Just had to smack me upside the head, that's all.
We employ the tools of rhetoric and persuasion as well as logic;
furthermore, we tell everyone that we are employing the tools of rhetoric
and persuasion. Memetics is, as far as I can tell, an outgrowth and
revisioning of the entire task of dialogue: how to persuade, how to make an
idea take hold, etc.
I'm sure that no one here will actually claim that they do not have the
right to try to change people's opinions, because that's what this is all
about. If that's "pretending to be a God to other people," well, I'm not
sure I can agree with that characterization. But we *are* trying to change
people's perceptions -- all of us. Anyone who has posted any sort of
argument is guilty of attempting to take over someone's thought-processes.
If you don't think you have a right to do something like that, well, don't
try to convince me that I don't either, because you don't have the right to
try to change me. Make sense?
:-)
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John Williams ICQ Address: 1213689 prefect@tricon.net
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"See my loafers? Former gophers!"
Various Artists: Raising the Tide of Mediocrity for Two Years
http://www.3wave.com/~prefect/