[WILLIAM BURROUGHS]

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               FEEDBACK FROM WATERGATE TO THE GARDEN OF EDEN

                                    BY

                           WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS

In the beginning was the word and the word was god and has remained one of
the mysteries ever since. The word was God and the word was flesh we are
told. In the beginning of what exactly was this beginning word? In the
beginning of WRITTEN history. It is generally assumed that spoken word came
before the written word. I suggest that the spoken word as we know it came
after the written word. In the beginning was the word and the word was God
and the word was flesh ... human flesh ... In the beginning of WRITING.
Animals talk and convey information but they do not write. They cannot make
information available to future generations or to animals outside the range
of their communication system. This is the crucial distinction between men
and other animals. WRITING. Korzybski, who developed the concept of General
Semantics, the meaning of meaning, has pointed out this human distinction
and described man as 'the time binding animal'. He can make information to
other men over a length of time through writing. Animals talk. They don't
write. Now a wise old rat may know a lot about traps and poison but he
cannot write a text book on DEATH TRAPS IN YOUR WAREHOUSE for the Reader's
Digest with tactics for ganging up on digs and ferrets and taking care of
wise guys who stuff steel wool up our holes. It is doubtful if the spoke
word would have ever evolved beyond the animal stage without the written
word. The written word is inferential in HUMAN speech. It would not occur
to our wise old rat to assemble the young rats and pass his knowledge along
in an aural tradition BECAUSE THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF TIME BINDING COULD NOT
OCCUR WITHOUT THE WRITTEN WORD. The written word is of course a symbol for
something and in the case of hieroglyphic language writing like Egyptian it
may be a symbol for itself that is a picture of what it represents. This is
not true of an alphabet language like English. The word leg has no
pictorial resemblance to a leg. It refers to the SPOKEN word leg. so we may
forget that a written word IS AN IMAGE and that written words are images in
sequence that is to say MOVING PICTURES. So any hieroglyphic sequence gives
us an immediate working definition for spoken words. Spoken words are
verbal units that refer to this pictorial sequence. And what then is the
written word? My basis theory is that the written word was literally a
virus that made spoken word possible. The word has not been recognised as a
virus because it has achieved a state of stable symbiosis with the
host...(This symbiotic relationship is now breaking down for reasons I will
suggest later.)

I quote from MECHANISMS OF VIRUS INFECTION edited by Mr. Wilson Smith, a
scientist who really thinks about his subject instead of merely correlating
data. He thinks, that is, about the ultimate intentions of the virus
organism. In an article entitled VIRUS ADAPTABILITY AND HOST RESISTANCE by
G. Belyavin, speculations as to the biologic goal of the virus species are
enlarged ... 'Viruses are obligatory cellular parasites and are thus wholly
dependent upon the integrity of the cellular systems they parasitise for
their survival in an active state. It is something of a paradox that many
viruses ultimately destroy the cells in which they are living..."

And I may add the environment necessary for any cellular structure they
could parasitise to survive. Is the virus then simply a time bomb left on
this planet to be activated by remote control? An extermination program in
fact? In its path from full virulence to its ultimate goal of symbiosis
will any human creature survive? Is the white race, which would seem to be
more under virus control than the black yellow and brown races, giving any
indication of workable symbiosis?

'Taking the virus eye view, the ideal situation would appear to be one in
which the virus replicates in cells without in any way disturbing their
normal metabolism.'

This has been suggested as the ideal biological situation toward which all
viruses are slowly evolving...'

Would you offer violence to a well intentioned virus on its slow road to
symbiosis?

'It is worth noting that if a virus were to attain a state of wholly benign
equilibrium with its host cell it is unlikely that its presence would be
readily detected OR THAT IT WOULD NECESSARILY BE RECOGNISED AS A VIRUS. I
suggest that the word is just such a virus. Doctor Kurt Unruh von
Steinplatz has put forth an interesting theory as to the origins and
history of this word virus. He postulates that the word was a virus of what
he calls BIOLOGIC MUTATION effecting the biologic change in its host which
was then genetically conveyed. One reason that apes cant talk is because
the structure of their inner throats is simply not designed to formulate
words. He postulates that alteration in inner throat structure were
occasioned by virus illness ... And not occasion ... This illness may well
have had a high rate of mortality but some female apes must have survived
to give birth to the wunder kindern. The illness perhaps assumed a more
malignant form in the male because of his more developed and rigid muscular
structure causing death through strangulation and vertebral fracture. Since
the virus in both male and female precipitates sexual frenzy through
irritation of sex centres in the brain the males impregnated the females in
their death spasms and the altered throat structured was genetically
conveyed. Having effected alterations in the host's structure that resulted
in a new species specially designed to accommodate the virus the virus can
now replicate without disturbing the metabolism and without being
recognised a virus. A symbiotic relationship has now been established and
the virus is now built into the host which sees the virus as a useful part
of itself. This successful virus can now sneer at gangster viruses like
small pox and turn them in to The Pasteur Institute. Ach jungen what a
scene is here ... the apes are moulting fur steaming off them females
whimpering and slobbering over dying males like cows with aftosa and so a
stink musky sweet rotten metal stink of the forbidden fruit in the Garden
of Eden...

The creation of Adam, the Garden of Eden, Adam's fainting spell during
which God made Eva from his body, the forbidden fruit which was of course
knowledge of the whole stinking thing and might be termed the first
Watergate scandal, all slots neatly into Doc Steinplatz's theory. And this
was a white myth. This leads to the supposition that the word virus assumed
a specially malignant and lethal form in the white race. What then accounts
for this special malignance of the white word virus? Most likely a virus
mutation occasioned by radioactivity .All animal and insect experiments so
far carried out indicate that mutations resulting from radiation are
unfavourable that is not conductive to survival. These experiments relate
to the effects of radiation on autonomous creatures. What about the effects
of radiation on viruses? Are there not perhaps some so classified and
secret experiments hiding behind national security? Virus mutations
occasioned by radiation may be quite favourable for the virus. And such a
virus might well violate the equilibrium with the host cell. So now with
the tape recorders of Watergate and the fall out from atomic testing the
virus stirs uneasy in all your white throats. It was a killer virus once.
It could become a killer virus again and rage through cities of the world
like a topping forest fire.

"It is the beginning of the end." That was the reaction of a science
attache' at one of Washington's major embassies to reports that a synthetic
gene particle had been produced in the laboratory ..."Any small country can
now make a virus for which there is no cure. It would only take a small
laboratory. Any small country with good biochemists could do it."

And presumably any big country could do it quicker and better.

In the Electronic Revolution I advance the theory that a virus IS a very
small unit of word and image. I have suggested now such units can be
biologically activated to act as communicable virus strains. Let us start
with three tape recorders in The Garden of Eden. Tape recorder 1 is Adam.
Tape recorder 2 is Eve. Tape recorder 3 is God, who deteriorated after
Hiroshima into the Ugly American. Or to return to our primeval scene: Tape
recorder 1 is the male ape in a helpless sexual frenzy as the virus
strangles him. Tape recorder 2 is a cooing female ape who straddles him.
Tape recorder 3 is DEATH.

Steinplatz postulates that the virus of biologic mutation, which he calls
Virus B-23, is contained in the word. Unloosing this virus from the word
could be more deadly that loosing the power of the atom. Because all hate
all pain all fear all lust is contained in the word. Perhaps we have here
in these three tape recorders the virus of biologic mutation which once
gave us the word and has hidden behind the word ever since. And perhaps
three tape recorders and some good biochemists can unloose this force. Now
look at t three tape recorders and think in terms of the virus particle.
Recorder 1 is the perspective host for an influenza virus. Tape recorder
number 2 is the means by which the virus gains access to the host, in the
case of a flu virus by dissolving a hole in cel