Contagion: a Cognitive view of the immune System and its implications for a nomadic ethics

The modern obsession with safety (which ranges from extreme fear of germs to xenophobia) ends in isolation. In this paper, we explore what is behind of this concern with safety, the metaphors that surround it (which come from immunology), and a way to escape from fear using the Deleuzian idea of nomadic ethics as a point of departure. From a contemporary perspective of how immune systems work, we rethink the metaphors used to describe it: as far as new characterizations of immunity arise, there is a need to approach a notion of non-defensive, non-reactive answers to the ever-changing demands of a world in motion, of becoming. It implies rethinking alterity, the need to embrace it instead of avoiding it, and the need to understand its importance, the way in which it makes us humans. We will argue that nomadic ethics require a nomadic epistemology, an acknowledgement that a full understanding and control of reality may be beyond our reach, and therefore an acceptance of partial, tentative, and diverse forms of knowledge.