The Meme Machine

CHAPTER 11
Sex in the modern world
It is time to come into the twentieth century. I have spent much of this book
explaining how memes came about in human evolution and how they might
have pressed the genes into producing a creature with an exceptionally big brain
and the capacity for language. For most of this long evolutionary time our
hominid ancestors had few memes to play with. They lived in relatively simple
societies and there was little communication between distant groups. Things are
not like that now. Not only are there far more memes in circulation, but the way
they are passed on has changed.
Many memes are passed from parent to child. Parents teach their children
many of the rules of their own society; how to hold chopsticks or a knife and
fork, what to wear on which occasion, how to say please, thank you, no thank
you, and countless other useful things. Children get their first language from
their parents and usually their religion too. Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman (1981)
call this vertical transmission, as opposed to horizontal transmission (between
peers,), or oblique transmission (e.g. from uncle to niece or older to younger
cousin). The mode of transmission is important because it affects the
relationship between memes and genes.
When memes are transmitted vertically they are transmitted alongside the
genes. In general, this means that what benefits one also benefits the other. So,
for example, if a mother teaches her child how to find food, how to avoid
danger, how to dress up to look attractive, and so on, then she is not only helping
her child survive but also helping the propagation of her own genes and her own
memes. Indeed, if all transmission is vertical there can be little conflict between
memes and genes (and no need for memetics). The sociobiologist’s leash is very
tight indeed and all the memes that are created should be expected to be, at least
in principle, helping the genes. In fact, they may deviate from this ideal in all
sorts of ways, and fail to track the genes perfectly, but the principle is clear.
When you pass on your ideas to your child it is in your own genetic interest to
pass on ideas that benefit that child’s reproductive success. And from the
meme’s point of view, its survival also depends on your reproductive success,