It would be nice to think, as Nate suggested, that the meme representing
blind adherence to authority is now so discredited that the story no longer
shocks.
More likely the discussion just got off on the wrong foot and people went
another way with it. This happens in seminars from time to time. I think
it's just a function of the probabilistics of group dynamics. If the same
thing happens the next two years it might be noteworthy.
(By the way, I also was taught "The Lottery" in junior high school and
remember it as not too interesting compared to "The Most Dangerous Game,"
most anything by Roald Dahl, or much of the science fiction I had been
reading on my own.)
Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie
Author, "Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme"
http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/votm.htm
Visit Meme Central! http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/meme.htm
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com]On Behalf
Of Lena Rotenberg
Sent: Sunday, May 31, 1998 12:41 PM
To: virus@lucifer.com
Subject: virus: Cultural relativism meme
Students Who Won't Decry Evil -- a Case of Too Much Tolerance?
By Kay Haugaard. _The Chronicle of Higher Education_, 97/06/27, page B4.
Available at http://lonestar.texas.net/~mseifert/lottery.html
I wonder if anybody else on this list reacts to this essay as I did.
Beginning to think that the devil indeed exists. S(he) is us.
lena
-- Lena Rotenberg lrr@netkonnect.net