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VIRUS OF THE MIND Richard Brodie
Review
We are surrounded by information in the 21st century - bombarded by advertising, attitudes, celebrities, news, wars, fashion, the latest fads... the sheer amount of information we have access to appears untameable, unworkable and too much to gain sense from unless we pick and choose very carefully. However, our choices are very often made for us as the result of advertising, media companies, the government and popular culture. The results of these choices are called memes, and their impact is shaping not just society but us individually, and on a core level, beyond psychology, personal free will, and even genetics. The very first book on the subject of memes, and how they behave just like viruses, this is an incredible study of the power of communication and ?going along with everyone else?. Virus of the Mind explains just how we are ?infected? by the deliberate shaping of society?s attitudes and behaviours - and how we can cure ourselves.
270pp, 136mm x 216mm, softback, 2009
Extract
Long ago, possibly billions of years ago, there arose through evolution a new type of organism - if it can even be called an organism. The new thing had the unusual property that it could invade the reproductive facilities of other organisms and put them to use making copies of itself. We call this creature a virus.
Viruses exist in three universes that we know of:
- The first is the universe of biology, of organisms... of people, plants, and animals. It's where viruses were first discovered: tobacco plants get them, and so do we. There are countless varieties of biological viruses on Earth and countless copies of each. They remain the cause of some of our most deadly and least curable or understood diseases, ranging from the common cold to AIDS or worse.
- The second universe where viruses exist is the man-made world of computers, networks, data, and programming. Viruses weren't discovered in this world; rather, they were invented - programmed.
-The third universe is the main subject of this book: the universe of the mind, of culture, of thought. This is the universe in which the paradigm shift is taking place. From an old model of cultural evolution based on innovation and conquest, we are shifting to a new model based on memetics and viruses of the mind. Mind viruses are both discovered and invented: they can evolve naturally or be created consciously.
In 1978, in a small village in Guyana, a closely knit community of people purposely killed themselves by drinking a mixture of cyanide, Valium, and Fla-Vor-Aid. They knew they would die. As to what else they knew, we can only speculate. Did they 'know' that a far greater reward awaited them in the next life? Did they 'know' that obeying the orders of Jim Jones, their leader, was their duty? Did they 'know' that if they just followed their faith, everything would turn out all right? It's pretty clear what they 'knew' hurt them: they didn't drink that poison out of instinct - they were following the programming of some memes that resulted in their deaths.
Why has Pepsi spent millions of dollars broadcasting commercials that show people drinking their product while endlessly repeating 'Uh-Huh'? Why do some outlandish stories get endlessly perpetuated as 'urban legends'? Why do some chain letters travel around and around the world, seemingly unstoppable?
The answers to those questions all have to do with viruses of the mind. The mind has all the properties a virus needs to exist, just as do cells and computers. In fact, our society of instant communication and access to information is improving daily as a gracious host to mind viruses.
Our minds excel both at copying information and at following instructions. As horrifying as the thought may be initially, our minds are ideally susceptible to infection by mind viruses. They can penetrate our minds because we are so adept at learning new ideas and information. They are copied by us communicating with each other, something we are getting better and better at. Mind viruses issue instructions by programming us with new memes that affect our behavior. They spread when the chain of events stemming from that new behavior reaches an uninfected mind.
Examples of viruses of the mind range from fashion fads to religious cults. They can be any bit of culture whose existence touches people, causing them to shift their thinking and thus their behavior, eventually reinforcement or proliferation of that same bit of culture.
At this point I want to introduce a distinction between mind viruses that arose spontaneously and ones that were invented by human consciousness. I'll call the naturally existing ones cultural viruses and the human-crafted ones designer viruses. A designer virus is carefully crafted to infect people with a set of memes that influence them to spread the virus throughout the population.
Designer viruses and cultural viruses can be equally damaging to your pursuit of happiness, although for many people it doesn't feel as bad to have your life ruined by a natural set of circumstances as it does to have some manipulative no-goodnik get the best of you. But despite the difference in perception, the effect of these two kinds of mind viruses is the same: you unwittingly have a portion of yourself diverted from what you might otherwise be doing with your life, and instead devoted to doing the work of the mind virus.
Memetics provides new insight into the way our minds, societies, and cultures work. Rather than looking at the development of culture as a sequence of ideas and discoveries that build upon one another, what would it be like to view culture as a meme pool, where the ideas in our heads are shaped and transported by various forces, including mind viruses? How many of these viruses are already with us? Are they helping or harming us? Can we control them? Can our enemies create new ones and infect us with them?
The outer reaches of this line of thought are dark and scary. However, I see much, much more potential for help than harm through understanding the mind virus. And even though it involves thinking about things in unfamiliar ways, I suggest we do whatever it takes to understand it, tame it, and put it to work for our best interests and the best interests of our children - and our children's children.
From Virus of the Mind, ?2009 By Richard Brodie, published by Hay House.
We are surrounded by information in the 21st century - bombarded by advertising, attitudes, celebrities, news, wars, fashion, the latest fads... the sheer amount of information we have access to appears untameable, unworkable and too much to gain sense from unless we pick and choose very carefully. However, our choices are very often made for us as the result of advertising, media companies, the government and popular culture. The results of these choices are called memes, and their impact is shaping not just society but us individually, and on a core level, beyond psychology, personal free will, and even genetics. The very first book on the subject of memes, and how they behave just like viruses, this is an incredible study of the power of communication and ?going along with everyone else?. Virus of the Mind explains just how we are ?infected? by the deliberate shaping of society?s attitudes and behaviours - and how we can cure ourselves.
270pp, 136mm x 216mm, softback, 2009
Extract
Long ago, possibly billions of years ago, there arose through evolution a new type of organism - if it can even be called an organism. The new thing had the unusual property that it could invade the reproductive facilities of other organisms and put them to use making copies of itself. We call this creature a virus.
Viruses exist in three universes that we know of:
- The first is the universe of biology, of organisms... of people, plants, and animals. It's where viruses were first discovered: tobacco plants get them, and so do we. There are countless varieties of biological viruses on Earth and countless copies of each. They remain the cause of some of our most deadly and least curable or understood diseases, ranging from the common cold to AIDS or worse.
- The second universe where viruses exist is the man-made world of computers, networks, data, and programming. Viruses weren't discovered in this world; rather, they were invented - programmed.
-The third universe is the main subject of this book: the universe of the mind, of culture, of thought. This is the universe in which the paradigm shift is taking place. From an old model of cultural evolution based on innovation and conquest, we are shifting to a new model based on memetics and viruses of the mind. Mind viruses are both discovered and invented: they can evolve naturally or be created consciously.
In 1978, in a small village in Guyana, a closely knit community of people purposely killed themselves by drinking a mixture of cyanide, Valium, and Fla-Vor-Aid. They knew they would die. As to what else they knew, we can only speculate. Did they 'know' that a far greater reward awaited them in the next life? Did they 'know' that obeying the orders of Jim Jones, their leader, was their duty? Did they 'know' that if they just followed their faith, everything would turn out all right? It's pretty clear what they 'knew' hurt them: they didn't drink that poison out of instinct - they were following the programming of some memes that resulted in their deaths.
Why has Pepsi spent millions of dollars broadcasting commercials that show people drinking their product while endlessly repeating 'Uh-Huh'? Why do some outlandish stories get endlessly perpetuated as 'urban legends'? Why do some chain letters travel around and around the world, seemingly unstoppable?
The answers to those questions all have to do with viruses of the mind. The mind has all the properties a virus needs to exist, just as do cells and computers. In fact, our society of instant communication and access to information is improving daily as a gracious host to mind viruses.
Our minds excel both at copying information and at following instructions. As horrifying as the thought may be initially, our minds are ideally susceptible to infection by mind viruses. They can penetrate our minds because we are so adept at learning new ideas and information. They are copied by us communicating with each other, something we are getting better and better at. Mind viruses issue instructions by programming us with new memes that affect our behavior. They spread when the chain of events stemming from that new behavior reaches an uninfected mind.
Examples of viruses of the mind range from fashion fads to religious cults. They can be any bit of culture whose existence touches people, causing them to shift their thinking and thus their behavior, eventually reinforcement or proliferation of that same bit of culture.
At this point I want to introduce a distinction between mind viruses that arose spontaneously and ones that were invented by human consciousness. I'll call the naturally existing ones cultural viruses and the human-crafted ones designer viruses. A designer virus is carefully crafted to infect people with a set of memes that influence them to spread the virus throughout the population.
Designer viruses and cultural viruses can be equally damaging to your pursuit of happiness, although for many people it doesn't feel as bad to have your life ruined by a natural set of circumstances as it does to have some manipulative no-goodnik get the best of you. But despite the difference in perception, the effect of these two kinds of mind viruses is the same: you unwittingly have a portion of yourself diverted from what you might otherwise be doing with your life, and instead devoted to doing the work of the mind virus.
Memetics provides new insight into the way our minds, societies, and cultures work. Rather than looking at the development of culture as a sequence of ideas and discoveries that build upon one another, what would it be like to view culture as a meme pool, where the ideas in our heads are shaped and transported by various forces, including mind viruses? How many of these viruses are already with us? Are they helping or harming us? Can we control them? Can our enemies create new ones and infect us with them?
The outer reaches of this line of thought are dark and scary. However, I see much, much more potential for help than harm through understanding the mind virus. And even though it involves thinking about things in unfamiliar ways, I suggest we do whatever it takes to understand it, tame it, and put it to work for our best interests and the best interests of our children - and our children's children.
From Virus of the Mind, ?2009 By Richard Brodie, published by Hay House.
Nothing yet - why don't you write the first one?