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Vaniver comments on The peril of ignoring emotions - Less Wrong
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Comments (101)
Hence, "a lot of," "appear to," and "something like."
I'm not sure how valuable it is to talk about culture instead of memes and genes. There are a lot of specific elements we can talk about, and none of them are universal. Saying that the "culture" disapproves of pre-martial sex is as accurate as saying the "culture" approves of pre-marital sex, and since both X and !X are true, X might not be a good way to look at the situation. We could instead talk about the memes approving and disapproving of premarital sex (for men and women respectively), as well as the meme that men and women should be treated equally.
For example, I found this comment fascinating, because it highlights this interplay of emotions and memes. The meme of "don't make sexual orientation a deciding factor" made him decide to block a neutral-win-win encounter because that would open up the possibility of a lose-win-win encounter, suggesting that in this case the meme's effect was not benign. (I suspect that overall the meme is a beneficial one, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have negative side effects.)
It seems obvious to me that culture has complex patterns both whose underlying deep themes and surface manifestations can contradict, and that it is at the ultimate level a non-self-consistent jumble of these themes - which nonetheless span generations and form a recognizable whole. If that isn't usefully called a culture, why not?
The reason I dislike talking about the culture rather than the memes is that it presents the culture as atomic, rather than the memes. If we know the culture has sex-positive and sex-negative elements, why not talk about those elements directly? They're what's interesting, and differentiating between them is valuable. The culture is what you get when you blend them together, and if we're trying to analyze them then distinctness is valuable.
I tend to agree with respect to the importance of complex cultural patterns and deep themes. Culture is far more relevant than memes in this context. The more powerful 'memes' floating around here are the ideas Sally has about sexual liberation and health being the important factor - and they are far less important considerations than the underlying cultural and instinctive incentives that her emotions are trying to process for her.
I don't see a wide difference between culture and memes (or at least bunches of associated memes), but I do think that memes/culture are more accessible for us than genetic effects on emotions and behavior.
I think Vaniver's point is that the word "culture" brings to mind a monolithic entity, whereas the word "memes" brings to mind many different and possibly mutually contradictory, well memes.
That's plausible.
I'm apt to think of cultures as made of many subcultures, but I don't think I was when I was replying to Vaniver.