PEOPLE
“Parasites are the agents
of progress.”
Interview with Michel Serres
By Johannes Wiek
Everybody hates parasites. All they do is cause discom-
fort, disease and death. So everybody agrees it would be
best to just wipe them out. Everybody except Michel
Serres, the French philosopher. Serres believes parasites
are the very change agents driving progress, in part
because they force their environment to respond. He says
parasites are intelligent organisms that attack and then
adapt to their host, bringing unexpected change. And
this change is quite often positive, a new symbiosis.
Professor Serres, what is a parasite?
SERRES: The word “parasite” is of Greek origin and
means “one who eats next to you.” “Sitos” means food,
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“para” means next to. The parasite is like a guest who
turns up without an invitation. Someone who has forced
their way in and now sits at your table. There is also a sec-
ond definition. There are many different types of living
organisms—insects, bacteria, viruses, microbes—that set-
tle in the body of an animal to feed, stay warm and repro-
duce, and in the process devour their chosen host.
The parasite’s bad reputation has to do with the fact
that they cause the host to become ill or even die—giving
the word parasite negative connotations. The initial reac-
tion to a parasite is disgust, flight or waging a massive at-
tack against them. A third definition exists in some other
languages. Parasitic can refer to radio interference, excess
PEOPLE
noise, static in the connection or background noise—in-
terfering sounds that disrupt a clear signal. It is parasitic
noise that interferes with or devours the conveyed message.
Does this mean that there are also parasites
that affect our social and economic interaction?
SERRES: I am not an economist, but I believe that
the economy is fascinated by the idea of maintaining bal-
ance. Parasites on the other hand are responsible for an
unequal exchange—the disruption of that balance. In any
case, the parasite takes something without giving some-
thing back in return. And the host gives without receiving
something in return. The consequence is a completely
unjust situation. Why are there such unfair players? Why
does the principle of complete injustice exist? The answer
to this concerns not only economic exchange, but also the
fundamental question about life as such. It all revolves
around an interesting natural law.
There are cells in our intestines that facilitate digestion.
All of these cells originate from parasites—the same para-
sites that killed our ancestors, and that have learned from
this to become symbionts. This is evolution.
This means that parasites inflict a high price on
themselves and on their host.
SERRES: A very high price; the price of evolution.
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Are parasites driving progress?
SERRES: They are the driving forces. They are the
agents of change. The parasite is more often than not the
very force that makes a change necessary and possible at
all. The logic of parasites in systems that I discovered
showed that a parasite has two different methods for a
solution. On the one hand it causes illnesses, epidemics
and death—in other words, it causes chaos. On the other
hand, however, it causes unbelievable changes. It is basi-
cally a logic that is both negative and positive.
Can you give us examples of the effect of para-
sitic logic in our economy and society?
SERRES: Imagine an orchestra, shortly before the
beginning of a concert. You hear random noises and
chaos in search for the right note. Without this mix-up,
there would otherwise be no perfection that follows when
everybody then plays together. Before one can play
together as a team, there has to be white noise. It is exact-
ly this random noise that is parasitic, the din of disturb-
ing sounds that precede order. Take the example of the
Internet. Within the network, parasites compete against
parasites. Parasites are necessary to translate the white
noise of new circumstances into a system of relationships.
The white noise attracts them, driven by their goals to
profit, to collect information or to manipulate, and they
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can create a meaning, a usable and implementable mean-
ing, where previously one didn’t exist.
Parasites with such profit-oriented goals compete with
those who follow political, scientific or cultural aims.
Without the parasites’ work, the system would lack struc-
tures and motives, and could not develop itself further.
Initially invention originated from the first mover—
whether from a military establishment like the Pentagon
or a scientific one like CERN. However, ever since the
World Wide Web developed a user-friendly interface, sec-
ond, third and fourth movers have sprung to life using
this innovative technology completely for their own ends,
although it was developed with other aims in mind. This
draws in competition not only from the parasites with
their contrary intentions and aims, but also from others
who have the same aims. Business models from one side
hinder those from the other. Each one copies, irritates, se-
duces and manipulates the other—because it is only out
of this white noise of uncertainty that new interfaces can
be developed and from which parasites can profit. Out of
the resulting chaos new forms of organization can grow.
After all, would you say that parasites are the
catalyst and driving force of intelligence?
SERRES: It is highly probable that parasites are the
highest living form of intelligence that we know. The
more one studies the living form of parasites, the clearer
it becomes how creative and highly productive they are.
Generally one is heard talking about extreme oppo-
sites, like masters and servants, winners and losers,
hunters and the hunted, principal-agent relationships, or
about all kinds of opponents to war. These are but trivial
archetypes. With parasites it revolves around strategies
that are far more refined and far more thought out.
Nowadays our economic networks, conditions of ex-
change and communication channels are getting more
and more complex—and hereby more susceptible to par-
asitic dysfunction. Parasites are docking onto all inter-
faces to profit themselves. The stronger the parasitic
white noise, the quicker the more traditional thinkers
and players are challenged to their limits.
Does this mean we have to change our way of
thinking and to start to learn from parasites?
SERRES: Parasites are in operation everywhere—in
production, in communication, in the transfer of knowl-
edge and in every form of exchange and networking. We
have to learn that parasitism is a normal condition. It is a
question of accepting to a certain extent the destructive
power of our “enemy” the parasites. The enemy has come
to me because it found something interesting. This there-
fore means I have got something interesting on offer.
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Parasites are as a rule intelligent, and it is therefore worth
waiting before one tries to fight them off, because then
you might find out what they are all about. Every inter-
ference provides an opportunity to collect new informa-
tion. This creates the possibility to form an intelligent
alliance from which both can unexpectedly profit. By
associating cleverly with the presence of my enemy—
the parasite—I can discover something completely new.
What kind of new strategies do you recommend
to deal with parasites and parasitic structures?
SERRES: I think it is bad advice for anybody to fight to
their death against the opposition. If we attempt to wipe
out the parasites, it is then that they strike back at their
wildest and hungriest. The cleverer strategy—whether in
the fields of medicine, technology or economics—is to
get the potentially deadly resistance under control and to
work out an alliance from which both sides can profit. ❚
MICHEL SERRES
Michel Serres is considered one of the most signifi-
cant communication theorists, mathematicians,
and cultural and scientific philosophers today in
France, as well as in Europe and the United States.
He has had a major influence on not only postmod-
ern philosophy, but also later on system theories
and communication and network theories.
Born in 1930 in Agen, he attended the École Navale
—the French naval academy—in 1949. In 1952 he
attended the École Normale Supérieure (ENS
Paris), the most renowned training center in the
French state education system. He studied math-
ematics and philosophy there, and in the 1960s
taught together with Michel Foucault at the
Clermont-Ferrand and Vincennes universities, then
became a professor of scientific history at the
Sorbonne. He has also been a professor at Stanford
University since 1984. In 1990 he was made a mem-
ber of the circle of “Immortels” of the Académie
française, where he replaced Edgar Faure in Seat
18—a sign of Serres’ position as one of France’s
most prominent intellectuals.
JOHANNES WIEK is a science writer and specialist
on system theory, cognitive science and collective in-
telligence. He writes for Harvard Businessmanager,
McKinsey Wissen and brand eins, among others.