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In order to infuse our society with innovate new memes, we will create through intellectual engagement, group discussions, seminars and small practical experiments – new ideas or “memes” (rhymes with “dreams”) that can become the basis for a new way of relating to each other and the world. The study of memes and their impact on culture is part of a new social science called memetics. Some of the principles of this new science are central to the new focus Meme teams
Sociobiologist Richard Dawkins coined the term “meme” in 1976 as meaning “a unit representing transmission of culture” in the same sense that the gene carries our biological destiny. Memes can be as simple as the way people learn, carry and pass along to others the melody of a catchy song such as the culturally enduring “Happy Birthday”.
A concept essential to the study of memes is the extent to which humans learn by imitation. The power of this principal can be seen in the way memes are behind major social behaviors and institutions. The Catholic Church’s set of closely held doctrinal beliefs are composed of memes which are passed from generation to generation and across cultures. The same can be said of the tenets of free market capitalism, or the fearful behaviors resulting from a general belief the world is an environment permeated by constant threat. Such tenets govern peoples’ daily actions to varying degrees depending upon the depth of conviction.
Memes can be thought of at the psychological level as the archetypes of the collective psyche as described by Carl Jung. These archetypes have been traced to the mythological realm, as in the work of Joseph Campbell. Ancient myths that still impact human behavior and imagination today include the Native American ritual of invoking the presence of ancestors in ceremony, the story of Moses liberating his people from slavery, or Noah creating an ark for creatures to escape pending disaster to find a new place. Meme teams up these ancient cultural memes to invigorate our efforts today, while hopefully spawning new memes to transmit a more nurturing cultural identity. Memetics researcher Daniel Dennett has commented, “Human consciousness itself is a huge complex of memes”. Noted memetics author Susan Blackmore has offered an alternative way of conceiving it. . .memes as distorting human consciousness Both views articulate the central role of memes in shaping human consciousness and impacting social behavior memes
With the presence of the Internet, a global nervous system with no centralized brain, memes have the potential to spread around the world rapidly, in an unprecedented manner we do not yet fully comprehend. The implications are vast.
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