Having never had the luck of the draw of two such disparate elements as “Chomsky” and “Zombie apocalypse” in a title — let alone subject matter from a news story based on reality — I was drawn to this article like iron to a magnet. It struck an all-too familiar chord. As a child growing up while the Cold War was hot, there has always been a feeling in the U.S. that you were being made afraid of a named and yet faceless threat: Pinkos, the Red Menace, Muslim terrorists. And they were always out there somewhere. As Mr. Chomsky points out in the article excerpted below, there’s a reason for that. — Fe Bongolan
Noam Chomsky: Zombies are the new Indians and slaves in white America’s collective nightmare
By Scott Kaufman for Raw Story
February 14, 2014
During a question-and-answer session with students on February 7, 2014, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Noam Chomsky was asked why there’s a cultural preoccupation with “the zombie apocalypse” in United States.
“My guess is,” Chomsky said, “that it’s a reflection of fear and desperation. The United States is an unusually frightened country, and in such circumstances, people concoct, maybe for escape or relief, [narratives] in which terrible things happen.”
“Fear in the United States is actually a pretty interesting phenomenon,” Chomsky continued. “It actually goes back to the colonies — there’s a very interesting book by a literary critic, Bruce Franklin, called War Stars. It’s a study of popular literature…from the earliest days to the present, and there are a couple of themes that run through it that are pretty striking.”
“For one thing,” Chomsky said, “one major theme in popular literature is that we’re about to face destruction from some terrible, awesome enemy, and at the last moment we’re saved by a superhero, or a super-weapon — or, in recent years, high school kids going to the hills to chase away the Russians.”
According to Chomsky, “there’s a sub-theme: it turns out this enemy, this horrible enemy that’s going to destroy us, is someone we’re oppressing. So you go back to the early years, the terrible enemy was the Indians.”
“The colonists, of course, were the invaders…whatever you think about the Indians, they were defending their own territory.” After a brief discussion of the Declaration of Independence, Chomsky notes that one of the complaints listed in it is that King George “unleashed against [the colonists] the merciless Indian savages, whose known way of warfare is torture and destruction and so on.”
“Well, Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that…knew quite well that it was the merciless English savages whose known way of warfare was destruction and torture and terror, and taking over the country and driving out and exterminating the natives. But it’s switched in the Declaration of Independence,” Chomsky said, indicating that this is yet another example of Franklin’s thesis that oppressed people become, in the popular imagination of the oppressors, the “terrible, awesome enemy” bent on the destruction of America.
The full article, with video of Chomsky’s response, can be found here.
Fe- Hungry Ghosts indeed, an accurate metaphor for our times.
Fe, great timing on posting this piece; I’m deep in a USHistory class and fascinated with what Europeans brought to the New World (besides disease). In reflecting upon those attitudes on a personal level, I’ve been doing detailed anatomy on the family skeletons that are no longer in the back of my closet. If they rise as Zombies, at least I’ll know where to hit ’em.
Eric:
I remember that comment from awhile back, and was actually wondering this morning if it was going to be posted! Ahh, Sun in very early Pisces exact my ascendant, and Mercury to be heading towards the late degrees of Aquarius in March–my natal Mercury. The internal transistor receiver is starting to come in loud and clear.
Chief Niewot’s Son:
We live in the Land of Hungry Ghosts. That’s what has become of a continent of unspoiled natural resources, eyed greedily by those who profit at the expense of all. No one and nothing is ever enough. Could it be, as Chomsky points out, that in the unconscious cultural memory of all this exploitation, a zombie blowback is the price we feel we must subconsciously pay for the wreckage created?
The Undead- the women, men and children buried at Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, etc. The women , men and children who died as slaves in “the land of the free.” Yes, this country is full of fear because it has not healed the deepest tragedies of all, the ones inflicted volitionally, using the predominant spiritual paradigm as the justification. The Undead live in this land, in so many places, and their voices still cry out in the dark.
I was asked this in an interview four years ago. Here is what I said —
Why is this generation so obsessed with vampires and zombies? And from where do the roots of this stem?
Let’s take these symbols one at a time. Both deal with the state of being undead. Undead is the opposite of alive, but not really dead. I think they reflect how many people are terrified that this is how we’re living our lives.
Vampires flirt with the most seductive human experiences, yet for the most part they’re celibate. They represent powerful forces operating under the psyche and yet it cannot fulfill our real human need for contact. The vampire metaphor is that the mortal gives up his or her life force to the immortal; it’s an act of total submission. This description reminds me of immortal corporations vamping off of submissive, mortal humans. In many, many ways we are confronted with this kind of energy theft at this time in history.
In vampires we also have the image of compulsion, of doing what we need to do because we have no way to avoid it. In an era when we are met with so much seduction, and so much compulsive behavior, and so many addictive substances, and when we have so many opportunities to withhold or be withheld from, I think vampire stories give us a way to process our responses.
Zombies are another story. I think they’re a reflection of our fear that we’re going unconscious; that we are living the lives of the undead; of the totally unconscious, who can neither wake up or die properly. To me they’re our symbol of humans living automatically, or as slaves of our technology. And hey, if we do it because everyone’s doing it, that allegedly absolves us of any responsibility for our own lives.
Gotta say, Fe, the zombies are a perfect symbol for a lot of mindless, knee-jerk groups roaming the landscape these days. I don’t think they represent the whole of the 99 though [HEY Brendan!] Enough of us are walking around with our neurons firing, we just haven’t figured out how to gather ourselves collectively to bargain for a better deal. The mind-bending regarding “right to work,” unionization and collective bargaining has been REALLY effective these last few decades, and left us without an economic power base we can count on. The unions played too tough and too greedy, but at least they gave the working class protection. Now, we can’t even decide if we want them [ok, that’s a little zombie’ish.] Prob’ly best to steer clear of brain eating though, to prevent Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. Nasty!
That Tom Perkins bit has been making the rounds and the response has been pretty much incredulous but I think he was dead serious. These folks have their own way of looking at the world and, when your “tribe” is so small and inbred, despite being the most influential slice of humanity, the box they’re in just gets tighter by the moment. I think they may be due for a nervous breakdown one of these days.
Here’s a larger look at the fear and loathing driving these folks in an article from New York Magazine. Somehow the “fraternity” feel to all this seems appropriate to the depth of consciousness being celebrated. Just feels like a convention of Dubya’s people, doesn’t it?
One-Percent Jokes and Plutocrats in Drag: What I Saw When I Crashed a Wall Street Secret Society
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/02/i-crashed-a-wall-street-secret-society.html
Hey Brendan! Missed you, kiddo. Happy Solar Return, and many many more!
Speaking of Indians, and our historical gold-inlayed trifecta of money, power and corruption, I saw Johnny Depp’s Lone Ranger today — I’ll play it at least once again before I return. It was the most fun watch I’ve had in awhile, and although a crash-n-burn at the box office, I thought it was funny, entertaining and yes, political. So many movies are, and the public just misses the message.
Well, ok … I admit to having a mask and six-guns when I was five, and spent time begging a steady supply of caps. The Lone Ranger and Tonto were my favorites. This turns the classic on its head, of course, but I just got the biggest grin when I heard the theme music from the William Tell Overture. Hi Oh Silver, Away!
Hi Fe!
Yes, my solar return was last Tuesday afternoon. The double nickel I’m calling it. It’s been good, not showy or ultra spectacular, but good.
Could Zombies be the movie stand-in for the 99%? It’s as if we are to treat ourselves, or those who are “different,” as the enemy. I know, I know, preaching to the choir on that idea… The oldest trick in the book. Considering that most everyone will fit into one category or another that makes us “different,” it’s a sign that we are being sub-divided into clans that will attack each other and thus never be united in the face of the overwhelming plutocracy.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers comes to mind all of a sudden. Perfect replacements that obey orders blindly from an unseen intelligence. Zombies in all but appearance.
Brendan:
Long time no see, friend! Hope you’re having a marvelous solar return. (Seem to recall you’re an Aquarii, check me if not).
History is written by the victors, as the Romans, Greeks and the Babylonians did before us and them. You need the villain to protect the hapless empire FROM.
The irony of the zombie, a brain-dead walking corpse as metaphor that our society is still trying to fight off–what Un-checked relentless fear in our society conjures up a lifeless being as it’s great Boogeyman?
Something is amiss in the subconscious self-esteem of the imperial elite!!
Len – wasn’t eating a portion of your enemy considered the ultimate victory, and you were thus inheriting some his/her attributes? We’re just being democratic about it when we say “we want your brains…”
A friend of mine in college had a T-shirt that I have not seen in a while: “Eat the rich!” Maybe the zombies are on to something after all, and Hollywood is trying to tell their backers something. 🙂
But looking at the overall picture that Fe (Hi friend!) brings up, we’ve always needed an enemy, real or imagined. I don’t think it’s exclusive to we Americans however, as Europe seemed to have it’s own demons well before the 20th century. The Reformation comes to mind, as does the Thirty Years War that followed. All those wars, then and now, served to make them lose the demons before we did.
Pandora done opened the box, and we’re the worse for it. The racism, overt or covert, the cries for open rebellion, and a strange desire for the way things were – it all seems as if it were bottled up until 2008, when Pandora reappeared and the box flew open. Nasty things in that box. I’m not saying the box wasn’t already open, it just happened to fly open after 30 years. Another reason to still dislike Reagan.
Len:
Perfect segue to Tom Perkins who decried the persecution of the 1% as a new “Kristallnacht”.
Tom Perkins: Taxes will lead to ‘economic extinction’ of the 1%
By Chanelle Bessette, reporter @FortuneMagazine
February 14, 2014: 8:25 AM ET
SAN FRANCISCO (Fortune)
Tom Perkins — venture capitalist and co-founder of the VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers — spoke with Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club Thursday night.
The event, entitled “The War on the 1%,” focused on the issue of income inequality. Perkins, 82, not only revealed his opinions on social, fiscal, and monetary policy, but he also clarified his views on how taxes are being used as a weapon against the wealthy 1% as a whole.
Perkins’ infamous Jan. 24 letter to the editor published in the Wall Street Journal compared modern discrimination against America’s rich to Nazi Germany’s treatment of the Jews. He also claimed that the 1% currently faces a “rising tide of hatred” akin to Kristallnacht. He has since apologized for his extreme comparison, and he said at the event, “Kristallnacht should never have been used. The Holocaust is incomparable.” However, Perkins maintained his stance that the wealthy are persecuted, particularly in San Francisco where the Occupy movement, outrage over city gentrification, and protests against Google employee buses illustrate a “demonization of the rich.”
Full article here:
http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/14/investing/tom-perkins.fortune/index.html
Fe: Thank you for posting this piece, it serves as a point of very deep connection. Perhaps the one percent’s fears of the rest of us are being exhibited in the zombie movies they are relentlessly financing. Hence my message to the power elite: Don’t worry, we don’t want to eat your brains, a larger slice of the pie will do.