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posted by dennisn on September 30th, 2010 at 2:12PM
Well, how do you define romanticism? If you define it positively, as being happy and adored, then it is simply self-interested behavior, which isn't a "fed (memetic) pattern" (meme is just a chunk of evolving culture, just as a gene is a chunk of evolving DNA), but rather a genetic imperative of our sophisticated brains. If you define it negatively, as self-sacrificing unreciprocated infatuation, then things get complicated -- the cost-benefit analysis is more complicated. I would argue that if the costs outweigh the benefits, then cultural (memetic) patterning is at work -- and in opposition to biological (genetic) patterning. The memes of religion, for example, are notorious for being self-destructive. (Think Fundamentalist Islam, or the persecution of Galileo.) The meme of admiration for aristocracy and demigodness and adoration on the other hand, are quite self-promoting.
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