Margaret McGhee

Memes, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

A meme is an idea that is shared within a culture. Since memes are shared, some process was necessary for them to spread through their domain. According to the experts, true memes are copied by imitation - from one human mind to another, or to artifacts like books and film and then on to other human minds.

Memes are important to our lives because they make it easier for us to live together socially. Without memes, we would have no common understanding of how others in our culture think about economics, religion, education, sexuality, the social contract and a host of other important topics. The ideas that we share in common, our memes, are our culture.

But there are different kinds of memes and they can have very different effects on us. I see memes existing on a continuum from weak to strong and we can hold them for various reasons. According to this classification system a strong meme has the characteristics of a real virus. It infects a host - in this case through the neuro-emotional system of the host - and the infection causes the host to spread the meme to others. Strong memes like these can damage our ability to solve problems rationally.

We hold on to strong memes because they feel good when we massage them. Memes get massaged when we think positively about them or when we see or hear positive references to them. Especially, we feel good when we spread the meme to others. Someone infected with the "Christian God" meme will feel pleasure from spreading the "good word" and donating to missionary projects.

Alternatively, we feel bad when a strong meme that we hold is disparaged or attacked. Someone infected with the "Democrat" meme may feel anxiety when they read an article that questions Hillary Clinton's suitability for high office.

Because strongly held memes are attached directly to our emotions we don't even have to think about them to have an emotional reaction to them. Some strong memes can cause incredibly strong reactions. A severely infected person (a zealot) may organize their whole lives around the emotions generated by one particular set of "world view" memes like those involving politics, religion or philosophy. The strongest memes are often meme complexes that combine those - like Scientology or Communism.

There are millions of weak memes in our culture. Weak, according to my definition, does not mean that it has not spread throughout our culture or that it doesn't carry within it the ability to do so. A weak meme is one that is not attached directly to our emotions - but is spread for weaker indirect emotional reasons. Some weak memes proliferate because someone profits from their spread. An example would be a popular TV sitcom. The "Seinfeld" meme spreads through our culture because the mild pleasure we get from watching the program causes some of us to buy the sponsors' products. The actual meme copying process (network and cable distribution) is carried out by the show's producers to attract our financial support.

We carry many weak memes for logical reasons. Weak logical memes spread through our culture because they effectively help us deal with the world around us. It is in our interest to learn these memes by imitating our teachers. We make copies of these memes for our children. The multiplication tables is a good example of a logical weak memeplex because it is entirely logical and has little or no emotional content. It doesn't bother us if someone believes that two times five equals twelve. We may think the person is crazy, but it doesn't affect us emotionally or threaten our sense of security to hear them say so.

To be specific, if the president of the United States believed that two times five equals twelve, and was making important decisions that affected our well-being or security based on that belief, we certainly would feel threatened. But the threat would be from a crazy person in charge of our destiny, and the high probability that he would hold other illogical memes - not from his illogical "two time five equals twelve" meme directly. (Does this example cause an emotional reaction?)

While memes with a strong emotional attachment can hurt our reasoning ability, sometimes they are necessary for our survival. Whenever we must put ourselves in extreme danger in order to survive emotionally potent memes can help us overcome our logical caution. Soldiers in combat for example, must have a strong emotional commitment to mutual protection. This may start as an instinct. But a soldier's training refines that instinct into workable doctrine and attaches it firmly to their emotional response system - as a strong meme.

Any strongly held meme can be dangerous, even useful ones. Once we allow a meme to gain a strong emotional attachment then we lose the ability to to be logically critical of it - as when new information becomes available. According to accounts, prior to the Second World War most German soldiers believed they were participating in a patriotic movement for the betterment of Germany. Once trained and emotionally committed at the level required for combat - it was almost impossible for them to question the morality of their cause, even if they had suspicions.

A similar disconnect can be seen in the high approval rating of the Bush administration who just preemptively attacked another nation for dubious reasons. Wisely, and with the help of the US media, they revived and created a strong emotional connection to the "dangerous Saddam" meme. Granted, with 9/11 fresh in our memory, it wasn't a hard sell. But there was a preponderance of logical evidence against the claim at the time and even more has come to light since then. That most Americans still believe the meme was true and many others don't even care - vividly shows the power of strong memes to make logic irrelevant.

Weak memes, lacking an emotional hook, are not so self-protective. The weak memes that are held for logical reasons help us deal rationally with the world around us. If new evidence is discovered, then new, more logical memes can take their place - with relatively ease. I say relative because even scientific theories can be held by rational scientists for emotional reasons - who will then protect them from contrary evidence. But scientists are generally aware of this tendency and try to guard against it. The weak logical memes of science are of course, very important for human survival. Medicine, transportation, immunology, communications - all of our modern infrastructure depends on weak logical memes that are continually being refined and made ever more logically valid (effective) through the scientific process.

But we are basically emotional creatures. There is always the danger that a weak meme, especially in the mind of a person who is not logically critical of their memes, can mutate into a strong meme. I suspect this comes from a human tendency to identify with and become protective of our own memes - no matter why we originally held them. I have noticed that some people have a tendency to hold all of their memes with a strong emotional attachment, logically derived or not. These people come off as argumentative or opinionated. They seem ready to defend any of their memes at the drop of a hat.

The danger is that strong memes, over time will rid the minds of their hosts of competing weaker logical memes. They will also place filters on our inputs so that competing memes are rejected without logical consideration. When we hold strong memes we close our minds even to data that might be contrary. These memes can do great damage to those who hold them - and to their friends, family and society. A good example is the "Christian Science" memeplex. When one adopts this family of memes they will soon rid themselves of the logical "my child deserves the best medical care I can provide" meme with the "God will take care of my child if I pray" meme.

Usually, a person who holds a strong meme will be able to convince themselves of the truth of the meme - even if it is objectively false. This of course is dangerous. But if they fail to do that the results can be even worse. For example, a soldier who is emotionally committed to destroying the enemy can come to doubt the morality of their cause when presented with enough evidence. This is what happened to many GIs in Viet Nam. The very high incidence of mental illness from that war and the wasted lives of so many Viet Nam vets attributed to PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) shows the immense destruction that kind of disconnect can cause.

That tragedy was made possible by another meme, the "domino theory of encroaching Communism" meme that most of us were infected with in the early sixties. I believe we were infected with that meme for the same reasons that we were so recently infected with the "dangerous Saddam" meme. I invite you to consider these two events looking through the "strong meme" window. Do you think our leaders who were spreading the "dangerous Saddam" meme so recently were themselves infected with it - or do you think they were using their knowledge of memetics as a means to an end?

How can we allow ourselves to hold those few strong memes necessary for our survival in dangerous situations while retaining our ability to make rational decisions? I think it is difficult but possible. We must first test the logic. Then, if a strong meme is warranted for survival we can cautiously allow ourselves to become infected. But we must remember that we have given up our ability to rationally test the meme as conditions change or new information becomes available. If we understand how strong memes affect us we can make ourselves periodically retest their logical validity. With care, determination and a knowledge of memetics we can harness both the rational and emotional powers of survival to our needs in dangerous situations.

I believe the discussion of the different types of memes and how they affect us is important to the discussion of memetics as a whole - and has probably received too little attention. I believe that a form of memetic therapy that helps heavily infected persons rid themselves of destructive, illogical memes would benefit those persons and society as a whole. I believe that if a holocaust event is in our future, it will be initiated by some heavily infected person who would gladly destroy all life on earth in their efforts to kill any hosts who carry a competing meme.

For our sakes and for the sake of humanity we should all be very skeptical of memes that appeal to our emotions and not our reason.

Margi