25 Points In Defense of Memes Installment 4 (I think that's right, orig on Facebook)
11. On to cultural virus theory then, leaving some of these questions I’ve raised with no satisfactory answer to wait for us to come back to. One Ben Cullen, who burned very brightly, but, as is often the case, for not very long, developed before his untimely death at the age of 31, a theory of human culture predicated on the idea of Darwinian selection that he calls “cultural selectionism” (Contagious Ideas 77). As mentioned above, he takes care to debunk the notion of the infamous Herbert Spencer as a Darwinist, packing him away neatly as simply a racist. But he does draw on Lamarck some, at times arguing that cultural evolution owes more to him than to Darwin. Must explore that further before I can give an adequate treatment of the nuts and bolts there. Cullen does draw on Dawkins and uses the meme idea in his theory, but explains the differences as being rooted in the foundational disciplines and subdisciplines from which the theorists emerged. This bit interests me particularly b/c of some of the terminology deployed to talk about the theorists themselves. For example Cullen says of meme theory: “The second position mentioned above, the Meme position (1976), of which dawkins was the architect. . .” (CI 142). The editor of Cullen’s work, compiled posthumously, says this in the preface: “In the trying CVT will almost certainly change, as it would if its meme-master had been here to shepherd it through the evolutionary landscape of academic debate and enquiry” (CI ix). Architect, meme-master. God-complex much? Master? Shepherd? Really? That seems so contradictory to the whole idea under discussion. These three seemingly innocent word choices reveal a still burning need to, if not meet the creator, become the creator. And the creator is always prefigured as male and powerful. What to do with this?
12. Moving from Cullen (situated firmly in social anthropology/archaeology) to other disciplinary approaches to this issue, we begin to see that the notion of sociocultural evolution is a preoccupation, if not always an explicitly stated one, in many disciplines. Jurgen Kluver writes in 2002 a monograph entitled _An Essay Concerning Sociocultural Evolution: Theoretical Principles and Mathematical Models_. In this book whose title reverberates with the Empiricist tradition of Locke and his cohorts, he explores the need to place sociocultural evolution within different frameworks to create a more total picture. He reminds of us Marx, whose historical materialism provides a model for understanding sociocultural evolution if we can but separate the framework from the specifics, the digging around in which is what often causes conflict and divisions between “Marxists” and “Non-Marxists”. He then moves on to show us that mathematical theories figure into this whole thing strongly as well. He does so after a necessary apologia explaining that mathematical theories are not so popular in the social sciences, but that is because we still think in terms of traditional mathematical models. The ones he explores are more theoretical and mind-blowing than, say, differential equations. I should hedge and say mind-blowing to me, one who has tried to see the beauty in math, knows it is there, but can’t get over the wall of understanding. This fact means that I’m going to have to wrestle with this aspect a whole lot more before I can even remotely do it justice in exposition. Interestingly, the index to this text shows no mention of the term “meme,” though he does in fact mention it and explains the place of the meme thus: “ ‘Biological evolution’ means mostly the ‘modern synthesis ‘; therefore the task is to first identify units of cultural evolution in analogy or parallel to genes in biological evolution and second to define the mechanisms of ‘cultural transmission’. The concept of ‘memes’ has become rather famous in this context for the first task; the mathematical mechanism of population genetics is accordingly often used for the second one, though sometimes only metaphorically. There can be no doubt that these approaches give important insights into the matter of cultural evolution. However, they have two fundamental difficulties, which show that they are not wrong but insufficient for the task of explaining sociocultural evolution. These insufficiencies may be called (a) the problem of cultural units and (b) the integration of culture and society” (he cites several people throughout this passage: Cavalli-Sforza, Feldman, Dawkins).
13. The notion of the problem of cultural units is where we should turn next. The cultural transmission problem will be dealt with later, I hope. (Though I confess that when I started this journey I had no idea where it would take me, and that uncertainty still holds true, terrifyingly and exhilaratingly.) Back to Blackmore, who, writing 3 years earlier, addresses this problem and dispels it as a problem: “Is Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony a meme, or only the first four notes? This raises a real question for memetics and one that is worth exploring-but I do not think it is a problem” (53). She dispels it as a problem simply by saying, to the people arguing that memetics is flawed b/c we can’t pin down the unit of a meme, “yep, you’re right. We can’t. And. . .so what?” (The quotations here are obviously metaphorical). She then falls back on the inspiration for the meme, the gene, noting that genes, too, are hard to pin down. There are many biological components to a gene, many of which we as of yet still do not understand, but does this mean that a gene does not exist? Does the fact that we have a flawed taxonomic structure render the existence obsolete? Consider that taxonomic structures are in themselves a hallmark of the phallogocentric discourse to which I have rather derisively referred several times. The problem, as I see it, is not with the making of a taxonomic structure to help map our understanding; rather, the problem is with the reification of a particular taxonomic structure and a rigid determination to protect the same. So back to good ole Ludwig. The entire 5th symphony is of course readily identifiable by a large number of people, regardless of their literacy in classical music. But it IS the first 4 notes that make it immediately recognizable. So we can endlessly debate where to draw that line, but at the end of the day, regardless of where the line is drawn, the status of the 5th symphony as endlessly imitated and culturally transmitted remains unchanged. So, with Blackmore, I say: “And. . .so what?”
14. Blackmore continues her discussion of the meme unit by exploring music as meme. She argues that our brains are wired in such a way (she’s not terribly scientific here and neither will I be) that some tunes are instantly and infectiously memorable. You’ve all been there. You hear a song and can’t get it out of your mind for a week. German calls this phenomenon an “ohrwurm”, translated to “earworm “(thanks to John Lowther for giving me this lovely bit of info about two years ago). Whether or not a song sticks in one’s head has to do with a whole bunch of elements. Simple tunes are easy to remember, but aren’t always interesting enough to remember, she claims. In short, the aesthetics of the song factor in, though whose brain latches onto which aesthetic is a whole ‘nother matter. But the tunes that worm their way from ear to brain in a large segment of the population become memes. They are culturally transmitted by virtue of their infectiousness. This is some squishy science here. [Jennifer D, I wonder if your positionality in neuroscience can add to this in any way, or perhaps complicate and problematize, which would be equally fun. ] One of the pitfalls of the whole notion of cultural evolution, I feel I should note here, is the temptation to project some sort of purpose or sentience to the mechanisms themselves. This is likely a product of our own (as humans) millennia-long struggle with ontology and epistemology and that burning desire mentioned earlier to meet the creator (Architect? Programmer? Master?). In short, we look relentlessly for purpose. Is this search for purpose, too, a meme? Hrmmm.
12. Moving from Cullen (situated firmly in social anthropology/archaeology) to other disciplinary approaches to this issue, we begin to see that the notion of sociocultural evolution is a preoccupation, if not always an explicitly stated one, in many disciplines. Jurgen Kluver writes in 2002 a monograph entitled _An Essay Concerning Sociocultural Evolution: Theoretical Principles and Mathematical Models_. In this book whose title reverberates with the Empiricist tradition of Locke and his cohorts, he explores the need to place sociocultural evolution within different frameworks to create a more total picture. He reminds of us Marx, whose historical materialism provides a model for understanding sociocultural evolution if we can but separate the framework from the specifics, the digging around in which is what often causes conflict and divisions between “Marxists” and “Non-Marxists”. He then moves on to show us that mathematical theories figure into this whole thing strongly as well. He does so after a necessary apologia explaining that mathematical theories are not so popular in the social sciences, but that is because we still think in terms of traditional mathematical models. The ones he explores are more theoretical and mind-blowing than, say, differential equations. I should hedge and say mind-blowing to me, one who has tried to see the beauty in math, knows it is there, but can’t get over the wall of understanding. This fact means that I’m going to have to wrestle with this aspect a whole lot more before I can even remotely do it justice in exposition. Interestingly, the index to this text shows no mention of the term “meme,” though he does in fact mention it and explains the place of the meme thus: “ ‘Biological evolution’ means mostly the ‘modern synthesis ‘; therefore the task is to first identify units of cultural evolution in analogy or parallel to genes in biological evolution and second to define the mechanisms of ‘cultural transmission’. The concept of ‘memes’ has become rather famous in this context for the first task; the mathematical mechanism of population genetics is accordingly often used for the second one, though sometimes only metaphorically. There can be no doubt that these approaches give important insights into the matter of cultural evolution. However, they have two fundamental difficulties, which show that they are not wrong but insufficient for the task of explaining sociocultural evolution. These insufficiencies may be called (a) the problem of cultural units and (b) the integration of culture and society” (he cites several people throughout this passage: Cavalli-Sforza, Feldman, Dawkins).
13. The notion of the problem of cultural units is where we should turn next. The cultural transmission problem will be dealt with later, I hope. (Though I confess that when I started this journey I had no idea where it would take me, and that uncertainty still holds true, terrifyingly and exhilaratingly.) Back to Blackmore, who, writing 3 years earlier, addresses this problem and dispels it as a problem: “Is Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony a meme, or only the first four notes? This raises a real question for memetics and one that is worth exploring-but I do not think it is a problem” (53). She dispels it as a problem simply by saying, to the people arguing that memetics is flawed b/c we can’t pin down the unit of a meme, “yep, you’re right. We can’t. And. . .so what?” (The quotations here are obviously metaphorical). She then falls back on the inspiration for the meme, the gene, noting that genes, too, are hard to pin down. There are many biological components to a gene, many of which we as of yet still do not understand, but does this mean that a gene does not exist? Does the fact that we have a flawed taxonomic structure render the existence obsolete? Consider that taxonomic structures are in themselves a hallmark of the phallogocentric discourse to which I have rather derisively referred several times. The problem, as I see it, is not with the making of a taxonomic structure to help map our understanding; rather, the problem is with the reification of a particular taxonomic structure and a rigid determination to protect the same. So back to good ole Ludwig. The entire 5th symphony is of course readily identifiable by a large number of people, regardless of their literacy in classical music. But it IS the first 4 notes that make it immediately recognizable. So we can endlessly debate where to draw that line, but at the end of the day, regardless of where the line is drawn, the status of the 5th symphony as endlessly imitated and culturally transmitted remains unchanged. So, with Blackmore, I say: “And. . .so what?”
14. Blackmore continues her discussion of the meme unit by exploring music as meme. She argues that our brains are wired in such a way (she’s not terribly scientific here and neither will I be) that some tunes are instantly and infectiously memorable. You’ve all been there. You hear a song and can’t get it out of your mind for a week. German calls this phenomenon an “ohrwurm”, translated to “earworm “(thanks to John Lowther for giving me this lovely bit of info about two years ago). Whether or not a song sticks in one’s head has to do with a whole bunch of elements. Simple tunes are easy to remember, but aren’t always interesting enough to remember, she claims. In short, the aesthetics of the song factor in, though whose brain latches onto which aesthetic is a whole ‘nother matter. But the tunes that worm their way from ear to brain in a large segment of the population become memes. They are culturally transmitted by virtue of their infectiousness. This is some squishy science here. [Jennifer D, I wonder if your positionality in neuroscience can add to this in any way, or perhaps complicate and problematize, which would be equally fun. ] One of the pitfalls of the whole notion of cultural evolution, I feel I should note here, is the temptation to project some sort of purpose or sentience to the mechanisms themselves. This is likely a product of our own (as humans) millennia-long struggle with ontology and epistemology and that burning desire mentioned earlier to meet the creator (Architect? Programmer? Master?). In short, we look relentlessly for purpose. Is this search for purpose, too, a meme? Hrmmm.