Virus
I’d like to talk about viruses.
“Why viruses?” you ask.
Why not? They’re ‘of the moment’, surely?
“I suppose they are.”
Viruses – such monstrous and wonderful things!
“I agree with the first adjective, at least.”
Well, who wouldn’t? But they’re wonderful, too: complex, sophisticated, adaptable, ingenious…
“Ingenious at killing us.”
Yes, there is that.
Communicability
You like lists, don’t you?
“I do.”
Would you like one about viruses?
“It’s difficult to think of anything better.”
Well, I think I can scratch that itch…
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- Viruses are contagious f***ers. Sometimes horribly contagious. ‘Infectious’ should be their middle name
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- They replicate themselves in other living things. Quite literally they need to ‘get a life’. (If they don’t, their time’s up)
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- They take the capabilities of their hosts and repurpose them – rarely to the host’s benefit
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- They use their hosts as carriers
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- They use their hosts as transmitters
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- Some hosts become super-spreaders
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- If they don’t kill you, there are often concerning post-viral implications
- They can kill you
- They’re capable of wiping out entire population.
“It’s not a nice list.”
It’s not.
And here’s the thing…
In each and every one of these ways, ideas and viruses are just the same.
Genocide
Want another list?
“Yes please!”
Sarcastic?
“Far from it… Give me lists over plain text any day.”
Ok, then. Here’s how ideas are viral:
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- They’re contagious f***ers, sometimes dangerously so. ‘Communicable’ should be their middle name
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- They need a host. No human mind? No ideas
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- They exploit our natural qualities – our emotions, intellect, instincts – hijacking these in ways which often cause us harm
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- They use their hosts as carriers. We take them with us wherever we go
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- They use their hosts as transmitters… and what excellent transmitters we are!
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- Some hosts become super-spreaders: politicians, celebrities, journalists, writers… It can be voluntary, but sometimes we can’t help ourselves – the ideas take over
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- Our ideas can be relatively harmless… or they can kill
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- Often they have damaging long-term impacts
- Some ideas (the very worst of them) can wipe out entire populations: ideas like ‘holy war’, ‘conquest’, ‘enemy’, ‘superior race’, ‘it’s ours’
The 0.1%
Our civilisation is rushing headlong towards disaster.
Look around you.
You’ll see.
Our economies are out of control.
Nation states are becoming authoritarian, conflicted, adversarial.
Our communities, on- and off-line, overflow with resentment, anger and hate.
And then there’s climate change…
Can we blame all this on the greedy and power-hungry 0.1%?
But there’s too few of them to sustain this global catastrophe all by themselves; and there’s too many of us playing a part – in one way or another – to absolve ourselves of responsibility.
It’s not the 0.1% that’s the problem – though their accumulation of power and wealth is problematic.
It’s their ideas.
The ideas which infect them are herding our civilisation towards the cliff’s edge.
And the same ideas infect us, too.
The economic miracle
You want examples?
Try these:
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- Always want more
- Acquisition is commendable
- Ruthlessness is admirable
- If I can benefit from something I own, there’s no reason why ALL the benefit shouldn’t be mine
- Ownership’s a right; property is sacrosanct
- People are just another resource to be exploited or used
- People need the fear of poverty and joblessness to goad them, otherwise they’d be lazy
- I got where I am today without anyone’s help
- People should stand on their own two feet
- Poor? It’s your fault…
- We get what we deserve
- Take whatever you can get away with without getting caught; you’re a fool if you don’t
- The economy self-balances… Don’t interfere!
- Profit is our most important and worthwhile goal
- We’re primarily competitive by nature, and that’s how we should be
- Selfishness is our natural state
- Greed is good
- Winner takes all
Our economic model, which is destroying the biological world and dismembering social cohesion, is the physical manifestation of concepts like these.
Our jeopardised civilisation is the tangible result.
Hierarchy
Here are more:
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- You’re just a small cog in a big machine. Give up hope. Nothing you do can change things
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- Some people deserve more than other people because of the type of people they are
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- The higher in a hierarchy you are the more special or important or valuable you are
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- –Hierarchies give people meaning (instead of the reverse)
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- Some institutions are unquestionable and should automatically be venerated and revered
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- The possession or achievement of power or wealth in itself proves you deserve your power or wealth
- Wealth and power are admirable
- The world is how it is because that’s the way things work; nothing else is really possible
These are the ideas which sustain our unfair, unequal and frequently abusive hierarchies. They’re ideas we’d be much happier without.
Nations
And there are more. We’re plagued by ideas like these:
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- Borders deliver or deny inherent entitlement
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- Borders reflect something other than elites protecting their property and power
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- People on one side of a border are better than people on the other side
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- Nations have a greater significance than the individuals in them
- People on one side of a border deserve more than people on the other
- Nations are more important than people
But our nation states are nothing more than cognitive constructs, and they clamber on the shoulders of violent, divisive and anachronistic ideas.
Crime
Our systems of law and order rest on ideas like these:
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- Punishment is morally justifiable
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- Punishment and imprisonment deter
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- State violence is more moral than individual violence
- Punishment and imprisonment reduce crime
- Repression works better than education and encouragement
But the facts do not support these ideas, and their moral foundations are archaic or non-existent.
The biological world
Our society’s harmful relationship with nature rests on ideas like these:
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- The world is ours
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- We take primacy over nature and natural things
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- We can use and consume our world’s resources as we like; they’ll never run out
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- We aren’t animals
- Only some animals have feelings
- Competition is life’s natural principle and should be our guiding rule
Other peopleWe are divided from each other by ideas like these:
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- There are enemies among us who threaten our way of life
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- There are enemies among us who want what we have
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- There are enemies in other countries who threaten our way of life
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- There are enemies in other countries who want what we have
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- Relationships are transactional: tit for tat
- There’s not enough to share
- You can’t trust anyone – we’re all out for what we can get
- Appearances matter
These ideas are like walls, built up between us. Divided from one another we are neutralised, atomised, commodified… and thrown out with the trash once our usefulness expires.
Reality and truth
Our powers of reason and our effectiveness are undermined by concepts like these:
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- Reality is in the eye of the beholder. There’s your reality and my reality and they are, of course, equally vali
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- We’re all entitled to our opinions, so my opinion on any subject is as valid as anyone else’
- Truth is partisan. You have your truth and I have mine, and there’s no real reason why the two should concur
- Simple answers can fix complex problems
Really?
Psychopathology
Not all of these ideas have always been harmful – but their time has come. The species-harming structures which litter our society – our corporations, our economy, the media, the privileged and powerful 0.1% – are all infected and sustained by these ideas. And the rest of us are infected too. If we weren’t, the injustice and harm would not persist. It couldn’t. Our society is a construct of the human mind. We think it. We can unthink it.
The ideas I’ve listed above, and many others like them, are psychopathogens. They have pathologised our society. To a lesser or greater extent, they’re making psychopaths of us all.
Humanity is in the grip of a mind plague – a pandemic – and it’s one which is failing to deliver herd immunity…
Unless we discover a vaccine, it’s going to deliver herd death, instead.
Luke Andreski
Luke Andreski is co-founder of the @EthicalRenewal and EthicalIntelligence.Org cooperatives. He is author of Short Conversations: During the Plague (2020), Intelligent Ethics (2019), Ethical Intelligence (2019) and How To Be Happy (2017).
You can connect with Luke on LinkedIn, https://uk.linkedin.com/in/luke-andreski-ethics, on WordPress, https://lukeandreski.wordpress.com/, or via the EthicalRenewal co-op on Twitter https://twitter.com/EthicalRenewal.
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