When used persuasively, they can seduce us into the empty promises of commercial advertising. When used benevolently, they can facilitate social, economic and political change. Words can be used to control us, motivate us and inspire us, and yet many of us are unaware of their hidden esoteric power.
It could be argued that words have a life of their own. They have a reality independent of our own existence. As the writer William Burroughs observed, certain words and phrases function in a similar way to a virus; they spread from person to person until they become embedded in our collective consciousness. One only has to look at the countless memes that become ‘viral’ on the internet to acknowledge their inherently infectious quality.
The biologist and writer Richard Dawkins argues that words operate in a similar way to DNA. Concepts and ideas battle against each other for survival and those which are successful become populated across societies. He writes: “Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense can be called imitation.”....<<<Read More>>>>...