The word “Meme” has a meaning far more powerful and important than the what it has come to represent in our lives. Richard Dawkins, much revered and much hated atheist non-apologist, coined the term in his book “The Selfish Gene” in 1976. By it, he meant that any fragmentary concept that could be passed from individual to individual could be classified as a meme. And he meant it as a sociological analogy to genes.
A meme could be a way of using a word. It could be an idea for a new invention. It could be an accent, a joke, a ritual, anything that can be imitated or reproduced by individuals. To that end, memes are the building blocks of culture – much like genes are the building blocks of biology. A good meme, much like a good gene, is preserved and used again and again. A bad meme is discarded and does not survive. Memes have existed in this way prior to language.
Dawkins claimed that the genes – pieces of DNA – act in a way to ensure their own survival and proliferation. Though they do not have “intent” or “will”, these self replicating chemicals can be thought of metaphorically as self-interested. His overall purpose is to show that altruism – a difficult concept for Dawkins to accept, being the sterile, god-hating sort that he is – should not be difficult at all to understand. When a creature brings about its own death to protect its children, its platoon, or its hive-mates (in the case of colony forming insects), it is in fact trying to preserve a distinct set of genes that are identical or similar to the ones it possesses. And that the behavior is encoded by genes which other genes have hitched a ride with.
Memes are similar. Some ideas just never catch on despite massive investment by interested parties. Others take on a life of their own without any work at all. Some just mesh with our genetic makeup combined with our existing cultural framework – like a round peg in a round hole. Whether you know it or not, you are subconsciously choosing to accept or reject newly discovered (or re-discovered ideas) all day everyday. As a decider in this regard, your mind becomes just one hub in a massive network of ideas.
Across the planet, we form a massive test-bed of ideas – both practical and whimisical. Theories of God or gods, different realities, planes of existance, strange and odd tales all arise in this network and are propagated across depending on their acceptability to our biology and our history. There are no immutable truths within this network, only various levels of acceptance depending on both the idea and the host.
In all regards, however, our ideas must be challenged by the real and the tangible. Real-life experiences tether the network to facts that cannot be altered.
But as we sink inside of ourselves and avoid the real for the imaginary, these tethers disappear. It is much like how the traditional forces of evolution have been eased for our genes thanks to modern medicine. Genetic flaws that would kill our ancestors prior to reproduction are being allowed to propagate thanks to our iron-willed determination to keep everyone alive for as long as possible. Memes (ideas) that would have no chance of survival in a world where the ultimate arbiter of our daily lives was the real and tangible, find new life, compete for air, when facts are softened or ignored.
In our new world, built on unverifiable statements, we have no choice but to accept those ideas which are most consistent with the ideas we already have. But if there is a systematic error somewhere – something imperceptible in the past that has sneaked into our thoughts and beliefs – then we risk building our personal reality on nothing but thin air.
When the basic building blocks of our thought can be manipulated so easily, who truly profits from such control? If it is the “billionaire cabal” that controls the world, what ends could they really have? Sitting around and feasting on the adrenal glands of frightened children seems an unlikely end game. There are those, however, who have stated goals beyond the accumulation of wealth…