1 00:00:03,150 --> 00:00:03,602 you 2 00:00:11,694 --> 00:00:17,746 This is Talk of the Nation. I'm Ray Suarez. Memes, this hour on the program. What's a 3 00:00:17,746 --> 00:00:24,478 meme? It's an idea, a symbol, a piece of knowledge that can easily pass from person to person, 4 00:00:24,478 --> 00:00:30,080 from place to place, to borrow from the Book of Common Prayer, by thought, word, and deed. 5 00:00:30,840 --> 00:00:37,632 So what? Well, we're a country in the midst of a world churning out memes as much as consumer 6 00:00:37,632 --> 00:00:42,436 durables And I figure a look at how ideas zip around the world, how we end up knowing the 7 00:00:42,436 --> 00:00:48,868 things we know in the massive storage house of our brains, can be useful. An intriguing 8 00:00:48,868 --> 00:00:54,570 idea is to compare the movement of memes around the world to the way people pass genes, or 9 00:00:54,570 --> 00:00:59,753 diseases, from person to person, starting from one place and moving to every corner of the 10 00:00:59,753 --> 00:01:05,605 world. We'll talk about memes and perhaps pass some on this hour. We'll begin with Richard 11 00:01:05,605 --> 00:01:10,760 Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene. in which he coined the word and introduced the idea 12 00:01:10,760 --> 00:01:16,084 of the meme. He's professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University. Good to have 13 00:01:16,084 --> 00:01:21,428 you with us, sir. Thank you. Well, this was in the uh closing chapter of The Selfish Gene, 14 00:01:21,428 --> 00:01:30,024 and uh here was the birth pangs of the meme. Now that it is an idea that's being written 15 00:01:30,024 --> 00:01:35,808 about and talked about, uh are you glad you passed on the meme meme in the first place? 16 00:01:36,462 --> 00:01:41,182 Yes, I was fairly cautious when I first suggested it. It came at the end of The Selfish Gene, 17 00:01:41,262 --> 00:01:47,762 which is a book about genes, as you might expect, a book about the Darwinian role of genes. Darwinian 18 00:01:47,762 --> 00:01:52,822 natural selection is an immensely powerful force which has given rise to all of life, as you 19 00:01:52,822 --> 00:02:00,702 know. It is about the differential survival of anything that self-replicates. In the case 20 00:02:00,702 --> 00:02:06,504 of true Darwinism, that means DNA. but I thought maybe there's something else other than DNA 21 00:02:06,644 --> 00:02:12,727 that might be the basis for some kind of Darwinian process. The meme, which your definition was 22 00:02:12,727 --> 00:02:21,012 admirable, the meme was a suggested second candidate for a self-replicating entity in 23 00:02:21,282 --> 00:02:32,219 a Darwinian process. But I guess the real problem I have is with agency. uh We are sticky. human 24 00:02:32,219 --> 00:02:39,524 beings are, our intellects are sticky. And we sort of catch things as they pass by. That's 25 00:02:39,524 --> 00:02:44,587 not so much in the nature of what it is that's passing by as in the nature of us. Well that's 26 00:02:44,587 --> 00:02:52,353 true. And in just the same kind of way, too are not agents. uh Genes too behave a little 27 00:02:52,353 --> 00:02:59,822 bit like agents and you can understand the Darwinian process if you make a kind of leap 28 00:02:59,822 --> 00:03:03,494 of imagination and treat them as though they were agents. But of course you always have 29 00:03:03,494 --> 00:03:11,768 to remember that actually they're not and the same applies to memes. So while we can understand 30 00:03:11,768 --> 00:03:21,522 uh people acting in certain ways, impelled to move their genes on, what would act to 31 00:03:21,522 --> 00:03:28,398 more successfully move memes on? Any difficulties you have with genes are the same as you might 32 00:03:28,398 --> 00:03:34,598 have with memes. We don't deliberately act to move our genes on, but we are pre-programmed 33 00:03:34,598 --> 00:03:40,718 by our genes with nervous systems that make us behave as if we were moving to pass them 34 00:03:40,718 --> 00:03:49,678 on. And in the same way, a meme like, believe in God, or believe that if you sin before you 35 00:03:49,678 --> 00:03:58,172 die, you'll go to hell after you die. Those memes both tend to pass on to not future generations 36 00:03:58,172 --> 00:04:04,875 but to other brains because they have what it takes to impress brains and get themselves 37 00:04:04,875 --> 00:04:14,379 passed on. Are there times where you are cited in articles or mimetics is described where 38 00:04:14,379 --> 00:04:19,501 you find yourselves thinking, uh-oh, that's a little further than I want to go? Yes, there 39 00:04:19,501 --> 00:04:26,291 are. If you look up mimetics, on the worldwide web, you'll find literally thousands of references 40 00:04:26,291 --> 00:04:34,967 to it. And some of them are fairly flaky, some of them are really rather good. So I do have 41 00:04:34,967 --> 00:04:41,781 a certain amount of uneasiness. By the way, the term meme is very often used without citing 42 00:04:41,781 --> 00:04:47,515 me. And that's very good because the Oxford Dictionary has just included the word in the 43 00:04:47,515 --> 00:04:52,408 dictionary. The Oxford Dictionary's criterion for including a word m is that it should be 44 00:04:52,408 --> 00:04:59,610 used without reference to where it comes from. So I'm pleased that the word mean is being 45 00:04:59,610 --> 00:05:04,992 used without reference to where it comes from. Well that may be a milestone in scholarship 46 00:05:04,992 --> 00:05:10,364 itself, an academic saying that he's glad to see his ideas mentioned without having his 47 00:05:10,364 --> 00:05:15,815 own name in That's right, it's an achievement in mnemethics. Professor Dawkins, thanks for 48 00:05:15,815 --> 00:05:21,405 being with us this hour. Thank you very much. Richard Dawkins is author of The Selfish Gene, 49 00:05:21,705 --> 00:05:27,059 the book in which he coined the word and introduced the idea of the meme, professor of the public 50 00:05:27,059 --> 00:05:32,474 understanding of science at Oxford University and joined us from Oxford. With us for the 51 00:05:32,474 --> 00:05:38,559 rest of the hour is Susan Blackmore, author of The Meme Machine, senior lecturer in psychology 52 00:05:38,559 --> 00:05:43,593 at the University of the West of England in Bristol. Good to have you with us. And Robert 53 00:05:43,593 --> 00:05:49,051 Wright is here in Studio 3A in Washington, author of The Moral Animal. evolutionary psychology 54 00:05:49,051 --> 00:05:54,814 and everyday life welcome back thank you number in washington's eight hundred nine eight nine 55 00:05:54,875 --> 00:06:01,799 eight two five five that eight hundred nine eight nine talk well susan blackmore uh... 56 00:06:01,799 --> 00:06:07,272 you took richard dalkins ball and uh... continued to run it downfield tell us a little bit more 57 00:06:07,272 --> 00:06:13,882 about uh... the ways you wanted to refine and further explain basic idea I'm sure that's 58 00:06:13,882 --> 00:06:19,802 a reference to some game I know nothing about. Yes, that's what I did. His idea has been around 59 00:06:19,802 --> 00:06:24,882 a long time. The Selfish Gene was 1976. And I knew about it then, and it didn't somehow 60 00:06:24,882 --> 00:06:29,862 get to me until three or four years ago. I was very ill and I was lying in bed for months. 61 00:06:30,462 --> 00:06:35,842 And I started reading all my favorite evolution books again, including The Selfish Gene. And 62 00:06:35,842 --> 00:06:41,069 I finally realized what the implications of his idea were. But if you treat everything 63 00:06:41,069 --> 00:06:46,074 that we imitate from person to person, everything that is copied around the world from one person 64 00:06:46,074 --> 00:06:52,049 to another as a replicator, then you can apply all of evolutionary theory ah to what's going 65 00:06:52,049 --> 00:06:55,885 on. The implications are quite staggering, and what I tried to do in that book was to spell 66 00:06:55,885 --> 00:07:02,438 them out. For example, you've raised the issue of agency. If you really buy Darwin's idea 67 00:07:02,698 --> 00:07:07,966 that design comes about because of the competition between replicators to get copied, then you 68 00:07:07,966 --> 00:07:11,939 start to see everything that happens in the human mind and in human culture as designed 69 00:07:11,939 --> 00:07:16,393 by the evolutionary algorithm running on means, by means competing to get into our brains, 70 00:07:16,633 --> 00:07:21,427 rather than us as autonomous agents. There are many other implications, but I tried to 71 00:07:21,427 --> 00:07:22,758 spell all these out in the book. 72 00:07:31,694 --> 00:07:36,657 And it seems to me that this is a fundamentally new way of looking at why human beings are 73 00:07:36,657 --> 00:07:45,323 the way they are. But certain memes uh attain wide frequency after some time because of 74 00:07:45,323 --> 00:07:51,878 their tremendous appeal, but not particularly because of any value in the imitation. Absolutely 75 00:07:51,878 --> 00:07:57,571 right. And this is one of strengths of memes theory. You see, I think most memes probably 76 00:07:57,571 --> 00:08:02,506 succeed because they're in some way useful to us or to our genes. oh And the genes are, if 77 00:08:02,506 --> 00:08:07,240 you like, bearing in mind Richard Dawkins' caution about saying these things. The genes are if 78 00:08:07,240 --> 00:08:11,953 you like, trying all the time to make sure that we only pick up names that are useful to them, 79 00:08:12,174 --> 00:08:16,967 things that will help us survive, and so on. But the value of the mnemetic view is that 80 00:08:16,967 --> 00:08:22,821 you realize that lots of names get passed on even though they are not valuable, not true, 81 00:08:22,861 --> 00:08:29,176 not useful. They, if you like, use tricks. Richard Dawkins there uh mentioned religions. 82 00:08:29,358 --> 00:08:35,118 and he's well known for his theory that religions are viruses of the mind. They are viruses in 83 00:08:35,118 --> 00:08:40,478 the sense that they are a copy of the instruction, pass on this idea about God or Virgin birth 84 00:08:40,478 --> 00:08:45,338 or whatever it is, backed up with threats and promises and that gets them around. But another 85 00:08:45,338 --> 00:08:51,578 example might be those awful computer viruses, internet viruses, pen pals greetings, do not 86 00:08:51,578 --> 00:08:56,838 pass this on. If you get this in your computer it will destroy your hard disk. Now these are 87 00:08:56,838 --> 00:09:00,929 very successful. because they play tricks on us. They make us want to be altruistic and 88 00:09:00,929 --> 00:09:08,081 help our friends by passing on the warning and they use threats and promises. So this mnemetic 89 00:09:08,081 --> 00:09:12,472 view, what I'm trying to say I suppose is this, we mustn't think that all mnemetics is about 90 00:09:12,472 --> 00:09:18,244 viral memes, but the reason that we often emphasize those ones is because they make clear 91 00:09:18,244 --> 00:09:22,485 the point that what's in our heads is a lot of it is good and useful stuff, but a lot of 92 00:09:22,485 --> 00:09:28,778 it is memes that just got there because they could. Well, for those... listeners I'm sure 93 00:09:28,778 --> 00:09:33,998 who are many who are just hearing about this for the first time and they've never seen the 94 00:09:33,998 --> 00:09:42,418 word M E M E except perhaps written with an accent circumflex over something totally different. 95 00:09:43,058 --> 00:09:50,438 Give us some examples of what 1999 westerners might recognize as memes. Oh well trendy trainers, 96 00:09:50,858 --> 00:09:57,587 don't know what's the latest trendy thing, shootings in schools I'm afraid to say. you know, is 97 00:09:57,587 --> 00:10:03,135 not a mean, it's somehow inherent in human nature, but the way that it's done is probably copied 98 00:10:03,135 --> 00:10:06,130 from person to person, school to school.