Memes and hypnotic language in public office

Memes, the spreading of ideas

The word meme was coined by Richard Dawkins to explain how an idea or belief can enter wide circulation and almost seem to take on a life of its own.

Recently a meme called “New World Order” has made itself known. This did not happen by accident the phrase has been used for some time now; indeed it appears that it was first used in the early part of the 20th century by Cecil Rhodes and H.G.Wells.

Those of a conspiratorial nature equate the phrase with a totalitarian world government but it has been used after calamitous events like WW1 and WW2 and now after the credit crunch.

It is an intriguing phrase because said in the right way and in the right context it can mean almost anything. It is the essence of hypnotic language. The psychiatrist and hypnotist Milton Erikson was the first person to recognise the value of artfully vague language. He used it when he wanted his client to use their own experiences to fill in the gaps that made change possible. For example he might say “that important event in your life that has held you back for so long”. Erikson did not need to know what that important event was, just that the client felt that they had been held back and so there must have been an event that caused it.

In this way Erikson was able to achieve positive results where more common techniques may have failed to elicit a change.

Erikson’s language patterns were studied by Richard Bandler and John Grinder, eventually becoming part of the basis of Neuro Linguistic Programming.

So, back to our theme of a meme; and in this case the specific one of New World Order. To be most useful as a meme it has to be seeded into the general consciousness of the population. This is achieved by using it in speeches and news paper headlines as often as required until it acquires a kind of intellectual weight. It is important that for the meme to be most effective the meaning behind it should be artfully vague.

This phrase when used by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and President Obama may mean better banking regulations, less corruption, more jobs or better healthcare; how could anyone argue against those aims?

Or it might mean loss of personal privacy, a more invasive state apparatus, fewer personal freedoms; things that many people would find hard to accept.

But because the meaning of the phrase is artfully vague, it is difficult to argue against; who would argue against more jobs in an economic downturn. Yet by promoting the idea of a New World Order it may be that unwittingly we ascribe our own interpretation of what that means regardless of the decisions that are taken in our name.

When a meme idea seems to burst forth that appears to be all things to all people, it’s often useful to look deeper into who is promoting it and why they are choosing to use hypnotic language to promote it to you. Is it all that it seems?