Some would say that memes, like genes, are just one factor, and insofar as they are infectious, we can call upon the antibodies of consciousness and good sense to combat them. Fine. As some sort of new simile, as a weak metaphor meant to suggest the power of vivid images in a world high on connection and low on judgment, okay. But I don't think that's how the concept is usually used. Memes are real to their adherents. And they are certainly real enough to spawn an academic discipline, with its conferences, journal articles and books. To which I say, pish, tosh. Get in line behind deconstructionism, semiotics and postmodernism as dogmas that were pushed to absurd heights, and like stock market bubbles of ideas, deflated to nothing, leaving a lot of stale, stinking air.

Part of this also reflects what seems to me an overly mechanistic approach to Darwinist evolution and genetics. But I am not arguing that there is no biological basis for how we receive and judge ideas. New ideas are attractive, I'd guess, because humans survived by taking new information seriously, and not resting until every aspect of it, every possibility, was thoroughly explored. There is survival value in a stable and dependable set of beliefs and practices. (Plus there is resistance to new information by those heavily invested in the old, especially those who derive their power from the established order.) But humanity, and I suspect other creatures, haven't survived by ignoring new information completely. (Plus some will be excited by the old guard's resistance, especially those with less power.)