1 00:00:00,274 --> 00:00:06,596 but the way that it's done is probably copied from person to person, school to school. Advertisements, 2 00:00:06,596 --> 00:00:10,867 jingles, you? Or lovely music people hear it every week and they think, oh, that's my favorite 3 00:00:10,867 --> 00:00:18,639 program. Ways of saying, hi, or you're welcome, or whatever strange things you say over there. 4 00:00:18,639 --> 00:00:25,131 Things that you eat, freshers and food. I like to think of it this way. We learn a lot 5 00:00:25,131 --> 00:00:32,194 of things for ourselves and by ourselves. skill of riding a bike or surfing or whatever. These 6 00:00:32,194 --> 00:00:36,774 we learn by ordinary learning for ourselves. But anything which we get by copying it from 7 00:00:36,774 --> 00:00:42,514 somebody else, that's a meme. So every story we know, every song we can sing, every scientific 8 00:00:42,514 --> 00:00:46,974 theory that we've ever learned, these things are all memes. In other words, our culture 9 00:00:46,974 --> 00:00:52,694 is a mass of memes. Robert Wright is with us here in Washington, author of The Moral Animal, 10 00:00:52,934 --> 00:01:00,327 Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life. working for years to try to understand the origin of 11 00:01:00,387 --> 00:01:07,159 uh... of human variability are you comfortable with the idea that knowledge has uh... an organic 12 00:01:07,159 --> 00:01:16,052 parallel uh... i am broadly speaking uh... and uh... on the other hand that idea itself 13 00:01:16,072 --> 00:01:22,514 is not new the idea that cultural evolution is in some ways parallel to genetic evolution 14 00:01:22,514 --> 00:01:28,100 goes back uh... to darwin's day in fact in the origin of species darwin himself brings up 15 00:01:28,100 --> 00:01:33,322 the evolution of languages as an example to try to drive home what he's talking about 16 00:01:33,322 --> 00:01:38,795 uh... with natural selection and and after after darwin's day cultural evolution is and 17 00:01:38,795 --> 00:01:43,997 what was the raging anthropology and sociology for quite a while and i think certainly there 18 00:01:43,997 --> 00:01:49,939 is value in in looking at culture as a as a body of information that evolves uh... i think 19 00:01:49,939 --> 00:01:56,878 the question is What is new about the concept of the meme and how valuable it is? think certainly 20 00:01:56,878 --> 00:02:01,858 the name is valuable for one thing. It's catchy. It's a good meme It sounds a little like gene 21 00:02:01,858 --> 00:02:08,578 which is appropriately suggestive So I think it was well chosen if you ask what is really 22 00:02:08,578 --> 00:02:14,818 new about the concept of the meme I think the main thing is the willingness of the Dawkins 23 00:02:14,818 --> 00:02:20,855 and others to view memes as really active he denied that that they had little agency but 24 00:02:20,855 --> 00:02:28,330 at the same time his emphasis is on a fairly thorough comparison with genes in the sense 25 00:02:28,330 --> 00:02:35,025 that you view the units of culture as self-replicating so that a song I whistle kind of manipulates 26 00:02:35,025 --> 00:02:39,878 your brain into whistling it rather than you choosing to whistle the song that's what's 27 00:02:39,878 --> 00:02:46,258 new I think about the concept of the meme and I think the jury is still out on how how 28 00:02:46,258 --> 00:02:52,601 academically useful that's going to be. I the idea appeals to people more and more because 29 00:02:52,601 --> 00:03:00,024 in the information age, people feel almost under assault from bits of information coming 30 00:03:00,024 --> 00:03:04,426 at them from all sides. So think the concept is probably going to catch on more and more, 31 00:03:04,426 --> 00:03:10,218 and certainly the name is as well. I think within academia, uh the jury's still somewhat 32 00:03:10,218 --> 00:03:17,704 out, although I certainly found uh Susan's book fascinating. even people who doubt its scientific 33 00:03:17,704 --> 00:03:25,069 validity are sort of charmed by its metaphorical uh way of explaining how knowledge moves around. 34 00:03:25,349 --> 00:03:29,402 Could it have a valid life on that level? Oh, on those grounds alone. A lot of things are 35 00:03:29,402 --> 00:03:36,397 with us just because they're good metaphors. And I think the concept of the mean is here 36 00:03:36,397 --> 00:03:41,241 to stay. And in fact, it predates Dawkins' coining the term. And I think the term is here to stay. 37 00:03:41,241 --> 00:03:48,761 uh i think it's a good way to talk about the modern world where there are all these discrete 38 00:03:48,761 --> 00:03:54,134 bits of information that you can trace that are flying around on the internet uh... and 39 00:03:54,134 --> 00:03:58,507 and it it makes sense at that level and little of that mimetic music you're listening to talk 40 00:03:58,507 --> 00:04:02,769 of the nation i'm rey soares we're going to take a short break right now when we return 41 00:04:02,869 --> 00:04:08,112 we'll continue talking about memes and whether they can help us understand complex aspects 42 00:04:08,112 --> 00:04:15,066 of human nature and culture and we'll begin taking your calls at eight hundred Or you can 43 00:04:15,066 --> 00:04:18,086 email us at totm at npr. 44 00:04:23,320 --> 00:04:28,462 Welcome back to the program. I'm Ray Suarez. Today we're talking about memes, ideas or 45 00:04:28,462 --> 00:04:33,384 human behaviors which some scientists claim can be passed on from one person to another 46 00:04:33,384 --> 00:04:39,597 like genes. My guests are Susan Blackmore, author of The Meme Machine and senior lecturer in 47 00:04:39,597 --> 00:04:44,289 psychology at the University of the West of England in Bristol. She joins us from the BBC 48 00:04:44,289 --> 00:04:49,161 studios in Bristol. And Robert Wright is here in Washington, author of The Moral Animal, 49 00:04:49,221 --> 00:04:53,995 Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life. The number here in Washington is 800-989-8255. 50 00:04:53,995 --> 00:05:08,545 And I guess one thing that flummoxes me about this is utility. uh There is some of this 51 00:05:08,726 --> 00:05:15,360 that you can explain by using utility. And certainly Darwin's theories had a lot to do 52 00:05:15,360 --> 00:05:24,623 with adaptation that helped preserve and move forward a species. But knowing as I do, even 53 00:05:24,623 --> 00:05:31,916 at this late date, 35 year old television jingles, which were very successful memes, uh doesn't 54 00:05:31,916 --> 00:05:37,378 help me at all. No, and that's one of the strong points about memetics. If you really take 55 00:05:37,378 --> 00:05:42,750 seriously the idea that memes are just in it for their own replication, then they don't 56 00:05:42,750 --> 00:05:47,025 care, if you like. whether they are useful for you or whether they are useful for your 57 00:05:47,025 --> 00:05:52,307 genes. They will simply get copied if your brain copies them and not if they don't. So of course 58 00:05:52,307 --> 00:05:56,899 our brains try and keep all the useful ideas but end up with a whole lot of useless ones. 59 00:05:56,899 --> 00:06:02,121 You see genes are only passed on from parent to child and they will only be passed on if 60 00:06:02,121 --> 00:06:06,473 the parent survives and has children. But means are passed on very, very quickly, all around 61 00:06:06,473 --> 00:06:11,945 the world very fast. There isn't time for the genes to keep up. So if we have means that 62 00:06:12,005 --> 00:06:17,698 kill us off, they won't kill themselves, they'll still spread. For example, birth control means 63 00:06:17,698 --> 00:06:21,678 we're very successful. They are not useful for our genes, but they're spreading very fast. 64 00:06:22,018 --> 00:06:28,778 Even martyrdom, you might say, can spread religious means. It kills off the person who dies, but 65 00:06:28,778 --> 00:06:32,438 that doesn't matter to the means if they can spread the will. But Robert Ryan, I'm not gonna 66 00:06:32,438 --> 00:06:36,938 teach my eight-year-old daughter the theme to the Patty Duke show, which I could sing right 67 00:06:36,938 --> 00:06:47,166 now. probably not and i'll probably let you know i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i 68 00:06:47,166 --> 00:07:10,398 i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i All you can say for sure is 69 00:07:10,398 --> 00:07:16,998 that the habit or the idea was conducive to its own replication. It may or may not be good 70 00:07:16,998 --> 00:07:22,458 for the person with the habit. mean, heroin addiction, for example, keeps spreading. is 71 00:07:22,458 --> 00:07:29,458 manifestly bad for the people. But if it, in a sense, replicates itself fast enough, it 72 00:07:29,458 --> 00:07:35,678 can keep spreading. Now, I think when you get to the question of how often are means good 73 00:07:35,992 --> 00:07:42,034 for the people, there, even among the mnemesis, there's a difference of opinion, I think, and 74 00:07:42,034 --> 00:07:48,726 I think actually Susan may agree here, that among a lot of mnemesis, is excessive cynicism 75 00:07:48,726 --> 00:07:53,917 in a certain sense. There is too much willingness to kind of assume that every meme is a virus 76 00:07:53,917 --> 00:08:00,830 and it's bad for the person but good for itself. And I think uh comparisons, especially in realm 77 00:08:00,830 --> 00:08:06,901 of religion, I think it's... Dawkins has compared belief in God to a virus. My own view is that 78 00:08:06,901 --> 00:08:11,911 belief in God, regardless of its truth, is very often good for the person believing it and 79 00:08:11,911 --> 00:08:19,049 is very often good for the society in which it thrives. I think... Well, I'm glad to 80 00:08:19,049 --> 00:08:22,992 say that to some extent at least an empirical question. I you've raised the question there. 81 00:08:23,112 --> 00:08:27,778 Because Dawkins said this, we can actually have a go at testing it. there is evidence that 82 00:08:27,778 --> 00:08:31,238 people are happier if they believe in God than if they don't. mean, the cause and effect of 83 00:08:31,238 --> 00:08:36,158 relationships are tricky there, but this rather backs up your view. But I'd like to say something 84 00:08:36,158 --> 00:08:40,478 about this. While the mnemesis concentrate on viruses, I think you're right and I think it's 85 00:08:40,478 --> 00:08:45,218 dangerous because I certainly don't want to say that most memes are viral. All of science 86 00:08:45,218 --> 00:08:50,798 is memes and, you know, that's useful to us in many ways. New ways of producing food and 87 00:08:50,798 --> 00:08:55,178 things like this which are clearly conducive to our survival, these are all memes. But I 88 00:08:55,178 --> 00:09:01,515 think the thing is that An evolutionary psychologist like yourself wouldn't be surprised at these. 89 00:09:01,515 --> 00:09:05,707 They would follow from many other theories. Where monetics differs is in understanding 90 00:09:05,707 --> 00:09:09,529 the viral ones and perhaps that's why we could be accused of kind of overdoing it on the viral 91 00:09:09,529 --> 00:09:17,193 front. Well, I think there is a way to think of this that does talk about uh human utility 92 00:09:17,193 --> 00:09:25,618 and leave the meme as an unthinking, unfeeling, agency-less item. uh 93 00:09:35,938 --> 00:09:43,680 things that genes do is save us from having to recode every single new individual in every 94 00:09:43,680 --> 00:09:49,772 species in the world. In effect, you get a couple of hundred thousand years of distilled 95 00:09:49,772 --> 00:10:01,025 history handed on to you uh in the two X's or the X and the Y that you get passed. uh means 96 00:10:01,025 --> 00:10:06,201 save you from having to be totally sui generis. You are not a person with the-