Language is a Virus

A virus operates autonomously, without human intervention. It attaches itself to a host and feeds off of it, growing and spreading from host to host.

“Language,” William S. Burroughs reminded us, “is a virus from outer space.” Language infects us; its power derives not from its straightforward ability to communicate or persuade but rather from this infectious nature, this power of bits of language to graft itself onto other bits of language, spreading and reproducing, using human beings as hosts.

—Bernardo Attias

The word bears the single identifying feature of virus: it is an organism with no internal function other than to replicate itself.

“The word is now a virus. The flu virus may have once been a healthy lung cell. It is now a parasitic organism that invades and damages the central nervous system. Modern man has lost the option of silence. Try halting sub-vocal speech. Try to achieve even ten seconds of inner silence. You will encounter a resisting organism that forces you to talk. That organism is the word.”

—William S. Burroughs, from The Ticket That Exploded, 1962

Georges Bataille argued that communication was best understood from the perspective of contagion. In Bataille any human being is no more than a conduit for communicative process, a channel for ideas which pass through him/her. “If, as it appears to me, a book is communication, then the author is only a link among many readings.” The author is simply a node on a network, through which ideas pass.

Heather Raikes suggests technology might be seen not just as a channel for communication and performance, but more radically as the environment in which subjects serve as conduits for experience.

Note:
The Ticket That Exploded is a 1962 novel by American author William S. Burroughs. This work is significant for fans of Burroughs, in that it describes his idea of language as a virus and his philosophy of the cut-up technique. It also features the cut-up technique being used by characters within the story. The Ticket That Exploded lays the groundwork for Burroughs’ ideas of social revolution through technology, which he would later detail in his book-length essay The Electronic Revolution.