The Meme Machine

SEX IN THE MODERN WORLD 139
priesthood, would find itself with actively meme-spreading priests, plenty of
converts and an ongoing supply of new recruits to celibacy. The agony of
abstinence may even goad these priests into ever more fervent attempts to serve
their religion as a way of diverting their own attention from wicked thoughts of
sex.
This is a particularly interesting kind of meme-gene conflict reminiscent of
the gene-gene conflicts between a host and a parasite. I already gave one
example in the conflict over the thickness of snail shells. Some parasites
actually castrate their hosts (usually chemically rather than physically) as a way
of diverting the hosts energies into replicating them rather than host genes.
Religious celibacy is a way for memes to divert their hosts’ energies into
replicating religious memes instead of host genes (Ball 1984).
If this explanation is going to be really useful it should be able to predict the
conditions under which celibacy will and will not evolve, and I shall return to
this when considering religions in more detail. For now the point is clear
enough, memetics suggests that some behaviours will spread just because they
are good for the memes. You could look at it this way – each person only has a
finite amount of time, effort and money. Their memes and genes therefore have
to compete for control of these resources. In the truly celibate priest the memes
have won hands down. But they have not done badly in even a lapsed celibate
priest. As we know from many recent scandals, quite a few priests do have
affairs and become fathers. But, of course, they have to keep this secret. They
do not usually give up their religious life and so they cannot afford to spend any
time and effort, or much money, on those offspring. They must rely on the
mother providing all the care. If she does, the sinful man’s memes and his genes
will both have done well.
Birth control
Birth control succumbs to exactly the same argument – and with dramatic
consequences for the future of both memes and genes.
Let us suppose that women who have many children are far too busy to have
much social life, and spend most of their time with their partners and family.
The few other people they do see are likely to be other mothers with young
children who already share at least some of their child-rearing memes. The
more children they have the more years they will spend this way, They will,
therefore, have little time for spreading their own memes, including the ones