We toss about the term "meme" and share and share again those graphic things so nonchalantly on the Internet these days that I wondered where the term began. So I looked to the Internet, where else?
Ironically the usage originated in the pen-and-ink era in the 1976 book "The Selfish Gene," a scholarly work by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. Dawkins coined the word "meme" as a social evolutionary parallel to the biological gene. Thoughts and ideas shared within a culture through words and phrases grow through sharing, he contended, passing through evolutionary phases to become part of a society's DNA. Dawkins described his new word as "an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture." Mighty highfalutin words for Facebook-shared pictures of sloganeering cats or Gene Wilder, as sarcastic Willy Wonka, smiling like a Cheshire cat.
Perhaps Dawkins' 20th century academics considered this, but the World Wide Web has taken the organic practice of sharing ideas and cultural cues to an extreme level. His comparatively serene incubator of exchanged thoughts is now a warp-speed microwave oven. This is a problem. Everything gets so jumbled up in hyperventilated idea-DNA that truth and original thought are lost in error-prone, cell-splitting mutations: Fake news and outright misrepresentations.
I'm happy I did a little research, as it supports and explains my ongoing frustrations with folks opining on social media. Critical thinking has been replaced by cutting and pasting others' ideas from web links or simply repeating another's bullet points as if they were cutting-edge.
Both the political right and left in our schismatic country dally in this misguided practice. And it chaps my hide. Is that a meme in the original definition?
I have friends of varied stripes on Facebook. Due to my college journalism degree, there are my progressive, sometimes secular humanist-leaning buds. On the other side, rooted in my Deep South origin, there are often conservative, Sunday-go-to-meeting friends. And there are others in between, thankfully.
One progressive acquaintance is retired from National Public Radio. (You see, this here hillbilly actually knows some blue-politics folk.) He posted of his travels in search of a place to retire back in the United States after having lived in Guatemala. It's beyond me why one would want to give up a veranda with a view of Lake Atitlan for the social chaos back back in the USA. At least in Guatemala you clearly know who to avoid -- the Federales in the Jeeps. Nevertheless I recommended he read up on affordable and lovely Northwest Arkansas, citing specifically the progressive niche of Fayetteville as a good fit. Immediately another of his friends piped up suggesting that during a visit to Arkansas he should tell the governor to stop hiding in his office and attend those death-row executions in the national headlines. An original thought about "Bubba" state justice? I think not. If you're against capitol punishment, productive and strategic activism should begin long before sentences handed down 20 years ago are finally carried out. My reply to her lackluster post: Great idea -- and the governors in all 31 states with capital punishment (two-thirds of the nation coast to coast) should attend their own likewise.
On the other hand, some conservative buds seem mindless to the content of memes and "news" shared while cruising the Infobahn. Example: The founder of Chick-fil-A threatens to close all his restaurants because federal health care mandates run contrary to his religion. Now, never mind that the man, S. Truett Cathy, has been dead for two years. He's still out there threatening to close down because of Obamacare. Really? If it came to that, don't you think the chicken sandwich family members would instead simply sell out to some Cayman Islands bank, take the money and head home with their sign-painting Holsteins in the cattle hauler?
Logic flies out the Microsoft Windows as we reproduce tired memes into our DNA culture. It is a pity. Where is the occasional original thought?
I long for a return of new ideas shared and unique actions taken. Like Sam Walton doing his hula on Wall Street -- a meme that has entered American culture, if nowhere else but in business management classes.
We should recall what Sam said years after he lost that bet and swayed hips in Manhattan.
"Don't do a hula on Wall Street. It's been done. Think up your own stunt," he advised.
Or for that matter, Mr. Sam, think up your own meme.
Commentary on 05/11/2017