From: John Jurgens (squooker@mweb.co.za)
Date: Sat May 25 2002 - 11:33:48 MDT
Blackwater, Sat 2002/05/25 05:27, PM Re:virus: Digimortals
[Blunderov]
I sympathise with you sentiments to some extent - sometimes it seems to
me that people feel unfulfilled unless their lives resemble a soap opera
- but I'm not entirely sure that I would have enjoyed living in Plato's
Republic!
Fashion is an example of a quickly propagated, but short-acting meme.
Fashion is, it seems to me, all about display. Display is usually
associated with mating behaviour. I maybe wrong about this, but from my
observation, the fashion meme is most prevalent amongst the youth.
Youths, as may be readily ascertained, are generally quite keen to gain
acceptance in the mating-game and also have the most to prove.
Conversely the meme appears to be relatively sparsely found amongst
those who consider themselves to be no longer fully sexually active.
Throughout nature one can observe how important, nay imperative, it is
to make an impressive display. Why should we be any different?
With regard to television, the media, and advertising; it is my feeling
that nothing is going on here that hasn't been going on since the time
that mankind started grouping together in large communities, namely and
to whit, the babble of the marketplace! A noisy babble I grant you, and
one that prefers rhetoric to reason, but some would argue that if one is
going to frequent marketplaces it is meet to have an idea of what's
available.
You wrote:
<snip>
It is all part of a grand plan to control the masses:
<snap>
[Blunderov]
Errr, perhaps this is not the main point that you are making, but
nevertheless it is such an astonishing assertion that I have to ask you
exactly what you meant? Is this a figure of speech, or are you seriously
suggesting that there is some sort of elite that has the ability to make
dispositions of global consequence without attracting the suspicions of
any but a canny few?
You also wrote
<snip>
The everyday standards become a sad reflection of television, what the
men and women of television wear, say, do, and express, how they talk,
behave, act and look becomes the foundation of our new ideals, the
common ideals, the 'right' ideals...
<snap>
[Blunderov]I think I agree with you, partly. There is some horrible
stuff out there. But in a more general sense, has it not always been
thus? On many an ancient evening, to borrow Henry Miller's title, around
many an ancient fire, tales were told of ideal heroes and evil villains.
Perhaps the stories then were better, and better told than now, but the
pop-up values were no less present surely?
Warm Regards
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