Wake up（105）

 

105

 

After receiving a few patients in his clinic, old Chinese doctor Chai Jianhua finally had a short break. He sat at the table with He Jiafu and chatted about the history of the coexistence of plague and human beings while drinking tea.

Chai Jianhua said to He Jiafu: "'Xinmin Weekly' published an article by the writer Bi Huicheng, which described in detail the history of the coexistence of the plague and humans. The author believes that the plague is the opponent and wrestler of mankind, but not Enemy. The blows of war are often accompanied by the ravages of plague."

In the spring of 2020, too many Chinese people are talking about the history of 17 years ago, using the SARS epidemic to reflect on today’s new crown pneumonia epidemic. Facing the unpredictable future, we are like beginners of a foreign language and have to translate it into our mother tongue; the history that has not been far away suddenly becomes our mother tongue. Of course, we can go further in the perspective of history.

Chai Jianhua said: When I first saw McNeil's article "Plague and Man", my consciousness at that time was completely captured by McNeill. In 1520, the Spaniard Cortes conquered the millions of Aztec Empire with a force of 600; soon, Pizarro conquered another Indian power center, the Inca empire. Even more incredible is that they also succeeded in imposing the language and culture of the colonists on the entire Indian society. Such a result cannot be explained by the technical gap between hot weapons and cold weapons. In 1841, more than three hundred years later, the people of Sanyuanli, Guangzhou could still beat British soldiers with muskets with the help of crude hoes and other production tools. In McNeill's view, this historical case demonstrates, with laboratory-like purity, the mechanism of civilization expansion that has been going on for thousands of years on the Old World, and the core of this mechanism is civilization disease. The main thing that conquered the Indians was not the gunpowder spears, but the smallpox that the Spaniards carried with them. Antibodies to smallpox have been produced in the Old World, and to borrow McNeil's term, it has stabilized as a "disease of civilization", but it is the first contact with the New World. It was this fact that sealed the fate of the New World. Just when the Aztecs won their first battle, the raging smallpox in their capital, Mexico City, created a "sad night" with ten rooms and nine empty rooms, which basically broke the Aztecs' will to resist and made Coste Invaded Mexico City without bloodshed. Around 1525, the smallpox epidemic further spread to the Inca Empire, and the infected and dead were Saigu Yingye. Pizarro, who broke in at this time, never encountered real resistance at all. Obviously, compared with the invasion of soldiers, the invasion of pathogens is decisive, and the second kind of invasion can only be interpreted from a supernatural perspective in the cognitive world of Indians: this is a war between gods, and the opponent's The gods have unquestionably triumphed over their own gods. In this way, in the face of the divinely aided march of the Spanish, what fell was not only the sick body, but also the religion, ritual and specific moral way of life surrounding the ancient Indian gods. In this sense, the nepotism between war and plague is not just rhetorical, that is, war is compared to plague, but the blows of war often go hand in hand with the ravages of plague and cover up the consequences of plague.

He Jiafu didn't interrupt, but listened to Chai Jianhua's narration carefully and curiously.

Chai Jianhua said: Before McNeil wrote Plague and Man in 1976, natural forces or the natural world were usually understood as the environment of human society, in which human beings interpreted their own history. variable; or it is metaphorized as the stage of human history, on which various people shuttle and perform, you will sing and I will appear on the stage, but the stage itself does not intervene in the plot.

Chai Jianhua took a sip of tea and said: By introducing the perspective of plague, McNeil showed that once natural forces intervene in history as a variable, its impact on human history will make the most important war that occurred within human Neither historical nor political history appears to matter. For example, historians are often confused about how ancient India was able to avoid foreign invasion for a long time in an extremely fragmented cultural-political structural relationship. McNeil points out that when the ingenious Alexander attempted to break through the Northwest Pass—India’s only external overland route—in 326 B.C., his army mutinied, and Tropical Disease was better at defending this pass than any military installation. efficient. The history of international relations in the subcontinent is fundamentally determined by the contrast between the offensive power of invaders and the resistive power of tropical diseases, which represented a The role of natural forces in shaping historical relationships is difficult to be offset by man-made forces. In fact, it was only around 1900, relying on the achievements of modern medicine, that for the first time the urban population could sustain itself without relying on rural immigrants. Prior to this, cities, as the source of civilizational diseases, not only required the countryside to produce surplus food for them, but also required the production of surplus population.

Chai Jianhua said: In terms of public health, the battlefield is more dangerous than the city. The battlefield not only gathers a city-scale population, but also forms the frontier of infectious diseases. Therefore, in wars before the 20th century, the attack of viruses is usually more lethal than the attack of the enemy. In the Crimean War from 1854 to 1856, the number of British soldiers who died from dysentery was 10 times that of Russian artillery; in the Boer War from 1899 to 1902, the number of British soldiers who died of disease was 5 times that of those who died in battle. However, only 2 years later, the Japanese showed the world how successful mandatory vaccinations could be: less than a quarter of their casualties in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1906) died from disease. The establishment of the public health system in the army made the unprecedented feat of millions of soldiers marching in the trenches of northern France during World War I medically possible.

He Jiafu still did not interrupt.

Why did Chai Jianhua suddenly talk about these histories? He said to He Jiafu: "Why did I re-read "Plague and Man", because combined with today's epidemic situation in Wuhan, human beings should devote more energy to dealing with real diseases. From "Plague and Man", we can get some enlightenment .”

Chai Jianhua said to He Jiafu: "The article published by "Xinmin Weekly" described the history of the coexistence of the plague and humans in more detail. Right now, those authoritative medical experts believe that the new crown virus must be completely eradicated, and some experts believe that human beings are no match for the plague. , wrestlers, the plague is not the enemy of mankind. Human beings can only coexist with the plague."

An article published by "Xinmin Weekly" made a five-point interpretation of this:

1. The plague is the opponent and wrestler of human beings, but not the enemy. The damage to the human host produced by the virus when it demonstrates its own existence is essentially accidental injury, because the human host is completely eliminated, and the infectious disease disappears. Therefore, even out of self-preservation, the virus will gradually adjust to establish a symbiotic relationship with the human host through a process of trial and error, that is, it will eventually stabilize into a "disease of civilization" such as an endemic disease or a childhood disease. This means that even without effective human intervention and protection, the destructiveness of the plague is limited within a boundary and will not expand indefinitely. This conclusion can be the bottom line of comfort that "Plague and Man" gives us. Although it is the bottom line, it is also a kind of comfort.

Second, human beings cannot pursue the impossible goal of completely eliminating infectious diseases from human history. First of all, human beings are an omnipresent plague to the natural world itself. He slaughters creatures, destroys ecology, and expands his food range insatiably. Second, we can kill the virus in a particular patient, but not the virus itself. All the viruses that appeared in history were not killed by humans, but stabilized after antibodies were stimulated in the human body, until it crossed the original geographical border and wreaked havoc on a new site; or until it mutated A new form emerged, and the previous process from disease onset to antibody production was repeated in the old territory. Finally, in a metaphysical sense, a world without plague is as unserious as a world without war. The plague, like war, forces people to collectively experience the existence at the boundary of life within a certain period of time, touch or question the meaning of life, so that life becomes real. The plague eliminates particularity, no one is special in the face of the plague, and the plague creates the abstraction of people with its abstraction.

3. The plague created an extraordinary political moment in history, forcing European cities that were fatally ravaged by the Black Death after 1346 to use administrative capacity in the face of crisis as a means to achieve institutional innovation under extraordinary politics. The result not only created European cities The Golden Age of China (1350-1550), and indirectly promoted the replication of urban governance systems on a regional scale, that is, the formation of modern nation-states. Almost all modern Western countries have a prototype of a city that fights the plague in their self-imaginings. Today's Wuhan also has to temporarily become a utopia, and has to accept a complete plan for comprehensively arranging citizens' lives, while organizing social order and people's order. What this political construction means for the current urban "community construction" may require continuous observation in the post-plague era. After the SARS in 2003, people gradually discovered that many of the grassroots governance problems and institutional shortcomings caused by economic transformation, housing system reform, and urbanization had been solved or made up for in the "anti-Africa" campaign. .

4. The powerlessness shown by medicine in this Wuhan epidemic may indicate that the game relationship between science and disease has developed to another inflection point, that is, while science treats diseases, it also participates in the virus. The process of mutation eventually helped to mutate a new type of virus that is difficult to treat, turning the war between science and viruses into a fight between science's own left and right hands: How strong is science's ability to treat diseases, the virus that is created by science is How difficult it is to treat. This concern was raised by McNeil at the end of the article when he looked forward to the future of the history of epidemics. It is based on a larger paradox between science and human beings, that is, science has reduced the number of people who died from the plague, but it has increased the lethality of artillery fire. Modern science destroys life far more than it saves life, and this alone is enough to make us alert to the worship of science.

5. The plague is born with the birthmark of conspiracy theories. It appears, but people don't see it; or people only see its consequences, but not itself. For ordinary people, the occurrence of the plague is unexplainable, and the result of unexplainable and forced explanation is usually conspiracy theory. Conspiracies, like the plague, are on the back of things and cannot be falsified by facts-those facts that seem to be contrary to the conspiracy can be easily explained as the conspirators' actions to cover themselves. Therefore, every plague process in history is accompanied by the screening and trial of conspirators: witches, Jews, poisoners. Due to the unfalsifiable nature of conspiracy theories, dispelling rumors is ineffective against them. So instead of wrestling in vain with someone's inner demons, focus more on dealing with real-life illnesses.

Chai Jianhua said to He Jiafu: "This article published by "Xinmin Weekly" is worth reading. You can read it if you have time. Unfortunately, at the moment when the epidemic is rampant, almost no one pays attention to the significance of this article. Science worship Of course, the problem is not with science itself, but with treating science as an idol. Science worship does not recognize the boundaries of science, and believes that science should be developed without limit under any circumstances. Therefore, if it has the technology of human cloning, It should be realized without hesitation, completely disregarding the social and ethical consequences brought about by it.” Chai Jianhua specifically explained to He Jiafu: “The article points out that humans have been able to use cloning technology to clone viruses. In layman’s terms, viruses may also be Artificial."

Chai Jianhua sighed: "The relationship between science and virus mutation is obviously formed under such circumstances. At a time when we need to rely more on scientific medicine and its institutional implementation to get out of the predicament, it seems so inappropriate to question the worship of science. But I must say, McNeill's concerns are chilling to read now."

We were exiled to our own homes during the plague, and only then did we feel that we could truly settle ourselves down, not the space enclosed by the four walls we painstakingly created. The plague at this time has become a dash, connecting us while separating us.

At this time, every Wuhan person is a Chinese. Isolation does not throw them back to themselves. Instead, they accommodate the existence of the entire nation in their own infinite subjectivity, and experience the destiny of the entire nation as their own. .

At this time, the Chinese are all from Wuhan. So many medical workers and soldiers from other places choose to come to Wuhan, and they understand what this choice means.

For the life that used to be step-by-step, the sudden plague seems to be a mistake. People need to wait until the mistake is corrected before continuing their original life. However, it is impossible for us who have experienced the baptism of the plague to return to our original life, because we are no longer the original us.

Chai Jianhua's narration made He Jiafu understand many things that were unknown beforehand. But he could only smile silently and say to Chai Jianhua: "I don't know what to think in my heart anymore. I don't want to watch or listen. I just feel that living in this society is meaningless. We are in the social group It’s just an individual standing alone. Sick and dead, no one really pays attention to us. We are people who have the plot to leave the social stage, and everything is left as the final solution. In fact, life and death have already been separated I understand that I am ready to leave at any time, accept to leave, do not face it, and do not want to let enslavement and deception consume our hearts again."

Night began to fall. There was crying outside the window.

Chai Jianhua and He Jiafu walked out of the courtyard and saw a hearse slowly approaching on the dirt road. Around the hearse are hung black and yellow banners decorated with big white flowers, solemn and solemn.

The two old men felt sad, their eyes followed the hearse. As if someone was directing silently, the old people, young people, and children on the side of the road all stood up straight and watched the hearse slowly go away.