The word meme (meem) has only been around since 1976, first discussed in a book by Richard Dawkins entitled, The Selfish Gene. He took the Greek root of mimeme and shortened it to meme, to be more suggestive of gene and how genes seem to transmit information. It hasn’t been until the last few years that meme has broken out of more esoteric scientific circles and into the mainstream. The word, in effect, is doing what it means by becoming viral ...
A meme is an idea that is also a replicator. Think of it as a word or symbol that causes people to think a certain way, believe a certain thing, or take a specific action. A catchy jingle or slogan is a meme. You hear it, you play it in your head, and then you “infect” other minds by sharing it. Viral advertising slogans are memes, because they get passed around within a culture, and in many ways define culture.
Awareness of memes is a valuable self-development tool, because so much of a society’s culture is transmitted by memes. How a person is “supposed” to act is a meme. Family traditions are memes; political and religious beliefs are usually expressed as memes, or meme complexes, so they can be more easily passed from person to person, group to group, generation to generation.
I like to think of memes as attractive packages of information that hook your attention, and then cause you to adopt that entire package of information as your own without any critical analysis. This is why memes are so important in politics, religions, or social movements—a motto or slogan is attached over a packet of complex information, making it extremely easy to be absorbed and repeated, even if the person transmitting the meme doesn’t really believe or accept all of it.
This is how rumors or superstitions get started and build into “facts” or “truths,” even though the initial packet of information behind the meme contains faulty information or outright lies. How many of us have actually avoided cracks in the sidewalk because of the meme, “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.” I can remember as a young boy suddenly realizing how ridiculous this was, but not after avoiding sidewalk cracks for many weeks.
Because memes are basically packages of unexamined information that we adopt as truth, they lend themselves splendidly to be stored unconsciously, and can quickly become the modus operandi behind thinking about our behaviors, opinions and beliefs about ourselves and others.
Here is where values come in. To me, a true personal value is an ideal we cherish that explains who we are, what we do, and where we’re going. True values are never unexamined. They are borne out of life lessons—things we have come to believe are true; not things that society, our parents, or our friends say is true (these are most often memes).
So I’m making a distinction between values and memes in that values are critically analyzed conclusions about how we should best lead our lives based on life experience. The meme is an unexamined, unconsciously adopted belief. Where we get into trouble is mistaking memes for values. And, in fact, the discovery of lies within memes often leads to the critical analysis needed to form values.
For example, the meme, “Father knows best.” Taken at face value, this meme contains all those feelings and beliefs about parental respect and childhood adoration. To question this meme has emotional consequences, but as any teenager can attest, it falls apart in the face of life experiences. The child who has adopted this meme now must face the truth of it, and in so doing, must develop a way of being with the information that Father doesn’t necessarily know best.
Apostasies are all about memes breaking apart—when whole religious belief systems tumble down as the result of life experience. Religion is famous for memes because so much of religious training is based on absolutes—a prime territory for memes. As life experience disproves the lies within memes, critical thinking can return and a more nuanced view of the world emerges.
