Genes and Memes

Christmas, whose red ribbons and green bows so concisely package that old fashioned feeling of dread. A hideous shape in the corner of the room, whose form has not yet fully appeared. An arduous orbit about a cold and isolated planet. Meekly measuring the distance gone of a journey never to be completed. Nothing comes together in the end, aside from the dust we came from and the dust we become.

Dawkins, like myself, participates in the holiday of Christmas "for family reasons, with a reluctance that owes more to aesthetics than atheistics". Thus Dawkins discerns that even the average atheist can choose to celebrate Christmas as any Judeo-Christian would, from the partridge to the pear tree.

I do not wish to dive into the details of my own Christmas affair, and indeed am having great difficulty in recalling my precise movements about Christmas day; if only to mention that I became overwhelmed by eggnog during a particularly desperate period of the afternoon, and christened my elder brother Gary's new en suite in a most unfortunate manner.

Before I had a taxi arranged for me by Gary's wife, I learned an important lesson. The next time that your nephew shows you a video on the internet of a dog eating its own faeces, and subsequent videos of other dogs eating their own faeces, and then a video of a person dressed up as a dog eating chocolate yogurt from on top of a toilet bowl to techno-music with lyrics saying “lol the dog is eating its shit”, remember to warn him that it is not appropriate. Just like I did when his father [my brother Gary] came in to see what his son was laughing at.

Though Gary is also an atheist, we have never found common ground to really foster a brotherly relationship since mother died, come to think of it, before even then. As children we were very close, but there was a point during adolescence where we simply stopped trying to amuse one another, stopped trying to provoke or impress each other. It still saddens me to this day that my relationship with my brother lost this dynamic. I do still love my brother very much, but I doubt I could impress him at all these days, even if I had Dawkins himself round for a game of rummy. I do not believe he would raise his eyebrows to a crowning achievement such as that.

But back to the dog eating its own faeces example. It is what the youth call an “internet meme”. Now did you know that Dawkins coined the term “meme”? It is a word he invented to explain the cultural equivalent of genes - a self-propagating entity of cultural information. Yet another example of the Dawkins scripture in perfect harmony with the modern social climate.

I wish to end this entry with a Dawkinian Christmas credo. May it ring true, friends: "understanding full well that the phrase retains zero religious significance, I unhesitatingly wish everyone a Merry Christmas."

In solidarity and in service during our year 2010, and indeed counting down the days until Dawkins arrives in our fair country,