(Temple Prokarya) 1. A brief manifesto: I think this is important

Pathogens—infectious agents, bacteria, and viruses—are very charismatic, and I when I was little, I was fascinated and terrified by them the same way I was fascinated and terrified by volcanoes. I had nightmares about Krakatoa sprouting in the back garden; this, and notions of tiny creatures dragging themselves along the carpet to climb up my leg and {{{{get me}}} were engaging to me. Engaging, like a hydrogen bomb. In our household (three children and two adults crammed in a two-up two-down terraced house), when someone got sick, everyone got sick. For the longest time I understood these miniature outbreaks to be caused by ingesting an insect, like a small green worm. Small, sweet, childish inference like that follows you into adulthood and levies the foundation for any number of misguided and difficult-to-unlearn patterns: can’t fail if you don’t try; can’t get crushed if you don’t stand under the thing that crushes.

Later, and further on in my less anthropocentric explorations with microorganisms, I was able to parse a little more sensitively the complexity of the pathogen/host dynamic. It is very easy to anthropomorphize when we’re frightened of something that is not human, it’s a comfort to create a perspective we can relate to, one way or another. It stops us from having to come to terms with the fact that life is sometimes, simply, just a bit awful. For no clear reason. Pathogens don’t carry an innate goal to make us sick. They don’t not want to, either – they do not want in the way we understand what it means to desire something. The same way the mountain wants us to climb to the top and doesn’t want us to. The same way bears eat salmon – arguably, there’s no malicious intent towards the salmon; it’s just what they do.

The morality of survival, as it relates to life-threatening infectious disease, is one of the sexier discussions around the philosophical examination of the microbial world. I enjoy discussing the horror movie diseases: rabies, anthrax, Ebolavirus, the Henipaviruses. Serious, savage illnesses for which there are no cure. Freight-train, frightening diseases that lead to mortality on a global scale. I am frightened of them. But, I am also intimidated by viruses that never even go anywhere near human beings. They are so extremely efficient at existing, with so little physical, corporeal material to work with. Scientists are far from understanding how that is possible. Opportunism is arguably the essence of microbial success, particularly in the case of viruses. They’re great at finding the path of least resistance, or the path that will lead them to, ultimately, the greater chance for propagation. Most microbial work ends up being community work, and the genetic mechanisms that microorganisms employ in their pursuit for survival were provided and honed by millions of prior generations.

To begin framing a conversation around morality, we can situate ourselves at the cellular level and focus on microbial deeds and the terrible things they can do to us, or we can begin at the human end of the spectrum and examine how we approach the ethics of giving and having disease. Most recently identified viral illnesses have arisen or are re-emerging as result of human activity. There are strong correlations to be examined between epidemiology and the anthropogenically mediated climate crisis. Most emerging human infectious diseases are zoonoses – diseases that come to us via other animals. Deforestation caused by increased road building and expansion of human settlements, for example, increases human contact with wild animals. In Cameroon, pathogenic viruses have already surfaced from zoonotic pools. In this region of the world, there is also growing demand for bushmeat, an important dietary staple in poorer households. However, both extracting and consuming bushmeat increases the likelihood that a zoonotic virus may adapt to causing disease in humans.