Memetics Before Memetics: The Prehistory of the Meme
May 7, 2025•5,570 words
Is there a history of “memetics” before Richard Dawkins coined the word “meme”, in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene? The hypothesis of this essay is that there is indeed such a history (a tradition, if we can call it that) which is quite distinct from memetics post-Dawkins, even though at various points it overlaps in differing ways with memetics.
This is not a history in the sense of being the list of influences that Richard Dawkins (and later writers on memetics) had. Quite possibly Richard Da...
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