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At 11:26 AM 2/1/01 -0800, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>I like seeing this term
"meme" show up on the list. I first ran across it in Art
Kleiners book "The Age of The Heretics." He said it is a term
coined by Geneticist Richard Dawkins, referring to the "Secular
Millennium" a time when a fervent aspiration of Millenarians emerged
in the twelfth century and came to be known as the "brethren of the
free spirit.. And that a meme is a cultural element such as an idea, that
replicates itself, moving through conversation and media through cultural
forms of natural selection, acquiring new traits as it evolves. The
Agora all over again?</blockquote><br>
You are right -- meme (pronounced meeme to rhyme with gene) is the
invention of Richard Dawkins in his 1974 book, "The Selfish
Gene." Dawkins tossed it in almost as a throw-away when he started
speculating about the cultural equivalent of genetic transmission. So the
proper definition of a meme is a unit of cultural transmission, which
might vary in size from the first three notes of a Beethoven
Symphony (The 5th?) to the story of Christianity. I found the notion
curious and appealing, if only because it apparently related to work that
I had been doing since the early '60s in which I had characterized myth
and ritual as the DNA of culture. If you are interested in such arcane
esoterica you might check out my last book "The Power of
Spirit." And for an earlier and more scholarly treatment, my first
book, "Spirit: Transformation and Development in Organizations
(1987). That is no longer in print, but I have put the relevant material
on the web at www.openspaceworld.com in the section marked
<i>Papers</i>.<br>
<br>
Since 1974, a whole mess of folks have taken up the notion of memes in an
attempt to refine and extend the thought. I find it all very interesting,
but I am not sure what the practical application might be. Personally, I
still like fussing about with myth, ritual -- and of course stories.
Which in the current nomenclature are all memes. <br>
<br>
Harrison <br>
<br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
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Harrison Owen<br>
7808 River Falls Drive<br>
Potomac, MD 20854 USA<br>
phone 301-469-9269<br>
fax 301-983-9314<br>
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com <br>
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org<br>
Personal website www.mindspring.com/~owenhh<br>
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