Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Zombies Are Us: The Walking Dead in the American Police State

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, October 31, 2014

Zombies Are Us: The Walking Dead in the American Police State

Click here to access article by John W. Whitehead from The Rutherford Institute.

Whitehead focuses our attention on the significance of the zombie theme proliferating in contemporary American culture--something unfamiliar to me because I avoid what I consider as cultural trash. However, there are some important reasons why such entertainment is produced and consumed.

Fear and paranoia have become hallmarks of the modern American experience, impacting how we as a nation view the world around us, how we as citizens view each other, and most of all how our government views us. [my emphasis]

Nowhere is this epidemic of fear and paranoia more aptly mirrored than in the culture’s fascination with zombies, exacerbated by the hit television series The Walking Dead, in which a small group of Americans attempt to survive in a zombie-ridden, post-apocalyptic world where they’re not only fighting off flesh-eating ghouls but cannibalistic humans.