The Meme Machine

130 THE MEME MACHINE
the best users and spreaders of memes. This was part of my argument for the
memetic driving of genes for bigger brains and language, but it also leads
naturally to some conclusions about mate choice. As memetic competition took
off in our far past, so the direction the memes took would have affected mate
choice. People would have tended to mate with the best meme-spreaders, but
what constituted the best meme-spreaders depended on what the memes were
doing at the time. It is in this sense that the memes began to call the shots.
Let us consider some examples. In an early hunter-gatherer society a man
who was especially good at imitation would have been able to copy the latest
hunting skills or stone tool technology and hence would have gained a biological
advantage. And a woman who mated with him would be more likely to have
children who shared that imitation ability and that advantage. So how would she
choose the right man? I suggest she would have to look for signs, not just of
having the good tools because they might change, but of being a good imitator in
general. This is the critical point – in a world with memes, signs of being a good
imitator change as fast as the memes change. Genes for choosing men who
could make and use the old stone tools might once have had an advantage but as
more memes arose and spread they would not. Instead, genes for choosing men
with the general ability to imitate, or even to innovate, would fare better. In a
hunter-gatherer society such signs might include making the best tools, singing
the best songs, wearing the most stylish clothes or body paint, or appearing to
have magical or healing powers. The direction which memetic evolution took
would have influenced the genes.
If this argument is right we would expect the legacy of memetic driving to be
visible in our mate choice today – that is, we will still mate with the best
imitators (and to some extent the best imitators of the kinds of memes that have
been around in our past). In a modern city, clothes fashions might still be one
sign, but others would include musical preferences, religious and political views,
and educational qualifications. More important, though, would be the general
ability to spread memes – to be the fashion setter as well as the best follower.
This suggests that desirable mates should be those whose lives allow them to
spread the most memes, such as writers, artists, journalists, broadcasters, film
stars, and musicians.
There is no doubt that some of these occupations give you a good chance of
being mobbed by admirers and of having sex with almost whomever you like.
Jimi Hendrix apparently fathered numerous children in four countries before he
died at the age of twenty-seven. H. G. Wells, although notoriously ugly and
with a squeaks voice, reputedly specialised in seducing several women in one