Dear Jud and Richard, Thank you both for your considerations! I was just thinking yesterday, trying to think Stoic, how it is a purely selfish pleasure of mine to enjoy and contend with two such acute minds - as well as Jon whenever present, Antonio and Mariano. I would like also to hear from Candlelight.

Jud is terribly acute in what might be called the field of 'epistemology' and I must agree with him ever on the matter of the methodology of Eliminativism. It is a difficult methodology, and this is what I like, because it is piecemeal in its approach and this is exactly how we really live our lives, that is, we approach a problem at a time as it pops up in our lives because we do not simply live in this list but in a materially tyrranous world run randomly and sporatically by a few intelligent but extremely self centered people and a general mass of people who simply let life carry them on in whatever way it will.

Although I think Antonio's concern with authority and education are generally important subjects, I disagree with him that anything effective can be done in these fields that is not totally subject to the anarchistic epistemological approach of the people who it must apply to, and thus will always fail to, because cultural currents - one can no longer even call them intellectual - are randomly controlled by political and social events that are essentially blind and utterly aimless, and which destroy in a blink of an eye any institutional type structure that truly tries to rationally form the world. This is not done by any disaster but simply by changes of the social and political whimsy of the moment. However, I do seriously believe disasters are eminent because even in a wholly whimsical political and social world there are real conflicts that, if not resolved by a rational plan, will necessarily and forcibly work themselves out according to the accumulation and escalation of events that no one has seriously preparred for and have knowingly and repeatedly deferred, pushed the problems onto others, over the years.


ANTONIO ROSSIN:
I append below the mail exchange with Victor, from another list. Perhaps it could add to the picture.


VICTOR GUNASEKARA:
I agree with most what Antonio Rossin says below. However I will make the following obervations, but it must be remembered that these are not definitive statements that can be proven beyond reasonable doubt.

(1) I feel that while the 0-3 age group is very critical in fostering culture-determined memes most parents are not aware of this and do not behave in a way that will inculcate the right values in the children. Most tend to behave in a way that will reinforce the memes that they themselves have been subjected to.
(2) The age group 4-10 which covers primary schooling is very important as it is here that children could be subjected to systematic indoctrination especially in religious matters. That is why I feel that children should be safeguarded from religious indoctrination in this important phase of their lives.

ANTONIO ROSSIN:
I would make a distinction between providing the child with
1. the "container", to wit, her mind knowledgeable framework, and 2. the "contents", to wit, knowledge.

The container is self-fixed under parenting feed-back, mostly at the 0-3 age, and it can be either dogmatic fundamentalist, or axiomatic flexible, i. e. two opposite poles of a continuum with endless intermediate positions -- though any family feed-back cannot but tend towards either one or the other of such poles)

Let's agree that the family feedback tending to be closer to the "dogmatic fundamentalist" pole is the Talebani's. Conversely, the family feedback closer to the "axiomatic flexible" pole is rather expected to give rise to autonomous, independent, self criticizing "containers". ( These opposite poles are analyzed at http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/rossin07.htm )

Later, "containers" will be fulfilled with all the cultural *memes* of a given society or culture, mostly at the 4-10 age and over.

But the strength by which these late *memes* are imprinted, towards the rigid fundamentalist pole of any living style in adult persons, is also a meme, or rather a "meta-meme" because on its imprinting ALL of the late memes imprinting depends.

I mean, memes cannot be changed, or eliminated. What can be changed -- by knowing, i. e. controlling, its feed-back -- it is the meta-meme, towards providing children with the flexible mindframe allowing the latter to approach any dogmatic meme, religious fundalist indoctrination included, with critical thinking.

VICTOR GUNASEKARA:
(3) I feel that memes established in the 0-3 group can be reversed and in some cases must be reversed. Any such reversal is most likely to succeed in the 4-10 period if the change is to be absorbed seamlessly. Of course we have evidence of people 10+ who have revolted against their early conditioning, in religion and in other areas, but this would require a special effort on their part.
(4) Children in the 0-3 group will not be able to appreciate the deleterious effects of drugs, but of course anti-drug instruction and information should be given to children in their pre-teen years.
(5) I am not sure if the Hegelian dialectic will work within the family context. Certainly counter-arguments should be given any proposition advanced to the child, but it may not be neessary for the parents to take opposite sides in order to induce a synthesis. In many situations either the thesis or the anti-theses may contail the correct "meme" that should be introduced, and there may not a third alternative (synthesis) outside of the two.

ANTONIO ROSSIN:
My point is, the Family "dialectics" I'm looking at is made with two discrete moments. One is the parent-parent relationship, in which father-mother confrontation can or cannot be expressed (I recall, under the "Talebani" culture it cannot). The second moment is the parents/child relationship, in which parents can either "impose" their "truth" onto the child, so indoctrinating the latter, or let the child free to question about the truth by herself (again, two opposite poles of a continuum with endless intermediate positions -- though any family feed-back cannot but tend towards either one or the other of such poles)


VICTOR GUNASEKARA:
(6) I am aware that legal measures cannot in themselves inculcate the right memes. What I had in mind was delimitation of the legal rights of parents and children. While these rights may not be enforeable by courts etc. it should be clear to all that certain actions that are now permitted and undertaken to reinforce unsatisfactory memes are wrong and unlawful.
(7) The Law does enter the household even in case of children 0-3. Thus they cannot be abused or excessive corporal punishment used. There is an obligation to see that they are adequately nourished and not commercially exploited. What I had in mind are practices like baptism, circumcision, and other religion inspired activities which can be declared illegal. Thanks once again for your comment.

ANTONIO ROSSIN:
I totally agree with your (6) and (7) points above; If there are memes that infringe such measures, these must be exposed and excluded by any civil society.


VICTOR GUNASEKARA:
Religion, Fear & WW3.
I thank Doug Everingham for his comments on my response to the article by Walter Davis "A Plague on All Your Houses (of Worship) ". I agree that the mmaffiacc strategy is to cut off all rational discussion which would be detrimental to their interest. This explains their attempt to make it unacceptable to criticize religion, which is something to which Walter Davis had drawn attention. Unfortunately this has gained some currency in the US and other leading Western countries. Criticism of religion even in Universities is considered unacceptable. Often the charge of"vilification" is applied to all critique of religion.

What I want to comment now is on the theory of Antonio Rossin to which Doug has again drawn attention. Rossin argues that the memes
(the dictionary defines a 'meme' as "an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture") acquired in the early years of life condition a person's attitude throughout his life. Doug says that Rossin speaks particularly of the first 3 years of life but I would be inclined to extend the time frame to cover the first 10 years of life. In the first three years a child comes only under family influence but the next 6 years includes the period of primary education when ideas acquired during infancy could be complemented, reinforced, and sometimes even reversed. This is the period in which 'meta-memes'
(as Doug calls them) are generated. After this the subconscious mind become something of a closed shop, rejecting all other "alien" memes. This is what accounts for the perpetuation of religious dogmas amongst otherwise seemingly rational people.

ANTONIO ROSSIN:
Hi Victor, Of course the time frame is expected to cover the first 10 years of life and over. In any case, we can divide every individual's learning time in three periods:
1. Zero-to-three, when parents are the only teachers;
2. from 3 to10, and over, when the teacher is the school;
3. from then on, then the teacher is live experience
(with all the due overlapping of course.)

I guess: ok. as for 2. and 3. ; there is no way for us to suggest changes, or chances there into from the outside.

But we can suggest changes and changes into the 1. earliest
(zero-to-three) time frame, because that special and mostly sensitive age of children- future adult persons appears to be an empty domain, since parents are quite uniformed - or else disinformed, about the chances at their disposal.

Now, if we wanted to incline the people from childhood on towards critical thinking, flexibility of minds, the axiomatic approach to the truth, vs, gregarious thinking, rigidity of the fundamentalist-(religious)integralist minds and the dogmatic approach to the truth, we cannot neglect to question what kind of family feed-back is at work at that age.

Further, I have severe doubt that a meme can be reversed as a conscious act of society. All societies are meme-based and defend their fundations until the tip of their teeth. Hasn't he been von Bertalanffy, who stated:

"Every self-organizing system puts into action defensive mechanisms with conservative aims whenever it is touched by a stimulus tending to modify its arrangement"

all of our human societies behave like self-organizing systems, and obey the above Bertalanffy law, don't you agree?

But there are some flaws in the system. One of these flaws is children's inclination towards drugs addiction.

This is why I suggest Primary Prevention of drugs addiction
-- by means of informed parenting at children's zero-to-three age -- as the needed picklock to undermine the fundamentalist conservative memes of the system. Memes seem quite unlikely to be debunked by shouts of law, as the history teaches from time immemorial.

VICTOR GUNASEKARA:
The remedy for this which Rossin suggests is for parents to encourage flexibility and tolerance and not exert authoritative pressures (sometimes subtly and even unintentionally). But the fact is that it is only a few parents who do this. In the first place the parents themselves are the products of the own 'super-memes' which they had acquired in their childhood. So a vicious circle is set in motion with self-perpetuation of intolerance and inflexibility. The notion of "negative learning" which Rossin espouses is for one parent to say one thing to the child and the other the opposite.


ANTONIO ROSSIN:
Not exactly. It is for both parents to show to their child any confrontation between opposite opinions when this difference of opinion is up; I call it "Dialectic Education" because of the thesis-antithesis parents' Dialectics-like relationship, to be performed by both parents to encourage the child to draw out her own synthesis from between -- yet inside the family If both parents do always agree as a rule, like in the religious fundamentalist family, the independent child is doomed to draw her "synthesis" outside of the family. Our streets are full with such independent children that have become dependent on the drugs.

VICTOR GUNASEKARA:
This is likely to create confusion in the child's mind rather than promote critical thinking. Critical thinking is something that must be taught, not something that will automatically arise when a child listen to contradictory statements made by the two parents. The most likely effect is for the child either to reject both views, or tend to the view of the parent with whom the child has the closest bond even if the point made by this parent is totally wrong.

I believe that the real remedy is to use the law to break the vicious cycle which leads to the self-perpetuations of the super-memes. This should be in two directions:
(1) define the rights and obligations of both parents and children so as to restrict the parental right to inculcate their own values involving negative characteristics, and
(2) to prevent non-parental institutions and groups (excepting schools based on sound pedagogical principles) taking charge of the mental development of young children. Some steps have been taken in both areas, but nowhere near enough to make an appreciable change.

These two methods could be illustrated with respect to religion which is the most corrosive force to contaminate young minds. Under the first method parents should not have the right to impose their religion on their children. Such practices like baptism should be banned. Just as children are now legally protected against physical abuse from parents they should also be protected from mental abuse in the form of the inculcation of religious (or political) views. On the second ground the practice of religious instruction to young children in schools should be banned. This should cover both public and private schools. Even the indoctrination of ideologies like humanism, communism etc. should be banned along with religious instruction. This was a matter of concern in the recent proposals of the HSQ which (i) permitted religious instruction at the request of parents and (ii) tried to impose so-called humanist instruction again as the explicit request of parents.


ANTONIO ROSSIN:
It seems to me, such laws are good at the schooling and
-- most of all -- at the adult age of persons. No one can enter the family of a newborn baby and tell her parents what they shall , or shan't, teach to the child, "by law". Later, laws for 2. schooling and 3. societal living are already in office.


DOUG EVERINGHAM:
Dear Victor G. and all,

Davis incurred a vehement 'Amerikans' ' protest over his critique of Christianity. He described a more rational response of Islamic Americans to his support of Rushdie's comic criticism of Islam. He concluded it was becoming among 'christian' Americans more unacceptable to criticize religion.

I think Victor is right. I think the bigotry, racism, xenophobia and jingoism that permeates the global culture is sealing off rationality as mmaffiaccs -- media, military, administrative, financial, fundamentalist, industrial, academic complexes, cartels and cabals -- herd our thoughts, sentiments and orthodoxies into the coalition of the willing. They declare themselves distinct from the rest who are seen as therefore 'with the terrorists', hence legitimate targets for pre-emptive destruction in 'self-defence'.

An Italian family doctor with pediatric psychiatry interests, , Antonio Rossin, points out that rational debate and tolerance needs to be learned particularly in our first 3 years when we absorb most firmly, subconsciously, subtly and lastingly a mother tongue and other 'memes'
-- cultural responses to basic relationships. Most notable or basic are 'meta-memes' or persistent tendencies to evaluate and accept or reject later-encountered memes or cultures, constructing concepts of 'them' and 'us' that are largely beyond rational debate. He claims the globally dominant authoritarian meta-meme -- avoiding criticism of a dominant parent, government or other authority -- overwhelms most local cultures and most people. He urges parents and everyone to be aware of the lack of flexibility and tolerance in many family and wider discussions, and the healing value of encouraging parents to demonstrate tolerance to infants, in particular setting an example of mutual respect of views and discussion between parents, plus a readiness to hear and encourage input by the child within her/his developing capacities before exerting authoritative decisions. He thinks the best hope of persuading parents, educators etc. to develop more mature decision-making training may be through demonstrating an association of LFS (the 'low flexibility syndrome') with misuse of mind-altering substances. http://www.flexible-learning.org

VICTOR GUNASEKARA:
Gideon Polya has drawn attention to an article by Walter Davis "A Plague on All Your Houses (of Worship) " ... ...

... Davis has not answered adequately ... the reason for the survival of religion in ... the scientific age. ... Davis' explanation for this is still the old fear of death and the need to care for the eternal soul.... I find it difficult to believe that so many people think that God and Soul are for real. I think that religions have developed a culture of their own and it is this social nexus that explains its survival. There is fear, not so much for their soul, but fear of the outsider and the religious community gives strength against the outsider. ... today there are stronger drugs than religion.