Memes at work? 2010-08-02

Reviewer: Atheen M. Wilson

Although I think that the concept of the meme and a science of memetics would be very helpful in understanding culture and how it develops, I'm not certain that all discussions of how memes work in present day society is necessarily new or helpful. Mr. Brodie's book seems to me, therefore, something of a "pop-psychology" book that represents itself as something more than it is.

Psychology as a field has already done and continues to do an adequate job of enlightening us on our behaviors and motivations without any need to refer back to Darwinian theories. Cordelia Fine's book A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives, for instance, discusses many of our subconscious processes, the "whys?" and "whats?" of our various opinions, prejudices, and behaviors, and does so with experimental evidence to support them. Evidence, however, is what is conspicuously absent from Mr. Brodie's book, "Virus of the Mind." Although much of what he tells the reader is undoubtedly true, it is also mostly a rehash of evolutionary theory, and where memes come into play, mostly of the sort of "just so" category of "proof."

I agree with the author that every society is "infected" by its own culture and that different aspects of any given culture can be passed on to "infect" others. Cultural anthropology has collected abundant evidence that mankind is capable of producing almost limitless forms of behavior and material artifacts and of passing these on between generations and neighboring groups. This is anything but new. Frasier's classic book on magic and religion, The Golden Bough, among others, contains vast amounts of information on culture (not all of them reliable facts, however). It proves, if nothing else, that anthropology as a discipline has been and continues to be thoroughly active in its study of what we do, why we do it, what we make and how we use it.

Our fascination with the almost expotential rise in material culture since the first stone tool and with the impact of technology on individuals seems to scream for an explanation. Just the simple fact that it took almost a million years from the invention of a simple shaped cobble tool to create another style of tool and another 800,000 before the next style after that, especially in the presence of the current speed of cultural change, challenges our big brains to come up with an answer to "why?" John Burke's series Connections 1 (5 - Disc Set) makes it abundantly clear as to why. It takes a certain critical mass of ideas before a new one can take shape; in short the birth of a new idea has to actually be possible in context. A Paleolithic hunter-gatherer would hardly have been able to come up with nuclear power as a substitute for environmentally polluting wood campfires! He would, in fact, have been unable to conceptualize the problem of pollution or that his environment might suffer from it, yet alone that the chronic congestion and cough he suffered was proof thereof. (Cockburn's book Mummies, Disease and Ancient Cultures on the health of early people preserved by various means reveals the commonness of lung diseases from this source of pollution). Furthermore, as this series also makes clear, changes in technology proceed in tandem. It requires at least a minimal investment in infrastructure to produce electricity, and that infrastructure has to wait until some degree of precision manufacturing is possible or even understood as necessary. Furthermore society has to be convinced that the new technology is useful. Hero of Alexandria is known to have invented and understood the principles of steam power in the first century AD, but Greco-Roman society functioned on slave labor and saw no reason to do otherwise. It was in fact awash in slave labor because of its successful military exploitation of a fair share of the settled world around it. Water power was not even regularly exploited until the cost of labor--slave or wage--became more dear.

What the author seems to neglect is that a science of memetics isn't about changing what we do, how we do it, or what we make--at least not at the outset--but about understanding how it fits into who we are and how we got that way. If memes like genes have something to say about our evolution and our "fitness" as an organism, just what is it and how does it work biologically? Susan Blackmore's book The Meme Machine (Popular Science) goes a long way in pointing this out, suggesting a definition of meme, suggesting how it might work, and suggesting how this might be tested experimentally. At this point in the incipient science it hardly seems appropriate to begin application of principles we don't even know exist to problems that already have other sciences invested in their research.

I came away feeling that the author's intention was simply to infect me with yet another meme, one that encouraged me to buy the book and absorb the information as factual. In short it's another self help book. Unfortunately like most self help books, it requires the reader to apply its principles to a life in progress, which is not always easily done. Our lives play out in the midst of hundreds of others and are embedded in the culture in which we live them. Changes can sometimes be difficult. Which is why we have so many different self help books out there, and yet we still remain unchanged despite them. I am proof positive; I've read books on how to decrease clutter, reduce my spending, lose weight, gain confidence, stop being anxious, find love, etc. I still live in a messy house, buy way more than I actually need, am unhealthily overweight, lack any more confidence than I ever had, am habitually anxious, and totally loveless--although I'm frequently less happy when I'm in love, so I'm probably ahead of the game in that respect. I wasn't all that successful in changing myself; but the authors of the books were highly successful in getting them sold and me to buy one! Successful memes at work perhaps?

Great book for waking people up. 2010-03-11

Reviewer: C. DeGetmon

If you are looking for a hard core scientific study of memes than this book is most likely not for you. However, if you want an introduction to memes along with concise definitions, then this book is a good place to begin.

Memes are culturally conditioned ideas that replicate themselves; in this sense Brodie uses a metaphor of a virus to describe these culturally conditioned mutations. Memes - like viruses - follow normative conditions: i.e., like a virus a meme duplicates itself, it infiltrates, and it spreads. Whatever your ideology may be, the goal of an idea is to replicate, infiltrate, and spread itself to others.

This is the goal of politics, marketing, or any other ideological based system.

Brodie is attempting to bring awareness so people can then evaluate objectively the way they are being manipulated by political organizations, marketing gurus, business, religious leaders, or any other organization intent on influencing human behavior.

The book is worthwhile if for no other reason than to make one aware of the way cultural entities seek to hook your belief system - and using another popular metaphor - make you part of the BORG Nation of true believers: left, right, or middle.

Ultimately The Memes of This Book Won't Spread 2010-03-07

Reviewer: Vance

Overly simplistic view of why some ideas become popular and others don't. Interesting because it analogizes spreading of ideas, or memes, to evolutionary spread of genes. There have been subsequent books on the subject, notably Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point," and Seth Godin's "Unleashing the Ideavirus," that delve deeper into how memes are transmitted.

Brodie's Self-Promoting Mind Virus 2010-03-06

Reviewer: Jimmie G. Benbrook

I saw this book at Costco and was immediately attracted to the title, i.e., "What the heck is a "meme""? The title itself is a meme, which, I suppose, was Brodie's intent, I know it certainly piqued my interest. The book proved to be very informative for a person, such as myself, who was totally unfamiliar with memetics, and from that perspective it was well worth the read, however, I also found it rather self-promoting and somewhat disjointed. What was the purpose, for example, of the author's mini-tirade regarding the erosion of state's rights in favor of a more centralized form of government? To me, that was more of a personal political statement and a prime example of a mind virus. Though thought-provoking, the concept of memetics still remains nebulous to me but certainly deserves further exploration.

virus of the mind 2010-02-10

Reviewer: Beverly K. Credle

I ordered this book for my husband who has completely devoured it. He is a total nonfiction reader and thought this book was excellent in all aspects. He recommends it to anyone interest in our current situation with the federal government and its policies.