Outsourcing a discussion on memes, marketing and other fun stuff.

[Cain]

Chaos Marxists kicked off the discussion here: http://chaosmarxism.blogspot.com/2008/11/morality-of-marketing.html

Extract: 

You do not have an autonomous mind - you are an expression of the totality of human culture, especially in this cosmopolitan intarwebz era. Therefore, the question of the morality of marketing, propaganda, language-based thought control, call it what they will, cannot be boiled down to the question of "messing with someone's head" - we all do that, in a way, every day. There is only one human cultural mind which our individual consciousness refract in different ways. So, the question of the morality of marketing is a question of to what greater social end the meme is being spread (whether for the continued rise of collective consciousness, or to keep people ignorant so the savvy can profit from them); as well as whether the techniques used foster or retard trust and social cohesion, on balance.

And I responded here http://episkoposcain.wordpress.com/2008/12/06/cui-bono/

But aside from this transgressive act, Foucault mentions another way in which this 'concrete freedom' could be approached.  By approaching freedom from the definition of the potential to change, from this particular point of view of:

active self-fashioning, 'those intentional and voluntary actions by which men [...] seek to transform themselves, to change themselves in their singular being, and to make their life into an oeuvre that carries certain aesthetic values and meets certain stylistic criteria'.

can we work that into a memetic framework, ignoring the problems of aesthetic values for now?  I think it is possible.  I am of course familiar with the concept of paradigm piracy, and think perhaps the systematic version of this may play a role.

To extend the virological metaphor, we can think of ideas and memes like viruses.  In fact, it seems that the spread of information and diseases share certain characteristics, so perhaps this isn't such a large metaphorical leap at all.  And how do you gain immunity to diseases?  Through vaccination, most frequently weak exposure or exposure to a similar disease which stimulates the immunological system.  In terms of memes, I would suggest this does not mean one is less likely to pick up a certain meme (the only method I can envisage for that is locking oneself tightly within a memeplex which distrusts all other memes and also controls what communications one is permitted to be exposed to - such as certain versions of fundamentalist Christianity) but that this memeplex would be easier to' switch out of', that one could change identities and outlook.

This isn't the same as discarding the meme, per se, only relegating or repressing it for a while, as another group of memes take over.

Dolares responded:

Seriously, to continue your "vaccination" metaphor - how would we go about generalising this? The idea that every single person has to find Their Own Special Snowflake Way To Freedom and Enlightenment has the reeking taint of that subsection of memes whose only purpose is to make sure that nothing ever fundamentally changes.

I replied:

A good question, and one of the nagging issues that made me draw back from this until I had re-thought some aspects of it.

As I understand it, we "choose" which memes we respond to through repetition and feedback loops. The quicker the feedback loop, the more positive the feedback, the more ingrained the meme becomes. Equally, the more negative feedback to the meme in question, the less ingrained this meme is. Stress is also an important factor, adding psychological significance to a certain meme.

Without wanting to sound like a technological fetishist, it could be that the internet in particular allows for the former much more effectively (positive ingraining) whereas other forms of media (for instance reading a book on your own) doesn't necessarily allow for that feedback. The internet is not so good for the stress aspect, flame wars aside, but as crossovers from internet to meatspace interaction, such as with political action coordinated via social networking sites, increase in number and tactics, it has the potential for it.

Something else that occured to me as I was throwing boxes around the house a few moments ago was that meta-ideological criticism could be one method of vaccination. By introducing the meme in the context of critical examination, its the difference between taking apart a virus in lab conditions and allowing oneself to be exposed to it in the wild.

But equally, while one can examine a logical chain of cause and event stemming from critical examination, its not the same as seeing the effects of the meme (or countering he meme) in action. It doesn't add stress to the event. To that end, perhaps a degree of tactical innovation in dissecting the meme is necessary?

Is that the kind of generalization you were after? I have to apologize, my head hasn't really been in a philosophical frame of mind lately, which is why I have mostly left this alone until I have another streak of "inspiration", or whatever it is which gets me thinking and writing about stuff like this.

Feel free to discuss.

[LMNO]

Not to get into too much horn tooting, but I think this is what I was trying to get at in this rant/excerpt: http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=18809.0

I think the ideas of vaccination and dissection are good metaphors, too.

[Reginald Ret]

fascinating.
i have nothing to add.
i can not brain today.