Parasitism. To trouble the Xxxxx’s rosy notion that all being is being-with, I draw on the work of Xxxxxx Xxxxxx, particularly looking at his theory of all human interaction as implicitly parasitical.51 Serres pessimistically posits that each person interacts with self-gain (religious, economic, etc.) as the key motive, and accordingly all human exchange is inherently based on a desire for exploitation. In fact, prior to any exchange, is a desire to abuse, an “abuse value,” which is “complete, irrevocable consummation, precedes use- and exchange-value. Quite simply, it is the arrow with only one direction.”52 The parasitical relationship, 51 Xxxxxx, Xxxxxx. 2007. The Parasite. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 52 Serres. 2007. 80. unlike the symbiotic, is characterized by a flow of nutrients from the host to the parasite that is not reciprocated. I have observed relationships resembling this pattern in Jewish cemeteries in Morocco. I have heard cynical comments made in Arabic and Tamazight many times about fleecing tourists with made-up stories. A few guards and guides did not remember or did not care that I could understand what they said, and were just pleased to take advantage of foreigners’ sentimentality to line their own pockets without having to do any task harder than thinking quickly, analyzing their audience, and telling a good story. Not only were they able to make money by repeating fabrications, but they were able to have fun exploiting tourists’ naiveté, which provided ample opportunities for mockery in the following hours. Many difficult choices are made in the writing of dissertations on what to include and what to exclude. Excluding the guides who exhibited this kind of behavior has been a relatively easy choice for me to make, but it does need to be justified. Insofar as the main performance that I want to study is Jewish ritual performed by Muslims, these guides, who were happy to brag how they did not know anything about Jews or Judaism other than how to get Jewish tourists to pay them are, by their own admission, not doing Jewish ritual at all. They were very careful not to ever try to say anything in Hebrew or even Judeo-Arabic, fearing discovery as fakes, preferring to simply tell tales of “friendships” lost over the tumultuous decades. The stories that arise in these cases, to amuse the tellers and humiliate/entertain the tourists represent the creative result of the “abuse value.” In revising the terms of the agreement to favor the p...
Parasitism. Species of Hymenoptera (a collective group of ants, bees, sawflies, and wasps) are documented to parasitize western regal fritillaries, and the tachinid fly (Compsilura concinnata) is known to parasitize multiple species of butterflies and moths (Service 2023b, p. 111). However, there is no evidence of parasitism affecting FTIG’s eastern regal fritillary population.
