Month: November 2022

Mind viruses spread through speech

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Sometimes I think that our core problem is that we just talk too much. The yapping is incessant, mindless, and strangely primitive. Spiders spin webs, beavers build dams, and we talk. Ever notice that the more someone speaks, the less you like them? It has been well-documented that talking is lethal to romantic attraction. Contrary to the prevailing therapeutic paradigm, I submit that, past a quickly reached point, talking does far more damage than not. And just to be clear: skill at communication doesn’t equal intelligence. I think we’d all be better off if we talked less, and did more. Ever notice that the people who talk the most, actually don’t do much of anything? No hobbies, no skills, no real interests outside of spreading the psychic viruses that they’ve cooked up in their minds.

Ever heard of “suicide contagion”? It’s the phenomenon where increased media reports of suicide, increased talk about suicide, actually increases the rate of suicide. This is a well-documented phenomenon, and it applies to the entire range of human behavior.

Bulimia is another example of a psychic virus, spread through speech. Virtually the first documented case ever recorded appeared in 1972 in London. The doctors had never seen anything like it before. But a paper was published on the case on bulimia nervosa, and suddenly cases began exploding all over Europe. At one point 15% of North American college females were found to be suffering from bulimia. By the mid-80s, tens of millions of usually women became afflicted with bulimia. A purely psychic virus, with devastating consequences. A very real, very tragic epidemic that began by talking.

Other examples abound. Did the anti-drug DARE programs that grew like mushrooms among US elementary schools actually introduce alcohol and drugs to America’s youth?

COVID-19 is cut from the same psychic cloth. We dealt with two viruses over the course of two years: a real virus, and a psychic virus. Can you tell which one was far deadlier? I think we know.

We are a species that produces viruses of the imagination, which then spread through talking. These viruses have very real, very devastating consequences. But will we ever stop talking?

Our vanity tells us that language, our upright stance, our scientific achievements, all separate us from and elevate us above the animal kingdom. But sitting here, looking down at both dog and cat, I wonder how truly elevated we are. These speechless beasts are charming and loving, but would they be so if they could talk?

I’m beginning to believe that our real problem is that we just won’t shut up.

We are in the “how were we supposed to know” phase of the COVID reckoning

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There’s too much a feeling of resignation in “I told you so” at this point. All the major actors who facilitated the greatest public health disaster in the history of our species are issuing their mea culpas, although most ring insincere. This is a drama that has played out over and over since the dawn of humankind. This mix of ignorant hubris at the moment of crisis and later an accounting of what went wrong is a template, a track that we run on and will never escape from. “How were we supposed to know” that lockdowns would kill millions, devastate economic development, and shatter the lives of the most vulnerable. “How were we supposed to know” that shuttering schools would devastate the lives of children. Well, I knew. Others knew. We knew beforehand, when the seeds weren’t yet planted. How did we know? How did some know instinctively that disaster was at hand, while most didn’t? Why did the vast majority swallow the bait, indulge the hysteria, transmitting the psychological virus to those around them? The answer lies in the meaning that so many people derived from the pandemic. The cultural wastes where most people today reside do not provide the spiritual or intellectual nourishment necessary for us to thrive. The anemic masses therefore attached themselves to the possibility of an apocalyptic crisis. The possibility of meaning and brotherhood, a common cause, was enough to pull them in. Over two years later, the remaining mask-wearers appear to be the surviving acolytes of a dead cult, clinging to hope that their belief system will return to power. They remind me of the Vietnamese soldiers who remain in the jungle, refusing to believe the war to be over. There are many lessons to be learned, but the most important is the nature of the human animal. How it behaves during crisis, what it is capable of believing, and most importantly, what it is capable of doing in service to those beliefs.