Zombies and the Apocalyptic Imagination

To shed some light on the topic of how satisfied we are with our civilization, let’s look at how our society is depicted in the mass media, specifically the television series The Walking Dead (2010-). From this, we can conclude that earth is on the brink of and in the grip of total disaster. The series concerns itself with a world decimated by a virus of unknown origin that turns normal, healthy people into ravenous cannibals. (Incidentally, there was a 1936 movie by the same name and an ongoing comic book release since 2003 on which the TV show is based.)

Each episode opens with a panoramic shot of the major metropolis of Atlanta in complete desolation. Abandoned cars, smoke rising over colossal skyscrapers, and the detritus of “civilized” living—newspapers, briefcases, shopping bags, books, all sorts of consumer products strewn helter-skelter on untended streets and highways—are shown.

In reality, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has set up a website using the zombie threat as a template for how to deal with a pandemic. Also, the University of California offered an online class that ran in conjunction with this past season of The Walking Dead. The course concerned itself with learning survival techniques in the event of a worldwide apocalypse.

The focus of The Walking Dead is survival. Characters struggle with how to organize themselves: Stay alone? Band together? Build a compound? They deal with internal fighting while simultaneously fending off the zombie hordes. Water, food, medical care, clothing, and housing are all in disarray and hard to come by because once one ventures out of the “safe zone” to gather supplies, one risks a zombie attack. They are concerned with how to govern themselves, as well as issues of morality and ethics.

In this catastrophic landscape laid bare are the issues of what constitutes “civilized” behavior and life. When is killing allowed? Who do you kill? Is violence necessary to maintain order? What are the roles of men and women? Who is the “other”? What

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happens if the group exiles an individual? How do you maintain morale? What kind of government do you set up? Are there people beyond your little compound? Will we ever find a cure for the zombie virus?

This TV series reflects the fears of our contemporary society. Since 9/11, we have been fighting endless wars, AIDS, SARS, Ebola, terrorism, financial meltdown, social upheaval, and major technological changes at “warp speed” (an old Star Trek concept). All of this has contributed to the apocalyptic imagination reflected in the world of The Walking Dead.

Antonio Gramsci wrote in one of his prison notebooks in the late 1920’s to 1930’s that, “the crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms occur.” We are living in such an interregnum. Our obsession with zombies, catastrophe, and the apocalypse are manifestations of morbid “symptoms.”

The question that arises today is what kind of civilization will emerge out of this chaos. One good thing is that we are asking these questions and not just assuming that the old ways are the only ways. Hopefully, our explorations will lead to new steps toward building a world committed to negotiation and peaceful means to peaceful ends.

In 1931, as Freud witnessed the rise of the Nazis, he added this final sentence to Civilization and Its Discontents, “But who can foresee with what success and with what result?” His question has yet to be answered, for within our contemporary consciousness the war between life and death is being played out between the living and the “living dead.”

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