The life journeys of memes -- towards guided evolution?

by Jan Lee Martin, Founding Director,
The Futures Foundation, Sydney
3300 words plus panels of 287 + 594

Will social historians of the future track the paths of memes[1] from generation through generation, as today's geneticists track DNA and genes?  If they do, there's one amazing post-WW2 conference that is bound to attract the attention of early researchers.

Just for starters, the list of participants makes this particular meeting a subject of special interest.  Initiated by the historian Pitirim Sorokin and chaired by psychologist Abraham Maslow, the 1957 conference in Boston brought together professors of physics and philosophy, psychology and mathematics, anthropology and theology -- even a Zen master.[2]

Its purpose was to determine whether a science of human values was possible.  Its lasting impact, however, seems likely to have been even wider, deeper and broader than that.   Most of the participants were born outside the United States, many had lived through wars or revolutions and were deeply committed to peace and what one of them called "the sane society".  Inevitably, as they explored the topic of human values, these experts were discussing the fundamentals of humanity itself.   As Maslow said in his introduction to the conference report, the whole event sprang from the belief, "first, that the ultimate disease of our time is valuelessness;  second, that this state is more crucially dangerous than ever before in history;  and finally, that something can be done about it by man's own rational efforts."

The report, published as a book called New Knowledge in Human Values[3], makes fascinating reading.   But in this story I want to focus less on the content of the conference than on the life journeys of the memes that were created by the brilliant exchanges of those two autumn days in Boston. 

For a start, one might imagine their immediate journey, with conference participants travelling back to their institutions full of new ideas that would cascade out into the vibrant student bodies of the late 1950s and early 60s.  Soon they must have spilled into the wider community -- a community about to become engaged in the social transformation movements of the times…. peace, human rights, women's liberation, civil rights and more.  

The Boston conference had its origins in Sorokin's conviction that love -- creative altruism -- was the only hope for a successful future for humanity.   "Without a notable increase of … creative unselfish love in man and in the human universe, all fashionable prescriptions for prevention of wars and for building of a new order cannot achieve their purpose," he said.  A few years later, the hippie movement said it again: "make love, not war".   Coincidence?

The professor's beliefs came from painful personal experience:  "The mass exterminations and the horrors of the First World War, and especially of the Russian Revolution -- in both of which I participated as an observer and actor -- had led me to the conclusion summed up in my Leaves From a Russian Diary (1924) -- that 'cruelty, hatred and injustice never can and never will be able to create a mental, moral, or material millennium,' and that 'the creative, unselfish work of love for humanity at large is the key to the reconstruction of the world'."

His belief in the need for "creative altruism" made a powerful partnership with Maslow's desire to understand human motivation, including our astonishing ability to ignore what we know.   As Maslow put it,  "Throughout history, learned men have set out before mankind the rewards of virtue, the beauties of goodness, the intrinsic desirability of psychological health and self-fulfillment.  It's all as plain as ABC, and yet most people perversely refuse to step into the happiness and self-respect that is offered them."

It seems unlikely that Sorokin and Maslow would have expected instant transformation of American culture as a result of their work.  But is it just another coincidence that since the late 1950s there have been deep and widespread social shifts in the United States?   They are shifts that, according to researchers Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson, have been unusually fast.  And in spite of the shadows darkening global politics today, Ray and Anderson's work suggests that the kind of transformation that Sorokin and Maslow saw as essential to human progress could be on the way -- if only in part.

"Since the 1960s, 26 per cent of the adults in the United States -- 50 million people -- have made a comprehensive shift in their worldview, values, and way of life -- their culture, in short," they said in their book, The Cultural Creatives:  How 50 Million People are Changing the World.[4]  "These creative, optimistic millions are at the leading edge of several kinds of cultural change, deeply affecting not only their own lives but our larger society as well.  We call them the Cultural Creatives because, innovation by innovation, they are shaping a new kind of American culture for the twenty-first century."

Sociologist Ray and psychologist Anderson draw on 13 years of survey research studies on more than 100,000 Americans, as well as hundreds of focus groups and interviews, to reach their concept of a significant cultural revolution.   They don't claim that it marks the end of materialism, or of the kind of culture Sorokin called "sensate".   Nonetheless, their description of the emerging value sets does echo the kind of shift Sorokin described in his work as an historian.  

They say that you are likely to be a "cultural creative" if you

•   love nature, are concerned about its destruction

•   are strongly aware of the problems of the whole planet and want to see more action on them

•   would pay more taxes or pay more for consumer goods if you knew the money would go to clean up the environment and to stop global warming

•   give a lot of importance to your relationships

•   give a lot of importance to helping other people

•   volunteer for one or more good causes

•   care intensely about both psychological and spiritual development

•   see spirituality or religion as important in your life

•   want more equality for women at work, more women leaders in business and politics

•   are concerned about violence and the abuse of women and children

•   want government spending to put more emphasis on children's education and wellbeing, on rebuilding communities, and on creating an ecologically sustainable future

•   are unhappy with both the left and the right in politics and want to find a new way

•   tend to be optimistic about the future and distrust the cynical and pessimistic view of the media

•   want to be involved in creating a new and better way of life

•   are concerned about what the big corporations are doing in the name of making more profits

•   have your finances and spending under control

•   dislike all the emphasis in modern culture on success and "making it", on getting and spending, on wealth and luxury goods

•   like people and places that are exotic and foreign.

The timing of this shift is interesting.   "As recently as the early 1960s, less than five per cent of the population was engaged in making these momentous changes -- too few to measure in surveys.   In just over a generation, that proportion grew steadily to 26 per cent.  That may not sound like much in this age of nanoseconds, but on the timescale of whole civilizations where major developments are measured in centuries, it is shockingly quick," they said.

"And it's not only the speed of this emergence that is stunning.  Its extent is catching even the most alert observers by surprise.  Officials of the European Union, hearing of the numbers of Cultural Creatives in the United States, launched a related survey in each of their fifteen countries in September 1997.   To their amazement, the evidence suggested that there are at least as many Cultural Creatives across Europe as we reported in the United States.

"Visionaries and futurists have been predicting a change of this magnitude for well over two decades.   Our research suggests that this long-anticipated cultural moment may have arrived."

In their book, Ray and Anderson discuss the values and beliefs of three major subcultures, which they call Traditionals, Moderns and Cultural Creatives.   Prior to World War II, they say, most Americans belonged to the first two categories.  The third sub-culture began to emerge after World War II.  It includes people who care intensely about the issues raised by social movements that followed the war, including civil rights, the environment, women's rights, peace, jobs and social justice, gay and lesbian rights, alternative health care, spirituality, personal growth and now corporate globalisation.  They argue that unlike earlier social movements, those involved in the post-1960s movements are not trying to take over the government.  Nor are they primarily concerned with 'more for us' issues like wages and benefits.

"Rather, these movements are reframing issues in a way that changes how people understand the world," Paul Ray told Sarah van Gelder of Yes! magazine.  "Dr Martin Luther King Jr, for example, didn't say, 'It's time the blacks got theirs'.  He said, 'This is about freedom, and justice, and dignity, and the Constitution, and who we are as an American people'.  Rachel Carson didn't advocate NIMBYism -- 'keep pollution out of my back yard'.  She said, 'This is about the death of nature.'  Betty Friedan didn't just say, 'It's time that women got through the glass ceiling'.  She asked, 'Who are we as human beings?'"

A later study by Richard Florida, Professor of Economic Development at Carnegie Mellon, notes a similar shift.   Florida, in a book called The Rise of the Creative Class:  How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community, Everyday Life[5]  counts his "creatives" at 38 million people, or 30 per cent of all employed Americans.   His special focus is the connection between social change and community development: "why cities without gays and rock bands are losing the economic development race". 

The cultural shift is also being recognised at the heart of advertising and marketing.  Indeed, these on-the-ball industries have already done their own research, tracking the memes they call brands on their journeys through society.  What they found has led to the birth of "viral marketing" -- a concept that directly addresses the way ideas can flash through markets by contagion -- like fires or epidemics.   Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point: how little things make a big difference[6], explores this concept in some depth, and looks at why certain pathways are more effective than others in spreading ideas.

While agency strategists are still tracking the "luxury creep" of the affluent society and advising their clients on sophisticated ways to promote ever more indulgent products and services, these bellwethers of the consumer society are also reporting massive value shifts and consequent social change in the other direction, with the visible emergence of social conscience and environmental responsibility.

Madelyn Hochstein, president of the respected Daniel Yankelovich research group, told a New York audience in May this year that the US is entering a new era "which will see new behaviours, aspirations, employee expectations, public issues, business thinking… and new trends".   From the high-tech crash through 9/11 to Enron, suddenly America shifted from feeling "triumphant" to feeling uncertain.  Yet for all the uncertainty and distrust, the country's mood was not pitch black:  according to Hochstein, new conditions plus social learning have created a mindset they call a search for significance -- "I make a difference". 

The Yankelovich researchers tracked the socio-historical steps, from "Moving Up" (1940s to early 1960s), through "Moving Out" (1960s and 1970s) to "Quality of Life" (1980s-1990s) and now to "The Valuable Life" (near future).  In this imminent period, goals include adding meaning to life – people want to be significant; to make a difference; and to preserve life – to find security.    Key values included

•      having an impact – on others, on the future, on yourself

•      making every moment count

•      thoughtful sacrifice

•      personal responsibility, and

•      risk minimization. 

Hochstein summarised the way people were expressing these values in their daily lives:

1.         Being Good, Doing Good -- factoring doing what's right into daily activities and lifestyle: being willing to make significant sacrifices for the country, the poor, the environment, "my community"

2.         Change-Making -- being part of a movement that means to improve society through reform or innovation

3.         Legacy -- leaving your mark on the world via your influences and impact

4.         Getting your House in Order -- increasing the level of organization and preparedness in one's personal affairs

5.         Tribalized Individualism -- finding significance by being a unique asset within a larger group.   A key new idea in this context is the recognition that total individualism can have as high a personal cost as total conformity.  Instead, individuals can get the benefits of being part of a group; without giving up their identity.

6.         Risk Minimization -- zero tolerance for threats to wellbeing that "I cannot control". 

Implications for organisations included a demand for higher ethical standards from companies, recognition of the importance of "trust equity" for brands and businesses;  the growing importance of a reputation for innovation;  a need to help stakeholders cope with uncertainty; rising populism; and a new employee agenda.

The social shifts observed by these researchers and others are paralleled by shifts in what we see as the measures of success.   Perhaps our future social historians will find rich material in exploring the causal relationships between the changing values and the changing performance measures of early 21^st century western society. The UNDP launched its Human Development Index in 1990, the World Bank its Wealth Index (which included non-economic measures) in 1995; and by 1998 fifteen new sets of indicators had been introduced around the world.   The United Nations inaugurated its own global reporting initiative in April 2002 (www.globalreporting.org).  

John Elkington's notion of the "triple bottom line" -- the idea that organisations should report their social and environmental performance as well as their financial performance -- has caught on fast in the corporate environment.   And at the national level, the shift from economic rationalism toward emerging "hope and happiness" measures is gathering speed.   The Australia Institute's annual Genuine Progress Indicator takes account of broader measures than the GDP and, with the Institute's assistance, the Australian Bureau of Statistics is beginning to collect new data.  

In the UK, University of Warwick professor of economics, Andrew Oswald, has said that he expects happiness surveys and job satisfaction surveys to become a central part of British life.   "The News at Seven in the year 2020 will perhaps feature the country's monthly wellbeing score," he said.  "The acronym GDP may have gone.  Perhaps it will have become GHL (Gross Happiness Level)."    Other researchers in Europe and Asia are exploring similar shifts in the way we measure our prosperity and wellbeing, with the word "happiness" starting to appear more and more often. 

Even the New Scientist recognises happiness as a new science, with a special two part feature in its issues of 4 and 11 October 2003:  “Over the past decade, the study of happiness...has morphed into a bona fide discipline.  You can find ‘professors of happiness’ at leading universities, ‘quality of life’ institutes the world over, and thousands of research papers.” 

Is this new?  Or the recycling of ancient wisdom?

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Professor of Psychology at the Peter F. Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University and director of the Quality of Life Research Center, argues that the pursuit of happiness is not a wheel that needs to be reinvented.  He points out in his book, Flow: the psychology of optimal experience[7], that there is much knowledge -- or well-ordered information -- accumulated in culture, ready to help people extract patterns from the order achieved by past generations that will help them avoid disorder in their own minds and lives.

"Great music, architecture, art, poetry, drama, dance, philosophy and religion are there for anyone to see as examples of how harmony can be imposed on chaos," Professor Csikszentmihalyi says.  "Yet so many people ignore them, expecting to create meaning in their lives by their own devices."

He says that to do so is like trying to build up material culture from scratch in each generation.   "No one in his right mind would want to start reinventing the wheel, fire, electricity and the million objects and processes that we now take for granted as part of the human environment.  Instead we learn how to make these things by receiving ordered information from teachers, from books, from models, so as to benefit from the knowledge of the past and eventually surpass it.   To discard the hard-won information on how to live accumulated by our ancestors, or to expect to discover a viable set of goals all by oneself, is misguided hubris.  The chances of success are about as good as in trying to build an electron microscope without the tools and knowledge of physics."

In a later book, The Evolving Self[8], Csikszentmihalyi develops his own evolving meme.  Like Sorokin, he suggests that the path to a better world is through individual transformation.  Based on key principles of evolution, he sees this as a path towards greater complexity -- more differentiation with more integration.   It's an idea that scales from the micro to the macro:  "The Soviet Union, however large, was not a complex society primarily because its monolithic central administration and ideology stifled personal initiative and diversity, and hence it imploded because of insufficient differentiation.  The United States, in contrast, is highly differentiated; the threat to its complexity comes from the opposite direction: an erosion of common values and norms of conduct that may result in a society that disintegrates for lack of integration."

Moral choices usually involve complexity, he says.  What we consider right brings about harmony, while the wrong choice causes chaos and confusion.

"In every human group ever known, notions about what is right and what is wrong have been among the central defining concerns of the culture…. every social system must develop memes to keep the intergroup harmony that genes no longer can provide.   These memes constitute the moral system, and generally they have been the most successful attempts humans have developed to give a desirable direction to evolution."

The professor discusses the evolutionary struggle of memes for attention in people's minds:  "it could be said that without realizing it, people have been engaged all along in eumemics", which he concedes is an awkward combination of the Greek for "good" and for "imitation".   He notes that the great moral systems across the world.. Buddhism, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Zoroastrian are congruent in essential respects and reflects that all of them could recognize and sympathize with the concept of a guided evolution toward complexity if they were able to see beyond the superficial differences between their creeds.

"Contemporary psychology has not progressed far beyond these insights from traditional religions….this general pattern fits Abraham Maslow's 'hierarchy of needs', Jane Loevinger's theory of 'ego development', Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of 'moral development', George Valliant's 'hierarchy of defenses' and most other accounts of how people can cultivate a more complex self.  In each case, progress means freeing oneself from genetic commands, then from cultural constraints, and finally from the desires of the self," he wrote.

"All ethical systems -- religious or psychological -- are efforts to direct evolution by channeling thought and behavior away from the past and into the future.  The past -- represented by the determinism of the instincts, the weight of tradition, the desires of the self -- is always stronger.  The future -- represented by the ideals of a life that is freer, more compassionate, more in tune with the reality that transcends our needs -- is by necessity weaker, for it is an abstraction, a vision of what might be….

"If we are to direct evolution toward greater complexity, we have to find an appropriate moral code to guide our choices.  It should be a code that takes into account the wisdom of tradition, yet is inspired by the future rather than the past; it should specify right as being the unfolding of the maximum individual potential joined with the achievement of the greatest social and environmental harmony."

Is this a new generation meme that will help individuals on their own life journey to make the changes hoped for by Sorokin and despaired of by Maslow?  Individual and social transformation via ever greater complexity?   And has it evolved "eumemically", as Csikszentmihalyi implies, through generations that track back to Maslow and the Russian professor and their war-torn colleagues, and to the ancient wisdom from which all of them would have drawn?

There'll certainly be no shortage of material for those future researchers to explore.

 ends