Wednesday, June 3, 2009
The Zombie within!
Zombies are characterized as undead. This usually means that before they were zombies they were living humans who were exposed to zombies and “died”. Once dead as humans, they resurrect as zombies. Zombies exist because they are definitely not human, even though they look awfully human. Very awfully human. Ostensibly there is some definitive line drawn between human and zombie. It is this line that reflects back to us what it actually means to be human, rather than something else. Zombies are the appearance of humanity without any of its vital characteristics.
If zombies are lacking humanity, what is humanity? It obviously does not depend upon the appearance of being human. Zombies go shopping at the mall, they go to parties, they go camping. Zombies, like serial killers, have a necessary social component. Like serial killers they require victims, but zombies in turn also seem to hang out in groups. Is this simply a condition of infection? Unlike people, zombies may be social, but they don’t appear to enjoy it. Heck, they don’t appear to enjoy anything. They are simply driven.
Is the state of being a zombie the state of being in the thrall of the unrelenting urge to live even when it seems like death is really more appropriate? When in our living lives do we feel zombified? These are moments of hyperreality when the experience of death in life is like a cudgel knocking us senseless. That’s to say, they are remarkable. For most of the people I know, it is that continuing urge to go to work, to continue to function and rise in society with no sense to it, as though being hollowed out by some cosmic dessert spoon. Or, I guess, alienation is the fancy word for it. But we’re not talking about aliens here. They are another interesting metaphor worthy of further blogging but not right now.
Maybe zombification is a gradual process that occurs when we continue to comply with social and moral mores that are the antithesis of what we know and believe to be right. Auto-scooperation. We have seen the zombies and they are us! It is the degradation of moral selves that takes place in our social psyches. In this way it is definitely contagious and deleterious. The examples of diffusion of responsibility are legion: Kitty Genovese, the Milgram experiments, etc. But who is watching the watchers? Why aren’t we? Is it because we are We?
If zombies are lacking humanity, what is humanity? It obviously does not depend upon the appearance of being human. Zombies go shopping at the mall, they go to parties, they go camping. Zombies, like serial killers, have a necessary social component. Like serial killers they require victims, but zombies in turn also seem to hang out in groups. Is this simply a condition of infection? Unlike people, zombies may be social, but they don’t appear to enjoy it. Heck, they don’t appear to enjoy anything. They are simply driven.
Is the state of being a zombie the state of being in the thrall of the unrelenting urge to live even when it seems like death is really more appropriate? When in our living lives do we feel zombified? These are moments of hyperreality when the experience of death in life is like a cudgel knocking us senseless. That’s to say, they are remarkable. For most of the people I know, it is that continuing urge to go to work, to continue to function and rise in society with no sense to it, as though being hollowed out by some cosmic dessert spoon. Or, I guess, alienation is the fancy word for it. But we’re not talking about aliens here. They are another interesting metaphor worthy of further blogging but not right now.
Maybe zombification is a gradual process that occurs when we continue to comply with social and moral mores that are the antithesis of what we know and believe to be right. Auto-scooperation. We have seen the zombies and they are us! It is the degradation of moral selves that takes place in our social psyches. In this way it is definitely contagious and deleterious. The examples of diffusion of responsibility are legion: Kitty Genovese, the Milgram experiments, etc. But who is watching the watchers? Why aren’t we? Is it because we are We?
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