2015-10-14

模倣子 Implied Memes as Tools of Control

Implied memes (or marginal memes) are ideas which are never actually spoken expect in certain circles, e.g., racist, sexist, classist ideas, e.g., such and so people are lazy or violent or children and these ideas are used to justify other memes, i.e., the blackmail of the fact of the burden on the other side of having to speak them limits the discussion.

In order to counter the implied meme is to evoke its explicit opposite, e.g., "engineers are not children" or "the staff aren't lazy and will do their work even if they aren't treated as children" but this countermeme (immunomeme) cannot be invoked because nobody wants to go there.  Or, since it is never explicitly invoked anyway, the implied or hidden meme may be disingenuously denied, e.g.., "we don't think you're lazy" or "don't be so sensitive" or "you're 'paranoid'" and so on.

Some implied memes that crypto-pseudo-feminists1 use when they don't cite the statistics of eating disorders in men or those of sexual violence against men by women, thereby anchoring the implied memes that "men don't suffer from eating disorders" or "women aren't overly violent or rapists" or "men are the only perpetrators of sexual or other violence".  A further tactic for anchoring these implied memes it to throw out something like "yes, men do suffer from eating disorders, but it always shows up as over-exercising," which is a use of the Truth Trick2.

1A common form of self-described "feminist" individual or group who pretends to support women's liberation, but in such a way that actually ensconces and anchors female victimhood while doing nothing to actually liberate women, and covering up the true effects of this activity through various forms of subterfuge, e.g., distorting statistics and unfairly blaming men as a group and individually.
2Susan Blackmore, The Meme Machine.

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