4 ms·
Great discussion. Institutions have to deal with continuous changes over long time spans. Most are “made for their time” and thus cannot survive when the deviat
by cobbzilla 7y ago
Great discussion. Institutions have to deal with continuous changes over long time spans. Most are “made for their time” and thus cannot survive when the deviations are big enough.
Memes can survive way longer than institutions. Here’s some memes that have been with us since the paleolithic: gathering around a fire at night to tell stories; fear of spiders; smiles, hugs and kisses. Any others that are as old or older?
- sova 7y agoThat's quite a loose characterization of the word meme. Campfires predate the Internet by about a million years. but on this note you do bring up an interesting point about archetypal action and behavioral psychology. an old girlfriend of mine explained to me once that kissing is suspected to come from bird moms feeding bird babies. Other things that are very significant are simply sharing a meal. (Break bread together) did you know that a blind person will put their hands up into the sky victoriously when they win the race even without ever having seen another human being do it? some of the nature of your interested in is more innate than can be known by the eye alone.
- cobbzilla 7y agoA meme is a unit of cultural transmission. At some point long ago, humans did not have these behaviors, they were not innate, they were learned and continuously passed on to the present day. I hope you don’t think memes are limited to pictures with some witty text on them.
- knolax 7y agoIt used to be that you could mention the word meme in the Dawkinsian sense without it being conflated with funny internet pictures. Ironically, the concept of a meme is itself a very weak meme.