We often speak of our spiritual ancestors. People who are not physically related to us but who have affected our lives. I think we can add another way of speaking about this class of people.
There are our genetic ancestors, and our memetic ancestors. The first have affected our lives in the nature sense. The second affect us through their nurturing of our minds and spirits.
If we are lucky our biological parents will also be a positive memetic force in our lives. But there are times when a memetic ancestor/parent will take a larger role than our biological parents.
I don’t believe that i am coming up with this out of whole cloth. I am giving another term for it that compiles a great number of archetypes under a larger banner.
The mentor, the wise-old-man/woman, the muse, the teacher, and to some degree the friend all can come under the banner of a memetic ancestor.
No comments:
Post a Comment