THE REAL STORY -- PASS IT ON

"Memes" are the latest way our big-thinkers try to explain how important stuff gets passed down from generation to generation. Richard Dawkins -- the same scholar who dismissed belief in God "as something that gets passed on in some people's genes" -- offers that our social behaviors are like cultural genes that pass from one generation to the next. Memes therefore are cultural analogues to our physical genes in the way they self-replicate.

Sounds pretty scientific. It's our determined need-to-know HOW we become what we are, disinterestedly leaving it for others to work out WHAT we might best want to become. Which is fair enough, otherwise there would be no need for non-science folks like parents, teachers, clergy and poets. Who, in the final measure, will probably prove vastly more transformative for our lives than most big-thinkers.

But then come the mass media who kinda work their way into these physical & cultural passages...!

You know, Hollywood directors, network executives, and managing editors who step into the flow, re-shaping these passages into their own artistic and financial image. In effect, these are the guys -- not the scientists or those others -- who burn into the circuit-boards of our thoughts most of what we think.

Think about the impact of movies like "Pulp Fiction," "The Godfather" and "The Matrix." Or network series like "Law & Order," "The Sopranos," "Mad Men," and "Glee." And what about newspapers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Along with talkers like Oprah and Limbaugh. Behold our national messengers and we their willing recipients. By and large, you and I are the last powerful message we just felt!

Genes, memes, or whatever, stuff does get passed on from one generation to the next. But upon closer examination, so much of it is actually so very familiar. Just think about it:

* We have reality shows to make us feel better about ourselves, just like our ancestors did when disdaining the unmarried aunts in the neighbor's attics, the geeks in the traveling carnivals, and who in their proud ignorance they called the town idiot!

* We have cop & doc shows to make us believe what we have always needed to believe -- that both the jungle and the grim reaper can be held at bay!

* We also have incessant commercials to make us believe that despite their silly babble, there is always an answer to every problem; even the problems we never realized we had!

* Finally, we have the various new "Housewives of --." A vulgar flurry of hit shows to help every husband in the land feel just a little happier he married the women he did!

This is the real story. Now pass it on...