As much as genetic kinship should be studied, so should memetic kinship!

In response to the apparent selfishness that dominates evolution on Earth, as proposed by Charles Darwin (evolution by natural selection), various theories emerged that distinguish animals from humans, attributing altruism only to humans. Namely, they were directed against the human illusion that humans do not share the selfish nature of the animal kingdom. The separation of man from the animal kingdom became even more significant after Richard Dawkins introduced the selfish gene as the agent that really drives evolution, not a species. The notion that genes must be blamed for all selfishness on Earth, while we noble humans can rest peacefully in altruism, has become the commonly accepted mantra.

Animal altruism

The above story belongs to amateur biologists and naive philosophy. Although it prevails in popular books, the media, and politics, biology does not adhere to it. Quite the opposite. Since Darwin, biologists have studied various animals’ altruistic behaviour and sought to develop a theory that accounts for altruism. The puzzle of why one individual would accept a higher cost to itself to benefit another was not solved until genetics discovered the role of alleles in reproduction.

Reproductive success is usually considered in terms of the production of offspring, but what is really important is the transmission of alleles from one generation to the next. When an individual helps a close relative reproduce, it promotes the passing on of many of the alleles it possesses because close relatives share many alleles. The introduction of kin selection opened a new way to understand altruism. Animals are altruistic toward relatives with whom they share more alleles. They “know” that children share 50% of alleles, while nephews, for example, share only 12.5%. However, 12.5% is still substantially more than almost nothing they share with those who are not genetically related. The overall or total fitness of an individual includes both its own production of offspring and its effect on the production of offspring by relatives.

Recent studies, including Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene and Krebs & Davies’ An Introduction to Behavioural Ecology (2012), show that the altruism observed in animals is strongly correlated with the coefficient of kin-relatedness.

Memes as a part of human ecology

But what about humans? Are we the same kind of animals in terms of altruism?

Unfortunately, no studies have yet been found that would answer this question from a memetic perspective. As we shall see, memetics helps us understand the role of kin selection in human behaviour.

Humans are no different from animals, but we have evolved a second replicator: the meme. So at the genetic level, we behave like animals because we can’t help it. The same genetic mechanisms drive us like animals. We care primarily about our offspring – no need to elaborate on that. This primary drive toward altruism has enormous consequences, as we’ll see later.

But as memetic animals, memes open up a new perspective on kinship. What are alleles in memetic reproduction, and how do we see kinship in the memetic environment?

Let me suggest a first sketch of memetic kinship that is far from elaborated but highly plausible.

Memetic offsprings

As we know from the memetic theory developed by Dawkins and Blackmore, and as discussed in Memes Beyond Genes, memes generate memetic phenotypes (artifacts) such as books, movies, traffic design, governments, and monuments. The set of memetic phenotypes forms what is commonly called culture. Since each memetic phenotype is a product of a particular human individual or group of individuals, we can unambiguously call such memetic phenotypes human memetic offspring.

I will leave aside the fact that the real agents behind creating memetic phenotypes are the memes themselves, which use our brains to reproduce themselves. This is entirely parallel to Dawkins’s well-known argument about selfish genes. It is irrelevant to the discussion of altruism, as we are discussing individual behaviour, not genetic or memetic behaviour.

Memetic kinship

So if a book is my memetic offspring (phenotype), how might memetic “alleles” be understood to define my relatedness to another person? As it turns out, this is pretty easy to explain. All instances of any repetition of particular memes that I spread with my book indicate that an individual replicating my memes is related to me. The more memes he spreads, the closer he is to me, the more he is my relative. I have spread so many memes reproduced by Dawkins and Blackmore that they should have understood me to be their fairly close memetic relative. But then, I am much closer to Susan Blackmore, because I explicitly rejected the memes that Dawkins propagated in his post-2000 writings.

However, even though I have rejected most of his post-2000 memes, I am still much closer to him than to Sultan Bin Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia. In fact, I am not aware of any memes I would share about him, except for this one. He belongs to a different culture, whereas Dawkins belongs to the same culture, even if I am no longer his closest memetic relative.

It might turn out that by some strange coincidence, I am genetically closer to Sultan Bin Abdulaziz than to Dawkins. Still, the memetic kinship would most likely overwhelm the genetic kinship, thus making me coevolutionarily closer to Dawkins than to Sultan.

Memetic kinship and culture

I suspect you have already grasped the solution to the puzzle of memetic kinship and altruism in relation to culture. Cultures define memetic kinship. The memetic kinship (culture) of my homeland is likely weaker than genetic kinship. But memes allowed us to spread our (memetic) influence much further than we could with our genes, even in theory. Even if a fertile and agile man has 50 offspring with different women, this cannot compete with the diversity and multiplicity of memetic offspring from birth certificate to tombstone. The diversity of human memetic offspring and their spatial distribution far exceeds the distribution of genetic phenotypes (bodies).

So I may be genetically closest to my family, but since “my” memes travel faster and farther and with higher fecundity, I may be closer to some distant individuals than to those who are my nephews or uncles, or even to those who are more distant genetic relatives. All those with whom I share memes are part of my culture; they are my memetic relatives.

There are two consequences take into consideration:

Consequence 1

The theory of memetic kinship clearly refutes multiculturalism. For natural, innate reasons, humans exhibit higher levels of altruism toward those who are memetically and culturally closer to them. Culture is a kind of memetic gravity with respect to altruism. Multiculturalism runs counter to the gravity of culture. The more distant a particular culture is, the more energy must be expended to overcome the gradient. The humanism of the United Nations and the multiculturalism of contemporary progressivists run counter to human memetic nature. This is the reason I have been developing homonism for the last 10 or 15 years.

Consequence 2

Corruption should be reconsidered through the lens of memetic kinship theory. For example, a traditional corruption case is when a politician or other high official gives a job or contract to a close relative. Democracy has developed the view that genetic kin selection, when employed by individuals with special powers, constitutes corruption. But then, according to memetic kin selection, how are we to understand when a public official awards a job to a memetically related person who is not his genetic kin? Political parties, for example, are typical organisations with memetic kin selection. Politicians often say that they would hire someone who may not be the most capable but is trustworthy. Trustworthiness is nothing more than memetic kinship. Should that be called corruption? But even in the private sector, managers know that chemistry and trust are more important than technical skills. Technical skills can always be learned, but not chemistry, which is another word for memetic kinship.

Conclusion

Memetic relatedness is obviously one of the strongest drivers of human evolution. Memetic relatedness is, of course, closely related to genetic relatedness. This is another example of the coevolution of genes and memes, one that clearly warrants further elaboration. On a more personal level, I must confess that I cannot understand how no research has yet been conducted on such an important topic, to the best of my knowledge.