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Memes in History

Memes, as vital and integral parts of consciousness, are responsible for behaviors that are not biologically determined (and they may, of course, interact with biological behaviors). Consequently, they are vital forces underlying the patterns of human history. The influences of memes, particularly well-propagating ones, on human history is impossible to quantify or delineate, but a few examples will suffice. We will consider the rise and spread of Christianity, the Salem witch trials, and the spread of Nazism.

The Rise and Spread of Christianity

Without a doubt, Christianity is one of the most successful memes sets in human history that does not have a direct relation to the everyday world (i.e., the wheel meme). It gets its enormously successful replication through several key adaptations that allow it to outpropagate most of its competitors in the meme pool.

First in the Christian memetic arsenal were the memes it inherited from the Jews: monotheism, the Ten Commandments, strict moral structure, etc. were all embodied in the meme set of Christianity, but were reinforced and given new vitality with the addition of several new memes. The most powerful (and obvious) of all the Christian memes is the drive to go out and spread the good news of the Messiah's arrival; consequently, Christianity becomes a powerhouse in the proselytic mode of meme replication. Furthermore, the common Christian meme that God rewards the faithful and punished the unfaithful leads adherents to spread their meme vigorously to all those who matter to them in an attempt to save them from God's wrath. Those who adopt this meme after hearing about it from a believer then proceed to spread it through their own acquaintances, etc.

The heaven/hell meme reinforces and reinvigorates the reward/punishment meme. If the reward for faith is eternal paradise, and the reward for disbelief is eternal condemnation, then adherents feel an even more pressing need to save the souls of those around them. Fearing an eternal separation from their loved ones, adherents proselytize vigorously toward those they wish to spend eternity with. This instills or arouses fear of death in the nonhost, who may then be more tempted to convert to Christianity to save his own soul.

The "love thy neighbor" meme also is extremely helpful in spreading Christianity. Christians, who are required by this meme to respond with kindness to all strangers, will be perceived as loving, caring people with a genuine concern for the alleviation of human suffering. Therefore, when nonhosts hear about the Christian meme set, they will be more predisposed toward adopting it because they perceive Christians as caring and pleasant people. This meme also acts on adherents, causing them to extend their love - and therefore, their concern - toward many more people than they would otherwise have done; consequently, adherents feel that everyone merits an opportunity for salvation. As a result, they are more likely to proselytize more often and toward more people.

Another meme which Christianity has implemented to great effect is the "contrary beliefs are evil" meme. This meme serves as an instigator to proselytism by encouraging adherents to drive out memes that contradict Christianity. It also helps in preserving Christian memes when they encounter alternative memes - hosts believe that the alternatives are evil, and therefore will not adopt them.

The Christian meme of crucifixion is a vitally important part of the meme set, implying that Christ sacrificed his life for the sake of saving humanity. First, this instills guilt or a sense of debt in adherents, causing them to attempt to repay the debt in the form of meme-spreading or in the form of observing Christian rituals and traditions, which others may observe and adopt. Second, it contributes to the conversion of nonhosts, adding a factor of guilt by implying ungratefulness for sacrifice on such a grand scale.

The memetic vigor of Christianity as a whole is increased by the presence of different and variant subsects. For example, the Roman Catholic Church appeals to those who value devotional ritual, tradition, mystery, and vast and expensive monuments to the glory of God. Most Protestant churches, on the other hand, appeal to those who prefer a simpler, more direct faith without ritualistic trappings. Variations among individual Protestant churches appeal to different subsets of people - some prefer the starkness of Calvinism, some are attracted to the openness of Congregationalism, etc. The presence of different variants on the same fundamental meme set of Christianity is greatly beneficial to the fundamental meme set; people can convert between Christian subsects without questioning or challenging basic Christian doctrine.

The Salem Witch Trials

A classic case of the rapid spread of extremely competitive memes is the Salem witch trials that took place in 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. Witchcraft memes spread rapidly through the town, assisted by prevailing Puritan beliefs, popular culture at the time, and an already volatile political situation. The time was ripe for the spread of new, highly successful memes, which grew and mutated out of what seemed like harmless fun.

The problems began with a political dispute regarding Salem Village's affiliation with the thriving area known as Salem Town, which many extreme Puritans denounced. When Rev. Parris, a new minister primarily catering to the separatists, had his contract called into question, his financial situation became perilous.

Meanwhile, popular culture among adolescents was involved in what seemed at first to be harmless fun. Teenagers were generally forbidden to play childhood games because of Puritan beliefs that they were signs of the devil. Consequently, reading became popular, especially during the cold winter. Around 1691-2, books about fortune-telling and divination became highly popular, and young girls enjoyed forming small groups in which to practice their skills at these activities. Included in these groups were Parris' daughter Betty and niece Abigail, who commonly met with Parris' slave Tituba to practice fortune-telling and listen to stories.

The two girls, disturbed by Rev. Parris' uncertain financial situation and possibly ill from eating contaminated grain, began to behave unusually; this was followed by similar behavior from other girls in the area. Parris had them examined by the local doctor, who concluded that they were all bewitched. This was not uncommon or unusual for the time - Puritans had a definite belief in witchcraft, which they thought involved making a deal with the devil for powers to perform evil actions. This particular meme was quite normal for the time, as was the meme that witchcraft could be punished as a real crime (secular law was still in the distant future).

Tituba was advised to help Betty and Abigail name their bewitchers; Betty named Tituba herself and Abigail named two local women of lower social status - one was a beggar, and the other an elderly lady who rarely attended church (a sin at the time). All three women were easily cast in the role of witch, since they were of low social status and considered guilty of other sins. Tituba even confessed, insisting that she and the other two women had been forced to sign a book. It is unknown why she decided to confess, though she quite probably believed herself to have been guilty because she practiced fortune-telling. Following the confession, all three women were jailed.

A volatile and uncertain political climate, combined with disease outbreaks, contributed to the continued spread of the witchcraft meme. A smallpox outbreak, the possibility of contaminated grain, the continuing dispute over Massachusetts' colonial charter, a fear of Indian attacks, and a very cold winter may all have contributed to the rise and rapid spread of the meme that God was punishing the village. Witches in their midst seemed a likely explanation for God's anger, and the townspeople became determined to root out all the witches they could. This meme combined with the commonly observed "panic effect" by which real physical symptoms are caused by nothing but the perception of such symptoms in others, in whom they might well be psychosomatic. (Indeed, this is just an unusual example of a meme: an illness meme which causes its adherents to feel ill despite being healthy.)

The result of this volatile mixture was a rash of witchcraft accusations from the original group of girls, whose symptoms might have been caused by financial worries or contaminated grain, or might have been entirely psychosomatic. The accusations were almost universally made against people (generally but not exclusively women) who were unpopular in the community or who objected to the witchcraft trials themselves. The first woman in this chain of accusations was outspoken and the mother of an illegitimate child. The second was an elderly lady who had once disputed property boundaries with a minister, and who had poor hearing. When a man spoke out denying the truthfulness of the witchcraft charges, he too was immediately accused. In one of the most dramatic accusations, a local minister with a violent temper and a poor reputation was accused of being the master of all the Salem witches.

By the beginning of June 1692, 200 people had been jailed on witchcraft charges, almost all under the memetic influence of "spectral evidence", which allowed the accusers to testify that the spirit of the accused appeared to them. By the summer of 1692, six women had been convicted and hanged for practicing witchcraft, and still the meme had not run its course. Five more hangings took place that August as a result of conviction through spectral evidence. Interestingly, another common meme was outcompeted at this point: witches and wizards were believed to be incapable of reciting the Lord's Prayer without a mistake; one of the accused recited it flawlessly. However, this common meme was outcompeted by the virulent spread of the witchcraft meme.

Amid the hysteria of the spreading meme, a man refused to stand trial and was killed by crushing rocks as questioners demanded cooperation. Another convicted woman wrote a scathing letter to the townspeople protesting her own innocence. In addition, a Boston reverend warned the townspeople against the murder of innocent people; this meme caught hold and began to spread, slowly displacing the witchcraft hysteria. The witchcraft meme finally died down, having burned itself out by too-rapid spread, after nineteen hangings and one death by crushing had taken place, and seventeen more people had died while in prison. Without a doubt, this was a powerful and potent meme!

The Spread of Nazism

One of the most notorious meme sets in history is the particularly virulent, highly successful Nazi meme. Playing off existing political, social, and economic tensions, the Nazi meme managed to out-replicate any and all competition, resulting in World War II and the atrocity we know today as the Holocaust.

To understand the Nazi meme, one must first understand the context in which it evolved. First, Germany had been punished severely by the punitive Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I; anger at this "national insult" fermented among Germans of the time. Second, the Great Depression hit particularly hard in Germany, which had still not recovered economically from World War I. Third, Jews traditionally are employed in money-changing professions such as tax collecting and accounting, and popular perceptions commonly linked them with the Depression.

In this unstable context, many Germans felt extremely uncertain and saw their place in the world as precarious and easily toppled. They were frightened by the economic disturbances of the Depression, when German money was cheaper to burn than firewood. Finally, they felt an overwhelming anger at the nations that had imposed the Treaty of Versailles on Germany and at the people they blamed for the Great Depression. Thus, strong nationalist feelings and strong anti-Semitism were almost destined to break out. Hitler gave direction and purpose to these vicious memes, but they spread of their own accord.

The Nazi meme was almost tailor-made for the situation. At a time when people felt both unjustly slighted and utterly powerless, it presented them with a way in which to explain their situation and to reassert their own superiority. Germans whose lives had been tipped upside-down by the Depression now had a sense of superiority to cling to that was independent of their fate or their failure; it was the simpleminded superiority of racial belonging. Even more importantly in history, the Germans now had a scapegoat on whom to blame their fall from economic and cultural success: the Jews. This meme too used a basic, inescapable racial category that encompassed all Jews, practicing or not. The optimality of this meme set is clear: a dispirited people are told that a) they are innately superior to everyone around them; and b) their economic difficulties are not due to impersonal forces or to their own errors, but instead to the Jewish influence.

Nazism also had a number of other propagation mechanisms, aside from the appeal to innate superiority. First, it was a violent and antagonistic meme from the outset, and it tended to suppress all opposing memes as quickly as possible through the use of fear and threats. Not only does this clear the area of competition for the Nazi meme, but it also gives the meme the appearance of being more representative of more of the population. Basic human tendencies to follow the majority then kick in, yielding additional adherents from sectors that might otherwise have resisted. Second, Nazism's violence and use of intimidation discouraged rebellion against the meme from outside or most especially within its ranks.

Another effective aspect of the Nazi meme set was the belief that the Third Reich was destined to rule the world, which certainly contributed to people's attempts at horizontal transmission. This meme also intensified hosts' feelings of being one of the elect. Furthermore, the meme helped to justify in the minds of adherents the attacks, murders, and robberies that were being committed under the Nazi flag - the meme simply implied that such actions were required by fate.

The incredible success of the Nazi meme also led to its own downfall. Belief that Aryans were naturally superior and were fated to conquer the world led to overconfidence and gross misjudgments on the part of the Nazi leadership. Hitler went to war on several fronts, and insisted on overseeing much of the war effort personally (unfortunate for him, since he was a poor strategist). The paranoia that the Nazi meme inspired also affected the Nazi leaders, who began to spend time scheming and plotting against imaginary attackers. The Nazi positions on most issues led to the perception of the Nazi meme as an evil to be eliminated in most opponent countries, such as Britain and the United States. These countries were able to mobilize large majorities of their populations to fight Germany and the Axis powers, and this motivation translated into inspired military victories. Consequently, the Nazi meme set burned itself out and eventually collapsed in Germany (though neo-Nazism continues today).

Looking Further: Links and References

The following links and references are of use in the study of the historical events analyzed in this section.

• Books
  • Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads Through Society by Aaron Lynch
  • The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore

• Websites
  • The Lifecycle of Memes - Christianity by Henrik Bjarneskans, Bjarne Grønnevik and Anders Sandberg
  • The Salem Witch Trials by Tom Sutter
  • The Salem Witch Museum
  • The Memetic Mind: Natural Selection in Mental Software - Nazism and Neo-Nazism by Aaron Lynch

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