Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme
ISBN:9781401924683 read summary

If you are looking for a hard core scientific study of memes than this book is most likely not for you. However, if you want an introduction to memes along with concise definitions, then this book is a good place to begin.

Memes are culturally conditioned ideas that replicate themselves; in this sense Brodie uses a metaphor of a virus to describe these culturally conditioned mutations. Memes - like viruses - follow normative conditions: i.e., like a virus a meme duplicates itself, it infiltrates, and it spreads. Whatever your ideology may be, the goal of an idea is to replicate, infiltrate, and spread itself to others.

This is the goal of politics, marketing, or any other ideological based system.

Brodie is attempting to bring awareness so people can then evaluate objectively the way they are being manipulated by political organizations, marketing gurus, business, religious leaders, or any other organization intent on influencing human behavior.

The book is worthwhile if for no other reason than to make one aware of the way cultural entities seek to hook your belief system - and using another popular metaphor - make you part of the BORG Nation of true believers: left, right, or middle.

Overly simplistic view of why some ideas become popular and others don't. Interesting because it analogizes spreading of ideas, or memes, to evolutionary spread of genes. There have been subsequent books on the subject, notably Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point," and Seth Godin's "Unleashing the Ideavirus," that delve deeper into how memes are transmitted.

I saw this book at Costco and was immediately attracted to the title, i.e., "What the heck is a "meme""? The title itself is a meme, which, I suppose, was Brodie's intent, I know it certainly piqued my interest. The book proved to be very informative for a person, such as myself, who was totally unfamiliar with memetics, and from that perspective it was well worth the read, however, I also found it rather self-promoting and somewhat disjointed. What was the purpose, for example, of the author's mini-tirade regarding the erosion of state's rights in favor of a more centralized form of government? To me, that was more of a personal political statement and a prime example of a mind virus. Though thought-provoking, the concept of memetics still remains nebulous to me but certainly deserves further exploration.

I ordered this book for my husband who has completely devoured it. He is a total nonfiction reader and thought this book was excellent in all aspects. He recommends it to anyone interest in our current situation with the federal government and its policies.

I bought this book to get what I hoped was a clear introduction to memes and memetic science. My plan was to start with Brodie's book and move on from there once I had a foundation for understanding memes. Unfortunately, there is little substance to this book and, aside from a few pages of discussion defining memes, there is almost no real discussion of this concept and certainly nothing that could be called science writing or even a book with a more formal presentation of a scientific concept made accessible to the novice. It is a very weak work of authorship, really quite an amateurish attempt at a book. I am surprised it even got published. Brodie writes simplistically, with a lot of personal references and many tiresome references to his other book, "Getting Past OK". His examples are poor and limited, there is little in the way of research or even citations on real research. His recommended reading list at the end of the book is very short and there is nothing that even approaches the level of footnotes or endnotes found in a serious work. I kept reading the book hoping that "the meat" of the subject would begin in the next chapter, but was always disappointed. Brodie discusses religion as imparting very powerful memes, but his discussion of this subject is laughable; he concludes this section with a brief, weak and weird couple of paragraphs supporting the contributions of faith but never provides a contrasting view. Later in the book he references Erhard Seminar Training and The Forum as examples of organizations with strong memes but doesn't go further to discuss the damage such unregulated and unproven organizations have done to many many people. He promises to teach us to recognize our memetic programming and how to disinfect ourselves, but the few paragraphs on those subjects are useless. He also goes on to tell us how we should be aiming for a third level of consciousness in which we create the world we want for ourselves and others - the stuff is tripe and straight out of third rate self-help ideology. Brodie wrote a book that explains nothing and seems to be a personal project where he can show readers just how "neat" memetic science is - a science he cannot explain because he is not a scientist and not really an author either. Do not waste your time. I recommend Susan Blackmore's book, "The Meme Machine", as a much better treatment of the subject. The Meme Machine