Ideas As Viruses

On a late Spring evening, while staying in China to learn putonghua, a group of foreign students, of which I was part, were relaxing on top of the common dormitory of the ‘scholarship students’, a 5-storey brick building lodging the lesser or not well off who were here for the same reason I was. Standing there, a German, Japanese and USAn, and also a Chinese student we managed to invite (normally they have to sign a register at the entrance of a dormitory) to be included our conversation. Of course, it was the year Hong Kong was handed back to China from the UK, and the exchanges revolved around that subject, that quickly gravitated down to the heavier aspects: the Brits’ blackmailing, the Chinese surrendering, etc. Nationalism ended up at the heart of our exchanges (i.e. what makes a German, German) and then the Chinese student dropped the N-word. No, not that one. He asked the question quite simply: “What caused Nazism to emerge in Germany?” The German student, a biological chemist, answered first, since he felt like it struck a chord and also because maybe he wanted to end the discussion rather quickly. In any case, the German explained the emergence and rise of Nazism mainly for historical and political reasons. He talked about the links between nation-state and the rise of Protestantism, of the Holy German Empire, the failure of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and of the Republic of Weimar. Then, the USAn chimed in and started to talk about economic causes, such as the deutschmark devaluation, structural changes brought about the rapid industrialization, the impact of the Great Depression… I was not talking, I was listening because I was interested in the point of view of other people unknown to me, even at my home university. Before the Chinese student was able to ask another question, the USAn student turned towards the Japanese, for his opinion. He smiled, a bit shy, and asked if anyone objected to his answering the question. The German told him he was interested by what he had to say. For the Japanese, the rise of the Nazis had everything to do with cultural and natural factors linked to having strong leaders tied with long bloodlines and the harsh environment, that the Japanese also had a culture that tended to exclude other races and groups, and it was thus natural that Japanese would want to associate with Germans, that they would impose themselves on their archipelago and, despite the Meiji reform, the hegemony was inevitable, like Nazism was in Germany. Then everybody turned to me, since I hadn’t said a peep, which was unusual. I sipped my green tea crowded by wet leaves and answered. “There are physiological diseases, there are psychological diseases, and there are sociological diseases. Nazism is a sociological disease but as in the three levels of conscience, the germ or the virus often is pre-existent, dormant. If the right conditions are in place for the disease to develop and spread, and even sometimes annihilate an organ, before infecting others. Someone can catch a cold without even sneezing but if he is tired or if he has a peculiar form of the virus, that person will be sick. Similarly, some ideas can circulate in certain societies or among certain groups and stay dormant until the ideal conditions emerge to facilitate its spread, regardless of politics, latitude, religion, language. Some ideas are like viruses. They develop in fertile ground, can spread rapidly. In the case of Germany, all the right conditions made it ripe for that ideology to make ravages: uncertain political climate, runaway debt, poor and working classes bubbling with rage, national shame for losing the war, the Great Depression, hijacking the scientific knowledge to justify segregation, fear of Communism. No nation, no empire is safe from this kind of upheaval. Not even the US. Who knows? In 15 to 20 years there might be another Tian An Men in Washington, while China will be brought to its knees by the Tianjin Cough.”

Nobody replied, and for a few seconds there was silence. The Chinese student laughed nervously at the last words, then the USAn raised his glass and said with his loud voice: “Meanwhile, we have to watch out for the 800 pound gorilla that might collapse.” I replied: “Are you talking about the US?” after which the German, the Japanese and the Chinese all laughed.

Today, I still think about that discussion, and the path taken by Humanity. I never read William Burroughs’ idea of the verb as virus. The more I age, the more I see education as a vaccine, and the more I see those who mistrust education and vaccine as ‘propagation agents’ and not only as ‘provocation agents’, as they often wrongly consider that physiological, psychological and sociological diseases are divine messages or agents.