In “Little Dorritt“, Charles Dickens makes some surprising observations about a strain of Influenza, still spreading, still infecting, that humankind chooses to ignore. Dickens explains it here:
“…it is…as difficult to stay a moral infection as a physical one…
…such a disease…will spread with the malignity and rapidity of the Plague...
[and]…the contagion, when it has once made head, will spare no pursuit or condition, but will lay hold on people in the soundest health, and become developed in the most unlikely constitutions…
[this is]…a fact as firmly established by experience as [the fact] that we human creatures breathe an atmosphere.”
And from there Dickens goes on the say:
“A blessing beyond appreciation would be conferred upon mankind, if the tainted, in whose weakness or wickedness these virulent disorders are bred, could be instantly seized and placed in close confinement (not to say summarily smothered) before the poison is communicable.”
Of course, even though the disease is far more rampant today than it was in Dickens’ time, ‘smothering’ is not the kind of archaic cure that modern society would ever consider. We have only those few local governments that still call for a death penalty for the sickest of the sick. For the rest, a shot in the arm, immunization of the yet still uninfected, is all we can hope for, to effect a cure.
But the problem is, that for scientists to create a vaccination, they need weakened or dead vestiges of the ‘organism’ that initially caused the disease, and where can that be found?
Certainly not in woods or fields. Certainly not in fowl of the air, or fish in the sea. There are no creatures of land or water or air who have the self-same evil strain of the moral influenza flagrant among people.
And in humans, the murderers, perverts, and predators, never fully recover enough (despite rehabilitation programs), for the microbes within to weaken or die in order that these same microbes can be extracted from framework or phlegm and used as an effective base for immunization.
There are no weakened or withered vestiges of the evil that corrupts our government, theatres, television screens, churches, cities, or even isolated communities to be found. All causal microbes are alive and well.
So with immunization out of the question, see what a hopeless situation we are in.
Nothing for it…short of Dickens’ suggestion… “summarily (meaning immediately and without attention to formality) …smothering!”
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11 comments:
Here the flu is sweeping through the school. I'd be happy to stay home with my head under my pillow if it would keep me from getting sick! Smother away...
Moral influenza indeed! As a cyclist I often have drivers risk my life and I wonder how they would feel if they actually did take my life with their indignant insistence that I not be on 'their' roads? Would they realize their moral breach for not respecting one whose choices are only different than theirs, not wrong? I hope I'm never an unwilling participant in someone having to answer this question.
Hi Pauline. Thanks for stopping by. Many absentees at the schools here as well. I do hope you manage to stay healthy with so many bugs floating around.
Yes, WheelDancer. The one's with moral influenza don't understand that cyclists have as much right to the road as they do. Stay safe, watch out for dummies, and thanks for stopping by.
Would that we could prevent the incubation of so much that threatens corruption in our lives. We do wish, but my mother from horse and buggy days would say, "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."
We do try to lock up some of the moral offenders which serves as only partial smothering at best and usually temporary at that. Do we dare permanently smother them all knowing, as we do, that far too many were mistaken as offenders and not the guilty parties at all?
I hope you avoid the flues this year. Am relieved my dtr and granddtr, both in prime age groups for serious concern, have survived their most unpleasant bouts. First my granddtr had the current flu of the year, followed soon after by this year's dreaded one which her mother also contracted.
Roberta, I find your post intriguing and very thought provoking. Certainly within lies an analogy, yet simmering in a conundrum of sorts I would think. I think the whole of our society has perhaps determined that it is the prescribed and humane thing to subdue and contain the evils in our midst, regardless of the shape they take. It seems the mindset of society presumes that to actually rid ourselves of such things is to stoop to the level of the evil itself.
The best we seem to be able to do with evil in its physical form is to lock it away as we so often do in our prisons. But our laws and/or eventual social empathy will soon release back into the vestiges of society the same evil we have previously plucked from our midst.
In yet another prescription for the purging of evil, such is reflected in Deuteronomy 21:18-21 which contains words which certainly bear witness to the observations penned by Mr. Dickens.
“(18) If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not listen to the voice of his father and the voice of his mother and when they discipline him he does not listen to them, (19) then his father and his mother shall seize him and bring him out to the elders of the city and to the gate of his lace. (20) And they shall say to the elders of the city, this son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he does not listen to our voice, a glutton and a drunkard. (21)Then, all the people of the city shall pelt him with stones until he dies, and you shall burn out the evil in your midst, and all Israel will hear and fear.”
The whole point of these noted verses lies in the final seven words. Certainly society cannot eliminate “evil” but it can certainly take “unwavering and concrete steps” to make it known that it won’t be tolerated and either eliminate it or control it in such a manner that makes it much less attractive as an option to a means.
Oh if we could be immunized against the evil that corrupts our lives every day Roberta...as you say, a moral influenza. Lines around the world...and what possible award or prize could one, or any committee come up with in gratitude?
Hi joared. Always pleased to 'see' you. Thank you for your good wishes and I am pleased to hear the precious ones in your family have recovered from their bouts of the flu. Good wishes to your mother, hope she is doing well too.
And here's my good friend Alan stopping in for a chat. Glad you did. I agree today's society does try to "subdue and contain the evils in our midst" but it sometimes seems to be a weak effort.
Every day I hear more about violence against women (we're talking 'adults' who should be able to take cautious and reasonable care), then I do about the protection of children. I am so disheartened and sad when every day more chidren go missing and so many are found dead.
Hub says I shouldn't dwell on these thoughts so much, but how can I not?
Thank you for your comment - it too leaves much to ponder.
Joy, your suggestion is truly a lovely one, but you are right -- no amount of reward money, or accolades, could ever express the gratitude each one of us would feel if someone could find an effective immunization for moral influenza.
Guess I must not have written too clearly, as my mother has been deceased for many many years -- hopefully, she's doing well -- wherever she is! *smile*
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