Xi and Putin dabble in vampirism

“They’re vampires” was my first thought. I had just heard the news that Putin and Xi were discussing how to prolong their lives, as they walked toward their places at the Tiananmen Square military parade. 

On the official news footage, Putin’s translator could be heard saying in Chinese: “Biotechnology is continuously developing.” And then: “Human organs can be continuously transplanted. The longer you live, the younger you become, and [you can] even achieve immortality.” Xi responded: “Some predict that in this century humans may live to 150 years old.” Kim Jong-un was there too, but is not known to have contributed to the conversation.

Maybe the blood-sucking image came to me because I was, when I heard this news, giving blood. My next thought was that it is the quintessence of secular individualism, to plot an attempt at immortality. It is a statement that one’s life is an entity unto itself, isolated from human community. Also, vampirism was an image favored by Karl Marx, in his description of capitalism. 

In Capital, for example, he describes capital as “dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.” So it is interesting that these three men grew up under communism. It would seem that the ideology had no real substance, no moral force.

By the way, I rather enjoyed giving blood. After a nice summer break, things were feeling a bit oppressive over here in London, a city of strangers, elbowing each other out of the way. And it cheered me up, a friendly chat with a nice young nurse, and a sense of local community, of shared values. I’d feel differently if I was being paid for my blood: I’d feel resentful of the person who could afford to buy it from me. I’d feel that we were rivals, competing for resources.

The immortality story featured on the evening news, as part of the general coverage of the military parade. The next item was our head of state, King Charles III, visiting a hospital in Birmingham, a visit delayed by his own cancer treatment. Unlike those Oriental despots, our monarch displays the vulnerability that he shares with the rest of us. 

If he and his son William were overheard discussing prolonging their lives through organ donation, the monarchy would be over. He said to one patient: “Hips don’t work so well, do they, once you get past 70?” I might live in a palace, he was saying, but I share your knowledge of bodily infirmity, vulnerability.

I was also reminded of another king, David. He committed a sort of act of vampirism, bedding another man’s wife, and getting the man killed in battle. It was an act of total selfishness, a denial of common humanity. And he repented, and his change of heart resulted in the poetry of the Psalms, an ur-text of common human vulnerability. Let these men have a change of heart, one that does not involve literal organ transplants.