1 00:00:00,142 --> 00:00:07,694 ah The other thing Susan was saying just a minute ago about the kind of uh scary future in which 2 00:00:07,694 --> 00:00:14,116 memes will be more more in charge is just interesting because it gets back to kind of an old science 3 00:00:14,116 --> 00:00:19,568 fiction motif. know, kind of at what point does the technology that humans have created begin 4 00:00:19,568 --> 00:00:25,310 to in some sense take over? And that's actually an idea in this movie, Matrix, for example, 5 00:00:25,310 --> 00:00:32,001 most recently. But I think precisely because technology itself is certainly more more animated 6 00:00:32,001 --> 00:00:39,045 ah and is moving faster and faster, I think that's one reason that the concept of the 7 00:00:39,045 --> 00:00:47,290 meme has some valence these days and people find it intriguing at least. Carl writes from 8 00:00:47,290 --> 00:00:52,222 Watertown, Massachusetts, one thing to consider about this concept is that it may mask the 9 00:00:52,222 --> 00:00:57,480 influence of power and money on what we think. believe and induce our friends and children 10 00:00:57,480 --> 00:01:02,603 to reproduce. There are people in organizations that have greater ability to produce stable, 11 00:01:02,603 --> 00:01:07,517 hardy memes than others. There are people in organizations that have a greater ability to 12 00:01:07,517 --> 00:01:13,591 disseminate memes into the population. Right now, mass media seems to have a prominent monopoly 13 00:01:13,591 --> 00:01:18,824 on both the ability to produce hardy memes and the means to disseminate them. And we know 14 00:01:18,824 --> 00:01:25,550 how concentrated the control over these media currently are. What do think? actually in some 15 00:01:25,550 --> 00:01:31,450 ways the control over the media going left concentrated uh... by the day certainly i mean anyone can 16 00:01:31,450 --> 00:01:38,070 can set up their own web page uh... and so in a certain sense uh... and you know some of 17 00:01:38,070 --> 00:01:42,250 the level be broadband with the movie tv so in a certain sense that this business i think 18 00:01:42,250 --> 00:01:46,990 is getting democratized uh... and it we've come a long way from the day when there three or 19 00:01:46,990 --> 00:01:51,290 four channels on t v and i think we'll we'll keep moving in that direction yet but you could 20 00:01:51,290 --> 00:01:56,720 put up your own web page with a picture of a soft drink bottle and you wouldn't have the 21 00:01:56,720 --> 00:02:04,157 same power as coke to reproduce that curvy slim hip thing, the coke bottle out into the rest 22 00:02:04,157 --> 00:02:10,052 of the world. No, that's absolutely true. would start small if I were an aspiring meme engineer. 23 00:02:10,052 --> 00:02:14,776 You're listening to Talk of the Nation. I'm Ray Suarez, my guest to Robert Wright and Susan 24 00:02:14,776 --> 00:02:19,320 Blackmore. We're going to take a short break right now when we return. We'll continue talking 25 00:02:19,320 --> 00:02:21,632 about the meme and whether it can help us 26 00:02:35,490 --> 00:02:41,025 Welcome back to the program. I'm Ray Suarez. Tune in at this time tomorrow to join Ira Fledo 27 00:02:41,025 --> 00:02:46,609 for the next Science Friday. He'll be in conversation with Nobel Laureate Carrie Mullis, who invented 28 00:02:46,609 --> 00:02:52,725 a way of copying small fragments of DNA. And if you're listening to KCUR Radio, I'll be 29 00:02:52,725 --> 00:02:58,349 in your neighborhood tomorrow at lunchtime speaking at the Mid-America Regional Council, talking 30 00:02:58,349 --> 00:03:03,934 about sustainable urban development. And then tomorrow night in an event sponsored by KCUR. 31 00:03:14,654 --> 00:03:20,737 You are your local public radio station. I'll be talking at Unity Temple in Kansas City. 32 00:03:21,418 --> 00:03:25,810 give the station a call if you want more information. Today we're talking about memes, what they 33 00:03:25,810 --> 00:03:30,973 are, do they actually exist, and whether they can help us understand complex aspects of human 34 00:03:30,973 --> 00:03:37,046 nature and culture. My guests are Susan Blackmore, author of The Meme Machine and a senior lecturer 35 00:03:37,046 --> 00:03:42,890 in psychology at the University of West England in Bristol, and Robert Wright, author of The 36 00:03:42,890 --> 00:03:51,895 Moral Animal. evolutionary psychology and everyday life. number is 800-989-8255 and Bronwyn 37 00:03:51,895 --> 00:03:58,738 is with us from Cambridge, Massachusetts. Hi Bronwyn. Hi. I have an experience sometimes 38 00:03:58,738 --> 00:04:05,421 when I watch ads on television which resonates with what your guest is talking about. I really 39 00:04:05,421 --> 00:04:11,863 like to watch ads. I'm very interested in them as art and I think of myself as having a 40 00:04:11,863 --> 00:04:18,549 kind of distance from them. But every once in a while, I just feel like a little ping or 41 00:04:18,549 --> 00:04:24,471 something, and I just realize that all of a sudden I want that thing for a minute. I think, 42 00:04:24,471 --> 00:04:28,702 oh no, I'm going to go out and buy that thing. So it's very strange, and it is almost like 43 00:04:29,182 --> 00:04:36,904 an infection. And then you speak about what use of something like, say, an ad. Well, I 44 00:04:36,904 --> 00:04:50,248 think it just speaks to some need that we have for beauty or style. uh something that you 45 00:04:50,248 --> 00:05:00,597 don't have to call beauty or style. So Bronwyn, do you resist? I usually resist. Yeah. Well, 46 00:05:00,597 --> 00:05:07,914 I usually, once I've noticed it, I think it kind of, it kind of dies down. Once I've seen 47 00:05:07,914 --> 00:05:14,008 that, oh, that happens. having too expensive that I can't possibly afford. if you don't 48 00:05:14,008 --> 00:05:19,151 realize it, you're in trouble. Yeah. It's been a very successful transfer into the ad there. 49 00:05:19,151 --> 00:05:28,739 So, I'm sure the ad people are just hoping that you don't realize it more often than 50 00:05:28,739 --> 00:05:36,105 you do. Yeah, I think they're counting on that. Advertising, Susan Blackmore may... I know 51 00:05:36,105 --> 00:05:44,244 that memeplex is... is sort of another level of sophistication of what you're talking about 52 00:05:44,244 --> 00:05:50,688 but certainly people who want to push a lot of buttons in 30 seconds uh bundle up memes 53 00:05:50,688 --> 00:05:56,342 and throw them at you in a great big bunch sometimes. Oh yes and you can think of the 54 00:05:56,342 --> 00:06:01,726 advertising agencies as having been monastic engineers for a long time without calling themselves 55 00:06:01,726 --> 00:06:07,842 that. They have found many of the tricks I suspect with a lot more study of memes. they'll find 56 00:06:07,842 --> 00:06:11,564 some tricks that they haven't stumbled across already, but they're using tricks which get 57 00:06:11,564 --> 00:06:16,787 ideas into our brains. As Bronwyn mentioned, sometimes it's because they're beautiful or 58 00:06:16,787 --> 00:06:20,119 they really pull our heartstrings emotionally. That's some of the reasons they get in, but 59 00:06:20,119 --> 00:06:26,192 other reasons are nastier reasons. get in because they frighten us, because they bring up deep-seated, 60 00:06:26,192 --> 00:06:31,025 genetically-based emotional reactions and so on. But they're the past masters of getting 61 00:06:31,025 --> 00:06:35,647 mean flexes that will make us do what they want us to do. But don't forget that we do have 62 00:06:35,647 --> 00:06:40,367 a kind of immune reaction. It's well known from psychological research that even very 63 00:06:40,367 --> 00:06:45,839 young kids are quite well able to discriminate the TV program from the adverts and for very 64 00:06:45,839 --> 00:06:51,660 good reason we separate those two aspects out reasonably thoroughly. And they're quite 65 00:06:51,660 --> 00:06:55,721 well able to separate them. And very early on kids become quite cynical. Oh, I'm not going 66 00:06:55,721 --> 00:07:00,703 to buy that because it tells me to. So the advertisers have to work harder and harder to uh get the 67 00:07:00,703 --> 00:07:04,936 wrong women and all those kids not to notice that they're having their strings pulled. Bronwyn, 68 00:07:04,936 --> 00:07:12,133 thanks a lot for your call. Robert Wright, a lot of the focus on these kinds of conversations 69 00:07:12,133 --> 00:07:19,319 for the past hundred years have been speculations on why humans have such big brains. And there's 70 00:07:19,319 --> 00:07:25,885 Bronwyn uh using her discernment that having a big brain has given her to sort through all 71 00:07:25,885 --> 00:07:33,084 her experiences and recognize that she's being sucked in. ah But there we are. using memes 72 00:07:33,084 --> 00:07:40,550 as efficient ways of uh transmitting emotion, whole long uh lists of associations that we 73 00:07:40,550 --> 00:07:45,363 don't have to go through one by one because we're just throwing the meme out there. uh 74 00:07:45,363 --> 00:07:51,527 There's a case to be made for the big brain in the case of uh watching that TV commercial 75 00:07:51,527 --> 00:07:56,551 and knowing you're being had, and a case for not needing such a big brain because if we 76 00:07:56,551 --> 00:08:03,651 strip down our language and just trade memes like bottle caps, uh... we don't have to have 77 00:08:03,651 --> 00:08:08,715 the big brain right uh... i i think there's no doubt that that culture and you can call 78 00:08:08,715 --> 00:08:14,048 that means if you want uh... was a big part of the evolution the genetic evolution of the 79 00:08:14,048 --> 00:08:20,182 human brain and and the brain is designed to among other things uh... process culture now 80 00:08:20,182 --> 00:08:27,429 i think uh... uh... as is been suggested the brain is is designed among other things 81 00:08:27,429 --> 00:08:33,481 to fend off memes that are not likely to be useful. think that the brain is a fairly discriminating 82 00:08:33,481 --> 00:08:40,234 emulator. ah And I think Susan may have a somewhat different view. I got the impression from 83 00:08:40,234 --> 00:08:48,518 her book that she does. And this is one reason that ah I'm a little reluctant to of wholly 84 00:08:48,518 --> 00:08:54,831 invert my view and see the memes as in charge, partly because people are so discriminating. 85 00:08:54,831 --> 00:08:59,816 You know, when those advertisers are trying to push our buttons, they're trying to push 86 00:08:59,816 --> 00:09:05,451 the buttons of human nature. They have to contend with human nature and they have to be very 87 00:09:05,451 --> 00:09:10,406 sly to do it well. And I think that will always be the case. mean, memes will always have to 88 00:09:10,406 --> 00:09:15,991 grapple with human nature. And so it's not clear to me that at any point it really makes sense 89 00:09:15,991 --> 00:09:22,036 to say ah the memes are in charge now. Oh, you've picked on a really important argument here, 90 00:09:22,036 --> 00:09:27,521 and one that's been kind of picking up momentum since the book came out, um which is only a 91 00:09:27,521 --> 00:09:33,076 few weeks ago. In the book, I think, as you know, I made an argument that the memes had 92 00:09:33,076 --> 00:09:37,880 forced the genes to produce a big brain for their own benefit, similarly to what I was 93 00:09:37,880 --> 00:09:42,955 arguing earlier about the memes making the internet and so on for their own spread. And I kind 94 00:09:42,955 --> 00:09:49,283 of implied that um the big brain was... completely useless to the genes and that it was only there 95 00:09:49,283 --> 00:09:54,619 for the means and that the genes had lost out kind of thing. And to some extent that's the 96 00:09:54,619 --> 00:09:59,243 way I was thinking about it. I suppose because of the numerous of this idea of the means as 97 00:09:59,243 --> 00:10:04,689 a replicator forcing the genes to do their bidding. But since then a lot of people, you and other 98 00:10:04,689 --> 00:10:06,211 people have pointed out, but hang on a minute.