Memes: spreading both tolerance and intolerance

While doing bibliographic research about 14 years ago I came across an article in a mass communication research journal. For some reason I didn't notate author or journal reference but over the years the thesis stuck with me and here I am still looking for that article today. In it (I recall the writer was a 'he') the author discusses racism as a public mental health problem. In my own words: racism is like the meme-equivalent of tuberculosis or HIV/Aids. And like TB and AIDS, racism too requires a social-network based treatment, albeit through mass and other media. Now I'm reading Laura Brynnan's short and fascinating 1999 piece, "Intolerant memes," where she thinks about an earlier article, "The Plague of Intolerance," by Michael Hutchison (pubref: New Age Journal, Aug 1990). According to Bryannan, Hutchison himself 'links' to the 1970s work of a British biologist, Richard Dawkins, "who saw the similarities between the genetic transmission of information, and nongenetic transmission of information (communication)." "Meme theorists believe ... a body in a stressed out and weakened condition is more susceptible to infection, whether ... by germs or memes. Two factors have increased humanity's susceptibility. One is the problems in the world environment--pollution, war, poverty, and economic instability. The other is the incredible amount of information now available to the average human on any part of the globe, unimaginable even twenty years ago." [It gets even better] "Scientists have come to notice recently that some forms of communication have a pattern of self-replication built within them." "It's almost as if these packets of information carry with them a hidden command: 'Pass me along!' Or, in a more highly evolved form: 'It is your duty to spread this information.'" "Richard Dawkins in 1976 coined the term 'meme' (rhymes with 'theme'), which he defined as a self-replicating information pattern that uses minds to get itself reproduced." "Virtually every person...can now be exposed, directly, quickly, and repeatedly, to virulent memes... Nothing in evolutionary history has equipped humans to deal with the sheer quantity of infective memes they are exposed to each day." Bryannan describes how some memes spread. "... the original idea has reproduced itself by spreading from the source's brain, to your brain, to your friend's brain, to your friend's friend's brain, and so on. Ideas can reproduce themselves within a group faster than a common cold! [emphasis added]" -- Then we're taken back another link to the thinking of N.K. Humphrey -- "Indeed, N.K. Humphrey, a colleague of Dawkins', argues that 'memes should be regarded as living structures, not just metaphorically but technically. When you plant a fertile meme in my mind, you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme's propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell.'" Don't know if this contact is still good: laurabrynnan at hotmail dot com.

Comments

[Brandon]

Wow. What an interesting article, especially as I am not so familiar with the concept of memes. I totally agree that racism is a social disease and one that is prevalent in this country. I totally appreciate those theorist that have started that trend of looking at racism in that way. Alas, on a further note, not only looking at racism, but looking at the United States in and of itself, this country operates as a monolith. The idea of the cyborg fascinates me because of this as well, when corporations and institutions (or countries?) start to act and are regarded as individuals.

[Brandon]

Could I post this on my blog?

[Marian]

Brandon, certainly; feel free to link any of my entries to your blog. And thanks for taking time to "feed back"! Marian (preparing for Blogher conf)

[Brandon]

I'm a little ignorant here. What is a trackback and how does one do it?