A meme is a cognitive or behavioural pattern that can be transmitted from one individual to another such as philosophy, language, morals or traditions.
The idea of memes sprung from genetic theory, using ideas the same principals as Darwinian evolution and applying them to culture. Where as the interaction genes determine many of the physical attributes of an organism, memes determine the intellectual make up of culture. They are the building blocks of the human mind. Christianity, atheism, feminism, in fact any given idea can be described as a meme.
Psychologists who study meme theory look at issues as how ideas are spread (lots of research money from advertising agencies in this area), the semantic content of a given idea and the historical/social factors that lead to the spread of certain memes and the death of others (the entire secularisation, peoples voting habits, all these can be examined by meme theory). Dr Susan Blakemore goes even further suggesting that the very nature of culture is memic.
As you might guess I think this is really rather fascinating area of psychology (perhaps your course will cover it at some point?), though it can be a little depressing to think of every given idea as basically a virus (William S. Burroughs advanced a similar theory about human language being a virus that invades our minds and limits our thinking).
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Re: I can if you want...
Date: 2003-01-07 09:46 am (UTC)The idea of memes sprung from genetic theory, using ideas the same principals as Darwinian evolution and applying them to culture. Where as the interaction genes determine many of the physical attributes of an organism, memes determine the intellectual make up of culture. They are the building blocks of the human mind. Christianity, atheism, feminism, in fact any given idea can be described as a meme.
Psychologists who study meme theory look at issues as how ideas are spread (lots of research money from advertising agencies in this area), the semantic content of a given idea and the historical/social factors that lead to the spread of certain memes and the death of others (the entire secularisation, peoples voting habits, all these can be examined by meme theory). Dr Susan Blakemore goes even further suggesting that the very nature of culture is memic.
As you might guess I think this is really rather fascinating area of psychology (perhaps your course will cover it at some point?), though it can be a little depressing to think of every given idea as basically a virus (William S. Burroughs advanced a similar theory about human language being a virus that invades our minds and limits our thinking).