Leonard Cohen and Philosophy (37 page)

So perhaps we need a new word to describe memes favored with evolutionary success. Perhaps we could describe such memes as
happy
. After all, successful memes have every reason to be happy—they can expect to live long and healthy (re)productive lives, as people find reason to repeat them and pass them along to others. (Unsuccessful memes have fewer reasons to be cheerful.) In that case, “Hallelujah” contains—perhaps ironically for Cohen—some very happy memes indeed. That song will be sung and cherished for quite some time to come. The analysis of memes offered by Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett helps us to understand why.

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