This might seem a little over the top, but I thought it would be something “different” to consider in terms of Civil War memory. I actually ran across this several months ago. For whatever reason, it slipped my mind until I ran across it again in my research last night. Though the book that I cite holds information of value to my research and thesis, the meme has nothing to do with it. Incidentally, nothing that I read showed that anyone made a connection between “memes” and Civil War Memory… I made the connection. That said, however, I’m certainly not sold on the idea (nor do I think in harmony with Dawkins’ ideology). If nothing else, it’s just intriguing to consider.
So, what is a “meme?” According to a note in the book First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game (page 260)…
A meme is an idea that is passed on from one human generation to another. It is the cultural equivalent of a gene, the basic element of biological inheritance. The term was coined in 1976 by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene. Dawkins speculates that human beings have an adaptive mechanism that other species don’t have. In addition to genetic inheritance with its possibilities and limitations, humans, says Dawkins, can pass their ideas from one generation to the next.
Examples of memes might include the idea of God; the importance of the individual as opposed to group importance; the belief that the environment can to some extent be controlled; or that technologies can create an electronically interconnected world community. Today, the word is sometimes applied ironically to ideas, deemed to be of passing value. Dawkins himself described such short-lived ideas as memes that would have a short life in the meme pool.
As the Wikipedia entry for Dawkins points out, there are critics of Dawkins’ theory (incidentally, I disabled all of the links in the following block quote that show-up in the Wikipedia page; to see the full body of text with links, see the above-referenced link to the Wikipedia page for Richard Dawkins)…
Critics of Dawkins’ approach suggest that taking the gene as the unit of selection − of a single event in which an individual either succeeds or fails to reproduce − is misleading, but that the gene could be better described as a unit of evolution − of the long-term changes in allele frequencies in a population.[35] In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins explains that he is using George C. Williams’ definition of the gene as “that which segregates and recombines with appreciable frequency”.[36] Another common objection is that genes cannot survive alone, but must cooperate to build an individual, and therefore cannot be an independent “unit”.[37] In The Extended Phenotype, Dawkins suggests that because of genetic recombination and sexual reproduction, from an individual gene’s viewpoint all other genes are part of the environment to which it is adapted.
Advocates for higher levels of selection such as Richard Lewontin, David Sloan Wilson, and Elliot Sober suggest that there are many phenomena (including altruism) that gene-based selection cannot satisfactorily explain. The philosopher Mary Midgley, with whom Dawkins has intermittently debated since the late 1970s,[38][39] has criticised gene selection, memetics and sociobiology as being excessively reductionist.[40]
So, when we experience, through interaction with others, embeded philosophies or ideas about the Civil War, and maybe “memory” of the Civil War, are we, in fact encountering memes? Like I said, I’m not sold on this, but it would be interesting to see the theory tested as part of a cultural study (not to mention how the test results would be validated… though I can’t see how they could be).
kevlvn
April 3, 2009
Hey Robert,
See this post from October 2006: http://civilwarmemory.typepad.com/civil_war_memory/2006/10/civil_war_memes.html
Scary how much we think alike.
Kevin at Civil War Memory
cenantua
April 3, 2009
Kevin, The parallels in thinking here and there are interesting! Also, I thought someone just MUST have written about this already, considering the theory was developed some 30+ years ago. Thanks for pointing to your earlier post.
acwresearcher
April 3, 2009
Interesting theory, but, Robert, how would it specifically be applied to people like you and me who once allowed a particular “meme” to dominate our thinking? Could it be that after looking at the evidence with a more balanced thought process our meme has evolved?
cenantua
April 3, 2009
That’s part of the reason why I’m not totally convinced about the idea. I do like your theory of the evolution of a meme, however. I’m open to further thought on this, but I’m particularly curious how the theory of the meme would be tested and how the results could be validated. Unlike genes, I can’t see that you can scrap the inside of someone’s mouth to get a meme. So, how is it truly traceable and how can you show hard evidence of the lineage of a meme?
cenantua
April 3, 2009
That reminds me, Greg. You know, the biggest problem I have with this meme stuff is, well, evidence to the contrary. For example, I know someone who is descended from two Union soldiers from NY, two Southern Unionists, etc., etc, and has incredibly light heritage links to anyone Confederate, but has been a new age rebel yeller as long as I’ve known him. Upbringing in the South, perhaps? I’m not sure how the meme theory holds up in this case. If there is truth in meme-ology, then nurture vs. nature prevails, perhaps. Could a meme be dormant and only activated by nurture? I must be playing devil’s advocate here as it seems unusual to be theorizing about something that I have a hard time buying into. Then again, I’m a “possibilities” man.
acwresearcher
April 3, 2009
Unless someone has logged their evolution of ideas like you and I have on our blogs (or on paper), I think one would be hard-pressed to actually test the theory. However, I also think Dawkins’ idea is an interesting concept worth “further thought.”
cenantua
April 3, 2009
I think you are right about that, and you have to consider that, because of our research and careful analysis of the findings, are left with more that is uncertain than certain. I can’t tell you definately what any one of my Civil War ancestors thought in regard to cause and, in most cases, most people can’t tell you about theirs, though they think they do. They impose a system of beliefs based on limited/superficial findings that offer nothing firm. They are heels-planted in their ideas about what an ancestor was fighting for but can offer nothing concrete from that ancestor and his feelings. In this case, I think Civil War “memory” is learned because of multiple cultural-centered feeds through various cycles of development, not genelike as the theory of memes suggest.
cenantua
April 3, 2009
I guess this is the good thing about this theory. While we can see the theory of memes as difficult to support, we start looking for another theory that can be validated in some way.
acwresearcher
April 3, 2009
Another thing: as this idea relates to Civil War Memory, how do all of the causology theories play into influencing specific beliefs about the war? Are those ideas the “primordial ooze” from which the “meme” pool sprang? OK, I’ll quit now. I’m just getting silly!
cenantua
April 3, 2009
LOL, we can’t dismiss the primordial ooze metaphor, consider it an addition to the list of possibilities.