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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in memes
Viewing the World through Pagan Eyes, IV: The trance of belief

 

This section follows part I,   part II  And part III.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • M.T. Noah
    M.T. Noah says #
    I deeply appreciate your work here. I'm planning some deep reading of your series. And to share this series, if permitted. I ho
  • Gus diZerega
    Gus diZerega says #
    Feel free to share!
  • Gus diZerega
    Gus diZerega says #
    Two other brief points. You use 'trance' negatively. I do not. So you are not addressing my argument here. Look at my two exampl
  • Gus diZerega
    Gus diZerega says #
    Notice I never wrote "uneducated cave person." I certainly do not consider that implied in the term "Trump supporter." I was mak
  • Virginia Carper
    Virginia Carper says #
    I have a question about meme trances and brains. I have a traumatic brain injury which doesn't seem to allow me to hold memes. I e
Viewing the World through Pagan eyes III. Occult contributions

 VIII: A living world: language, memes, and thought forms

This section follows parts I  and II.

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Viewing the World through Pagan Eyes, Part II: Memes as Organisms

 

My first installment demonstrated societies can be understood as ecosystems. When we think of society as an ecosystem, one question moves to the front: people are organisms, but where are the others? Ecosystems are not monocultures. A cultural ecology obviously depends on people and exists at the level of consciousness, so where are the other organisms?

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My complete argument criticizing 'cultural appropriation,' and offering a more interesting alternative, is now up.

For those of you interested in examining the complete argument criticizing the entire idea of 'cultural appropriation' and describing a far better, and much more interesting, alternative view, I have now posted it up on my web site.

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A Living World: Language, Memes, and Thought Forms : Moving Beyond 'Cultural Appropriation' Part IV

 

Many memes are communicated through language, and, like any tool, language shapes how we look at the world when using it.  Language facilitates some memes’ replication and makes the survival of others more difficult by shaping what relations are easy to notice and what relations require more effort. Different languages have different biases in this regard. One linguistic feature is particularly relevant here: do we experience our world primarily as objects, or primarily as processes and relations?  Clearly there is value in both perspectives, but which gets emphasis is in no small part shaped by language.

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Moving Beyond 'Cultural Appropriation:' Part III: Memes as cultural organisms

 

Memes

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Moving Beyond 'Cultural Appropriation,' a Pagan Perspective. Part I.

Some people within the Pagan community object to instances of what they consider “cultural appropriation.”  Smudging with sage, seeking a power animal, celebrating Day of the Dead, is somehow stealing. To my mind they are confused about culture, confused about appropriation, and even confused about what it is to be a human being. In their confusion they attack other Pagans, creating a problem for all of us.

No NeoPagans practice traditions with an unbroken connection to pre-Christian times. Almost all old Pagan traditions have been mostly oral, and the core of those teachings have been lost. When once Pagan practices have survived, their interpretation will have changed, as Sabina Magliocco has described in rural Italy.         

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  • Gus diZerega
    Gus diZerega says #
    Aryós Jezebel quotes cultural appropriation as "'Taking intellectual property, traditional knowledge, cultural expressions, or ar
  • Mariah Sheehy
    Mariah Sheehy says #
    I too, have found the phrase to be mostly a stumbling block. It seems as if it may have been mostly used for more extreme example
  • Gus diZerega
    Gus diZerega says #
    Thank you for continuing the discussion! Though some of what you raise eill be in later installments, here is some stuff I hope y
  • Aryós Héngwis
    Aryós Héngwis says #
    "You say for you it was limited to the sacred. Maybe for you. For example, thoughtlessly eating a burrito was given as an example
  • Gus diZerega
    Gus diZerega says #
    Aryós I am not very concerned with where the term first appeared, but if you can provide a link I will be happy to make that disti

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