----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Edgar <rjedgar@edgar9931.freeserve.co.uk>
To: <moq_discuss@moq.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2000 10:05 PM
Subject: RE: MD MEMES
So just to clarify, i don't think the intellect is preoccupied with society,
quite the opposite, i think intellect completely ignores society and is
simply going about its own business of making society redundant.
Hi Richard,
In my opinion anyway, I think you outline in your post what happens now-
adays in modern democracies.
That is Intellect = Politics = Avant-Garde = Aristocratic
Social = Ethnical = Kitch = Masses
Let me explain,
There are 2 definitions to call humans One people
1_ political definition, the Will of different folks to live together in a
commu-
nity. In your case, Laws are here " Intellectualy " made, all the
differences
between people are blot out, Equality is here the cornerstone.
2_ the ethnical definition, the Volksgeist, what lives as tradition, beliefs
and
habits among the people.
In your case, Social, the Masses.
The ' problem ' you seem to evocate is IMO not that Intellect ignores
society, but that society is making herself redundant due to the Intellect
which she applies for going about her business.
de Tocqeville:- People want their freedom, but on the other hand people
are following all the others. Man can 't reject the one and the other and
therefor he ties himself in knots to satisfied both notions.
So man invented a centralised powersystem and as a palliative man comfort
himself with the thought he has chosen his own lectures.
People, here the Masses, are stupid and utterly narrow minded. For the
sake, as they see it, of Equality they place a Intellectual System above
it all ( Politics) by which " they " rule what the community really wants.
But, like de Tocqeville said 200 years ago and you do mention, the Intellect
makes everything and everybody equal in such a way that noone is more
than one other. What is left is a society like ours today, the Intellect is
running loose with no one to guide it but herself.
The problems of such societies are found on the narrow margian between
Intellect and Social, between Avant- garde and Kitch, between what we
could call the High Culture and the Low Culture.
Those divisions are found throughout society and on every level.
To solve the problem, as I see it, we need to give the individual a new
and fundamental bias wherein both, that is Avant- garde and Kitch are
combined.
That is, in a sense is each of us a fundamentalist...that is we are
searching
for a fundament by which we can express " That is I ".
Nowadays, the fundaments are religion, nation, color of our skin, belief,
work, social class, nationality, ethical values,...etc.
Those are struggeling with the individual for support.
The solution for those never ending conflicts consist in giving the
individual
a fundament that is really its own, that is the fundament of the individual
is
HIMSELF and that is for everybody the SAME.
Now, in such a concept, everybody rests upon next to eachother on the
same fundament, that is his/ hers very own INDIVIDUALITY.
There is no longer a difference between subjects just because everybody
is his/ hers very own fundament.
But the most importance aspect is of course that the division between
Intellect and Kitch is lifted... WHATEVER and EVERYTHING can be
the highest sign of someone his/ hers individual freedom, without the social
urge to lift that to a collective level.
But such experiments are for the future....but already part of our
democratic
thinking...
What I see in memetics, is that IMO, it can act as the bias whereout we
can drawn our INDIVIDUALITY, and secondly, I believe memetics can
act as the bias for such a society as mentioned as above.
I believe that memetics can act as the bias for a new philosophy and why
not as the very basic for a new metaphysics.
Just a thought,
Best regards,
Kenneth
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