| Chapter Introduction: | Introduction to the Handbook on Prejudice |
|
|
biological inheritance, memes are construed by Dawkins to denote units of cultural inheritance. Dawkins defines a meme as something “that is reproduced from brain to brain through compulsory and unconscious processes of mimesis” (1998, 302). We are hit by a meme in a way similar to catching a cold or contracting a virus. The model of the meme is indeed the virus or bacteria. Dawkins systematically translates the process of cultural transmission into the language of evolutionary biology and, moreover, into the language of contagion: “Anything that spreads by imitation, as genes spread by bodily reproduction or by viral infection, is a meme” (304). The meme corresponds to a virus or parasite which nestles in the human mind and spreads from there. He gives various examples of memes, such as the meme of political paranoia (Verschwörungstheorie), the meme of listening to classical music, the meme of going to church. His favorite example, however, is the catchy tune (Ohrwurm)—a melody or phrase that hits one, gets stuck in the mind, and can no longer be turned off voluntarily.
As an evolutionary biologist, Dawkins was interested in the relationship between host organism and memes. He wanted to find out the chances and impediments for the spreading of certain memes based on specific dispositions. He argued that the mechanisms of reproduction and distribution of memes are analogous to Darwin's laws of the spreading of genes; in the spreading of memes, competition, selection, and variation also play a decisive role. According to Dawkins, individual memes are arranged in clusters; he calls them cartels of memes, or memeplexes, which, according to their composition, favour or repel the reception of other memes. The general ecology of memes follows the principle of path dependency, which is summed up in the words of St. Matthew: “Who has, to him more will be given.”
Dawkins's thesis is that the drive of reproduction in nature corresponds to the drive of mimesis in culture. The drive of mimesis is an impulse to take over the behaviour of a significant other and is therefore the root of learning in general. As genes are transmitted via reproduction, memes are transmitted via mimesis. Each meme contains a “copy me!-programme” direction and due to the irresistible drive towards mimesis, it has a fair