How Ideas Work and What Memes Mean

I tell my students that some of the greatest ideas have cost people their lives. When a powerful idea takes wing and threatens other ideas, sometimes it is easier to kill to voice behind the idea than it is to kill the idea itself. 

Ideas though intangible, are real.  The have consequences.  They change people’s behavior, alter values and are the force behind the institutions that rule our lives. Ideas are behind wars and in extreme cases ideas can fly planes into buildings.

I always found it hard to solidify for them why this is. 

Several years ago I started doing a simulation to help guide this debate.  The set up takes 10 minutes and the debrief about 25-30 minutes.  I wanted to introduce a simple idea to the school and have my students watch as the idea spreads and people react to it.  So I chose this as my  idea and printed about 1400 of them, enough that they are everywhere, but not enough that everyone can get one. 

I hand them out to my students and ask them to give them to people in the halls.  They are not to say anything.  Just hand them out.  If people ask what they are for I tell them to say “It’s a smiley face, it smiles at you.”  The only other instruction I provide is that if they see one on the floor they should pick it up and hand it out again. By the time it is over they are everywhere. 

My plan was simple at first. People would accept it, or they would not.  Over time the discussion has developed into something more complex. We have gone from acceptance and rejection to how ideas spread, evolve and change.  Students have gotten angry as the simple message is twisted into something very, very different. 

Some examples:

    -One year the students, in reaction to a new ID policy, started to think the smiley face

was a protest movement and taped them over their id’s.  I had to reassure a few people

that it was not a conspiracy.

    -Another year students somehow got the idea that it was a coupon you could redeem for

 a free cookie.  What was great was that one of the cafeteria workers handed a few

 cookies before she was told not to.

    -One student described to the class that it was a protest about how fake people were and

 that the smiley face represent the false reality that we present and hide behind.

    -One year a protest anti-smiley appeared.    

    -Some reactions are consistent.  People begin to ask for them because they are limited

(this helps with teaching the laws of suppl and demand).  Many students, especially

 males reject the smileys, and further more attack the idea as stupid.

    -By the end of the week they are on folders, on lockers and at local restaurants.  People

 will argue about it.

    -I always have a few given back to me as a gift with thank yous for doing the exercise. 

Our discussion addresses several topics:

    -Who is likely to accept or reject this idea.

    -We talk about how people react when they reject it.

    -How people place greater meaning behind the idea than was ever intended. 

    -How people react to the individual presenting the idea.

    -How the reactions differ based upon who is handing it out, (Girls have more success with guys, especially freshman guys, go figure!)

    -How the social dynamics of groups affect the acceptance of the idea. -

    -How the spread of the idea would be affected if the idea were a skull instead of a smiley face.

When all is said and done, we have a framework for understanding what will happen as a result of the Enlightenment or the Great awakening or any other movement for that matter. We can understand that the effects of the progressives extend beyond whether they win or lose elections. It sets the tone for the diffusion of ideas throughout the rest of history. Best of all, when introducing new ideas in class, once I explain the newest -ism, they have a dynamic understanding of the process by which it diffuses into society.  (Which by the way the smileys do too. They end up in coffee shops, restaurants the mall etc., etc.)