The Zombie Apocalypse Is Real

I suddenly understand why zombies of the cinematic sort have now become such a popular theme in various forms of entertainment, in graphic novels and on screens large and small; why the simple plot line of a zombie apocalypse has become so compelling.

It is because we are all living through it.

The strange deep sense of satisfaction that the zombie stories produce is the serenity that comes from at last confronting some unspoken truth. It is catharsis, in Aristotle’s sense; it is like lancing a boil.

I am not referring to the coronavirus; even though, eerily, in most iterations of the zombie apocalypse, it is a virus that zombifies.

It seems more as though the Wuhan pandemic has thrown the other, more serious infection into stark relief: like a bolt of lightning lighting up the night sky. The “zombie apocalypse” that dates back to Night of the Living Dead in 1968, has been growing within our imaginations like a vivid premonition, a bit disjointed, as in dreams.

There’s been a virus going round since about then.

Many press voices, as the coronavirus hit North America, were most concerned that it not be called the “Chinese virus,” and with the “racism” of people who suddenly were not eating in the restaurants of Chinatown. Those were the lead stories.

Many journalists, commentators, tweeters and social media memes are blaming Trump for the virus and saying that he murdered everyone who has died from it. Others are blaming the virus on Christian evangelicals. Others blame it on the lack of tax-funded public health care in the US.

Objectively, of course, these are perfect non sequiturs; and show a dangerous lack of focus.

For more traces of some strange zombification, witness the mainstream Democrats who have locked down in line behind Joe Biden, continuing to insist that he is the one man America needs as president; despite obvious indications of a narcissistic personality, and now clear symptoms of dementia. Also a dangerous disconnect from either reality or ethics: objectively, aside from policies, electing such a man would be perilous for the republic. A recent editorial in the Atlantic headlined something like “Just Don’t Die, Joe Biden.” It looks like the selection by zombies of a zombie president. I’d say intentional, if zombies had intent.

Or witness the congresshumans and US senators who insist on imposing carbon emissions reductions on airlines getting relief aid in an emergency bill; or they will not support the bill. Let everyone die, then. Or demanding additional minority hiring quotas for businesses getting relief; or they would not support the bill.

These people seem to be operating without a functioning brain. Or rather, more properly, without a soul, without real awareness. The brain, as a mechanism, still functions, driving the legs forward one after the other. Zombies; the same sense is expressed by the currently popular gamer phrase, “NPCs.” “Non-player characters”: people who seem to be only simulating consciousness, like the algorithm-generated opponents in a computer game. Their reactions are mechanical, predictable, and over time reveal that there is no thought behind them.

The coronavirus, with such other uncanny events as Biden’s abrupt dementia, or the locust swarms in Africa, simply reveal to us where the zombies are. Hand of God, perhaps.

What is the real virus? Something that infects brains. That much our premonitions told us. “Postmodernism” and its intellectual littermates have stripped modern thought, beginning with the academics and spreading out through the professional elites, of its moorings, the essential guiding principles of the soul: the Good, the True, the Beautiful. Sat, Cit, Ananada. You can say “God,” to combine the principles, but even outside of monotheism, these three navigational goals remain the meaning of life.

Contemporary thought has turned away from all of them. This amounts to zombification at the mass level. To remove all spiritual moorings is to remove the soul. One simply lurches around responding to simple instincts, like hunger. Eat. Brains.

A real crisis, calling for a serious response, reveals the problem.

If this meaninglessness virus corresponds to postmodernism on the intellectual place, on the psychological plane it corresponds to narcissism. Narcissists have pulled out all their moorings. They seem to live to a limited script, unable to see what is really around them. Fliess described them as “ambulatory psychotics.”

Unfortunately, it is further the case that narcissists, postmodernists, zombies are programmed to destroy. It is Pope St. John Paul II called “the culture of death.” Like a virus, the prime directive is to spread, by eating the next brain.

Perhaps the current crisis is a godsend. Perhaps we can now rally and fight.

Tupperware People

My wife observes that “most people are made of Tupperware.”

A brilliant image, that works in a variety of ways. Plastic, mass produced, without a soul, materialistic, out for the main chance, superficially attractive, morally plastic, adaptable to whatever the environment requires, concealing, cheap, ready to prostitute friendships for material gain.

Obviously, many others feel the same way; that perception is surely behind the current craze for zombies. Soulless living dead interested only in eating their neighbour.

Is this too cruel? If so many see others as zombies, can it really be true? Is it only true when we view others from a distance? If we knew them well, if we loved them, if they were members of our own family, would we still see them as Tupperware people?

On reflection, I think we would. My wife responds that there are indeed Tupperware people in her own family. My good friend says the same about his. We’ll leave mine out of this, for now.

And the Bible says the same thing. Most people are not on the path; most people are made of Tupperware. “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.”

Not that anyone is soulless; but in some the soul is no more than a low flicker, a pilot light, while in others it is a blinding fire almost visible behind the eyes. We all have an inner zombie. We all have Tupperware shells of different thicknesses.

A good measure of how zombified we are is how we respond to art; another is how we respond to humour. Another is whether we are depressive. Since the least zombified are the ones who are most inclined to appreciate art—not high art, but real art--there is still a large audience for art that portrays a zombie-apocalyptic view of the world.

The Zombie Apocalypse is Here

Zombies from "Night of the Living Dead."

My wife is growing frustrated with “Plants vs. Zombies.” Apparently those annoying zombies keep eating her brains.

There is something deeply satisfying and primal about the image of the zombie apocalypse; so much so that it has become a touchstone of current pop culture.

Obviously, it says something about the present time that rings true to a lot of people.

In other words, we are in some sense in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

The original modern zombie apocalypse movie was, of course, “Night of the Living Dead.” It was released in 1968. It was really a commentary on the breaking down of social norms in that decade—and the apparent inability of all the established authorities to do anything about it. In a zombie apocalypse, all social order dissolves.

Mmmm--brains!

We seem to face a much worse breakdown of civil society now—with the culture wars, the turning of government and elite against religion, the loss of public confidence in the public school system, the never-ending recession. The Sixties were only a distant early warning for what is happening now.

And the zombie depicts the problem, as understood by artists and by our group unconscious.

The ancient Greeks, ancient Egyptians, and ancient Chinese—perhaps all the ancients—understood mankind to have several different souls. Aside from the higher pneuma, to use the Greek classification, there was the emotional psyche, and the simple anima. The anima even the lowest animals had; it was our instinctual soul, our hungers. The Greeks understood the anima to be mortal, like the body, while pneuma and psyche were immortal. The Chinese, at least, feared that this soul, the po, so close to the body, could remain with the body after death. This is why important Chinese corpses were commonly encased in jade: the jade prevented the anima, the “hungry ghost” from emerging or the body from reanimating. This was particularly necessary in the case of prominent corpses, because prominent people had correspondingly powerful lusts. This is no doubt also why great houses are always haunted.

Han Chinese jade burial suit.

The zombie apocalypse image posits that society is suffering from a general collapse of the higher spirit, the soul, in favour of the basic animal lusts. And this, inevitably, is leading to a breakdown in civilization and in civil order, as everyone begins to pursue their personal appetites instead of anything nobler.It's increasingly a zombie eat zombie world.

We are eating our own brains. We are turning into robotic parasites.