The Parasite

by Michel Serres
University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2007
255 pp., Trade, $19.95
ISBN: 0-8166-4881-6.

Reviewed by Anthony Enns
Department of English
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada


anthony.enns@dal.ca



The University of Minnesota Press recently released a new edition of Michel Serres’ 1980 book The Parasite as the first volume of their “posthumanities” series, which includes works by Judith Roof, Donna Haraway, Roberto Esposito and David Wills. The translation by Lawrence Schehr is the same as his original translation, which was first published in 1982, and the only substantial change that has been made to the text is the addition of a new introduction by series editor Cary Wolfe, in which he discusses the decision to include The Parasite as the first volume in this new series. Instead of representing a substantially new version of Serres’ book, in other words, this edition reframes his work within a new scholarly context, thus illustrating its indelible impact on contemporary critical theory, systems theory, and posthumanist studies.

Serres’ primary argument is that the relationship between a parasite and its host serves as a useful model for all forms of social, cultural, and technological mediation. Instead of conceptualizing social relations according to the model of exchange, for example, Serres argues that all acts of exchange are actually based on exploitation. Serres explains this idea by replacing Marx’s concept of “exchange value” with the term “abuse value,” which he defines as “complete, irrevocable consummation” that only works in “one direction” (80). Abuse value “precedes use- and exchange-value,” according to Serres, because “exchange is always weighed, measured, calculated, taking into account a relation without exchange, an abusive relation” (80). The French word “parasite” also signifies noise or static, which enables Serres to extend his argument to communication systems as well. Instead of seeing communication as a two-way process, for example, he argues that every channel also contains an element of interference, which constantly threatens to disrupt the signal. Serres adds, however, that such disruptions are potentially productive, as they result in the formation of a “new system” (52). Serres even extends this metaphor to biological systems by arguing that evolution similarly depends on “mutations” within a system (184). The value of the parasite as a concept, therefore, is that it encompasses such a wide range of fields, including anthropology, biology, and communications.

When Serres’ book was first published, reviewers often framed his argument within the context of either information theory or poststructuralism. Serres’ discussion of the positive value of noise, for example, bears obvious similarities to Claude Shannon’s concept of information entropy or the notion of noise itself as information. There are also similarities between Serres’ discussion of parasitical relations and Derridean concepts like hospitality and the gift, which similarly address the paradoxical nature of exchange and subjectivity. Serres’ notion of the “hote” as simultaneously both host and guest, for example, illustrates the impossibility of sustaining the concept of the host as a controlling subject, on which the principle of altruism is based. Serres’ notion of the “quasi-object” similarly implies that identity is a product of the relationship between subject and environment rather than an inherent quality of the subject itself, as this object “marks or designates a subject who, without it, would not be a subject” (225). When an athlete holds a ball, for example, his or her subjectivity is determined by his or her relationship to the ball, yet when the ball is passed to another player this identity abruptly becomes a collectivity. Serres’ notion of individual identity as fundamentally intersubjective can thus be seen as part of the broader poststructuralist critique of Western metaphysics.

In his introduction, however, Wolfe argues that Serres’ text can also be seen as a pioneering work in systems theory and posthumanist studies. Wolfe argues, for example, that the notion of noise as a productive and creative force was also a key influence on theorists like Gregory Bateson and Niklas Luhmann. In his seminal essay “Cybernetic Explanation, for example, Bateson argues that noise represents “the only possible source of new patterns” (xiii). Wolfe argues that Serres’ discussion of systems and “black boxes” also prefigures the work of second-wave systems theorists like Luhmann, Humberto Maturana, and Francisco Varela, who similarly examine the role of the observer within systems. Serres argues, for example, that “an observer seated within a system . . . overvalues the message and undervalues the noise . . . in order to send or receive communications better and to make them circulate in a distinct and workable fashion” (68). Wolfe points out that this idea is echoed by Luhmann, who similarly argues that “since the environmental ‘noise’ outside the observing system is literally overwhelming, any system, if it is to continue its autopoiesis, must reduce that complexity by filtering it” (xxii). Wolfe also argues that Serres’ concept of the quasi-object prefigures Luhmann’s claim that distinctions between system and environment are paradoxical because they are solely products of the system within which such distinctions are made: “[F]or Luhmann, the observer would be ‘parasitical’ . . . because the movement of observer attribution always flows in one direction, from second order to first order, in a process whose ‘motor’ or ‘engine’ is the paradoxical deconstructability of any observation’s grounding distinction” (xxiv). Wolfe thus characterizes Serres’ work as a precursor to second-generation systems theory and a critique of first-generation systems theorists like Bateson and Norbert Wiener.

By inviting readers to explore the connections between Serres’ ideas and the work of these second-generation systems theorists, the republication of this classic text does more than simply recognize its historical significance or its contribution to the burgeoning field of posthumanist studies. It also invites readers to view the work from a new perspective and as part of a new scholarly field, thus transforming the work itself into a new system with the potential to inspire productive and creative new possibilities.