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02/06/2004 Archived Entry: "Virus"

To be in this weekend's New York Times Magazine: "The Virus Underground". It's an interesting essay on hackers who create viruses as intellectual work. Another fine example of Burroughs' insight into media, technology, popular culture, and writing. “Word begets image and image is virus” (Nova Express 48). "This virus released upon the world would infect the entire population and turn them into our replicas" (Nova Express49). I'm reminded of Vitanza and Ulmer here (parasitic rhetorics). But let's face it. The virus already has been unleashed. We're not just seeing 15 year old computer wizes release viruses. We, as Burroughs knew in the early '60s, already are infected with the viruses of advertising, politics, desire, writing, technology, etc. Image is virus. A simple textbook like Seeing & Writing makes that clear (even if inadvertently).

School is virus. The SAT is virus. But these kids are doing something different, correct? The SAT is a virus, but it, as far as I see, does not reflect intellectual work. Its infection is more akin to Burroughs' metaphor of junk. These kids write viruses as a way to participate in knowledge production. They are infected the computer world with a new kind of knowledge. A dangerous knowledge, yes. But more dangerous than the virus of "purpose," which infects thousands of composition textbooks? What does it mean to teach writing as virus (doesn't Vitanza write about this?). Wasn't that Burroughs' lesson about the virus? Not to stop it, but produce it? To infect complacency? To infect meaning?