Memes and the Exploitation of Imagination

Author(s): Daniel C. Dennett

Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 48, No. 2 (Spring, 1990), pp. 127-135
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics
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 DANIEL C. DENNETT

Memes andthe Exploitationof Imagination

The generalissue addressedin a MandelLecture pointed out, the fundamentalprinciple is "that

is how or whetherart promoteshumanevolution all life evolves by the differential survival of
or development.I shall understandthe term"art" replicating entities."2
in its broadest connotations-perhaps broader
thanone normallyrecognizes. I shall understand The gene, the DNA molecule, happens to be the
art to include all artifice, all human invention. replicatingentity which prevails on our own planet.
What I say will a fortiori include art in the There may be others. If there are, provided certain
narrowersense. other conditions are met, they will almost inevitably
There are few ideas more hackneyedthan the tend to become the basis for an evolutionaryprocess.
idea of the evolutionof ideas. It is often said that But do we haveto go to distantworldsto find other
schools of thoughtevolve into their successors. kinds of replicationand other, consequent, kinds of
In the struggle for attention,the best ideas win, evolution? I think that a new kind of replicatorhas
accordingto the principle of the survival of the recentlyemergedon this very planet.It is staringus in
fittest, which ruthlesslywinnows out the banal, the face. It is still in its infancy, still driftingclumsily
the unimaginative,the false. Few ideas are more about in its primevalsoup, but alreadyit is achieving
hackneyed-or moreabused.Almostno one writ- evolutionary change at a rate which leaves the old
ing aboutthe evolutionof ideas or culturalevolu- gene pantingfar behind.3
tion treatsthe underlyingDarwinianideas with
the care they deserve. I propose to begin to These newfangled replicators are, roughly,
remedythat. ideas. Not the "simple ideas" of Locke and
The outlines of the theory of evolution by Hume (the idea of red, or the idea of round or hot
natural selection are now clear. Evolution oc- or cold), but the sort of complex ideas that form
curs wheneverthe following conditionsexist: themselves into distinct memorable units. For
example the ideas of:
(1) variation: a continuing abundance of different
elements arch
(2) heredity or replication: the elements have the wheel
capacityto createcopies or replicasof themselves wearingclothes
(3) differential"fitness": the numberof copies of an vendetta
element created in a given time depends on interac- righttriangle
tions betweenthe featuresof thatelement (whateverit alphabet
is that makes it different from other elements) and calendar
featuresof its environment.I the Odyssey
calculus
This definition, drawn from biology, says chess
nothingspecific aboutorganicmolecules, nutri- perspectivedrawing
tion, or even life. It is a more general and ab- evolutionby naturalselection
stract characterizationof evolution by natural impressionism
selection. As the zoologist RichardDawkins has Greensleeves
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism 48:2 Spring 1990

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128 The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism

"readmy lips" shelter, and habitsof communicationthat could

deconstructionism. providetransmissionmedia for memes.
This is a new way of thinkingaboutideas. It is
Intuitivelythese are identifiableculturalunits, also, I hope to show, a good way, but at the
but we can say something more precise about outset the perspective it provides is distinctly
how we drawthe boundaries-about why D-F#- unsettling, even appalling. We can sum it up
A isn't a unit, while the theme from the slow with a slogan:
movementof Beethoven'sSeventhSymphonyis.
Units are the smallest elements that replicate A scholar is just a library's way of making
themselves with reliabilityand fecundity. Daw- anotherlibrary.
kins coins a term for such units: memes-
I don't know aboutyou, but I am not initially
attractedby the idea of my brain as a sort of
a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. dung-heapin which the larvaeof other people's
'Mimeme' comes from a suitable Greek root, but I ideas renewthemselves,before sendingout cop-
wanta monosyllablethatsoundsa bit like 'gene' ... it ies of themselves in an informationalDiaspora.
could alternativelybe thought of as being relatedto It seems at first to robmy mindof its importance
memory' or to the Frenchwordmeme. ... as an author and a critic. Who is in charge,
Examplesof memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, accordingto this vision-we or our memes?
clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building There is, of course, no simple answer. We
arches. Justas genes propagatethemselvesin the gene would like to thinkof ourselvesas godlike crea-
pool by leaping from body to body via spermor eggs, tors of ideas, manipulatingandcontrollingthem
so memes propagatethemselves in the meme pool by as our whim dictates, andjudging them from an
leapingfrom brainto brainvia a process which, in the independent,Olympian standpoint.But even if
broad sense, can be called imitation. If a scientist this is our ideal, we know thatit is seldom if ever
hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passes it on to the reality, even with the most masterful and
his colleagues and students. He mentions it in his creativeminds. As Mozartallegedlyobservedof
articles and his lectures. If the idea catches on, it can his own brainchildren:
be said to propagateitself, spreading from brain to
brain.4 WhenI feelwellandina goodhumor,orwhenI am
takinga driveorwalkingaftera goodmeal,or in the
So far this seems to be just a crisp reworking nightwhenI cannotsleep, thoughtscrowdinto my
of the standard fare about the evolution and mindas easilyas you wouldwish.Whenceandhow
spreadof ideas, but in The Selfish Gene, Daw- do theycome?I do notknowandI havenothingto do
kins urges us to take the idea of meme evolution withit. ThosewhichpleasemeI keepin myheadand
literally.Meme evolutionis notjust analogousto humthem;at leastothershavetoldmethatI do so.5
biological or genic evolution. It is not just a
process that can be metaphoricallydescribed in Mozartis in good company.Rareis the novel-
these evolutionary idioms, but a phenomenon ist who doesn 't claim characterswho "takeon a
that obeys the laws of naturalselection exactly. life of their own"; artists are rather fond of
The theory of evolution by naturalselection is confessing that their paintings take over and
neutralregardingthe differencesbetweenmemes paint themselves, and poets humbly submitthat
and genes. They are just differentkinds of rep- they are the servantsor even slaves to the ideas
licators evolving in different media at different that teem in their heads. And we all can cite
rates. Andjust as the genes for animalscould not cases of memes thatpersist unbiddenand unap-
come into existence on this planet until the evo- preciatedin our own minds.
lution of plants had paved the way (creatingthe The otherdayI was embarrassed-dismayed-
oxygen-rich atmosphere and ready supply of to catch myself walking along humminga mel-
convertiblenutrients),so the evolutionof memes ody to myself: not a theme of Haydnor Brahms
could not get started until the evolution of ani- or Charlie Parker or even Bob Dylan. I was
mals had paved the way by creatinga species- energeticallyhumming: "It Takes Two to Tan-
homo sapiens-with brains that could provide go," a perfectlydismalandentirelyunredeemed

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Dennett Memes 129

bit of chewing gum for the ears that was unac- education
countablypopularsometime in the 1950s. I am environmentalawareness
sure I have never in my life chosen to listen to arms-reduction.
this melody,esteemedthis melody, or in any way
judged it to be better than silence, but there it And such particularmemes as:
was, a horriblemusical virus, at least as robust
in my meme pool as any melody I actually The Prisoner'sDilemma
esteem. And now, to make mattersworse, I have TheMarriageof Figaro
resurrectedthe virus in many of you, who will MobyDick
no doubt curse me in days to come when you long weekends
find yourself humming, for the first time in returnablebottles
thirty years, thatboringtune. the SALTTreaties
The first rules of memes, as it is for genes, is undergraduatemajor.
thatreplicationis not necessarily for the good of
anything;replicatorsflourishthatare good at ... Othermemes are morecontroversial.We can see
replicating!As Dawkins has put it, why they spread, and why, all things consid-
ered, we should tolerate them, in spite of the
A meme that made its bodies run over cliffs would problemsthey cause for us:
have a fate like that of a gene for making bodies run
over cliffs. It would tend to be eliminated from the colorizationof classic films
meme-pool. ... But this does not mean that the teachingassistants
ultimate criterion for success in meme selection is gradepoint averages
gene survival. ... Obviously a meme that causes advertisingon television
individualsbearing it to kill themselves has a grave Hustlermagazine.
disadvantage, but not necessarily a fatal one. ... a
suicidal meme can spread, as when a dramaticand Still others are unquestionablypernicious, but
well-publicizedmartyrdominspiresothersto die for a extremelyhardto eradicate:
deeply loved cause, and this in turn inspires others to
die, and so on.6 anti-semitism
hijacking airliners
The importantpoint is that there is no neces- computerviruses
sary connection between a meme's replicative spray-cangraffiti.
power, its "fitness" from its point of view, and
its contributionto our fitness (by whateverstan- Genes are invisible. They are carriedby gene-
dard we judge that). The situation is not totally vehicles (organisms)in which they tend to pro-
desperate.While some memes definitely manip- duce characteristiceffects ("phenotypic"effects)
ulate us into collaboratingon their replicationin by which their fates are, in the long run, deter-
spite of ourjudging them useless or ugly or even mined. Memes are also invisible, and are car-
dangerous to our health and welfare, many- ried by meme-vehicles, namelypictures, books,
most, if we are lucky-of the memes that repli- sayings (in particularlanguages,oral or written,
cate themselvesdo so notjust withourblessings, on paper or magnetically encoded, etc.). A
but because of our esteem for them. I thinkthere meme's existence dependson a physical embod-
can be littlecontroversythatthe following memes iment in some medium. If all such physical
are, all things considered, good from our per- embodimentsare destroyed,that meme is extin-
spective, and notjust from theirown perspective guished. The fate of memes depends on the
as selfish self-replicators. selective forces that act directly on the physical
Such very generalmemes as: vehicles that embody them. (An existent meme
might make a subsequentindependentreappear-
cooperation ance-just as dinosaurgenes could, in principle,
music get together again in some distant future to
writing create and inhabit new dinosaurs. These dino-
calendars saurs would not be descendantsof the original

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130 The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism

dinosaurs-or at least not any more directlythan brief, we ought to accept the true and the beau-
we are. Such second comings of memes would tiful.
also not be copies of their predecessors, but In the normal view, the fact that an idea is
reinventions.) deemed true or beautifulis sufficientto explain
Meme vehicles inhabit our world alongside why it is accepted, and the fact that it is deemed
the fauna and flora. They are "visible" only to false or ugly is sufficientto explain its rejection.
the humanspecies, however.Considerthe envi- These norms are constitutive. We require partic-
ronmentof the averageNew YorkCity pigeon, ularexplanationsof deviationsfromthese norms;
whose eyes and ears are assaultedevery day by their status grounds the air of paradox in such
approximately as many words, pictures, and aberrationsas "TheMetropolitanMuseumof Ba-
other signs and symbols as assault each human nalities"or "The Encyclopediaof Falsehoods."
New Yorker.These physical meme-vehiclesmay There is a nice parallel in physics. Aristotelian
impinge importantly on the pigeon's welfare, physics supposedthat an object's continuingto
but not in virtue of the memes they carry. It is move in a straightline requiredexplanation,in
nothing to the pigeon that it is under a page of terms of somethinglike forces continuingto act
TheNational Inquirer,not TheNew YorkTimes, on it. Centralto Newton'sgreatperspectiveshift
that it finds a crumb. was the idea that such rectilinearmotion did not
To human beings, on the other hand, each requireexplanation;only deviationsfromit did-
meme-vehicle is a potential friend or foe, bear- accelerations. We can discern a similar differ-
ing a gift that will enhance our powers or a gift ence in what requires explanation in the two
horsethatwill distractus, burdenour memories, views of ideas. According to the normalview,
derangeourjudgment. We might comparethese the following are virtuallytautological:
airborne invaders of our eyes and ears to the
parasitesthat enter our bodies by other routes. Idea X was believed by the people because X
There are the beneficial parasites such as the was deemedtrue.
bacteriain our digestive systems withoutwhich
we could not digest our food, the tolerablepara- People approvedof X becausepeople foundX
sites, not worth the troubleof eliminating, such to be beautiful.
as all the normaldenizensof our skin and scalps,
and the pernicious invaders that are hard to What requires special explanation are the
eradicatesuch as fleas, lice and the AIDS virus. cases in which, in spite of the truthor beautyof
So far, the meme's eye perspective may ap- an idea, it is not accepted, or in spite of its
pear simply a graphic way of organizing very uglinessor falsehoodit is accepted.The meme's-
familiarobservationsaboutthe way items in our eye view purports to be a general alternative
cultures affect us, and affect each other. But perspectivefrom which these deviationscan be
Dawkins suggests that in our explanations we explained. Whatis tautologicalfor it is
tend to overlook the fundamentalfact that "a
culturaltraitmay have evolved in the way it has Meme X spreadamong the people because X
simply because it is advantageous to itself."7 was a good replicator.
This is the key to answering the question of
whetheror not the meme meme is one we should There is a non-randomcorrelation between
exploit and replicate. There is an unmistakable the two; it is no accident. We would not survive
tension between the meme's-eye view and our unless we had a better than chance habit of
normalperspectiveon the transmissionof ideas. choosing the memes that help us. Our meme-
It is time to clarify it. immunological systems are not foolproof, but
The normalview is also a normativeview. It not hopeless either. We can rely, as a rule of
embodies a canon or ideal aboutwhich ideas we thumb, on the coincidence of the two perspec-
ought to "accept" or admire or approveof. (It tives. By andlarge, the good memes arethe ones
concentrates on acceptance, ratherthan trans- thatare also the good replicators.
mission and replication;it tends to be individ- The theorybecomes interestingonly when we
ualistic, not communitarian.It is epistemology look at the exceptions, the circumstancesunder
and aesthetics, not communicationtheory.) In which there is a pulling apart of the two per-

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Dennett Memes 131

spectives. Only if meme theory permitsus better how many brilliant letters to the editor, repro-
to understandthe deviations from the normal duced in hundredsof thousandsof copies, disap-
scheme will it have any warrantfor being ac- pear into landfills and incineratorsevery day?
cepted. (Note that in its own terms, whetheror The day may come when non-human meme-
not the meme meme replicates successfully is evaluatorssuffice to select and arrange for the
strictly independentof its epistemological vir- preservation of particularmemes, but for the
tue; it might spread in spite of its pernicious- time being, memes still depend at least indi-
ness, or go extinct in spite of its virtue.) rectly on one or more of their vehicles spending
I need not dwell on the importance of the at least a brief, pupal stage in a remarkablesort
founding memes for language, and for writing, of meme-nest:a humanmind.
in creatingthe infosphere. These are the under- Minds are in limited supply, and each mind
lying technologies of transmissionand replica- has a limited capacity for memes, and hence
tion analogous to the technologies of DNA and thereis a considerablecompetitionamongmemes
RNA in the biosphere. Nor shall I bother re- for entry into as many minds as possible. This
viewing the familiar facts about the explosive competition is the major selective force in the
proliferationof these media via the memes for infosphere, and, just as in the biosphere, the
movabletype, radioand television, xerography, challenge has been met with greatingenuity.For
computers, fax machines, and electronic mail. instance, whatever virtues (from our perspec-
We are all well awarethat we live, today, awash tive) the following memes have, they have in
in a sea of paper-bornememes, breathingin an common the propertyof having phenotypicex-
atmosphereof electronically-bornememes. pressionsthattend to maketheirown replication
Memes now spread around the world at the more likely by disabling or pre-emptingthe en-
speed of light, and replicate at rates that make vironmentalforces thatwould tendto extinguish
even fruit flies and yeast cells look glacial in them: the meme forfaith, which discouragesthe
comparison. They leap promiscuouslyfrom ve- exercise of the sort of critical judgment that
hicle to vehicle, and from medium to medium, might decide thatthe idea of faith was all things
and are provingto be virtuallyunquarantinable. considered a dangerous idea8; the meme for
Memes, like genes, are potentially immortal, tolerance orfree speech; the meme of including
but, like genes, they depend on the existence of in a chain lettera warningaboutthe terriblefates
a continuouschain of physical vehicles, persist- of those who have brokenthe chain in the past;
ing in the face of the Second Law of Ther- the conspiracy theory meme, which has a built-
modynamics. Books are relatively permanent, in responseto the objectionthatthereis no good
and inscriptions on monuments are even more evidence of the conspiracy: "Of course not-
permanent,but unless these are under the pro- that'show powerful the conspiracyis!" Some of
tection of humanconservators,they tend to dis- these memes are "good" perhaps and others
solve in time. As with genes, immortality is "bad." What they have in common is a phe-
morea matterof replicationthanof the longevity notypic effect that systematically tends to dis-
of individual vehicles. The preservationof the able the selective forces arrayedagainst them.
Platonicmemes, via a series of copies of copies, Other things being equal, populationmemetics
is a particularlystriking case of this. Although predictsthat conspiracytheory memes will per-
some papyrusfragmentsof Plato'stexts roughly sist quite independentlyof their truth, and the
contemporaneouswith him have been recently meme for faith is apt to secure its own survival,
discovered, the survival of the memes owes al- and that of the religious memes that ride piggy-
most nothing to such long-range persistence. back on it, in even the most rationalisticenvi-
Today'slibraries contain thousands if not mil- ronments. Indeed, the meme for faith exhibits
lions of physical copies (and translations)of the frequency-dependentfitness:it flourishespartic-
Meno, while the key ancestors in the transmis- ularlyin the companyof rationalisticmemes.
sion of this text turnedto dust centuriesago. Otherconcepts from populationgenetics also
Brute physical replication of vehicles is not transfersmoothly. Here is a case of what a ge-
enough to ensure meme longevity. A few thou- neticist would call linked loci: two memes that
sand hard-boundcopies of a book can disappear happento be physicallytied togetherso thatthey
with scarcely a trace in a few years. Who knows tend to replicatetogether,a fact thataffects their

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132 The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism

chances of replicating. There is a magnificent various memes for poetry-filters. One could
ceremonial march, familiar to us all, and one subscribe, for a few pennies, to an editorial
that would be much used for commencements, service that scanned the infosphere for good
weddings, and other festive occasions, perhaps poems. Different services, with different criti-
driving "Pompand Circumstance"and the Wed- cal standards,would flourish, as would services
ding March from "Lohengrin"to near extinc- for reviewing all the different services and still
tion, were it not for the fact that its musical more services that screened, collected, format-
meme is so tightly linked to its title meme, ted, and presentedthe worksof the best poets in
which we all tend to think of as soon as we hear slender electronic volumes which only a few
the music: Sir ArthurSullivan'sunusable mas- would purchase. The memes for editing and
terpiece, "Beholdthe Lord High Executioner." criticism will find niches in any environmentin
This is a vivid case of one of the most impor- the infosphere. They flourish because of the
tantphenomenain the infosphere:the mis-filter- short supply and limited capacity of minds,
ing of memes due to such linkages. We all have whateverthe transmissionmediabetweenminds.
filters of the following sort: The structureof filters is complex and quick
to respond to new challenges, but it doesn't
ignoreeverythingthatappearsin X. always "work."The competitionamong memes
to break through the filters leads to an "arms
For some people, X is TheNational Inquireror race" of ploy and counterploy,with ever more
Pravda; for others it is TheNew YorkReviewof elaborate"advertising"raisedagainstevermore
Books. We all take our chances, countingon the layersof selective filters.
"good" ideas to make it eventuallythroughthe Whetherthis is a good or bad thing depends
stacksof filters of othersinto the limelightof our on yourpoint of view. The huge arraysof garish
attention. signs that compete for our attentionalong com-
This structureof filters is itself a meme con- mercial strips in every region of the countryare
structionof considerablerobustness. John Mc- the exact counterpart,in the infosphere, of the
Carthy,the founderof Artificial Intelligence(or magnificentredwoodforestsof the biosphere.If
in any event, the coinerof its name, a meme with only those redwoods could get together and
its own, independent base in the infosphere) agree on some sensible zoning restrictionsand
once suggestedto a humanistaudiencethatelec- stop competing with each other for sunlight,
tronic mail networks could revolutionize the they could avoid the trouble of building those
ecology of the poet. Only a handfulof poets can ridiculous and expensive trunks, stay low and
make their living by selling their poems, Mc- thrifty shrubs, and get just as much sunlightas
Carthynoted, because poetry books are slender, before!9 In the more dignified ecology of aca-
expensive volumes purchasedby very few indi- demia, the same arms race is manifestedin de-
viduals and libraries. But imagine what would partment letterheads, "blind refereeing," the
happen if poets could put their poems on an proliferationof specialized journals, book re-
internationalnetwork,whereanybodycould read views, reviews of book reviews, andanthologies
them or copy them for a penny, electronically of "classic works."
transferredto the poet's royalty account. This These filters are not even always intendedto
could provide a steady source of income for preservethe best. Philosophersmightcareto ask
many poets, he surmised. Quite independently themselves, for instance, how often they are
of any aesthetic objections poets and poetry accomplices in increasing the audience for a
lovers might have to poems embodied in elec- second-rate article simply because their intro-
tronic media (more to the point: poems dis- ductory course needs a simple-mindedversion
played in patternsof excited phosphordots on of a bad idea that even the freshmencan refute.
computerscreens), the obvious counter-hypoth- Some of the most often reprinted articles in
esis arises from populationmemetics. If such a twentieth century philosophy are famous pre-
networkwere established,no poetry loverwould cisely because nobodybelieves them; everybody
be willing to wade through thousandsof elec- can see what is wrong with them.10
tronic files filled with doggerel, looking for the A relatedphenomenonin the competitionof
good poems. There would be a niche createdfor memes for our attentionis positivefeedback. In

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Dennett Memes 133

biology, this is manifestedin such phenomenaas "side with" our genes-that is to commit the
the "runawaysexual selection" thatexplains the most egregious errorof pop sociobiology. What
long and cumbersometail of the birdof paradise foundation,then, can we standon as we struggle
or the peacock. Dawkins provides an example to keep our feet in the memestormin which we
from the world of publishing: "Best-seller lists are engulfed?If replicativemight does not make
of books arepublishedweekly, andit is undoubt- right, what is to be the eternal ideal relative to
edly true that as soon as a book sells enough which "we" will judge the value of memes? We
copies to appearin one of these lists, its sales should note that the memes for normativecon-
increase even more, simply by virtue of that cepts-for ought and good and truthand beauty
fact. Publishers speak of a book "taking off," are among the most entrencheddenizens of our
and those publishers with some knowledge of minds, andthatamongthe memesthatconstitute
science even speak of a "critical mass for take- us, they play a centralrole. Ourexistence as us,
off."II as whatwe as thinkersare-not as whatwe as or-
The haven all memes depend on reaching is ganismsare-is not independentof these memes.
the humanmind, which is itself an artifactcre- Dawkins ends The Selfish Gene with a pas-
ated when memes restructurea humanbrain in sage thatmany of his critics must not have read:
orderto make it a betterhabitatfor memes. The
avenuesfor entry and departureare modified to We havethe powerto defy the selfishgenes of our
suit local conditions, and strengthenedby vari- birth and, if necessary,the selfish memesof our
ous artificial devices that enhance fidelity and indoctrination....Wearebuiltas genemachinesand
prolixity of replication. Native Chinese minds culturedas mememachines,butwe havethepowerto
differ dramaticallyfrom native French minds, turnagainstour creators.We, alone on earth,can
and literate minds differ from illiterate minds. rebelagainstthe tyrannyof the selfish replicators.
Whatmemes provide in returnto the organisms (p. 215)
in which they reside is an incalculable store of
advantages-with some Trojanhorses thrownin In thusdistancinghimself thus forcefullyfrom
for good measure, no doubt. Normal human the oversimplificationsof pop sociobiology, he
brainsare not all alike; they vary considerablyin somewhat overstates his case. This "we" that
size, shape, and in the myriaddetails of connec- transcendsnot only its genetic creatorsbut also
tion on which their prowess depends. But the its memetic creatorsis a myth. Dawkins seems
most strikingdifferences in humanprowess de- to acknowledge this in his later work. In The
pend on micro-structuraldifferences (still in- Extended Phenotype, Dawkins argues for the
scrutableto neuroscience) induced by the vari- biological perspective that recognizes the bea-
ous memes that have enteredthem and taken up ver'sdam, the spider'sweb, the bird'snest as not
residence. The memes enhance each other'sop- merely products of the phenotype-the individ-
portunities: the meme for education, for in- ual organismconsideredas a functionalwhole-
stance, is a meme that reinforces the very pro- but ratheras parts of the phenotype, on a par
cess of meme-implantation. with the beaver's teeth, the spider's legs, the
If it is true that humanminds are themselves bird'swing. Fromthis perspective,the vast pro-
to a great degree the creations of memes, we tective networksof memes we spin is as integral
cannot sustainthe polarity of vision with which to our phenotypes-to explainingour competen-
we started. It cannot be "memes versus us," cies, our chances, our vicissitudes-as anything
because earlier infestations of memes have al- in our more narrowlybiological endowment.12
readyplayeda majorrole in determiningwho or There is no radical discontinuity;one can be a
what we are. (Some folks say you are what you mammal, a father,a citizen, scholar,Democrat,
eat, but it is closer to the truth to say you are and an associate professor with tenure. Just as
whatyou read.) The "independent"mind strug- man-madebarns are an integralpart of the barn
gling to protect itself from alien and dangerous swallow's ecology, so cathedralsand universi-
memes is a myth. Thereis (in the basement, one ties-and factories and prisons-are an integral
might say) a persistingtension between the bio- partof ourecology. They are the memes without
logical imperativeof the genes and the imper- which we could not live in these environments.
atives of the memes, but we would be foolish to Homo sapiens has been around for half a

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134 The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism

million years. The first serious invasion of My own feeling is that its [the meme meme's] main
memes began with spoken languageonly tens of value may lie not so much in helpingus to understand
thousandsof years ago. The second great wave, human culture as in sharpening our perception of
riding on the meme for writing, is considerably genetic naturalselection. This is the only reasonI am
less thanten thousandyears in progress-a brief presumptuousenough to discuss it, for I do not know
moment in biological time. Since memetic evo- enoughaboutthe existing literatureon humanculture
lution occurs on a time scale thousandsof times to makean authoritativecontributionto it. (p. 112)
faster than genetic evolution, however, in the
period since there have been memes-only tens I thinkthatwhathappenedto the meme meme
of thousandsof years-the contributingeffects is quite obvious: "humanist"minds have set up
of meme-structureson our constitution-on hu- a particularlyaggressive set of filters against
man phenotypes-vastly outweigh the effects of memescoming from "sociobiology."Once Daw-
genetic evolution duringthat period. So we can kins was identified as a sociobiologist, this al-
answerthe defining questionof the MandelLec- most guaranteedrejectionof whateverthis inter-
ture with a rousing affirmative.Does art (in the loper had to say about culture-not for good
broad sense) contributeto human evolution? It reasons, but just in a sort of immunological
certainlydoes. In fact, since art appearedon the rejection.14
scene, it has virtually supplantedall other con- But look how the meme meme has now infil-
tributionsto humanevolution.13 trated itself into another, less alien vehicle, a
I would like to close with some observations clearly identified, card-carryingacademic hu-
on the historyof the meme meme itself, andhow manist,a philosopher.In this guise-clothed in a
its spreadwas temporarilycurtailed.When Daw- philosopher'ssort of words-will it find better
kins introducedmemes in 1976, he describedhis chances of replication?I hope so.
innovationas a literal extension of the classical My chosen role in this Mandel Lecture has
Darwiniantheory and so I have treatedit here. been a humble one, a mere vector, a transmitter,
Dawkins, however,has since drawnin his horns with just a few embellishmentsand mutations,
slightly. In The Blind Watchmaker(1988), he of a meme that has come to play a large role in
speaksof an analogy "which I find inspiringbut my mind-large enough, for instance, to deter-
which can be takentoo far if we are not careful" mine the content of this lecture. My purpose,
(p. 196). He go on to say "Cultural'evolution' afterall, has been to createin yourmindsrobust,
is not really evolutionat all if we are being fussy aggressivecopies of variousmemes that inhabit
and puristaboutour use of words, but there may my mind. I hope that I have succeeded in that
be enough in common between them to justify modestgoal, andmoreover,thatyou will forgive
some comparisonof principles"(p. 216). Why me for reviving "It TakesTwo to Tango"and be
did he retreat like this? Why, indeed, is the gratefulto me for passing on the meme meme.
meme meme so little discussed thirteen years
after TheSelfish Gene appeared? DANIEL C. DENNETT
In The ExtendedPhenotype, Dawkins replies Centerfor CognitiveStudies
forcefullyto the stormof criticismfrom sociobi- TuftsUniversity
ologists, while concedingsome interestingbutin- Medford,MA 02155
essentialdisanalogiesbetweengenesandmemes-

memes are not strungout along linearchromosomes, 1. See, for instance, Richard Lewontin, "Adaptation,"
and it is not clear that they occupy and compete for The EncyclopediaEinaudi (Milan: Einaudi, 1980); Robert
Brandon,"AdaptationandEvolutionaryTheory,"Studiesin
discrete 'loci', or that they have identifiable 'alleles'
the History and Philosophy of Science 9 (1978): 181-206;
... The copying process is probablymuch less precise both reprintedin E. Sober, ed., ConceptualIssues in Evolu-
than in the case of genes ... memes may partially tionaryBiology (MIT Press, 1984).
blend with each other in a way that genes do not. 2. RichardDawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford Univer-
(p. 112) sity Press, 1976), p. 206.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
But then he retreatsfurther,apparentlyin the 5. Peter Kivy informedme after the Mandel Lecturethat
face of unnamedand unquotedadversaries: this oft-quoted passage is counterfeit-not Mozart at all. I

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Dennett Memes 135

found it in JacquesHadamard'sclassic study, The Psychol- for the reader. Among the memes that structurethe info-
ogy of Inventingin the MathematicalField (PrincetonUni- sphereand hence affect the transmissionof other memes are
versity Press, 1949), p. 16 [emphasis added], and first the laws of libel.
quoted it myself in "Why the Law of Effect Will Not Go 11. Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker(London:
Away,"Journalof the Theoryof Social Behaviour5 (1975): LongmanScientific, 1986), p. 219. Dawkins' discussion of
169-87, reprintedin my book, Brainstorms(MIT Press/A these complex phenomena, in the chapter"Explosions and
BradfordBook, 1978). I persist in quoting it here, in spite of Spirals" (pp. 195-220), is a tour de force of explanatory
Kivy's correction, because it not only expresses but exem- clarity and vividness.
plifies the thesis that memes, once they exist, are indepen- 12. In severalrecentessays I have expandedon the claim
dent of authors and critics alike. Historical accuracy is that the very structureof our minds is more a product of
important(which is why I havewrittenthis footnote), butthe culturethanof the neuroanatomywe are born with: "Julian
passage so well suits my purposes that I am choosing to Jaynes'Software Archeology," in CanadianPsychology 27
ignore its pedigree. I might not have persisted in this, had I (1986): 149-154; "TheSelf as the Centerof NarrativeGrav-
not encountered a supporting meme the day after Kivy ity," originally published as "Why we are all novelists,"
informedme: I overhearda guide at the MetropolitanMu- Times Literary Supplement(Sept. 16-22, 1988), p. 1029,
seum of Art, commenting on the Gilbert Stuart portraitof forthcoming in F. Kessel, P. Cole, D. Johnson, eds., Self
George Washington:"This may not be what George Wash- and Consciousness: Multiple Perspectives, (Hillsdale, NJ:
ington looked like then, but this is what he looks like now." Erlbaum);"The Evolutionof Consciousness," forthcoming
6. RichardDawkins, The Extended Phenotype (Oxford: in TheRealityClub, volume 3; and "TheOriginsof Selves,"
W.H. Freeman, 1982), pp. 110- 111. forthcoming in Cogito. See also Nicholas Humphreyand
7. Dawkins, TheSelfish Gene, p. 214. Daniel Dennett, "SpeakingFor OurSelves: An Assessment
8. Ibid., p. 212. of MultiplePersonalityDisorder,"Raritan9 (1989): 68-98.
9. This, the "tragedyof the commons," deserves a more 13. Those who are familiar with the BaldwinEffect will
careful treatmentthan I can offer on this occasion. Note too recognize that art contributes not merely to the fixing of
that I am submerginga complication that properly should phenotypic plasticity, but can thereby change the selective
bring our discussion full circle, back to the ideas of Adam environmentand hence hastenthe pace of genetic evolution.
Smith about economic competition that first inspired Dar- See my discussion in "The Evolution of Consciousness,"
win. The competitionof the billboardsis competitionfor our and JonathanSchull, "Are Species Intelligent?"forthcom-
attention,but the ulteriorgoal of acquiringour attentionis ing in Behavioraland Brain Sciences.
the seller'sgoal of acquiringour money, not the meme'sgoal 14. A striking example of the vituperativeand uncom-
of replicating itself. The academic examples are not inde- prehendingdismissal of Dawkinsby a humanistwho identi-
pendentof economics, of course, but economics plays a less fies him as a sociobiologist is found in Mary Midgley,
dominantrole, as was ironicallyacknowledgedon a T-shirt "GeneJuggling," Philosophy54 (1979): 439-458, an attack
worn by a memberof the audience at the Mandel Lecture: so wide of the markthat it should not be readwithoutits an-
"Philosophy:I'm in it for the money." tidote: Dawkins'sresponse, "In Defence of Selfish Genes,"
10. The confirmationof this claim is left as an exercise Philosophy56 (1981): 556-573.

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