Taking the Dawkins Challenge, or, The Dark Side of the Meme

My thesis is that meme theory and rhetoric take unusual turns when confronting the problem of evil. Focusing on works by Richard Dawkins and Jack Zipes, I consider three levels at which this confrontation takes place. The first is the everyday selfishness and self-promotion attributed to memes as intrinsic to their mode of propagation. The second concerns memes whose content affronts present-day morality (e.g., memes that portray parents eating or sacrificing their children). The third is the coldness of the scientific worldview promoted around the meme enterprise. I argue that in attempting to account for evil and to propose remedies to it, meme theory takes on shades of the very mythological and religious traditions it seeks to discredit.