Culture and Memes Theme Analysis

Dawkins argues that even though humans are simply “survival machines” that house genes, there is still something that makes humans different from all the other types of “survival machines” that contain genes (such as flowers, seagulls, or elephants). The difference is that there are two kinds of evolution going on in the case of humans. One kind of evolution is the same as in every other living thing on earth, and it’s the evolution of genes. But the second kind of evolution that happens when humans are in the picture is the evolution that happens to bits of human culture. This cultural evolution is what makes humans “exceptional.”

Language, for example evolves over time, as made clear by the fact that it’s harder to understand “English” written by the 14th century writer Geoffrey Chaucer than it is to understand “English” words that a modern writer might use. In this argument about cultural evolution, ideas, or “memes”—meaning ideas that spread easily from one person to another—are the things “replicating.” Dawkins argues that these ideas—or memes—are, in a sense, “copied” from one person’s mind to another, but sometimes slightly imperfectly. Dawkins writes: “Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.” For example, if a scientist hears a good theory, they will talk about it with their students, write about it in their academic papers, and discuss it with their colleagues. The “copies” of the meme that arise (in students’ minds, in people’s minds who read academic papers, and in colleagues’ minds) can then be shared with other minds. If an imperfect copy of the original meme is more memorable, or has a stronger “psychological appeal,” then that variant of the meme is the one that will survive to be shared with another mind.

Like genes, memes live much longer than people do. This is why ideas that Socrates thought about some two thousand years ago are still going strong. One difference between memes and genes, however, is that memes replicate much faster than genes do. In fact, it would take millions of years to observe the same amount of evolution in genes that a mere century of cultural evolution can expose. Dawkins argues this cultural kind of evolution (and its speed) provides a viable avenue to facilitate altruistic behavior in humans: not through biology, but through the spread of the idea—or meme—of altruism. “Our genes may be selfish” Dawkins writes, “but we are not necessarily compelled to obey them all our lives.”

Ultimately, since humans are compelled by our thinking—our ideas—as well as our biology, the story of the evolution on humanity is incomplete without both. In other words, humans should not feel bad that, biologically, we are merely “survival machines” for genes, because there is something that makes humans “exceptional.” That thing is humanity’s capacity to generate rapidly evolving ideas (or memes). This is what enables us—unlike other organisms—to extend beyond the blind programming of our genes, and choose to behave in ways we are not genetically programmed to.