[Lokutus]

A couple of years ago, I developed an interest in memes after reading Jeff Vail's book A Theory of Power. I began thinking about how one might go about developing a new meme for post-PO collapse civilization. Like Vail, I believe that we are in the current mess because the wrong memes control our behaviors. While these memes may have made sense long ago, they no longer do so. This interest in memes led to research into the subject.

The best explanation of how a meme grabs ahold of your mind and doesn't let go is provided by this ten-page essay found online.

The Mind Virus
Ideas behaving in society like viruses in the body
Link to article

The article deals with the Xianity meme which is arguably the most powerful meme in history. The essay is based on a book by a different author. The meat of the essay consists of the seven mind control mechanisms or "games" employed by this meme to make people both accept it--and never question it.

Here are two of the seven:

Burning of bridges is the sixth mind game.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')ot being able to go back is a way of keeping the converted from abandoning the conversion to second thoughts. We see evidence of this mind game all through the New Testament; Jesus saying that he will divide families, he has come with a sword, etc.

The burning of bridges among groups of Christians is done by binding the believers together so tightly that they cannot easily leave, though care is taken to ensure that paths remain open so others can easily join. Here is where evangelical Christianity resembles cult religions more than anywhere else; the Christian invites others to join by paying lip service to listening to them (while carefully filtering out any 'dangerous' ideas the infidel may present), and appearing to be friendly, loving and caring. It never occurs to the believer how, in filtering out dangerous ideas, the presentation of a listening facade represents a dishonest act. The higher good of "bringing in the harvest" is appealed to, with the belief that somehow, lying for Jesus through the facade one presents, is somehow not wrong.

In the mind of the believer, the bridges are burned by the doctrine of blasphemy. The tool of fear is imposed to make the believer fear that if he should reject the doctrine, he would have blasphemed against the holy spirit, and in so doing would be consigned to hell forever and ever. It is this fear of the greatest of sins that burns the bridge. The believer can't turn back, because doing so would consign him to hell.

A very effective technique used to bind believers together against the threat of blasphemy is the "false prophets" threat. If the believer should fall under the spell of a false prophet, he is doomed again to be consigned to hell. This keeps the believer in the circle, depending on using others to verify his understanding, and preventing him from straying from the "truth."

Again, there are many other examples that space here does not permit to be quoted.

[Z]

The meme meme is stupid. If it was so simple, why is that the communist 'meme' took a blow while the capitalist 'meme' flourish ? Wasn't it because it was more adapted to reality ? That it was selected because it is more efficient in achieving economic properity ?

Using the virus image is wrong. It looks more like natural selection. Of course not for someone bent on blaming religion for everything wrong that has ever happened. How many dead people in the Vietnam war ? Was it due to religion ?.

[Novus]

If you want to read a good book about memes try Ismael by Daniel Quinn.

He talks about the preverted memes of our "Mother Culture." His ten Laws of Nature are probably the best set of memes I have ever read.

http://peakoil.blogspot.com/2005/10/boo ... quinn.html

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Z', 'T')he meme meme is stupid. If it was so simple, why is that the communist 'meme' took a blow while the capitalist 'meme' flourish ? Wasn't it because it was more adapted to reality ? That it was selected because it is more efficient in achieving economic properity ?

Using the virus image is wrong. It looks more like natural selection. Of course not for someone bent on blaming religion for everything wrong that has ever happened. How many dead people in the Vietnam war ? Was it due to religion ?.

[NEOPO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Z', 'T')he meme meme is stupid. If it was so simple, why is that the communist 'meme' took a blow while the capitalist 'meme' flourish ? Wasn't it because it was more adapted to reality ? That it was selected because it is more efficient in achieving economic properity ?

Using the virus image is wrong. It looks more like natural selection. Of course not for someone bent on blaming religion for everything wrong that has ever happened. How many dead people in the Vietnam war ? Was it due to religion ?.

[Lokutus]

The Bible's Origins

[Lokutus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Z', 'T')he meme meme is stupid. If it was so simple, why is that the communist 'meme' took a blow while the capitalist 'meme' flourish ? Wasn't it because it was more adapted to reality ? That it was selected because it is more efficient in achieving economic properity ?

Using the virus image is wrong. It looks more like natural selection. Of course not for someone bent on blaming religion for everything wrong that has ever happened. How many dead people in the Vietnam war ? Was it due to religion ?.

[Lokutus]

Scary shit this: the meme is infecting our military and police.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Chris Hedges: America’s Holy Warrior

By Chris Hedges

Editor’s note: The former New York Times Mideast Bureau chief warns that the radical Christian right is coming dangerously close to its goal of co-opting the country’s military and law enforcement.

The drive by the Christian right to take control of military chaplaincies, which now sees radical Christians holding roughly 50 percent of chaplaincy appointments in the armed services and service academies, is part of a much larger effort to politicize the military and law enforcement. This effort signals the final and perhaps most deadly stage in the long campaign by the radical Christian right to dismantle America’s open society and build a theocratic state. A successful politicization of the military would signal the end of our democracy.

[Lokutus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lokutus', 'S')cary shit this: the meme is infecting our military and police.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Chris Hedges: America’s Holy Warrior

[evilgenius]

So, what meme do the members of the conservative cabal of Old Bush, New Bush, Cheney, Rummie, Condi, Newtie, J Baker and assorted at the pentagon and such hold to? Come on, you know there is one. There is a central thesis holding together their thoughts and actions. They do think alike even though they don't communicate with each other, conspiracy theories aside, to acheive it.

No, capitalism isn't strictly what it is. If it were they would welcome a truly market oriented solution to the world's problems. Instead they have their hands in all the world's major markets trying to ensure an outcome that services what meme?

It sounds like an America Worship thing. One with an unwritten book. One that doesn't mind whoring if it suits their loose idea of maintaining supremacy.

Scary thing is they could be like the hunter of power referred to by Carlos Castenada (sic) in his books about Don Juan the Jaqui sorcerer. DJ said, the hunter is successful because he knows the routines of his prey while he himself has no routines.

[Lokutus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('evilgenius', 'S')o, what meme do the members of the conservative cabal of Old Bush, New Bush, Cheney, Rummie, Condi, Newtie, J Baker and assorted at the pentagon and such hold to? Come on, you know there is one.

[Lokutus]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lokutus', '
')
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '#') Comment #45112 by Dianne C. Foster on 1/02 at 7:13 pm

Here’s another way to look at it: opportunity for big burly men who have nothing else to do in the American society their immigrant and pioneer ancestors once built with their muscle. We have no heavy industry to speak of. This is not, like China, an up and coming place.

The prayer groups, I heard, got started in Texas to salvage the spirits of the men who were ruined when the oil industry went largely overseas.

Raising a son who is descended from generations of manual laborers whose genes are evident in his football player build, I can see that his main form of socializing (at college and with his high school friends at home), is in the “pack”. The founders of the Boy Scouts understood this well.

Nature does not wait for us to find useful work and high aspirations for young men. If we don’t lay the groundwork of society properly --- you will get this, as well as the constant gang warfare in ghettoes, and the anarchy in the mess that is Iraq.

The short-term need is to decommission these illegal mercenaries and never allow them to “cross the Rubicon” again, as they did in New Orleans. And for God’s sake stop funding them.

As for the sky salesmen, they always do great business in unequal times, but even greater business in depressions. If it ever comes to that, we are in for it.

You can also see that the Northeast is kind of hollowed out as a moral force anymore, and the sunbelt cultures prevail. There are a lot of drifting people who may be looking for an identity these days. Not to speak of better pay than the conventional military offers. You’ve got a drift from the Deep South traditional values to the more materialistic ones of the sunbelt. The traditional rivals (North and South) may still be heard in the Senate, but in the real world, it’s a new ballgame.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lokutus', '.')..Back in the 1970s, anthropologist Lionel Tiger talked about the importance of keeping young males gainfully employed. He believed this to be of paramount importance for an orderly peaceful society. Why? Well, because they will trash the place, as Tiger put it, if they are left without economic hope. This is a large part of the problem in Iraq. Many young males have no option but to join the local chapter of the insurgency.

[NEOPO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Zardoz', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lokutus', '.')..Back in the 1970s, anthropologist Lionel Tiger talked about the importance of keeping young males gainfully employed. He believed this to be of paramount importance for an orderly peaceful society. Why? Well, because they will trash the place, as Tiger put it, if they are left without economic hope. This is a large part of the problem in Iraq. Many young males have no option but to join the local chapter of the insurgency.

[evilgenius]

Interesting point about the unemployed. That is the solution in Iraq, except that building a real economic base involves giving the Iraqis the use of their own oil. The Bushies cannot allow that at any cost.

Imagine if all of the oil rich states wanted to follow the example of a diversified economy and use their own oil first in order to make things more cheaply and gain competitive advantage over the rest of the world. There simply isn't enough oil produced or capable of being produced per day to support such a scheme. Not and maintain the supremacy of the West.

Democracy my ass. What we are doing is deliberately creating failure. At the right time we will attempt to come in and pick up the pieces and hand them over to the Saudis. The Saudis know how to maintain Western supremacy!

[Lokutus]

bump for armegeddon