Horror Autotoxicus: The Dual Economy of AIDS

Abstract

The argument is developed that the human love of machines has made them into prosthetic gods, even though machines are both causes & cures for modern-day maladies. Prosthetic practices spread from the West through the global culture even with the knowledge that their environmental filth is poison. This is possible because of the prosthetic mythology underlying the double narratives of historical (technological) development & social (ethical) progress. This narrative is illustrated by the situation in Africa, where gifts of milk (bottle-feeding) cause diseases worse than breast-feeding would, & where the spread of (good) attitudes on psychosexual freedom & medicalized immunity cause AIDS. Industrial contamination may very well prevent nature from becoming culture. 2 Figures, 9 References. M. Pflum