    9

    Why Men Embrace Ideas--And Why Ideas Embrace Men

    Humans grab at ideas because ideas knit them together in groups

    of folks who agree with them.  They provide the comfort of

    companionship and mutual aid.  That's one way memes seduce

    humans into their power.  What are some of the others?

    Memes ride the human mind by offering the men and women

    who spearhead their cause a richer life.  Fidel Castro, who carved out a

    slice of the New World to feed the Marxist-Leninist meme, acquired

    the run of half-a-dozen homes, a fleet of Mercedes-Benz limousines,

    jeeps (actually, the Russian equivalents--Gaziks), luxuriously

    wood-paneled helicopters, a fishing villa, boats, gourmet foods, fine

    scotch, and what may be the ultimate luxury--a personal pate chef.15

    Memes frequently make the temptation to riches and power even

    sweeter by disguising the pursuit of these prizes as selfless idealism,

    ascetic dedication to a cause.  Castro, after all, was not a greedy man.

    He was a dedicated "idealist."  Memes also seduce us with the illusion

    of control, thus tweaking our hormones into higher gear and turning

    up the vigor of our immune system.  What's more, sometimes memes

    actually deliver on their promises of mastery.  The insights and

    technologies they produce sometimes actually do help us get a handle

    on the elusive forces of our fate.

    These enticements are some of the reasons humans embrace the

    meme.  But why does the meme grab on to humans?  So it can use a

    social bunch as a tool for self expansion, driving a superorganism like a

    tank (more about that in our next chapter).  Memes have an ultimate

    ambition: taking vast chunks of the world into their possession and

    restructuring it according to their form.

    It may seem strange to call a meme ambitious.  But the mere

    shape of a successful meme dictates its acquisitive behavior.  In fact,

    the evolutionary race between concepts guarantees that those which

    develop the cleverest lures are most likely to survive.  Take, for

    example, the religious memes that include the notion of hell.  Anyone

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