Parasites: Thought Experiment 2 Rough

Ian Terada
Thought Experiment 2

I wrote a rather long rough draft for this thought experiment, to which my friend Spencer posed the innocent enough question... “Why are vampires worth talking about?” Why indeed. Vampires aren't real (let's not go into what is “real” at this point, and take the phrase for it's conversational value). Unlike their superstitious creators, I know that vampires are the product of humanity, inspiration, imagination- that concept will increase in significance, hopefully, throughout this experiment. Naturally, this leads to some problems with discussing vampires, for one, imaginary things have no parameters (these we must enforce!) so to discuss them is futile, or at least circular, until you examine how they have been defined culturally, historically. From that it is possible to uncover something concrete- the imagination leaks, pools, seeps through the cracks into a measurable reality- and at that point the not real, the vampire in this case, is often much more influential than...well you or me. So, why are vampires worth talking about? Simple, and complex. Simply put, vampires are the parasite monster. More complexly, the vampire, as the parasite monster, is also the most disturbingly human, and for this reason understanding vampirism is essential in understanding humanity. We discuss the vampiric because the means to insight is a roundabout path.

So let's discuss vampires.

Human fear always manifests itself, courtesy of our boundless imaginations. This is the concept of the monstrous- always metamorphosing, custom fit to our unheimlich. Zombies, for example, maintain little resemblance to their voodoo origins, now the result of the super-virus plague that mimics chemical warfare or unstoppable STI's. Vampires have changed as well, the unchecked duality of sex and fear, of life and death (for the two are forever linked). Historically, vampires were linked to plague, death, reanimation, denial of heaven. Following this, victimization of virginity, purity, in a puritanical time. And now, we clearly see the trend of, as Rickel's points out, vampires becoming less gender specific (targets). Simultaneously, they are sexualized, hyper-masculine/feminine. Yes, I'm talking about Twilight. This is a cultural trend. Regrettable? Yes. Fascinating? Also a yes:

One of the prevalent themes of the earlier Vampire Lectures is that a true vampire must be invited in; that is, “there can be no vampirism without the desire to be vampirised.” This can be seen in most incarnations of vampirism, early novels almost uniformally speak of the doorway as a threshold which cannot be crossed by the dead. Even Stephanie Meyer's bastardization of vampire mythology gets this idea right, Bella invites her parasite in repeatedly before he finally gives her what she wants. Aside from that, of course, Twilight is such a vile misapplication of vampire lore that it won't be mentioned again anywhere in this experiment... (that's probably untrue, there can't be misapplications, only lazy thinking, so ignore what I said).
Anyway. This trait of parasitism, this restriction, is entirely unique to vampires. No other infection relies on the host for an invitation, no parasite knocks politely on the door. As much as vampires represent unstoppable plague, death of the other (doubling for death of the self?), and the uncanny, they are only a threat if allowed to be. Which begs the question, who would allow vampirism in? Who would see the shadowed figure on their doorstep and invite them inside? To put it another way, what human would willingly inflict themselves with the flu? Of course, we do this with vaccines all the time, inviting in a small (or dead) infection to strengthen our bodies against future threat. But vampirism is a one-way street, and the host gains nothing by having it's blood removed, to the great benefit of the parasite. Then consider it another way? What human being wouldn't willingly infect themselves with the flu, if it gave them eternal life. Again, this is too black and white: vampirism is a curse, not a blessing. At least, it is a curse according to any lore which is worth mention, and which has more or less defined vampirism in a historical sense. The new wave of vampirism, as featured in certain books, seems to view the state of living death as mildly uncomfortable; this makes the line between parasite and host incredibly thin, and the two sides a lot more transient. Vampirism becomes like a game of blob tag, in which each host, when infested, turns over to the parasite side and in turn works to infest more hosts. At the end of the game, however, the distinction is more or less unimportant. This is especially clear by how the sexuality of vampirism is over-exaggerated while the aspects of necrophilia that this would entail are minimized or completely ignored. The unsavory qualities of the Vampire distract from their re-tooling as glorified sex-symbols, so they have been trimmed down. This, quite frankly, is bullshit.
Without being not only dead, but death, a representation of mortality itself, a “vampire” is no longer a vampire. The true vampire is a parasite, needing life not only to survive, but also, like the phantasms, to make an impact. If drinking blood grants the dead the ability to speak, what does having blood, producing blood, entitle us too? We as living hosts are the creator of existence for the dead, but this forces us to place ourselves in the greater scheme of things. We, the living, borne from the living, supply for the once-alive. In this way, we pay our toll. And once we die, will we become the next to parasite? If vampires were real, they would become the final stage of life, as death itself; eternally parasitic, alive in a way that we are not (that is, endlessly), but dead in a way that everything alive must become. In this way, Vampires are uncanny because they force us to see “the dead and missing other” as ourselves. The vampire model assumes one very important thing: everything wants to be alive. Subconsciously, unconsciously, or blatantly conscious of it, life is something that the world gravitates to and around. The living want to stay living, the dead want to take life from the living. Even the non-living, what was never alive, and therefore not dead, non-consciously wants to be alive (I'm borrowing heavily from Bruno Schultz' Street of Crocodiles here, the concept itself is so drenched in polish lore that translation has proven problematic). If this simple fact is true, we return full circle to the all-important question: why would anyone invite a vampire in (or into themselves, sexually or otherwise). If vampires are not only dead but death, then invitation would seem to be counter-intuitive to human nature. Unnatural. Uncanny. Suicidal. All the traits which historically led to rebirth as a vampire in the first place. This would seem to indicate an insular nature to the un-dead (as opposed to the dead-dead, the non-animated), with the dead preying on the abnormal, willing living. This puts vampires at a direct opposition to Nancy's interrupter, who is endlessly a stranger, uninvited, unapologetically invasive. That doesn't make sense to me, placing such similar parasites at opposing ends based on such a technicality. I think vampires pose a much more interesting threat to the living, if we scrap that model and instead view vampires as interrupters by virtue of deceit. No one would invite a blood covered man with sharp fangs into their house, but most would accept a well-groomed, handsome (or at least charismatic) man inside. And who wouldn't respond to an invitation from a rich prince, where the invitation is reversed but acceptance seals the deal. When vampires can be anyone, they become just as deadly as a virus; after all, if we knew what air to breathe we wouldn't contract nearly as many illnesses. Like the serial killers and psychotics that many vampire myths probably originated from, a vampire in the midst is undetectable. Endlessly a parasite amidst the larger host body, already stuck in the matrix, and waiting.