People say that part of a person's makeup is due to their environment (nature vs. nurture).
Talking about "memes" (cultural units of information that get passed on from one brain to another): The idea behind memes are vague. What kind of culture? What kind of units? How does information fit in? How does this get passed on?
Sociologists talk about certain types of cultures-- their values, norms, rituals, etc. If a meme is a unit which can be described by the type of culture (working class meme, middle class meme... upper class, drug-culture, criminal element, for example); then, the type of information would be expressions of values, norms, etc.; and the means of transmission might be environmental.
I had the privilege of moving quickly up the cultural ladder in a certain town. I grew through the illusions that people put up about their town (people are caught in sub-cultures-- groups, teams, cliques, etc. and these groups present perspectives that aren't in line with the overall culture... or else they would just be representative of the overall community rather than divided groups).
Breaking through outward appearances, I was shocked at the corrupt nature of what is surely a "generic" community (Maybe a macro-culture reflecting the ideology of democratic-capitalism?).
How is it that groups who are not empowered by the overall culture rise to positions of power (what methods must they use to get power from a culture which, if it were known, do not support their specific aims)?
>From a developmental perspective: How do these groups get their
start... from a particular individual (a person whose aims were not met
by his immediate sub-culture)? Are the negative (corrupt) elements of a
community part of the psychological makeup of a particular historical
individual's rise to power?
Just some observations and some questions I think are interesting.
Brett Lane Robertson
Indiana, USA
http://www.window.to/mindrec
MindRecreation Metaphysical Assn.
BIO: http://members.theglobe.com/bretthay
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