Diversity is the Best Vaccine or "You've Got a Friend in the Family!"

In Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash we are shown a far-flung future America, but at the same time we examine the themes and culture of the Ancient Sumerians. The novel makes it clear just how important language is to human society and behavior.

The villain of the novel, Bob Rife, tries to use the power of language as a virus, to expand his own control over others. Using the ancient monosyllabic Sumerian language, he links all of his converts together, making them easy to control; xenoglossy. The novel makes it very clear that this language that everyone had in the past was a source of stagnation for civilized human society. With the ‘neurolinguistic hacking’ of the Sumerian God Enki, he creates the Babel event, recorded throughout the myths of many peoples. The gargoyle Lagos and Hiro Protagonist postulate that “the nam shub (hacking) of Enki was the beginnings of human consciousness,” (398).

The reason why the creation of a diversity of languages, this Babel event, had to occur was a simple fact that a homogenous linguistic society was susceptible to the neurolinguistic Asherah virus, the source of irrationality. But, now with a diversity of languages, and the inability to understand the Sumerian me, human beings were forced to adapt and evolve into the higher level of autonomy and consciousness.

Just as was shown in Octavia Butler’s novels, again the importance of diversity is stressed. The characters on both sides of the fight in Snow Crash are very diverse. Both the Mafia and Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong understand the importance of diversity as well. Mafia-sponsored billboards in Compton show Uncle Enzo squaring off against Narcolombian thugs with a multi-racial posse of neighborhood people, and the Mafia “have black, Hispanic, and Asian capos that will respect your cultural identity,” (146). And Mr. Lee espouses in his welcome address his mission for “the potentials of all ethnic races and anthropologies to merge under a banner of the Three Principles,” (99). Compare those franchises to the homogeneous, xenophobic, and racist New South Africa, which are shown to be full of nasty “rednecks” that promptly get decapitated by Hiro’s katanas. Whether the diversity is language or ethnicity it’s importance cannot be missed in defending against the viral influences of irrationality.

Michael Randolph