Ekaterina Zhornyak read Richard Brody’s book Mental Viruses for us. How our consciousness is programmed.
“Richard Brody worked for Microsoft as a programmer for many years. He liked to feel like a special agent on a grand mission — «a computer with a Microsoft program on every desk.» When the company became too successful for him, Brody was inspired by a new concept — «memetics».
The meme is an idea. Such as a wheel, self-realization, a melody or a tan in winter. A meme is a unit of human cultural evolution, analogous to a gene in genetics. And memetics is, accordingly, the science of how cultural information (memes) is transmitted and evolves. Moreover, people are only carriers of ideas. Like a virus, the idea uses various manipulations to infiltrate the human mind and force it to reproduce and spread itself. For example, I turn on the TV, and there the advertisement shows me how easy it is for me to be tanned in winter and therefore desirable. I change the channel, and there is a tanned host asking a tanned guest how he manages to look so good and be successful. I pass by the solarium and go there. I walk down the street tanned in winter, and it happened — I myself spread the meme «tan in winter.» Why am I doing this, does it really align with my goals and values? I didn’t think. An idea has taken root in me, it controls my behavior, but I am not responsible for this process, everything happens automatically. Richard Brody disagrees with this state of affairs. He is convinced that each of us should be responsible for the memes that we spread. And with all his might, Brody strives to infect the maximum number of people with his idea. Great mission, he is again a special agent and rescuer.
The idea itself is very appealing to me. I would prefer to be responsible in my relationship with ideas, and I would be comfortable and pleased to live in the company of people who also do this. But I didn’t like Brody’s methods. Having described the various tricks that ideas use to control us, he consciously uses the same tricks to spread the “good” idea he needs. And he invites his readers to do the same.
In principle, Brody’s book can be a good trainer: if you manage to find at least one manipulation that Brody applies to you on each of the 300 pages, consider that you have mastered the science. Although, in my opinion, everyone has long been deciding for himself whether to be a passive carrier and distributor of those ideas that have taken possession of him, or to form his own system of beliefs.