March 26, 2005

The Ancient Virus

FOUR DAYS AGO, I noticed a small news item that told me the virus had found another host. It is a clever virus, wise enough to mutate but still remain the same. It thrives in oppressive states and lately has found the means to thrive in an oppressive state that appears to be not oppressive but democratic. As I said, it is a clever virus.

"Struggling to remain at the cutting edge of anti-semitism, Canada is issuing, or, rather, re-issuing, politically correct passports for its Israel born Jewish citizens: Canadian Jews born in Jerusalem are having their passports recalled in order to erase the word "Israel" from beside the name of the Jewish State's capital."
Not really the sort of thing you'd expect from one of the West's liberal democracy, is it. But the virus is very clever because the virus is very old.

Anti-Semitism is our most ancient spiritual virus. It is the oldest known virus that attacks, replicates within, and then destroys the human soul. The existence of Israel masks the existence of the virus in many infected souls, institutions, and, yes, liberal democracies by renaming itself as Anti-Zionism. This is especially clever since the renaming has survived the political movment it refers to. Through the renaming of this ancient disease as a “political problem,” many people now become infected through their friends, families, at their schools, from their community, church, or nation, or from exchanging infected fantasies with infected ideologues. (This is especially evident in the increasing support given to the virus by the Left here and abroad.) By changing the name of the disease it has become possible for many to deny that they have contracted the virus. This facilitates the current outbreak. Yes, it is a clever virus and this eerie shape-shifting is one of its oldest methods of perpetuating itself. A contemporary Christian might say it is one of the oldest "Faces of the Enemy." It is what it is.

The origin of the virus is unknown, but many suspect the area to be Bablyon and Sumur with an early leap across borders into Egypt. It was later transmitted through not-so-casual contact to much of the world by traders out of Northern Africa and the Roman Empire.

During the period following the fall of Rome, the virus found traction in early Christianity as a common carrier. In this host it thrived, and was able to survive and spread for many centuries. Of late, many parts of Christianity, now that it has become fragmented, have rejected the virus and those who host it, but strains of the virus can still be found at the center of many subsets of the Christian faith today.

Islam, of course, is the not-that-new major religion to not only host the virus, but to celebrate being infected with it, and to actively take measures to make sure that, within the body of Islam, the virus can thrive and expand and continue its contamination of souls almost unchecked. What to do about this new and virulent strain of the virus is something that is now consuming a great deal of the attention and treasure of Western Civilization.

In our recent past, treatment of the virus, once it had taken over whole nations, was first sought through the application of "the talking cure." This only fed it and let it grow stronger and more virulent. Ultimately, measures were taken similar to those that once dealt with the Black Plague. The cure required a large sacrifice in human life across the face of the Earth and dealt in the application of large amounts of steel and fire on the sites of the infection.

Our more enlightened age is still experimenting with a regimen that mixes "the talking cure" with a small application of highly targeted micro-surgery on some of the infected parts of Islam. It is hoped that this less Draconian cure will work; that it will not be necessary to use radiation treatments. To date, the prognosis seems positive if guarded. A virus-induced flare-up of any significant size within the United States would be a setback and the radiation option would be seriously and immediately considered. Would there be such a flare up? Recent history is not comforting.

Flare-ups of the virus have been common across civilization throughout the last 2 millennia, but an overwhelming series of eruptions in centered in Germany but infecting most contiguous nations and then seething in the lands controlled by the USSR, required a global intervention before the conflagration was deemed to be put out. For a time, like smallpox, the virus was declared, if not extinct, certainly on the wane.

This, of course was an illusion, since like root fires, the virus only smoldered underground in the human and social hosts for a few decades before flaring up once again in the petrified social forests of the Middle East. It short order the flare-ups were repeated, more politely, in the centers of a now Unified Europe. Given the new, improved vectors of communication and air travel, the virus leaped oceans quite nimbly and began its work anew across the face of the planet. As always, the infection started quietly -- a nod, a wink, a small editorial of the most reasoned sort that no reasonable person could possibly object to -- but it came to the same thing in the end. It became, again, acceptable. The virus needs assent to enter the host. Any assent, no matter how small, will do.

With the advent of the "Palestinian cause" becoming chic in Western, European, and Liberal circles -- fed at first by Socialist Progressive romanticism in the late 1960s and early 1970s -- being infected by virus has once more become acceptable to exhibit socially in certain ways. Indeed, in many circles and societies, having the virus has lately become a highly prized fashion accessory to popular academic, media, and state ideologies. More clever still is one of the most ancient disguises of the virus made new again. This disguise is the one where the virus tells you it does not exist and has never existed. Cyclon-B was for delousing and those ovens were only for baking bread.

The virus, because it is an ancient and clever virus, can lie dormant for years, and like HIV, can mutate around a lot of therapies designed to destroy it.

As noted above, in the recent past, it has been shown that large doses of steel and fire can eradicate the virus in some populations, but only for a time. A cure is promised, but seems to be always delayed. The only measures that work are, at best, prophylactic. Another strategy is strict monitoring to prevent the spread of the virus. This seemed to be holding the virus at bay for decades. Lately, however, this method has broken down. The virus, like terrorism, has recently been able to piggy-back on the world-circling data-stream, and infect individuals and groups previously deemed immune.

But there is, as history demonstrates, no immunity to be had from the virus. The only strategy that seems to work is abstinence. This is accomplished by a rigorous rejection of all attempts by the virus to establish itself within an individual host. Constant monitoring and the suppression through education or other means of outbreaks in groups or ideologies or nations is also required. There can be no assent. There can be no reasonable reason. There can be no forgetting.

Since the virus has been present in human hosts for well over 4,000 years, hopes for eradication in our lifetime are slim. Hopes for eradication in the future are better in civilized countries if, and only if, members of the generations now living and infected with the virus become dedicated to not transmitting to future generations. The virus is found nowhere else in nature except within the human host. If it is denied transmission to the young, the virus, clever though it may be, can be eliminated from the world in three generations. But only if.

Posted by Vanderleun at March 26, 2005 12:37 AM
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"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

Learned and erudite. Good work.

Posted by: Stoney at March 18, 2005 2:56 AM

Impressive.

Posted by: The Colossus at March 18, 2005 6:34 AM

Virus. How brilliant you are, Gerard. I could have thought for days and not come up with a more perfect metaphor. Perfect. I would that your cure could be the panacea.

Posted by: Amy at March 18, 2005 7:55 AM

I actually know that there are Anti-Zionists who are not Anti-Semites. I met both of them in 1979.

Posted by: Roderick Reilly at March 18, 2005 11:03 AM

The anti-semitism of the pre-war WW2 Right was different than the anti-semitism of the Left now (except for the Muslims which maintain Nazi attitudes and propaganda), but it is as virulent and deadly.

But the anti-Israelism of the Western nations like Canada is different from anti-semitism, but the effect is basically the same - let lots of Jews die and erase Israel from the Earth.

People can have legitimate disagreements with Israel and its policies, but that seems rare when the fuel is vitriol and passionate disregard for Jewish rights and lives.

What's interesting, too, is that today a great many Jews contribute to Israel hating and Judaism hating (as so many Americans hate their country, its people and the Christianity which created this great nation).

Posted by: mark butterworth at March 18, 2005 11:54 AM

I have family members who claim to not be anti-semitic as they have many Jewish friends but hate the 'fascist, Zionist" state of Isreal. I know that they are really infected with the anti-Semitic virus as they do not hold other countries who actually are fascist, evil regimes to any criticism at all. It's not equal opportunity criticism, it is only and always Isreal. Do not be fooled.

Posted by: phil g at March 18, 2005 12:17 PM