16 September 2007

meme re:man


I'm a fan of the growing recognition of "memes", one of Richard Dawkins' better contributions namely "a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation" in his book The Selfish Gene (1976).

I found out about the idea in Randy Gage's book "Why you're dumb, sick and broke. . . and how to get smart, healthy and rich" - a different and arguably more accessible platform than the religious atheist Dawkins. See: http://randygage.com/products/sick-broke.html

Anyway, there's a new meme book; turbocharging the idea. Apparently, vMemes are the basis of a new book - Spiral Dynamics by Don Beck and Christopher Cowan.

Steve Dinan of The Esalen Institute says: "this is really a terrific book ... it presents, in fascinating detail, a spiral developmental model of worldviews. Beck and Cowan call these patterns of thinking vMemes (short for values-attracting meta-memes)."

More importnatly, "Beck and Cowan are more interested in lubricating change effectively than rejecting and overthrowing old structures."

You can find it at: http://www.spiraldynamics.com/index.htm

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