COVID-19 Viral Logics, Social Inequality and Hegemonic Mimicry: Deconstructing the Language of Cultural Parasite

Abstract

Abstract Drawing on Michel Serres’ philosophical notion of the parasite, this essay examines human responses to COVID-19 that mimic parasitic behavior and uncovers social inequalities by exploring the cultural hegemony of viral logics perpetuated by the media. How can Serres’ notion of the parasite help us reconfigure structural inequalities experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic? First, the essay examines the viral logic of internalization, which seeks to normalize, if not appropriate, the impact of the pandemic through the rhetoric of togetherness. This particular viral logic induces people to internalize the coronavirus pandemic’s illusion as a crisis shared equally by all. The essay argues that this viral logic of internationalization resonates with the French philosopher’s parasite logic, which, in Serres’s words, “expresses a new epistemology, another theory of equilibrium.” Second, this study examines the viral logic of correlation, which designates certain marginalized cultural groups as infected, and therefore regarded and (mis)treated like the virus itself. This blame-game behavior mimics the parasite’s violation of the host’s chain of order and the creation of a new order that is self-serving. Hence, the parasite becomes, according to Serres, “an interruption, a corruption, a rupture of information.” The essay argues that although mimicry becomes the theatre of cultural inequality that dominates communication for the parasitic operator, both viral logics of parasitic mimicry eventually slip into mockery.