Phil: “Have you noticed how a chief concern is naming? In fact, it appears to have been one of our earliest concerns if not the earliest.”
Bill: “So?”
Phil: “Look, here’s what I find in Genesis. It indicates that the authors of the text thought naming was important”:
‘And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. And Adam named one of the beasts “Virus +,” but that was only after much debate.’
Bill: “You made that last line up. It isn’t in Genesis. I can explain the reason that Genesis has that passage on naming. Thousands of years ago people looked for explanations for why things were the way they were just as we do today. They didn’t have linguists, philologists, and etymologists researching documents. Heck, they didn’t have many documents, maybe some scrolls. I don’t blame them for trying to figure out why humans had language or how it originated. Language is ‘organic’; or, at least, it was organic. Now, just like your fictional last line, we have added words by conscious invention. Lots of words are the product of debate as much as they are of organic development. Take Tyrannosaurus rex as an example. Big meat eater, king of the dinosaurs, the ‘terrible lizards.’ Paleontologists are great at naming; so are botanists. They love to use Latin and Greek words.”
Phil: “Facetiousness aside, I’m guessing that Adam had to debate Eve on what to call anything. Facetiousness included, I have to note what Mark Twain had Adam say about naming things in his The Diaries of Adam & Eve:
‘Been examining the great waterfall. It is the finest thing on the estate, I think. The new creature calls it Niagara Falls-why, I am sure I do not know. Says it LOOKS like Niagara Falls. That is not a reason, it is mere waywardness and imbecility. I get no chance to name anything myself. The new creature names everything that comes along, before I can get in a protest. And always that same pretext is offered -- it LOOKS like the thing. There is a dodo, for instance. Says the moment one looks at it one sees at a glance that it "looks like a dodo." It will have to keep that name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret about it, and it does no good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more like a dodo than I do.’
Bill: “No doubt you have some point to make. So, what is it?”
Phil: “In June, 2021, Maharashtra State officials announced a new COVID variant, at the time of this writing named Delta Plus. So, from “Wuhan virus” to “China virus,” to Greek-letter virus, to proposed Zodiac or constellation-virus, the COVID names have mutated only slightly slower than the virus itself. Remember the fuss about the name in the spring and summer of 2020? Remember how people who referred to the virus by its point of origin were vilified? Remember the focus on the name?
“Apparently, we’re not good at killing viruses that can harm us, but we can kill their names. We seem to have done the actual job killing only Small Pox and maybe another virus, that cow virus I can’t think of, Rinder or Reindeer or something. By the way, we really don’t know if that job is complete because governments keep Small Pox on hand, maybe for remaking and redistributing vaccines, maybe for biological warfare.
“Now we have another mutating virus, one that has put the world in a panic. And it’s doing what viruses do—indeed, what all bio-entities do —they mutate. That is a bit scary, but maybe the current threat of COVID viruses will do what some past viruses have done—mutate themselves into relative harmlessness or extinction. Of course, Nature isn't the only controlling entity as it was in all past pandemics. There are those lab people who think it’s a good idea to alter viruses not for their extinction, but rather for their military use. So, we’re probably stuck with variations of coronaviruses for an indefinite period. And some will be very deadly, and some won't be very deadly. And with every reincarnation of the virus, we will feel obligated to give it a name, an ‘appropriate name,’ at first some Linnaean-type designation, but now in our current culture, a name ‘appropriately inoffensive to one group or another’ according to the dictates of those who find offense in any term they choose to find offensive.
“What I find interesting is that at the outset of this current pandemic, some Americans got themselves into emotional extra-small Spandex over calling the virus "Chinese" or "Wuhan" because the names were perceived to be offensive and "racist." We’re all about naming, all about words. Remember the sing-song sentence of childhood “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me”? Seems we were wrong.
“Apparently, words do hurt some of us in this touchy-feely age. So, here’s a story my dad told me. One of his relatives, a cousin, I believe, moved to the Midwest in the 1940s and into a town with no one of Italian descent. At a gathering of some kind (the story was not filled with details), one of the Midwesterners said to the relative, ‘You know what a Wop is?’ The relative, unfazed by the attempt to provoke him, said, ‘Yes, it’s the sound you make when you slap two cow patties together.’ Having taken the comment lightly, he turned a potentially ugly encounter into a disarming one. He soon gained acceptance in the community and never received another slur.
“The problem we seem to have on steroids is that so many Americans have lost a sense of self-deprecating humor and a sense of reality. Perspective is shaped by the decorum of the ‘ruling class.’ And that perspective is centered on words those in charge find acceptable or offensive. I'm not advocating offending, but I am advocating a change in perspective based on the following:
“Consider that today as I write this, the Afghan government just collapsed. Women and girls are under the threat of enslavement, and men are under the threat of murder. Thousands are trying to flee the country, to board departing cargo planes and helicopters before the murdering and enslaving begins. Today, as I write this, Haiti is recovering from its second devastating earthquake in eleven years—with a tropical storm threatening the survivors. I wonder whether or not the Afghanis or the Haitians are concerned about names at this time the way we were as a deadly virus wreaked havoc on the American economy and on American lives.
“Sorry to speak sarcastically, Bill, but I suppose if the Afghanis and Haitians were touchy-feely Americans, that is all they would be thinking about.”
Bill: “So?”
Phil: “Look, here’s what I find in Genesis. It indicates that the authors of the text thought naming was important”:
‘And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. And Adam named one of the beasts “Virus +,” but that was only after much debate.’
Bill: “You made that last line up. It isn’t in Genesis. I can explain the reason that Genesis has that passage on naming. Thousands of years ago people looked for explanations for why things were the way they were just as we do today. They didn’t have linguists, philologists, and etymologists researching documents. Heck, they didn’t have many documents, maybe some scrolls. I don’t blame them for trying to figure out why humans had language or how it originated. Language is ‘organic’; or, at least, it was organic. Now, just like your fictional last line, we have added words by conscious invention. Lots of words are the product of debate as much as they are of organic development. Take Tyrannosaurus rex as an example. Big meat eater, king of the dinosaurs, the ‘terrible lizards.’ Paleontologists are great at naming; so are botanists. They love to use Latin and Greek words.”
Phil: “Facetiousness aside, I’m guessing that Adam had to debate Eve on what to call anything. Facetiousness included, I have to note what Mark Twain had Adam say about naming things in his The Diaries of Adam & Eve:
‘Been examining the great waterfall. It is the finest thing on the estate, I think. The new creature calls it Niagara Falls-why, I am sure I do not know. Says it LOOKS like Niagara Falls. That is not a reason, it is mere waywardness and imbecility. I get no chance to name anything myself. The new creature names everything that comes along, before I can get in a protest. And always that same pretext is offered -- it LOOKS like the thing. There is a dodo, for instance. Says the moment one looks at it one sees at a glance that it "looks like a dodo." It will have to keep that name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret about it, and it does no good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more like a dodo than I do.’
Bill: “No doubt you have some point to make. So, what is it?”
Phil: “In June, 2021, Maharashtra State officials announced a new COVID variant, at the time of this writing named Delta Plus. So, from “Wuhan virus” to “China virus,” to Greek-letter virus, to proposed Zodiac or constellation-virus, the COVID names have mutated only slightly slower than the virus itself. Remember the fuss about the name in the spring and summer of 2020? Remember how people who referred to the virus by its point of origin were vilified? Remember the focus on the name?
“Apparently, we’re not good at killing viruses that can harm us, but we can kill their names. We seem to have done the actual job killing only Small Pox and maybe another virus, that cow virus I can’t think of, Rinder or Reindeer or something. By the way, we really don’t know if that job is complete because governments keep Small Pox on hand, maybe for remaking and redistributing vaccines, maybe for biological warfare.
“Now we have another mutating virus, one that has put the world in a panic. And it’s doing what viruses do—indeed, what all bio-entities do —they mutate. That is a bit scary, but maybe the current threat of COVID viruses will do what some past viruses have done—mutate themselves into relative harmlessness or extinction. Of course, Nature isn't the only controlling entity as it was in all past pandemics. There are those lab people who think it’s a good idea to alter viruses not for their extinction, but rather for their military use. So, we’re probably stuck with variations of coronaviruses for an indefinite period. And some will be very deadly, and some won't be very deadly. And with every reincarnation of the virus, we will feel obligated to give it a name, an ‘appropriate name,’ at first some Linnaean-type designation, but now in our current culture, a name ‘appropriately inoffensive to one group or another’ according to the dictates of those who find offense in any term they choose to find offensive.
“What I find interesting is that at the outset of this current pandemic, some Americans got themselves into emotional extra-small Spandex over calling the virus "Chinese" or "Wuhan" because the names were perceived to be offensive and "racist." We’re all about naming, all about words. Remember the sing-song sentence of childhood “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me”? Seems we were wrong.
“Apparently, words do hurt some of us in this touchy-feely age. So, here’s a story my dad told me. One of his relatives, a cousin, I believe, moved to the Midwest in the 1940s and into a town with no one of Italian descent. At a gathering of some kind (the story was not filled with details), one of the Midwesterners said to the relative, ‘You know what a Wop is?’ The relative, unfazed by the attempt to provoke him, said, ‘Yes, it’s the sound you make when you slap two cow patties together.’ Having taken the comment lightly, he turned a potentially ugly encounter into a disarming one. He soon gained acceptance in the community and never received another slur.
“The problem we seem to have on steroids is that so many Americans have lost a sense of self-deprecating humor and a sense of reality. Perspective is shaped by the decorum of the ‘ruling class.’ And that perspective is centered on words those in charge find acceptable or offensive. I'm not advocating offending, but I am advocating a change in perspective based on the following:
“Consider that today as I write this, the Afghan government just collapsed. Women and girls are under the threat of enslavement, and men are under the threat of murder. Thousands are trying to flee the country, to board departing cargo planes and helicopters before the murdering and enslaving begins. Today, as I write this, Haiti is recovering from its second devastating earthquake in eleven years—with a tropical storm threatening the survivors. I wonder whether or not the Afghanis or the Haitians are concerned about names at this time the way we were as a deadly virus wreaked havoc on the American economy and on American lives.
“Sorry to speak sarcastically, Bill, but I suppose if the Afghanis and Haitians were touchy-feely Americans, that is all they would be thinking about.”
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