IRC-Galleria

INTRODUCTION: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_dennett_on_dangerous_memes.html
2: http://pizzaseo.blogspot.com/2008/12/memetics-open-questions.html

Memetic Lexicon

Author: Glenn Grant 1990
HTMLized by Anders Sandberg 1994
Altered and expanded by David McFadzean 1995-1999
Translated to spanish by José Mª Filgueiras 2000


AUTO-TOXIC: Dangerous to itself. Highly auto-toxic memes are usually self-limiting because they promote the destruction of their hosts (such as the Jim Jones meme; any military indoctrination meme-complex; any "martyrdom" meme). (GMG) (See exo-toxic.)

BAIT: The part of a meme-complex that promises to benefit the host (usually in return for replicating the complex). The bait usually justifies, but does not explicitly urge, the replication of a meme-complex. (Donald Going, quoted by Hofstadter.) Also called the reward co-meme. (In many religions, "Salvation" is the bait, or promised reward; "Spread the Word" is the hook. Other common bait co-memes are "Eternal Bliss", "Security", "Prosperity", "Freedom".) (See hook; threat; infection strategy.)

BELIEF-SPACE: Since a person can only be infected with and transmit a finite number of memes, there is a limit to their belief space (Henson). Memes evolve in competition for niches in the belief-space of individuals and societies.

CENSORSHIP: Any attempt to hinder the spread of a meme by eliminating its vectors. Hence, censorship is analogous to attempts to halt diseases by spraying insecticides. Censorship can never fully kill off an offensive meme, and may actually help to promote the meme's most virulent strain, while killing off milder forms.

CO-MEME: A meme which has symbiotically co-evolved with other memes, to form a mutually-assisting meme-complex. Also called a symmeme. (GMG)

CULT : A sociotype of an auto-toxic meme-complex, composed of membots and/or memeoids. (GMG) Characteristics of cults include: self-isolation of the infected group (or at least new recruits); brainwashing by repetitive exposure (inducing dependent mental states); genetic functions discouraged (through celibacy, sterilization, devalued family) in favor of replication (proselytizing); and leader-worship ("personality cult"). (Henson.)

DORMANT: Currently without human hosts. The ancient Egyptian hieroglyph system and the Gnostic Gospels are examples of "dead" schemes which lay dormant for millennia in hidden or untranslatable texts, waiting to re-activate themselves by infecting modern archeologists. Some obsolete memes never become entirely dormant, such as Phlogiston theory, which simply mutated from a "belief" into a "quaint historical footnote."

EARWORM: "A tune or melody which infects a population rapidly." (Rheingold); a hit song. (Such as: "Don't Worry, Be Happy".) (f. German, ohrwurm=earworm.)

EXO-TOXIC: Dangerous to others. Highly exo-toxic memes promote the destruction of persons other than their hosts, particularly those who are carriers of rival memes. (Such as: Nazism, the Inquisition, Pol Pot.) (See meme-allergy.) (GMG)

HISTAMEME: See vaccime. (Morgan)

HOOK : The part of a meme-complex that urges replication. The hook is often most effective when it is not an explicit statement, but a logical consequence of the meme's content. (Hofstadter) (See bait, threat.)

HOST : A person who has been successfully infected by a meme. See infection, membot, memeoid.

IDEOSPHERE: The realm of memetic evolution, as the biosphere is the realm of biological evolution. The entire memetic ecology. (Hofstadter.) The health of an ideosphere can be measured by its memetic diversity.

IMMUNO-DEPRESSANT: Anything that tends to reduce a person's memetic immunity. Common immuno-depressants are: travel, disorientation, physical and emotional exhaustion, insecurity, emotional shock, loss of home or loved ones, future shock, culture shock, isolation stress, unfamiliar social situations, certain drugs, loneliness, alienation, paranoia, repeated exposure, respect for Authority, escapism, and hypnosis (suspension of critical judgment). Recruiters for cults often target airports and bus terminals because travelers are likely to be subject to a number of these immuno-depressants. (GMG) (See cult.)

IMMUNO-MEME: See vaccime. (GMG)

INFECTION: 1. Successful encoding of a meme in the memory of a human being. A memetic infection can be either active or inactive. It is inactive if the host does not feel inclined to transmit the meme to other people. An active infection causes the host to want to infect others. Fanatically active hosts are often membots or memeoids. A person who is exposed to a meme but who does not remember it (consciously or otherwise) is not infected. (A host can indeed be unconsciously infected, and even transmit a meme without conscious awareness of the fact. Many societal norms are transmitted this way.) (GMG)

2. Some memeticists have used `infection' as a synonym for `belief' (i.e. only believers are infected, non-believers are not). However, this usage ignores the fact that people often transmit memes they do not "believe in." Songs, jokes, and fantasies are memes which do not rely on "belief" as an infection strategy.

INFECTION STRATEGY: Any memetic strategy which encourages infection of a host. Jokes encourage infection by being humorous, tunes by evoking various emotions, slogans and catch-phrases by being terse and continuously repeated. Common infection strategies are "Villain vs. victim", "Fear of Death", and "Sense of Community". In a meme-complex, the bait co-meme is often central to the infection strategy. (See replication strategy; mimicry.) (GMG)

MEMBOT: A person whose entire life has become subordinated to the propagation of a meme, robotically and at any opportunity. (Such as many Jehovah's Witnesses, Krishnas, and Scientologists.) Due to internal competition, the most vocal and extreme membots tend to rise to top of their sociotype's hierarchy. A self-destructive membot is a memeoid. (GMG)

MEME: (pron. `meem') A contagious information pattern that replicates by symbiotically infecting human minds and altering their behavior, causing them to propagate the pattern. (Term coined by Dawkins, by analogy with "gene".) Individual slogans, catch-phrases, melodies, icons, inventions, and fashions are typical memes. An idea or information pattern is not a meme until it causes someone to replicate it, to repeat it to someone else. All transmitted knowledge is memetic. (Wheelis, quoted in Hofstadter.) (See meme-complex).

MEME-ALLERGY: A form of intolerance; a condition which causes a person to react in an unusually extreme manner when exposed to a specific semiotic stimulus, or `meme-allergen.' Exo-toxic meme-complexes typically confer dangerous meme-allergies on their hosts. Often, the actual meme-allergens need not be present, but merely perceived to be present, to trigger a reaction. Common meme-allergies include homophobia, paranoid anti-Communism, and porno phobia. Common forms of meme-allergic reaction are censorship, vandalism, belligerent verbal abuse, and physical violence. (GMG)

MEME-COMPLEX: A set of mutually-assisting memes which have co-evolved a symbiotic relationship. Religious and political dogmas, social movements, artistic styles, traditions and customs, chain letters, paradigms, languages, etc. are meme-complexes. Also called an m-plex, or scheme (Hofstadter). Types of co-memes commonly found in a scheme are called the: bait; hook; threat; and vaccime. A successful scheme commonly has certain attributes: wide scope (a paradigm that explains much); opportunity for the carriers to participate and contribute; conviction of its self-evident truth (carries Authority); offers order and a sense of place, helping to stave off the dread of meaninglessness. (Wheelis, quoted by Hofstadter.)

MEMEOID, or MEMOID: A person "whose behavior is so strongly influenced by a [meme] that their own survival becomes inconsequential in their own minds." (Henson) (Such as: Kamikazes, Shiite terrorists, Jim Jones followers, any military personnel). hosts and membots are not necessarily memeoids. (See auto-toxic; exo-toxic.)

MEMEPLEX: See meme-complex.

MEME POOL: The full diversity of memes accessible to a culture or individual. Learning languages and traveling are methods of expanding one's meme pool.

MEMETIC: Related to memes.

MEMETIC DRIFT: Accumulated mis-replications; (the rate of) memetic mutation or evolution. Written texts tend to slow the memetic drift of dogmas (Henson).

MEMETIC ENGINEER: One who consciously devises memes, through meme-splicing and memetic synthesis, with the intent of altering the behavior of others. Writers of manifestos and of commercials are typical memetic engineers. (GMG)

MEMETICIST: 1. One who studies memetics. 2. A memetic engineer. (GMG)

MEMETICS: The study of memes and their social effects.

MEMOTYPE: 1. The actual information-content of a meme, as distinct from its sociotype.

2. A class of similar memes. (GMG)

META-MEME: Any meme about memes (such as: "tolerance", "metaphor").

META-MEME, the: The concept of memes, considered as a meme itself.

MILLENNIAL MEME, the: Any of several currently-epidemic memes which predict catastrophic events for the year 2000, including the battle of Armageddon, the Rapture, the thousand-year reign of Jesus, etc. The "Imminent New Age" meme is simply a pan-denominational version of this. (Also called the `Endmeme.')

MIMICRY: An infection strategy in which a meme attempts to imitate the semiotics of another successful meme. Such as: pseudo-science (Creationism, UFOlogy); pseudo-rebelliousness (Heavy Metal); subversion by forgery (Situationist detournement). (GMG)

REPLICATION STRATEGY: Any memetic strategy used by a meme to encourage its host to repeat the meme to other people. The hook co-meme of a meme-complex. (GMG)

RETROMEME: A meme which attempts to splice itself into an existing meme-complex (example: Marxist-Leninists trying to co-opt other sociotypes). (GMG)

REWARD CO-MEME: See bait.

SCHEME: A meme-complex. (Hofstadter.)

SOCIOTYPE: 1. The social expression of a memotype, as the body of an organism is the physical expression (phenotype) of the gene (genotype). Hence, the Protestant Church is one sociotype of the Bible's memotype. 2. A class of similar social organisations. (GMG)

SYMMEME: See co-meme.

THREAT: The part of a meme-complex that encourages adherence and discourages mis-replication. ("Damnation to Hell" is the threat co-meme in many religious schemes.) (See: bait, hook, vaccime.) (Hofstadter)

TOLERANCE: A meta-meme which confers resistance to a wide variety of memes (and their sociotypes), without conferring meme-allergies. In its purest form, Tolerance allows its host to be repeatedly exposed to rival memes, even intolerant rivals, without active infection or meme-allergic reaction. Tolerance is a central co-meme in a wide variety of schemes, particularly "liberalism", and "democracy". Without it, a scheme will often become exo-toxic and confer meme-allergies on its hosts. Since schemes compete for finite belief-space, tolerance is not necessarily a virtue, but it has co-evolved in the ideosphere in much the same way as co-operation has evolved in biological ecosystems. (Henson.)

UTISM: UTism is short for 'us-versus-them-ism.' Dogmatic adherence to a belief system can create an 'us vs. them' mentality in the believer. The 'us' group consists of people who share our beliefs, and the 'them' group consists of those who hold conflicting beliefs. (KMO)

VACCIME: (pron. vak-seem) Any meta-meme which confers resistance or immunity to one or more memes, allowing that person to be exposed without acquiring an active infection. Also called an `immuno-meme.' Common immune-conferring memes are "Faith", "Loyalty", "Skepticism", and "tolerance". (See: meme-allergy.) (GMG.)

Every scheme includes a vaccime to protect against rival memes. For instance:

Conservatism: automatically resist all new memes.
Orthodoxy: automatically reject all new memes.
Science: test new memes for theoretical consistency and(where applicable) empirical repeatability; continually re-assess old memes; accept schemes only conditionally, pending future re:-assessment.
Radicalism: embrace one new scheme, reject all others.
Nihilism: reject all schemes, new and old.
New Age: accept all esthetically-appealing memes, new and old, regardless of empirical (or even internal) consistency; reject others. (Note that this one doesn't provide much protection.)
Japanese: adapt (parts of) new schemes to the old ones.

VECTOR: A medium, method, or vehicle for the transmission of memes. Almost any communication medium can be a memetic vector. (GMG)

VILLAIN VS. VICTIM: An infection strategy common to many meme-complexes, placing the potential host in the role of Victim and playing on their insecurity, as in: "the bourgeoisie is oppressing the proletariat" (Hofstadter). Often dangerously toxic to host and society in general. Also known as the "Us-and-Them" strategy. (See UTism.)

Footnotes

1. The original definition read "parasitically" instead of "symbiotically". Thanks to Tyson Vaughan for making the suggestion.
Share-Right (S), 1990, by Glenn Grant, PO Box 36 Station H, Montreal, Quebec, H3C 2K5. (You may reproduce this material, only if your recipients may also reproduce it, you do not change it, and you include this notice [see: threat]. If you publish it, send me a copy, okay?)
Return the Church of Virus
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Here's a memetic glossary from an activist website.

http://smartmeme.org/article.php?id=208

ABCNNBCBS - the increasingly blurred brand names for the same narrow stream of U.S. corporate filtered mass media. This is the delivery system for the advertising product that giant media corporations sell to the general public. This process used to occur primarily through overt advertising, increasingly however it has become a complex web of cross-marketing, branding and self-promotion among different tentacles of the same media empires.

advertising - the manipulation of collective desire for commercial interests. Over the last 20 years as it has grown to be nearly a $200 billion industry it has become the propaganda shell and dream life of modern consumer culture. (See Control Mythology)

articulating values crisis - a strategy in which radicals lay claim to common sense values and expose the fact that the system is out of alignment with those values

control meme- a meme used to marginalize, co-opt or limit the scale of social change ideas by institutionalizing a status quo bias into popular perception of events. The type of memes that RAND Corporation analysts and Pentagon information warfare experts spend countless hours and millions of dollars designing.

control mythology - the web of stories, symbols and ideas which define the dominant culture's sense of normal (including limiting our imagination of social change) and make people think the system is unchangeable.

confirmatory bias - psychological concept in which studies have shown people are more likely to accept/believe new information if it sounds like something they already believe.

defector syndrome- the tendency of radicals to self-marginalize by exhibiting their dissent is such a way that it only speaks to those who already share their beliefs.

direct action at the point(s) of assumption -actions whose goal is to re-frame issues and create infectious new political space by targeting underlyingassumptions

earth-centered - a political perspective through which one defines themselves and their actions in the context of the planet's ecological operating systems, biological/cultural diversity and efforts to re-center human society within the Earth's natural limits/cycles. An emerging term to draw links and build alliances between ecological identity politics, land based struggles, indigenous resistance, earth spirituality, agrarian folk wisdom and visions of sustainable, ecologically sane societies both past and future. (etc.) A politicized acceptance of the sacredness of living systems.

global crisis- the present time in the history of planet earth characterized by the systematic undermining of the planet's life support systems through industrial extraction, unlimited growth, the commodification of all life and emergence of global corporate rule. Symptoms include : accelerating loss of biological and cultural diversity, the deterioration of all ecosystems, the de-stabilization of global ecology (climate change, soil erosion, bio-contamination etc.) growing disparities between rich and poor, increased militarization, ongoing patterns of racism, classism and sexism and the spread of consumer monoculture. Part of the endgame of 200 years of industrial capitalism,
500 years of white supremacist colonization and 10,000 years of patriarchal domination.

image event - an experience, event or action which operates as a delivery system for smartMemes by creating new associations and meanings

meme- (pronounced meem) a unit of self-replicating cultural transmission (ex. ideas, slogans, melodies, symbols) which spreads virally from brain to brain. Word coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976 from a Greek root meaning "to imitate" to draw the analogy with "gene". "A contagious information pattern" - Glenn Grant. A meme often operates as a container, anchor or carrier for a larger more complex story.

movement - a critical mass of people who share ideas, take collective action and build alternative institutions to create social change.

points of intervention - a place in a system, be it a physical system or a conceptual system (ideology, cultural assumption etc.) where action can be taken to effectively interrupt the system. Examples include point of production (factory) point of destruction, (logging road) point of consumption, (chain store) point of decision,(corporate HQ) point of assumption (culture/mythology) and point of potential (actions which makes alternatives real).

political space- the ability of an oppositional idea or critique of the dominant order to manifest itself and open up new revolutionary possibilities.

psychic break - the process or moment where people realize the system is out of alignment with their values.

psycho-geography - the intersection of physical landscape with cultural and symbolic landscapes. A framework for finding targets for direct action at the point of assumption.

smart meme - a designer meme which injects new infectious ideas into popular culture, contests established meaning (control memes) and facilitates popular re-thinking of assumptions. These are memes that act as containers for collaborative power, reveal creative possibilities for change and help grassroots social movements contest idea space.

subverter-an effective radical who works within the logic of the dominant culture to foster dissent, mobilize resistance and make fundamental social change imaginable

Values crisis- the disconnect between common sense values (justice, equality, democracy, ecological literacy) and the pathological values which underlie the global corporate system

Values shift -a recognition that the global crisis is the expression of pathological valueswhich we will need to change. An area of extreme difficulty to organize since people's values are very ingrained and the values arena is often appropriated by powerful reactionary traditions and institutions. (government, organized religion, patriarchal family etc.)

Xerxes- ancient Persian emperor who despite having the world's largest military force over extended himself and was defeated by the unity and creativity of the Greeks starting a long decline that led to the end of Persian dominance. A conceptual archetype for the fall of all empires. U.S.A. take note.
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Principles of Propaganda

source-

Propaganda: Its Psychology and Technique
by Leonard W. Doob
Yale University
Henry Holt and Company, Inc. 1935

pages 413-417


The Principles of Propaganda

1. PRINCIPLE OF THE INTENTION OF THE PROPAGANDIST. In intentional propaganda, the propagandist is aware of his interested aim; in unintentional propaganda, he does not appreciate the social effect of his own actions.

2. PRINCIPLE OF PERCEPTION. The propagandist makes his stimulus-situation stand out from its competing ground.

2a. PERCEPTUAL PRINCIPLE OF AUXILIARY ATTITUDES. The propagandist makes his stimulus-situation outstanding through the arousal of auxiliary attitudes.

2b. PERCEPTUAL PRINCIPLE OF REPETITION. The propagandist repeats his stimulus-situation to increase the probability that it will be perceived.

2c. PERCEPTUAL PRINCIPLE OF SIMPLIFICATION. The propagandist simplifies his stimulus-situation to bring it within the range of perception.

3. PRINCIPLE OF THE TYPE OF PROPAGANDA. The propagandist employs one or all of the following types of propaganda: revealed, delayed revealed, and concealed propaganda.

3a. PRINCIPLE OF REVEALED PROPAGANDA. In revealed propaganda the propagandist enables people to perceive his aim through direct suggestion.

3b. PRINCIPLE OF DELAYED REVEALED PROPAGANDA. In delayed revealed propaganda the propagandist reveals his aim only after he has aroused related attitudes.

3b1. TEMPORAL PRINCIPLE OF DELAYED REVEALED PROPAGANDA. In delayed revealed propaganda the propagandist enables people to perceive his aim at a moment when that aim can be integrated into the previously aroused related attitudes.

3c. PRINCIPLE OF CONCEALED PROPAGANDA. In concealed propaganda the propagandist refrains from stating his aim and integrates through indirect suggestion the aroused related attitudes into a new attitude which predisposes people toward that aim.

4. PRINCIPLE OF RELATED ATTITUDES. In the process of suggestion, the propagandist arouses related attitudes that are instrumental in bringing about the desired integration.

4a. PRINCIPLE OF RELATED DOMINANT ATTITUDES. The propagandist employs attitudes that are already dominant as related attitudes or he arouses related attitudes that remain dominant over a period of time.

4b. PRINCIPLE OF RELATED CENTRAL ATTITUDES. The propagandist arouses related attitudes that are central attitudes.

4c. PRINCIPLE OF RELATED AUXILIARY ATTITUDES. The propagandist arouses auxiliary attitudes that also function as related attitudes.

4d. PRINCIPLE OF VARIATION. The propagandist varies the content of his stimulus-situation, in order to arouse related attitudes in different people and, by changing their stereotypes, to construct new attitudes in others through positive suggestion.

5. PRINCIPLE OF THE DESIRED INTEGRATION. The propagandist secures a desired integration that predisposes people toward his aim.

5a. PRINCIPLE OF THE TYPE OF INTEGRATION. The desired integration is either a central or a segmental attitude.

5b. PRINCIPLE OF ACTION. The propagandist secures a desired integration that leads to action.

6. PRINCIPLE OF THE SPHERE OF UNPREDICTABILITY. Before the desired integration is achieved between the related attitudes and, except in the case of concealed propaganda, the comprehension of the propagandist's aim and before it leads to an action, there is a sphere of unpredictability due to the temporal character of the propaganda, the presence of competing propagandists, and the complexities of the personalities in the group with which the propagandist must deal.

6a. PRINCIPLE OF THE AUXILIARY SUBMISSIVE ATTITUDE. The propagandist reduces the sphere of unpredictability by restricting the mental field through the arousal of a submissive attitude toward a stimulus-situation which has prestige and the effect of which is a tendency towards increased suggestibility.

6a1. PRINCIPLE OF POSITIVE SOCIAL VALUE. The propagandist includes within his stimulus-situation objects and persons with positive social value.

6a2. PRINCIPLE OF THE IMPRESSION OF UNIVERSALITY. The propagandist produces an impression of universality.

6a3. PRINCIPLE OF THE SELECTION OF PROPAGANDA. When the prestige of the propagandist or of the stimulus-situation is not diminished by the revelation of his aim, revealed propaganda is employed; when the prestige is diminished by that revelation, concealed propaganda is employed; when it is diminished by an immediate but not by a subsequent revelation, delayed revealed propaganda is employed.

6b. PRINCIPLE OF INDICATING THE PATHS OF ACTION. In revealed and delayed revealed propaganda, the propagandist reduces the sphere of unpredictability by indicating the paths of action to which the desired integration may lead.

6c. PRINCIPLE OF REINFORCING. The propagandist reduces the sphere of unpredictability by preventing the desired integration from remaining latent or from disintegrating.

6c1. REINFORCING PRINCIPLE OF REPETITION. The propagandist repeats the same or similar stimulus-situations.

6c2. PRINCIPLE OF ADDITIONAL RELATED PRE-EXISTING ATTITUDES. The propagandist arouses other pre-existing related attitudes.

6c3. PRINCIPLE OF ADDITIONAL RELATED NEW ATTITUDES. The propagandist forms new attitudes through positive suggestion by changing people's stereotypes.

6d. PRINCIPLE OF LIMITATION. The propagandist reduces the sphere of unpredictability by limiting the stimulus-situation through distortion, suppression, and fabrication.

6e. PRINCIPLE OF PRIMACY. The propagandist reduces the sphere of unpredictability by producing the initial, relatively stable integration.

7. PRINCIPLE OF COUNTER-PROPAGANDA. The propagandist uses counter-propaganda when conflicting attitudes tend to prevent the desired integration from emerging.

7a. PRINCIPLE OF NEGATIVE SUGGESTION IN COUNTER-PROPAGANDA. In counter-propaganda, the propagandist uses negative suggestion to render conflicting attitudes ineffective.

7b. PRINCIPLE OF POSITIVE SUGGESTION IN COUNTER-PROPAGANDA. In counter-propaganda, the propagandist uses positive suggestion to form new related attitudes that will counteract conflicting attitudes.

8. PRINCIPLE OF PERSUASION. The propagandist uses persuasion as a supplementary method.

8a. PRESTIGE PRINCIPLE OF PERSUASION. The propagandist employs persuasion on people with prestige toward whom later a submissive attitude is directed by other people.

8b. TEMPORAL PRINCIPLE OF PERSUASION. Persuasion supplements propaganda at a crucial moment to bring about the desired integration and action among certain people.