Date sent: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 11:07:17 -0400 Subject: virus: Re: virus-digest V3 #108 To: virus@lucifer.com Copies to: virus-digest@lucifer.com From: hnordbe@learnlink.emory.edu (Heidi Nordberg) Send reply to: virus@lucifer.com
> Dear all:
>
>
>
> I've been reading for a while, and have a few comments. First, I am
> writing a dissertation on emergent mythologies of the virus in 20th
> century fiction. So far, vampire fiction, meme theory and Burroughs's
> language is a virus, thrillers and paranoid conspiracy, AIDS fiction,
> intelligent virus/computer related science fiction, nanotechnological and
> biotech science fiction. Any comments from any of you on these topics
> might be quoted in a footnote! (fair warning)
>
Semiotic theory, postmodernism, survivalism, militias, religious
fundamentalism, patriotism, racism, sexism, the Labor Movement,
paganism, corporate transnationalism, the New Age and New
World Order, sexually ambiguous dress, computer and role-playing
games, self-parodying teen horror movies, VR, AI, CAD-CAM,
enlightenment/nonattachment, mass murderer fandom,
psychedelia, music styles (punk, grunge, disco, rap, alternative,
thrash, metal, oi (racial hate music), techno, ambient, industrial,
hip-hop, blues, jazz, etc.), and on and on and on...viruses are
perfusive.
>
> On the Colorado incident, I am most worried about how these things
> are used to increase the pressure on teens. My stepson (16) has just been
> suspended for ten days and will be attending a hearing for expulsion
> because he was caught with a _box-cutter_, which is considered a weapon.
> They wanted to search him another time for standing too close to someone
> smoking a cigarette (a tobacco cigarette). His rules and regs include
> lighters, matches, and water pistols (or any gund lookalike, including a
> picture of a gun mounted on a popsicle stick) as weapons. I have attempted
> to argue that a pencil is a weapon and that lots of things can be USED as
> weapons, but that this is a tool--one readily available in his art class,
> by the way. No dice.
>
> I get tired also of seeing things blamed on the goths--OK, goth is
> passe, but these kids don't know that and in my mind, goth is better than
> the cheerleading squad. When I was in school, everyone was worried about
> KISS (YOU know, Knights in Satan's Service?)--before that the Beatles,
> before that the tango. Now everyone thinks goths are neo-Nazi supremicists
> because of one or two psychotic teens? I have been trying to educate my
> highly educated colleagues about basic facts--like that in this century,
> the all-black costume meme starts with existentialism and jazz.
>
> In America, people tend to believe that signs are stable, but they
> certainly are not. Perhaps the Torah is a successful replicator, but I
> think Brodie (and Baudrillard) are closer to the idea of what is really
> happening. Signs are transparitions more than stable indicators.
>
>
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Heidi L. Nordberg
>
> hnordbe@learnlink.emory.edu
>
> <http://www.learnlink.emory.edu/~hnordbe>
>
>