Description du poste
content warning: discussion of abusive relationships
Some ideas are memetic: they're catchy, they spread widely and easily, people have a reaction to them that induce them to propagate them further. Others are anti-memetic: for whatever reason, they have naturally self-censoring tendencies that reduce their reach.
My grandmother was a late-in-life convert to Christianity, who dragged the rest of the family along for a bit. I was an earnest, credulous bookworm of eight or so, and I took the youth pastor at his word when he encouraged all of us to read more of the bible in our own time. As it turns out, the youth pastor is actually not thrilled when you do, and come back with inconvenient questions. Parts of the bible can be anti-memetic in some Christian circles.
A bit later, I found myself in very socially progressive circles. I was an earnest, credulous bookworm of eighteen or so, who took the community leaders at their word when they told us that it is important to read theory, but even more important to do direct work and listen to the oppressed when their viewpoints diverged from the theory (which was written by dead white men). This I spent my early career doing, first at a remove at domestic violence policy summits and deep inside the federal public service, and then more directly at food banks and homeless shelters. I care deeply about improving the world, and I learned much about the kinds of work that are required to bring about the healed one. However, I did not disclose much of my learnings at the anarchist potlucks and communist reading groups. I somehow knew that they would not make me especially popular.
One of my anti-memetic learnings is on how to get a loved one to leave an abusive relationship. I have a small gift with words that render this anti-meme a little easier to swallow, but I hardly expect it to be a smash hit with my readers or the internet writ large. I can tell you that the instructions for solving addiction, the kinds of homelessness t