[Buddha-l] Memes amd me

[Richard Hayes]

On Thursday 25 January 2007 10:30, curt wrote:

> "Memes" are also the building blocks out of which "meta-narratives" are
> constructed.

This is another one of those phrases that young people throw around to confuse 
us old fogarties. Now I know what a narrative is, and I know what "meta" 
usually means as a prefix. On the analogy of what words like "meta-ethics" 
and "meta-logic" and "meta-language" mean, I would expect a meta-narrative to 
be a narrative about a narrative. But I gather that there is something more 
to the term than that. God, it's frustrating to be surrounded by young kids 
in their 40s who are earnestly working out their meta-narratives, while I'm 
just keeping on trucking and trying to get my act together.

> The bottom line is that the word "meme" can almost always be replaced by
> "idea" or "notion" as Michel already pointed out. It is usually, but not
> necessarily, used with a derogatory connotation - the implication being
> that memes are a kind of infectious agent of the mental world, and that
> people who "believe in" a given meme have not really thought about it,
> rather it's just something they "picked up", like a cold. And also like
> a cold, once you "believe in" a meme you become a potential source for
> infecting others.

Thank you. That's very helpful, as was Barnaby Thieme's message on this topic. 
Now what I'd like to hear from you, Curt, is why you see "protestant 
buddhism" as an idea (you called it a pernicious meme) that people believe in 
without having thought about it and why you see it as being somehow 
infectious. I guess what I'm trying to ask is whether you think 
that "protestant buddhism" is a name for something that does not exist (and 
is thus something like "compassionate conservative"), or whether you think 
that there is such a thing as what Gombrich and others have described as 
Protestant Buddhism, and you also think that that real thing is unworthy of 
admiration. Is it that you see Protestant Buddhism itself as pernicious, or 
the label "protestant buddhism"?

Once you've clarified what it is you believe on this matter, maybe you could 
also indulge us by telling us why you believe it.

-- 
Richard