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Parasites are the agents of progress. Interview with Michel Serres

SERRES: The word parasite is of Greek origin and means one who eats next to you. Sitos means food,
By Johannes Wiek

Professor Serres, what is a parasite?

Does this mean that there are also parasites that affect our social and economic interaction?
SERRES: A very high price; the price of evolution.

noise, static in the connection or background noiseinterfering sounds that disrupt a clear signal. It is parasitic noise that interferes with or devours the conveyed message.

Everybody hates parasites. All they do is cause discomfort, disease and death. So everybody agrees it would be best to just wipe them out. Everybody except Michel Serres, the French philosopher. Serres believes parasites are the very change agents driving progress, in part because they force their environment to respond. He says parasites are intelligent organisms that attack and then adapt to their host, bringing unexpected change. And this change is quite often positive, a new symbiosis.

para means next to. The parasite is like a guest who turns up without an invitation. Someone who has forced their way in and now sits at your table. There is also a second definition. There are many different types of living organismsinsects, bacteria, viruses, microbesthat settle in the body of an animal to feed, stay warm and reproduce, and in the process devour their chosen host. The parasites bad reputation has to do with the fact that they cause the host to become ill or even diegiving the word parasite negative connotations. The initial reaction to a parasite is disgust, flight or waging a massive attack against them. A third definition exists in some other languages. Parasitic can refer to radio interference, excess

SERRES: I am not an economist, but I believe that the economy is fascinated by the idea of maintaining balance. Parasites on the other hand are responsible for an unequal exchangethe disruption of that balance. In any case, the parasite takes something without giving something back in return. And the host gives without receiving something in return. The consequence is a completely unjust situation. Why are there such unfair players? Why does the principle of complete injustice exist? The answer to this concerns not only economic exchange, but also the fundamental question about life as such. It all revolves around an interesting natural law. There are cells in our intestines that facilitate digestion. All of these cells originate from parasitesthe same parasites that killed our ancestors, and that have learned from this to become symbionts. This is evolution.

This means that parasites inflict a high price on themselves and on their host.

SERRES: They are the driving forces. They are the agents of change. The parasite is more often than not the very force that makes a change necessary and possible at all. The logic of parasites in systems that I discovered showed that a parasite has two different methods for a solution. On the one hand it causes illnesses, epidemics and deathin other words, it causes chaos. On the other hand, however, it causes unbelievable changes. It is basically a logic that is both negative and positive.

Are parasites driving progress?

Can you give us examples of the effect of parasitic logic in our economy and society?

SERRES: Imagine an orchestra, shortly before the beginning of a concert. You hear random noises and chaos in search for the right note. Without this mix-up, there would otherwise be no perfection that follows when everybody then plays together. Before one can play together as a team, there has to be white noise. It is exactly this random noise that is parasitic, the din of disturbing sounds that precede order. Take the example of the Internet. Within the network, parasites compete against parasites. Parasites are necessary to translate the white noise of new circumstances into a system of relationships. The white noise attracts them, driven by their goals to profit, to collect information or to manipulate, and they

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SERRES: Parasites are in operation everywherein production, in communication, in the transfer of knowledge and in every form of exchange and networking. We have to learn that parasitism is a normal condition. It is a question of accepting to a certain extent the destructive power of our enemy the parasites. The enemy has come to me because it found something interesting. This therefore means I have got something interesting on offer.

After all, would you say that parasites are the catalyst and driving force of intelligence? Does this mean we have to change our way of thinking and to start to learn from parasites?

can create a meaning, a usable and implementable meaning, where previously one didnt exist. Parasites with such profit-oriented goals compete with those who follow political, scientific or cultural aims. Without the parasites work, the system would lack structures and motives, and could not develop itself further. Initially invention originated from the first mover whether from a military establishment like the Pentagon or a scientific one like CERN. However, ever since the World Wide Web developed a user-friendly interface, second, third and fourth movers have sprung to life using this innovative technology completely for their own ends, although it was developed with other aims in mind. This draws in competition not only from the parasites with their contrary intentions and aims, but also from others who have the same aims. Business models from one side hinder those from the other. Each one copies, irritates, seduces and manipulates the otherbecause it is only out of this white noise of uncertainty that new interfaces can be developed and from which parasites can profit. Out of the resulting chaos new forms of organization can grow.

SERRES: It is highly probable that parasites are the highest living form of intelligence that we know. The more one studies the living form of parasites, the clearer it becomes how creative and highly productive they are. Generally one is heard talking about extreme opposites, like masters and servants, winners and losers, hunters and the hunted, principal-agent relationships, or about all kinds of opponents to war. These are but trivial archetypes. With parasites it revolves around strategies that are far more refined and far more thought out. Nowadays our economic networks, conditions of exchange and communication channels are getting more and more complexand hereby more susceptible to parasitic dysfunction. Parasites are docking onto all interfaces to profit themselves. The stronger the parasitic white noise, the quicker the more traditional thinkers and players are challenged to their limits.

SERRES: I think it is bad advice for anybody to fight to their death against the opposition. If we attempt to wipe out the parasites, it is then that they strike back at their wildest and hungriest. The cleverer strategywhether in the fields of medicine, technology or economicsis to get the potentially deadly resistance under control and to work out an alliance from which both sides can profit. T Parasites are as a rule intelligent, and it is therefore worth waiting before one tries to fight them off, because then you might find out what they are all about. Every interference provides an opportunity to collect new information. This creates the possibility to form an intelligent alliance from which both can unexpectedly profit. By associating cleverly with the presence of my enemy the parasiteI can discover something completely new.
Michel Serres is considered one of the most significant communication theorists, mathematicians, most prominent intellectuals. became a professor of scientific history at the ern philosophy, but also later on system theories and communication and network theories. attended the cole Normale Suprieure (ENS and cultural and scientific philosophers today in 18a sign of Serres position as one of Frances France, as well as in Europe and the United States. ber of the circle of Immortels of the Acadmie the French naval academyin 1949. In 1952 he
JOHANNES WIEK is a science writer and specialist on system theory, cognitive science and collective intelligence. He writes for Harvard Businessmanager, McKinsey Wissen and brand eins, among others.

What kind of new strategies do you recommend to deal with parasites and parasitic structures?
Paris), the most renowned training center in the ematics and philosophy there, and in the 1960s taught together with Michel Foucault at the Born in 1930 in Agen, he attended the cole Navale franaise, where he replaced Edgar Faure in Seat He has had a major influence on not only postmodSorbonne. He has also been a professor at Stanford

University since 1984. In 1990 he was made a mem-

French state education system. He studied mathClermont-Ferrand and Vincennes universities, then

MICHEL SERRES

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