adaptation: from biology to sociology
A disturbing discourse reappears routinely on societies or civilisations that are growing increasingly powerful, or at least seem to do so. This is the discourse on the capacities to "adapt". Like, in biology, some viruses or bacteria are described. They adapt to new contexts and can therefore imply a risk to the dominant power or the current system they live in. We hear this discourse vers often on China. In this view, the Chinese civilisation would possess a great capacity to adapt. A recent example comes from the mouth of a Swiss banker, dropping this at the end of an interview on the financial crisis...We also hear this on Albanian-speaking populations: they would take the shape of the dominant power in order to eventually overthrow it. All this has the bad taste of B-serie science fiction, where, remember, martians bear the human form to better dominate it. Try to keep in mind next time you encounter such an "adaptability discourse" of some ethnical groups. Such a discourse seems to be the fruit of some kind of social and historical analysis. In fact, it is void. But you'll notice that the author is probably trying, counsciouscly or not, to provoke a kind of fear against certain groups.
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