Some meme complexes we call values or principles steer us toward creating institutions that are advantageous for the tribe and especially for those subgroups that believe in the effective values most devoutly. The values survive because they enable behavior patterns that work. Then, the tribe members that hold these values and practice them most conscientiously survive to pass the values on to their young.

    

                                        Maori warrior hongi-greeting American soldier                                                         (credit: U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Shane A. Cuomo, via Wikimedia Commons) 

             

   

     Traditional Indian Namaste greeting (credit: Saptarshi Biswas, via Wikimedia Commons) 

It is true that many differences between the meme combinations and morés of different societies can be found. You have to make adjustments to your ways when you move to another culture. 

But to say, as some moral relativists do³, that these cultures are therefore incommensurable – that they can never learn to get along – is to abandon humanity to war for all time. And that idea - that we can't learn to live together - simply isn’t true.

                                            

   

                                               American handshake (Pres. Obama greets Pope Francis)                                                             (credit: Tech. Sgt. Robert Cloys, via Wikimedia Commons ) 

       

                                      

                                          English poet-musician Sting (Gordon Sumner)                                                                                         (credit: Helge Øverås, via Wikimedia Commons) 

In the first place, though there are differences, there are many similarities in our ways of life. Some of the top peaks in the meme-scapes of all cultures coincide. Everywhere on earth, people respect and value wisdom, love, courage, and freedom. Different cultures adhere to moral values, and the patterns of behavior that they lead to, in varying degrees and in varying ways and combinations. But the areas of thinking we have in common far outweigh our differences. As Gordon Sumner (Sting) said in the 1980s, “The Russians love their children too.”

In the second place, we can learn. We can learn to fish in four ways instead of just one. We can learn to speak in several languages. We can learn to refrain from giving in to violent impulses that cause men to beat women or children or each other or engage in crime or war. We can learn to imprison rather than execute murderers. We can learn regular exercise and moderate eating as habits of all rational adults. People already have done these things. Many times.

In the third and most important place, we can teach the kids better than we were taught. To work as a way of life. Train their bodies and minds. Daily. Love their neighbors. All their neighbors. Actively. Daily.

The values discussed in this book – values that derive from the physical universe in which we all live – point us toward a society that will place ever greater emphasis on self-discipline, good will, imagination, education, and citizenship. 

We can make a society in a state of dynamic equilibrium, capable of responding effectively to an ever-greater range of challenges, both short and long term. Tougher than we are now. 

Then we can spread our species out to our destiny – the stars. The potential is there; all it needs in order to be made real is us. Our grandest destiny is calling to each of us now and asking its first big question: How much character do you really have?