Popular Culture

I think that from the whole book, the most interesting fact for me has been the memes. I never thought of it like that, I have it known as popular culture. I remember that Mr. Hickey once told us about it, he said that there is some knowledge that everybody simply acquires because “everybody knows it”. Dawkins plots this concept in a very interesting way. He says it is genes, the meme genes. These genes replicate themselves through human minds. Dawkins says that the memes are the new kind of replicators. , “Examples of the memes are tunes, ideas, catch phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.” (pg. 192) If you look at history we are changing at an amazing speed, developing. I even remember that things were different when I was little, and I am only 16 years old. My mind has changed because it has been influenced by memes of other people that stick in my mind and I pass it to other people’s minds.

If memes are replicators, theoretically they should copy themselves identically, but they don’t. I see them similar to gossip, but in a positive way. Every time it is passed to someone, it is changed according to that person’s thoughts. I do think that memes are the most immortal thing in the world. Dawkins says that, “Once the genes have provided their survival machines with brains that are capable of rapid imitation, the memes will automatically take over.” (pg. 200) There is no way to abolish the passing on of memes, it is passed on by generations. We know of people like Galileo Galilei that lived hundreds of years ago and is still very alive within ourselves. What that has to do with selfishness… I don’t know, but I like the concept.