Meme War

Battle of the cartoon

Our ideas use us to fight their battles, much like nation-states use terrorists to fight proxy wars, to avoid nuclear annihilation. Religious memes are especially successful. Believe or die. Think like me or suffer eternally. The devil made me do it.

Our ideas live lives of their own. They reproduce, sometimes asexually through mitosis, as when one person mimics another. They can reproduce sexually, as when two people bring their own ideas together in conversation, and come away with new ideas. They live in books, clustered in colonies called libraries. Exploding now, in the internet.

Memes can evolve, can die, become extinct. They can transcend consciousness, as when we bring an idea to fruition. But when they fight, we all suffer. The Muhammed bomb cartoon conflict is a prime example of meme war. The current Islam meme is rigid and uncompromising, even more so than the other psycho religious memes, like Hinduism and Judaism. It refuses to grow, to evolve. Five hundred years ago, the Christian meme was similar. But Christians don't torture each other over dogma anymore like they did during the Spanish Inquisition. They're too rich now to care. They go to church on Sunday and spend the rest of the week spending their wealth. And I think that's the key. If we want to chill out the Islam meme, we need only open up the Islamic economy. UAE and Qatar are good examples. Once muslims have Pepsi and television and PS3's, the Islam meme will start to mellow.

When I was a kid, other kids would try to fight me. I would try to reason with them, but to no avail. I would wonder "why can't we communicate? Are we dumb beasts, or are we humans?" I would let the kid beat me up, just to show him that I could avoid an apelike anger response with reason. I actually took seriously the Jesus meme foisted upon me by my parents. My father, ironically, is still unable to do that, is still beating people up in his old age. But not me.

Human consciousness unfolds. It evolves and progresses. Astrology becomes astronomy, alchemy becomes chemistry, religion becomes philosophy. And on and on. Out with the old, in with the new.