Richard Brodie - Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme

Praise for Virus of the Mind

Brodie is infectious, indeed, but hisvirus breeds truth. Those who ingest this bookare at great risk of seeing how things reallyare.

Douglas Rushkoff, the author of Media Virus! and Nothing Sacred

Thisisntabookitsa mental adventure.Virus of the Mindstimulates, educates, and awakens you to what really happensto the things you see and hear. Buy it and studyit.

Jeffrey Gitomer, the author of The Sales Bible

The true earmark of genius is taking a complexconcept and making it simple (for people like me) tounderstand and, far more importantly, utilize. If the memetruly is fundamental to behavior (child imitates child, childimitates adult, world leader imitates world leader... ), thenall of us need to spread memes with much greaterintentionand care!Brodieshumor makes this book a fun, absorbing,educational, and at times controversial read. Pick upthis book, then give it to someone you love andyou will spread a truly valuableVirus!

Kevin Hogan, Psy.D., the co-author of IrresistibleAttraction and author of The Psychology of Persuasion

Virus of the Mindcan do for memetics what Carl Saganhas done for astronomy and astrophysics withCosmos.

Elan Moritz, Ph.D., director of the Institute for Memetic Research

Copyright 1996 by Richard Brodie

Published and distributed in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.: www.hay house.com Published and distributed in Australia by: Hay House Australia Pty. Ltd.: www.hayhouse.com.au Published and distributed in the United Kingdomby: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk Published and distributed in theRepublic of South Africa by: Hay House SA (Pty), Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.za Distributedin Canada by: Raincoast: www.raincoast.com Published in India by: Hay House Publishers India: www.hayhouse.co.in

Editorial supervision: Jill Kramer Design: Tricia Breidenthal Indexer: Richard Comfort

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private useother than for fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviewswithout prior written permission of the publisher.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Previously published by Integral Press (ISBN: 0-9636001-2-5)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Brodie, Richard.

Virus of the mind : the new science of the meme / Richard Brodie.--1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes index.

Originally published: Seattle, Wash. : Integral Press, c1996.

ISBN 978-1-4019-2468-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Social psychology. 2.

Genetic psychology. 3. Contagion (Social psychology) 4. Public opinion. 5. Memetics. I. Title.

HM626.B76 2009

302--dc22

2008046359

ISBN: 978-1-4019-2468-3

12 11 10 09 4 3 2 1

1st Hay House edition, May 2009

Printed in the United States of America

For my mother,

Mary Ann Brodie,

who got me thinking...

CONTENTS

Warning: This book contains a live mind virus. Do not read further unless you are willing to be infected. The infection may affect the way you think in subtle or not-so-subtle waysor even turn your current worldview inside out.

What a waste it is to loseonesmindor not to have a mind is verywasteful.

Dan Quayle, mutating the memes in the United Negro College Funds motto, A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

There is some good news in this book. So before I get into how mind viruses are spreading wildly throughout the worldinfecting people with unwanted programming like the Michelangelo computer virus infects computers with self-destruct instructionsIll start with the good news....

The good news is that the long-awaited scientific theory unifying biology, psychology, and cognitive science is here. An interdisciplinary effort by scientists in all those fields over the last 20 years or soreally back to 1859 and Charles Darwin, if you likehas produced a new science called memetics.

The science of memetics is based on evolution. Darwins theory of the evolution of species by natural selection utterly transformed the field of biology. Scientists are now applying modern evolutionary theory to the way the mind works, the way people learn and grow, and the way culture progresses. In so doing, the field of psychology will ultimately be as transformed by the scientists researching memetics as biology was by Darwin.

For those of us who yearn to understand ourselves, learning about memetics gives us a huge amount of satisfaction. I also believe that people who understand memetics will have an increasing advantage in life, especially in preventing themselves from being manipulated or taken advantage of. If you better understand how your mind works, you can better navigate through a world of increasingly subtle manipulation.