an intentionless virus and a meaning-filled culture

[[Williamson has pointed to the radical implications of this collision between an intentionless virus and a meaning-filled culture: nothing could be more meaningless than a virus. It has no point, no purpose, no plan; it is part of no scheme, carries no inherent significance. And yet nothing is harder for us to confront that the complete absence of meaning. By its very definition, meaninglessness cannot be articulated within our social language, which is a system of meaning: impossible to include, as an absence, it also impossible to exclude – for meaninglessness isn’t just the opposite of meaning, it is the end of meaning, and threatens the fragile structures by which we make sense of the world.]] Hacking Away at the Counterculture Andrew Ross