The Selfish Meme: A Critical Reassessment

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Memes that fit within a successful memeplex may gain acceptance by "piggybacking" on the success of the memeplex. In contrast, the concept of genetics gained concrete evidence with the discovery of the biological functions of DNA.

It therefore followed that any widespread behaviour, prevalent in a thriving population, no matter how immediately inexplicable, should give some advantage in terms of gene survival. Communication may be direct or indirect, where memes transmit from one individual to another through a copy recorded in an inanimate source, such as a book or a musical score. On the other hand, an idea such as “life after death” has the attribute that, since people are scared of death, a belief in a hereafter is likely to be a popular notion and, indeed, is.

The selectionist paradigm requires the reduction of society and culture to inheritance systems that consist of randomly varying, individual units, some of which are selected, and some not; and with society and culture thus reduced to inheritance systems, history can be reduced to 'evolution. For instance, tribal religion has been seen as a mechanism for solidifying group identity, valuable for a pack-hunting species whose individuals rely on cooperation to catch large and fast prey. By linking altruism with religious affiliation, religious memes can proliferate more quickly because people perceive that they can reap societal as well as personal rewards. Alternatively, Daniel Dennett suggests that the medium and the idea are not distinct in that memes only exist because of their medium. Atran gets his hands dirty and does real social science experiments and adjusts his theories accordingly.

In academic circles the “meme concept”, whilst having its dedicated supporters, has been viewed with suspicion by many, derision by some, and outright hostility by not a few. In contrast, when applying only meme theory, memes for which stable copying methods are available will inevitably get selected for survival more often than those which can only have unstable mutations (such as the noted music and dance forms), which, according to meme theory, should have resulted in those forms of cultural expression going extinct. If you would like to change your settings or withdraw consent at any time, the link to do so is in our privacy policy accessible from our home page. And, as per my previous comments to Mark, I’ll bet there’s no shortage of people who are poo-pooing the idea because they would rather stick with what they know than expand the frontiers of knowledge.The response to this unpredictable pattern seems to be deeply ingrained, and for the most basic of reasons: precisely the same cycle of suspense and excitement motivates animals to keep hunting for food.