Spoiler Note: As a supporter of spoiler free zones (workplaces, homes, elevators e.t.c) the following blog post does not contain any such expletives. Read without fear.
A few weeks ago one of my (very critical) friends recommended True Detective to me. I was on the go so in jest I asked him to send me a link so I could read up on it later (how self-centered of me)....and instead of laughing at me... he actually emailed it to me.
I had no choice. I had to watch.
A week later, a convinced but skeptical wife was sitting next to me ready to absorb what truly is an amazing show. But that's not what I wanted to talk about, rather it was a very interesting quote from Rust that piqued my interest:
Detective Rustin Cohle: "Transference of fear and self-loathing to an authoritarian vessel. It's catharsis. He absorbs their dread with his narrative. Because of this, he's effective at proportion to the amount of certainty he can project. Certain linguistic anthropologists think that religion is a language virus that rewrites pathways in the brain. Dulls critical thinking."
Sounds like the usual epic dialogue that Rust submits us to but wait - did he just quote one of my favorite sci-fi / cyberpunk novels of all time? Snow Crash is a 1992 novel written by Neal Stephenson and I'll save all my gushing words of praise for the next audiobook review (I know you're all anxiously waiting for it).
I think it's incredible that two very different genres and different mediums can intersect at a point like that and then likely never intersect again. True Detective is by all accounts a crime drama with a dark twist. Snow Crash is a major work of science fiction with a heavy dose of cyberpunk. And yet, for a moment they were suddenly talking about the exact same thing.
The concept is controversial but novel. The idea is that viruses are not only limited to the digital or biological world but can also exist in the mental world, and are transmitted by language. It's used in the literal sense in the book but in the real world it's used as an analogy, most famously by Richard Dawkins.
So there - now you have something unique, interesting and even controversial to add to the next lunch time edition of "Co-workers who believe their favorite TV show is better"
Oh I almost forgot, you know what else Richard Dawkins is famous for? He coined the word Meme.
See what I did there?
True Detectives > Snow Crash > Linguistic Viruses > Richard Dawkins > Memes
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