Quite a long post, this, but a useful handy reference as to why we should be wary of 'memes' as an idea for interpreting and discussing culture (which, it is argued, is already something of a reification, though I'd dispute that as the last word). The headline reason: "memetics sucks the air out of the room for a serious consideration of the ways that culture, knowledge, technology, and human evolution might be interrelated. That is, like a theory of humours and vapors in illness, it provides pseudo-explanations in place of just getting the hell out of the way of serious thought"
Check out the whole thing here:
We hate memes, pass it on… � Neuroanthropology
The reasons given for skepticism:
- reify the activity of brains
- Attributing personality to the reification of ideas
Doesn’t ‘self-replicating’ mean replicating by one’s self?
- Moreover, ‘self-replicating’ means, by definition, replicating by itself. Has anyone, ever, anywhere, seen an idea ‘replicate’ itSELF?
- The term ‘meme’ applied to divergent phenomena
- A host will not evolve traits in order for parasite to benefit
Gradual cultural transmission not like infection
- Objective ‘science’ inconsistent with normative judgments about memes
- Resistance to memetics is not ‘anti-Darwinism’; Darwinism not a religion
The latter, of course, is a statement of intent: in effect it adds up to an accusation that some Darwinists have become religion-like in their thinking and behaviour.
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