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Wednesday, 17 May 2006

Q) "How far back in evolution does the conceptual "meme" of the Aryan race date historically? "

A) The term 'meme' was coined by Richard Dawkins [author of the 'The Selfish Gene'] in the 1970's as a cultural counter-part to the biological 'gene'.
The 'scientific' study of culture is still very much a Holy Grail.

The Rig-Veda is the earliest extant Aryan 'meme cache' [it is in fact the earliest extent religious book per se].

Q) "Was their birth before or after the promethean instinctual act of abandoning their fellow apes in the trees on their quest towards the Uberman?"

A) The Prometheus myth is of course Aryan. His connection with the control of fire is instructive. The Aryan Zarathustra is associated with fire worship; the concept of an 'ever-living fire' is common to Heraus and pagan Rome. The name Pro-metheus means 'fore sight'.
As far as I know the theory of evolution [ expounded in a basic form by the Pre-Socratic philosophers], put forward by the Darwins [Erasmus and Charles] and developed by moderns like Dawkins, suggests that hominds [in pre-history there were different species of hominids] share a 'common ancestor' with apes. So they never were 'apes' as such.

Q) "Did they drag with them the ignoble homunculus that sprang
> from themselves to poison their culture?".

A) Slavery is probably as old as culture itself. So yes, the potential of Nietzsche's 'slave-revolt' has always been present.

Q) "Maybe the "memes" of this select blood-race was born out of the spirit of mere scavengers that timidly waited for the lions and hyenas to finish their meals, which through increased protein intake, unwittingly increased their brain capacity.

A) That is a common hypothesis among some of those who support evolutionary theory. Of course it is a retrospective attitude to suggest that such activities were 'timid'. I would have thought that such a scenario is dangerous and desperate. It was no doubt due to a level of Promethean fore-sight that man was able to extirpate or control predatory beasts of prey.
The question of how and why brain capacity increased in evolution remains unanswered; this in itself should encourage a scepticism towards a wholesale acceptance of the theory of evolution.

Q) " And through this reversal they heroically set out to expiate that timid aspect from their being?"

A) Again, this assumes that scavenging in such conditions is 'timid', which I doubt.

Q) "Or maybe the concept of race is an outmoded human construct of social orginization that resides in the undemonstrable "spirit of the blood" and other idealistic things-in-themselves such as self-organizing immutable "memes"?.

A) Of course all 'concepts' are 'human constructs'; indeed it was Nietzsche who did much to alert us to this. However, man lives by concepts as much as he lives by food. Even the Nihilist has to believe in his 'meaninglessness'.
No one would claim the 'meme' to be anything more than a useful hypothesis [just as the Pre-Socratics viewed the 'atom'].
Scientists though, are able to demonstrate what they call that unit of heredity,the 'gene' ; and the recent work of the geneticist Cavilli-Sfortza includes 'gene maps' showing the movements of different racial groups across Europe for example, which concur largely with the work of ancient historians and older racial theorists.
Even back in the 19th century it was archeological excavations by Schliemann which showed that Troy was NOT a myth as clever sceptics had once held it to be.

I am well aware that 'race theory' is politically incorrect today, just as 'atomism' was once considered religiously incorrect. But that is no guide to relative 'truth'.

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