I've been looking through stuff I've written during the past few years and
found the following, which seems relevant to the discussion of memes that has
been a dominant feature of the Dissenters list recently. It may be of interest
to some of you.
Ed
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A Short Essay on Viruses
Some recent postings have raised the fascinating topic of the effect of disease
on history. Recurrent pandemics such as bubonic plague, cholera, typhus and
influenza have played an enormous role in defining the course taken by peoples
for several centuries thereafter. Syphilis has brought dynasties to ruin. The
viruses or bacteria which were at issue affected physical health. I would
suggest that another type of virus, a intellectual one, has been at least
equally potent in shaping human history. As an entity, we can think of it as
something like a computer virus - as something which does not take the shape of
an organism, but which is transmittable from person to person nevertheless.
What does this intellectual virus do? Just as biophysical viruses sicken the
body, it sickens and immobilizes the mind. It numbs and dulls human potential,
and plunges people into states of pessimism, meanness and despair.
The impact of this virus varies from civilization to civilization, and from era
to era. The Aztecs have recently been mentioned on this list. Some years ago I
did some reading on the Aztecs, and one of the things I recall is that, for
many years before the coming of Cortez, the Aztecs were in a state of deep
pessimism. They felt their world to be ending. I believe it had something to do
with their calendar, a human invention which they invested with cosmic powers.
When Cortez finally came along, they were immobilized to the point of not being
able to do anything about him and his small army. However, the facts of
smallpox and rebellion by peoples the Aztecs had subjugated did not help.
Another example of the virus comes from the 11th to 14th Century Europe. Led by
activist thinkers such as Peter Abelard, and fed by the accessibility of Arabic
and Classical material, the 11th Century witnessed an increasing secularization
of the Christian world, and an explosion of initiatives toward a more rational
theology, which laid the foundations for the development of science. Heretical
liberally-religious groups such as the Waldensians and Cathers sprang up and
found fertile ground among intellectuals who had been long dominated by
oppressive Catholicism. It was not long, however, before the virus set in. The
very foundations of the Church were threatened. The Church moved to suppress
the liberalizing influences in whatever way seemed necessary. People such as
Abelard were isolated. Heretics were burned at the stake. Finally, in 1277, the
Pope issued a statement on where the church stood on the matter of faith versus
reason. If you wanted openness and reason, you could not have it in the Church
and the Church was very much in control.
Now, some will argue that there was no virus at all, that all that happened was
that the dominant power structure, the Catholic Church, had been challenged and
had retaliated. But that was not all that there was to it. The drama played
itself out over two Centuries, and it would appear that for much of that time
the Church had been tolerant of what was going on, and even encouraging. Anselm
of Canterbury, 1030-1109, who lived at the beginning of the so-called "Twelfth
Century Awakening", was an early rationalist. Peter Abelard, 1079-1142, was
condoned by the Church for a considerable part of his life as a teacher. But
what gradually happened was something of a slow "gathering of dark forces", to
use a Tolkien-like image.
The growing virus of the intellect was aided and abetted by natural disasters
and real biophysical viruses which reinforced the vengeful power of God.
Between 1315-1317 Europe was devastated by a "hideous famine". Adverse trends
in climate which had begun in the 13th Century culminated in appalling weather
conditions which led to an "medieval economic depression" which continued to
have effects to the beginning of the Renaissance. And, of course, 1347 brought
the Black Death.
What does all this have to do with the world of today? Some years ago, Barbara
Tuchman held the world of the 14th Century up to us, proposing that in it we
would see a distant mirror image of ourselves. We tend to forget her lesson.
The 14th Century saw the closing down of an earlier two-century period of
enlightenment; the 20th Century may be witnessing the closing down of the one
which has now run for some two centuries, beginning, I would propose, with the
American and French Revolutions.
Though it saw war and mass exterminations, this period also witnessed the
growth of democratic institutions, the spread of "universals" (education,
health, social security), the humanization of capital, the growing power of
labour, and rising standards of living. However, this may have begun to end
sometime during the past fifty years. The past few decades, since World War II,
have been a period of economic florescence and gradual decline. The 1950s,
1960s, and early 1970s, were the perhaps the most prosperous years of human
history. It was not only the advanced world which prospered and grew, but the
underdeveloped world witnessed the Green Revolution and industrialization which
showed every promise of bettering human life. Since then, productivity has
fallen, unemployment has grown, and poverty has again become part of the
accepted commonplace. The Green Revolution, based on chemical fertilizers and
pesticides, has turned out to be green more in illusion than in fact, and
industrialization in the NICs is raising the prospect of massive environmental
damage.
So, these are real problems. What do they have to do with my virus? I would
suggest the following: along with the deterioration of the economy, the falling
productivity of capital (except, it would seem, the productivity of finance
capital), the mounting debts of governments, and growing unemployment, has come
a pessimistic meanness - a gathering, once again, of the Tolkien-like "dark
forces". It is hard to tell how this began, but someone, some group, somewhere
may have started it and it has since spread to become the dominant thought mode
of our civilization. During the 1950s, we placed our faith in education and
growth, and during the 1960s in flower-power and the rebuilding of society
along more humane lines. Since then, we have been running for cover, striving,
as John Ralston Saul has so ably pointed out, to hide within corporate groups
and exclude others by speaking specialized languages that are not even
understood by ourselves.
Whether or not there really is a virus behind all of this does not matter. My
point is that, as in the 14th Century, we have once again become a society of
despair. Like the Aztecs waiting for, and dreading, the return of Quetzalcoatl,
we are immobilized. Our governments, unable to do anything positive, are doing
every negative thing they can - cutting, hacking and lacerating all in the name
of satisfying our dour lust for leanness and meanness. A whole culture of
consultants, like an austere medieval priesthood, has grown up around
re-engineering and lean production - squeezing more work out of those lucky
enough to retain their jobs and getting rid of ("terminating") all others.
How do we get out of this? Must we again endure two centuries of purging and
self- flagellation before a new renaissance? Or can we come to recognize that
many problems are of our own making and refuse to become victims of the virus
of despair? How, in place of universal pessimism and lost hope, do we promote
the idea that we can regain control? I believe that the answers cannot come
from society, or, as some appear to believe, from a technology such as the
internet. They must come from ourselves, each and every one of us. It would
seem that the most important thing is to become skeptical of everything,
including popular scapegoats and remedies.
Is it really the TNCs, computers and robotics that are shafting us? If so, what
countervailing powers do we have? If not, find the real causes. Perhaps it is
ourselves, burying our heads in the sand and getting our asses kicked. Is it
government? Well, in democracies, those who govern are accessible, and if they
are not, storm the barriers and make them so. They are our servants, not our
masters.
But perhaps it really is ourselves. We don't like to think that it is, so we
look around for others to blame for having done this to us, or perhaps for a
virus. Having quoted him once, I will quote my old friend Pogo Possum again
because he may be right: "We have seen the enemy and he is us."
Ed Weick
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