The other 'memes' - Foucault's Discourses.

[arcady]

I picked up Toxic Memes today, and the first thing I though on opening up the book was "where's Foucault in all this?"

Foucault's concept of the discourse is much more recognized in the social sciences than Dawkin's Memes idea, and I'd recommend everyone interested in the shaping of cultural norms and the strength of ideas to read his works.

http://foucault.info/

His book "The History of Sexuality, Vol 1" is particularly telling, and also dates to 1976 btw. Foucault held that we are victim to discourses, and these shape our reality for us - something of a filter much like Plato's cave model. Once something becomes a part of the discourse it becomes something that was always true, even though it didn't even exist as an idea before discourse. Freud's notion of the Oedipal complex is a famous example, though Foucault puts the concept into almost everything about us.

I'm going to go off and enjoy looking at this Toxic Memes book, but I'll have to check the bibliography of the rest of the Transhuman line and see if Foucault shows up anywhere I missed... I strongly recommend reading his work.