Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme [Hardcover]

For 'hard' scientific data and mathematical/conceptual modelling (which really conveys why memetics is a legitimate science and not just a controversial upstart), you definately need to look elsewhere (Brodie himself has admitted this to me in extensive interviews). Texts by Lynch, Beck & Cowan, Csikzentmihalyi, Blackmore, Dennett, Dawkins, and Hofstadter are more useful in this regard. Brodie should be considered as a populariser of memetics, able to look at its impact on and relevance to contemporary cultural debates.

Politics aside, Brodie's book is best understood as an accessible introduction to the memetics field, which can capture and hold a general audience's attention. It is closer in many respects to a description of evolutionary psychology drives, 'hot buttons', coercive double-binds, and ideological faith/belief structures used by cults, advertisers, politicians, and religious entities.

Thus, a reading of 'Virus of the Mind' can offer you an accessible text with some insight into how people are programmed, and how to become more aware of your own consensus trance (Charles T. Tart). It continues a self-help perspective developed by Brodie in his earlier book 'Getting Past OK'. Many of Brodie's ideas have been said before in different contexts, but the memetics angle puts a fresh spin on things, and his early chapters on definitions of memes are useful for the layperson in confronting a rapidly growing field.

As long as you don't expect the definitive text on memetics (which Dawkins may one day write as 'The Selfish Meme'?), you will find some useful insights that can be quickly integrated into everyday living. This is the real strength of the book, and partly why it has proven to be so popular.

_Virus of the Mind_ by Richard Brodie is the first popular book
on the market exclusively about memetics, the study of infectious
ideas. I've been looking forward to it since I first heard
rumours of its existence in alt.memetics almost a year ago.

I have to confess that at first I was disappointed with the
presentation style of the book. It seems to be aimed at
an audience with a high-school reading level, with key points
highlighted in boxes and illustrated with cartoons featuring
Eggbert, on oval happy face with spiky hair. Later I came to
the conclusion that Brodie is probably capable of a more
sophisticated writing style, but consciously chose to give
it wider appeal in a deliberate act of memetic engineering.

In fact Brodie takes many opportunities to apply the techniques
he discusses which serves not only to lend weight to the
theories, but should also theoretically increase books sales. :)
For example, he named the book _Virus of the Mind_ rather than,
say, _Introduction to Memetics_ because it will catch more
people's attention due to their association memes.

It is difficult to discuss memetics in depth without veering
off into deep philosophy. Everything that exists, everything
with a name, everything we know corresponds to a meme including
memes themselves. What is truth? What are we? What should we
do? The new science of the meme sheds light on all these
questions and Brodie doesn't shy away from tackling these
issues head on, but always remaining practical and open-minded.

The book covers a great deal in its 230 pages. Starting with
general definitions, it goes on to describe how memes are like
biological and computer viruses and how they evolve in their
respective mediums. One chapter introduces evolutionary
psychology (the subject of Robert Wright's excellent _The
Moral Animal_ ),
and how the ancient memes of "sex" and "danger" are still
very much shaping our culture today. Another chapter covers
how we get programmed (infected by new memes), and how these
techniques are used by governments, corporations, cults
and religions. (I paid special attention to the chapter
on how to start a cult :)

It was refreshing to see how charitable Brodie is towards
religion, even after describing in detail how it is really
a cultural power virus, evolving to take advantage of the
natural "push-button" memes of its adherents including
"security", "sex", "belonging" and "crisis" through memes
like "tradition", "heresy", "evangilism" and "repetition".
He concludes that despite all that religions are still very
useful because they give purpose to otherwise meaningless
lives.

I suspect even someone already well-read in the area of
memetics will find new insights in _Virus of the Mind_.
Brodie is obviously a bright guy who has thought a lot
about how to teach people about memes in order to create
a future by design. _Virus of the Mind_ should be on
the reading list of everyone interested in the future
evolution of ideas.