RE: virus: Virus: Sociological Change

zaimoni@ksu.edu
Thu, 12 Dec 1996 09:35:16 -0600 (CST)


On Fri, 29 Nov 1996, Schneider John wrote:

> Drakir wrote:

> > I also think that the law is not an accurate representation of
> > the people's will. For example, although there are now "equal
> > rights" bills passed through parliament, it is obvious that
> > there are still many people who do not respect that law. There
> > are still racists, sexists, etc out there, not obeying such laws.
> > These memes, therefor, have not been killed successfully by the
> > making of law. How can these memes be mutated, or eliminated,
> > to ensure harmony?
>
> This question is big... bigger than me. The only answer I can
> give is the obvious one: work to make "desire for social harmony"
> the most dominant meme around, then link inarguably the 'racist'
> and 'sexist' memes to "social discord": everybody should then
> give them up. (Ah - for a perfect world!)
>
> Keep in mind that sexism and racism seem to fall naturally out
> of the "selfish gene" theory, and should thus be quite hard to
> kill, short of building a raceless, sexless society.

Chauvinism can be viewed as a cultural adaptation to two circumstances:
1) Human biology.
2) Limited warfare.

Limited warfare has been less of a factor in the [early to mid] 20th
century, so the selective pressures for a chauvinist culture have been
weakened in that time period.

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