thought. His theory of "cultural software" maintained that memes form narratives, networks of cultural associations, metaphoric and metonymic models, and a variety of different mental structures. Balkin maintains that the same structures used to generate ideas about free speech or free markets also serve to generate racist beliefs. To Balkin, whether memes become harmful or maladaptive depends on the environmental context in which they exist rather than in any special source or manner to their origination. Balkin describes racist beliefs as "fantasy" memes that become harmful or unjust "ideologies" when diverse peoples come together, as through trade or competition.[32]Internet culture
Main article: Internet meme
The term "Internet meme" refers to a catchphrase or concept that spreads rapidly from person to person via the Internet, largely through Internet-based email, blogs, forums, Imageboards, social networking sites and instant messaging.Meme maps
One technique of meme mapping represents the evolution and transmission of a meme across time and space.[33] Such a meme map uses a figure-8 diagram (an analemma) to map the gestation (in the lower loop), birth (at the choke point), and development (in the upper loop) of the selected meme. Such meme maps are non-scalar, with time mapped onto the y-axis and space onto the x-axis transect. One can read the temporal progress of the mapped meme from south to north on such a meme map. Paull has published a worked example using the "organics meme" (as in organic agriculture).[33]Robertson (2010) [34] used a second technique of meme mapping to create two-dimensional representations of the selves of eleven participants drawn from both individualist and collectivist cultures. Participant narratives were transcribed, segmented and coded using a method similar to grounded theory. Coded segments exhibiting referent, connotative, affective and behavioral dimensions were declared to be memes. Memes that shared connotative, affective or behavioral qualities were linked. All of the maps in Robertson's sample evidenced volition, constancy, uniqueness, production, intimacy, and social interest.
See also
Notes
- ^ a b c d Dawkins, Richard (1989), The Selfish Gene (2 ed.), Oxford University Press, p. 192, ISBN 0-19-286092-5, http://books.google.com/?id=WkHO9HI7koEC&pg=PA192, "We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. 'Mimeme' comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like 'gene'. I hope my classicist friends will forgive me, if I abbreviate mimeme to meme. If it is any consolation, it could alternatively be thought of as being related to 'memory', or to the French word même. It should be pronounced to rhyme with 'cream'."
- ^ Meme, Merriam-Webster Dictionary
- ^ Graham 2002
- ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition, 2000
- ^ Millikan 2004, p. 16; Varieties of meaning "Richard Dawkins invented the term 'memes' to stand for items that are reproduced by imitation rather than reproduced genetically."
- ^ a b c d Dawkins 1989, p. 352
- ^ Kelly & 1994 p.360:"But if we consider culture as its own self organizing system,— a system with its own agenda and pressure to survive— then the history of humanity gets even more interesting. As Richard Dawkins has shown, systems of self-replicating ideas or memes can quickly accumulate their own agenda and behaviours. I assign no higher motive to a cultural entity than the primitive drive to reproduce itself and modify its environment to aid its spread. One way the self organizing system can do this is by consuming human biological resources."
- ^ Heylighen & Chielens 2009
- ^ Semon, Richard Wolfgang (1921), The Mneme, London: George Allen & Unwin
- ^ Laurent, John (1999), "A Note on the Origin of 'Memes'/'Mnemes'", Journal of Memetics 3 (1): 14–19, http://cfpm.org/jom-emit/1999/vol3/laurent_j.html, retrieved 2008-03-17
- ^ Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman. 1973. Models for Cultural Inheritance I. Group Mean and Within Group Variation. Theoretical Population Biology 4, 42-55.
- ^ a b c d e f Blackmore 1999
- ^ a b Blackmore 1998
- ^ Blackmore 1998; "The term 'contagion' is often associated with memetics. We may say that certain memes are contagious, or more contagious than others."
- ^ a b Lynch 1996
- ^ Wilkins, John S. (1998), "What's in a Meme? Reflections from the perspective of the history and philosophy of evolutionary biology", Journal of Memetics 2, http://jom-emit.cfpm.org/
- ^ Wilson 1998
- ^ a b Dennett 1991
- ^ Dawkins 2004
- ^ "Mutation, Selection, And Vertical Transmission Of Theistic Memes In Religious Canons" in Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission, Volume 5, Issue 1, 2001. Online version retrieved 2008-01-27.
- ^ Sterelny & Griffiths 1999; p.333
- ^ Benitez Bribiesca, Luis (January 2001), "Memetics: A dangerous idea" (PDF), Interciencia: Revista de Ciencia y Technologia de América (Venezuela: Asociación Interciencia) 26 (1): 29–31, ISSN 0378-1844, http://redalyc.uaemex.mx/redalyc/pdf/339/33905206.pdf, retrieved 2010-02-11, "If the mutation rate is high and takes place over short periods, as memetics predict, instead of selection, adaptation and survival a chaotic disintegration occurs due to the accumulation of errors."
- ^ Terrence Deacon, "The trouble with memes (and what to do about it)". The Semiotic Review of Books 10(3).
- ^ Kalevi Kull (2000), "Copy versus translate, meme versus sign: development of biological textuality". European Journal for Semiotic Studies 12(1), 101–120.
- ^ Fracchia, Joseph; R C Lewontin (February 2005), "The price of metaphor" (PDF), History and theory (Weleyan University) 44 (44): 14–29, doi:10.1111/j.1468-2303.2005.00305.x, ISSN 0018-2656, http://www.jstor.org/pss/3590779, retrieved 2010-03-28, "The selectionist paradigm requires the reduction of society and culture to inheritance systems that consist of randomly varying, individual units, some of which are selected, and some not; and with society and culture thus reduced to inheritance systems, history can be reduced to "evolution." [...] [W]e conclude that while historical phenomena can always be modeled selectionistically, selectionist explanations do no work, nor do they contribute anything new except a misleading vocabulary that anesthetizes history."
- ^ Dieter Lohmar - "Truth", in Lester Embree, Encyclopedia of phenomenology, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997
- ^ See Edmonds, Bruce (2002-09), "Three Challenges for the Survival of Memetics", Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission 6 (2), http://cfpm.org/jom-emit/2002/vol6/edmonds_b_letter.html, retrieved 2009-02-03
- ^ Aunger 2000
- ^ Poulshock 2002
- ^ Atran 2002
- ^ Stanovich, Keith E. (2004-05-15). The Robot's Rebellion: Finding Meaning in the Age of Darwin (1 ed.). University Of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226770893.
- ^ Balkin 1998
- ^ a b Paull, John (2009), "Meme Maps: A Tool for Configuring Memes in Time and Space", European Journal of Scientific Research 31 (1): 11–18, http://orgprints.org/15752/1/15752.pdf.
- ^ Robertson, Lloyd Hawkeye (2010), "Mapping the self with units of culture", Psychology 1 (3): 185-193, http://www.scirp.org/journal/psych/
References
- Atran, Scott (2002), In gods we trust: the evolutionary landscape of religion, Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-514930-0
- Atran, Scott (2001), "The Trouble with Memes", Human Nature 4 (12), http://sitemaker.umich.edu/satran/files/human_nature_01.pdf
- Aunger, Robert (2000), Darwinizing culture: the status of memetics as a science, Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-263244-2
- Aunger, Robert (2002), The electric meme: a new theory of how we think, New York: Free Press, ISBN 0-7432-0150-7
- Balkin, J. M. (1998), Cultural software: a theory of ideology, New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-07288-0
- Bloom, Howard S. (1997), The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History, Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press (published 1997-02), pp. 480, ISBN 0-87113-664-3
- Blackmore, Susan (1998), "Imitation and the definition of a meme" (PDF), Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission, http://www.baillement.com/texte-blakemore.pdf
- Blackmore, Susan J. (1999), The meme machine, Oxford [Oxfordshire]: Oxford University Press (published 1999-04-08), pp. 288, ISBN 0-19-850365-2 [trade paperback ISBN 0-9658817-8-4 (1999), ISBN 0-19-286212-X (2000)]
- Brodie, Richard (1996), Virus of the mind: the new science of the meme, Seattle, Wash: Integral Press, pp. 251, ISBN 0-9636001-1-7
- Dawkins, Richard (2004), A Devil's Chaplain : Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love, Boston: Mariner Books, pp. 263, ISBN 0-618-48539-2
- Dawkins, Richard (1989), "11. Memes:the new replicators", The Selfish Gene (2nd ed., new ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 368, ISBN 0192177737
- Dennett, Daniel C. (2006), Breaking the Spell, Viking (Penguin), ISBN 0-670-03472-X
- Dennett, Daniel (1991), Consciousness Explained, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., ISBN 0316180653
- Distin, Kate (2005), The selfish meme: a critical reassessment, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 238, ISBN 0-521-60627-6
- Farnish, Keith (2009), Time's Up! An Uncivilized Solution To A Global Crisis, Totnes: Green Books, pp. 256, ISBN 190032248X
- Graham, Gordon (2002), Genes: a philosophical inquiry, New York: Routledge, pp. 196, ISBN 0-415-25257-1
- Henson, H. Keith: "Evolutionary Psychology, Memes and the Origin of War."
- Henson, H. Keith: "Sex, Drugs, and Cults. An evolutionary psychology perspective on why and how cult memes get a drug-like hold on people, and what might be done to mitigate the effects", The Human Nature Review 2002 Volume 2: 343-355
- Heylighen, Francis; Chielens, K. (2009), "Evolution of Culture, Memetics", in Meyers, B., Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science, Springer, http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/Memetics-Springer.pdf
- Ingold, T (2000), "The poverty of selectionism", Anthropology Today 16 (3).
- Heylighen, Francis, (1992) : "Selfish Memes and the Evolution of Cooperation", Journal of Ideas vol. 2, no. 4, pp, 77–84.
- Jan, Steven: The Memetics of Music: A Neo-Darwinian View of Musical Structure and Culture (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007)
- Kelly, Kevin (1994), Out of control: the new biology of machines, social systems and the economic world, Boston: Addison-Wesley, pp. 360, ISBN 0-201-48340-8
- Lynch, Aaron (1996), Thought contagion: how belief spreads through society, New York: BasicBooks, pp. 208, ISBN 0-465-08467-2
- Millikan, Ruth G. (2004), Varieties of meaning: the 2002 Jean Nicod lectures, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, pp. 242, ISBN 0-262-13444-6
- Post, Stephen Garrard; Underwood, Lynn G; Schloss, Jeffrey P Garrard (2002), Altruism & Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy, & Religion in Dialogue, Oxford University Press US, pp. 500, ISBN 0195143582
- Moritz, Elan. (1995): "Metasystems, Memes and Cybernetic Immortality," in: Heylighen F., Joslyn C. & Turchin V. (eds.), The Quantum of Evolution. Toward a theory of metasystem transitions, (Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, New York) (special issue of World Futures: the journal of general evolution, vol. 45, p. 155-171).
- Poulshock, Joseph (2002), "The Problem and Potential of Memetics", Journal of Psychology and Theology (Rosemead School of Psychology, Gale Group (2004)): 68+
- Sterelny, Kim; Griffiths, Paul E. (1999), Sex and death: an introduction to philosophy of biology, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 456, ISBN 0-226-77304-3
- Wilson, Edward O. (1998), Consilience: the unity of knowledge, New York: Knopf, pp. 352, ISBN 0-679-45077-7
External links
 | Look up meme in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
- Dawkins' speech on the 30th anniversary of the publication of The Selfish Gene, Dawkins 2006
- "Evolution and Memes: The human brain as a selective imitation device": article by Susan Blackmore.
- Godwin, Mike. "Meme, Counter-meme". Wired. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/godwin.if_pr.html. Retrieved 2009-11-05.
- Journal of Memetics, a peer-refereed journal of memetics published from 1997 until 2005
- Susan Blackmore: Memes and "temes", TED Talks February 2008
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