The utopia of post-apocalyptic fiction

[illusivepunk]

So I was reading this blog post that was linked to me today through io9, and while I don't think it's inherently despicable to portray life after an apocalypse as having some positivity, as long as it's not overt or the dominant attitude I do feel like a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction these days has a certain... romance about it.

I could definitely see where he was coming from in this passage:

I may feel so strongly about this because I grew up amidst (and still live around) militia culture, and militia cultists love to fantasize about the end of the world. They don't just dream; they try to live it. They stockpile food, ammo, weapons. They build shelters. They imagine all the ways they'll be heroes when the end comes. For some, it's literally a dream of The Rapture; for the less Christian fundamentalist among them, it's a kind of Rapture allegory, providing the same pleasures, the same confirmation of your own correctness. Apocalypse becomes not a horror but the opportunity to create the best of all possible worlds. Genocidaires always think their violent dreams are necessary, justified, virtuous.

The Walking Dead is popular with a lot of these folks. Step into a gun shop and you're plenty likely to hear at least one person talking about "the zombie apocalypse". It's a code phrase and an allegory: a code for the end of the boring world, an allegory for the time when the well-prepared (white, patriarchal) militia will ascend to its rightful place of honor, when the weak liberals and anti-gunners will die the sad deaths they so deserve, when it will be open season on all the zombies (read: immigrants, black people, etc.). Dreamers dream themselves among the survivors. They dream themselves into heroism. Instead of boring everyday life, they get to show their courage and strength and preparation.

Don't feel your life lets you express your inner heroism? Imagine yourself a survivor of apocalypse. Now you have a hero story.

Imagine yourself finally getting to use those tens of thousands of 5.56 rounds you stockpiled back when ammo was cheap. (You were one of the smart ones. Where are all the people who made fun of you now? They're dead, you're alive. You're the real man. Good for you. You win!)

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It reminds me of the evil plot in Kingsman: The Secret Service where so many celebrities and A-listers latched onto this idea that the Earth was literally being poisoned by people being on it, and the "rational" thing to do? Kill everybody but yourselves, the people "fit" to survive, because you're the ones in power and the rest are dragging you down. Shit, even the excitement of the "zombie apocalypse" genre and the reaction that people are so eager to run to their local gun store and start killing if it really happened - if you took the original zombie metaphor from Night of the Living Dead as fear of the mob and uniformity and applied it...

There's that scene in I Am Legend where Will Smith is playing golf on that Aircraft Carrier, and even when I was younger watching that seemed really cool - the idea of an abandoned New York City being your entire playground.

Post-apocalypse when framed as a selfish utopia seems like it'd perfectly appeal to the crazy right-wingers and nutcases who want to "rebuild" or "build their perfect society". Thoughts, SV?

 

[Avernus]

While that isn't true of all such fiction, there certainly does seem to be a subset like that. Atlas Shrugged pretty much was that scenario for example, and it's iconic with the plutocratic faction of the right.

 

[Triggerhappy]

Post-apocalypse when framed as a selfish utopia seems like it'd perfectly appeal to the crazy right-wingers and nutcases who want to "rebuild" or "build their perfect society". Thoughts, SV?

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I'm fairly sure that this has been expressed a few times on this very forum and on SB. Still good to see articulated in its own thread.

I'll just say, post apocalytpia is a nice place to visit, in books and video games, but I wouldn't want to live there.

While that isn't true of all such fiction, there certainly does seem to be a subset like that. Atlas Shrugged pretty much was that scenario for example, and it's iconic with the plutocratic faction of the right.

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Off the top of my head, doesn't the Postman (the novel, not necessarily the movie) rather extensively subvert the post apocalypse genre?

Atlas shrugged was the Plutocrats not only surviving it, but planning and starting it.

 

[Avernus]

Off the top of my head, doesn't the Postman (the novel, not necessarily the movie) rather extensively subvert the post apocalypse genre?

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In what way? I just found it pretty straightforwardly depressing, not subversive of anything.

 

[illusivepunk]

While that isn't true of all such fiction, there certainly does seem to be a subset like that. Atlas Shrugged pretty much was that scenario for example, and it's iconic with the plutocratic faction of the right.

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Oh yeah for sure, but this is the first time that I've ever really heard it articulated about such a popular show like The Walking Dead. I haven't watched it though I know it's enormously popular, but it scarily makes sense that subconsciously it might play to the desires of a right-wing/fanatic mindset.

 

[Avernus]

Oh yeah for sure, but this is the first time that I've ever really heard it articulated about such a popular show like The Walking Dead. I haven't watched it though I know it's enormously popular, but it scarily makes sense that subconsciously it might play to the desires of a right-wing/fanatic mindset.

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Lots of dystopic scenarios are like that if you think about it; they look awful to most of the population, but there's a small percentage of extremists who want it.

 

[illusivepunk]

Lots of dystopic scenarios are like that if you think about it; they look awful to most of the population, but there's a small percentage of extremists who want it.

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In general I think that a lot of dystopic/apocalyptic scenarios do portray stuff in a way that contradicts their premise, TBH. I mean, I don't watch many YA dystopia films but from the trailers everyone looks pretty clean and well-fed. I guess that's just Hollywood for you though.

 

[Triggerhappy]

Oh yeah for sure, but this is the first time that I've ever really heard it articulated about such a popular show like The Walking Dead.

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On a related note this is part of why The Last of Us setting, good game that it is, falls flat for me. The second the remnants of the military was depicted as anything but another gang* I was left wondering why the heck they were huddling in a rotting district of Boston rather than exterminating the local infected population and farming the surrounding land as, at very least, a city state.

* While a bunch of authoritarian shitheads in general, the military did keep the Safe Zone mostly secure against infected, coordinated scavenging operations, operated convoys over a days ride away from the compound, performed limited manufacturing, and made an effort to educate (and also indoctrinate) the children under their care.

Compare this to every other large group of humans in the game who try to :

Kill You And Loot Your Corpse
Kill You Loot Your Corpse And Eat You
Kill You and Dissect Elly (And also instigate the collapse of the military in the city full of people who try and Kill You and Loot Your Corpse, and then try to to do it over and over again in successive cities while refusing any responsibility to provide leadership and order after tearing everything down.)

 

[Hykal94]

On a related note this is part of why The Last of Us setting, good game that it is, falls flat for me. The second the remnants of the military was depicted as anything but another gang* I was left wondering why the heck they were huddling in a rotting district of Boston rather than exterminating the local infected population and farming the surrounding land as, at very least, a city state.

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Aaaand this is why Fallout 3 falls flat on its face when it came to world building, and why FO4 very much focuses on farming as an important part of the lore.

Still no idea why no one grabs a broom and clears the debris though.

 

[greendoor]

In what way? I just found it pretty straightforwardly depressing, not subversive of anything.

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IIRC, it's all about how liberal values and not being a Survivalist shithead are good things. The individualist "Hard Men" eventually lose to people who worked together to rebuild an actual society, not a survivalist feudal empire.
Edit: It also subvert Apoc tropes in that it took Nuclear War, EMP, super plagues, mass starvation, and essentially major rebel uprisings/A civil war across the entire country and things still aren't as bad as most Post Apoc settings.

 

[Triggerhappy]

Edit: It also subvert Apoc tropes in that it took Nuclear War, EMP, super plagues, mass starvation, and essentially major rebel uprisings/A civil war across the entire country and things still aren't as bad as most Post Apoc settings.

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Specifically it took everything mentioned plus the Holinist's hunting and preying on every effort to organize and rebuild society to bring things crashing down.

At the end of the day this sort of survivalist fantasy is built on the same foundation as every other societal fantasy. Which is the belief by its subscribers that their investment in the narrative ensures that they'll be among the people 'on top' in the new order.

 

[greendoor]

Specifically it took everything mention plus the Holinist's hunting and preying on every effort to organize and rebuild society to bring things crashing down.

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That's what I meant by Rebel Uprisings or a Civil War. But yeah, kinda crazy. And there's still city states and towns and such in rather decent density when you'd expect a wasteland.

 

[teslashark]

Oh yeah for sure, but this is the first time that I've ever really heard it articulated about such a popular show like The Walking Dead. I haven't watched it though I know it's enormously popular, but it scarily makes sense that subconsciously it might play to the desires of a right-wing/fanatic mindset.

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"Violence. Selfishness. As individuals, it is our greatest strength. But as a species, it is our greatest weakness." -- Resistance 3, Wardens

I actually think gun shop clerks who freely admit they have a storage for "people popping" are more objectively personable than those who say you can use their stock on zombies. You never murder a zombie.

 

[Phearo]

Aaaand this is why Fallout 3 falls flat on its face when it came to world building, and why FO4 very much focuses on farming as an important part of the lore.

Still no idea why no one grabs a broom and clears the debris though.

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"Dammit, George, I asked you to clean the house four hours ago! I've yet to see you pick up a broom and actually do your chores!"

"Eh, Kelly, it's just, looking at this place... It just.. it has character, you know?"

"Such a lazy bum. You'll be singing a different tune once the irradiated spiders make themselves at home."

"Honey, didn't you see the radroaches? I'd be surprised if they weren't here already!"

 

[Flectarn]

If your invested in the idea that the current order of things is wrong, your probably going to find fantasies of it being swept away and suddenly having the freedom to rebuild along different principals pretty appealing.

Doesn't matter if your vision is right, left, totalitarian or anarchist.

 

[Reveen]

A lot of people think they want to be Wyatt Earp fighting zombies. But what they really want to be deep down is Immortan Joe.

 

[Phearo]

If your invested in the idea that the current order of things is wrong, your probably going to find fantasies of it being swept away and suddenly having the freedom to rebuild along different principals pretty appealing.

Doesn't matter if your vision is right, left, totalitarian or anarchist.

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Principal. People keep misusing that word. The one you're looking for is principle, my friend.

 

[Triggerhappy]

A lot of people think they want to be Wyatt Earp fighting zombies. But what they really want to be deep down is Immortan Joe.

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Actually I want to be the mechanist building implossible post apocalyptic contraptions in my mountain fortress converted from an ancient monastery/temple

 

[firefossil]

Post-Apocalyptic fiction has plenty of rugged "Hard Men" individualists fighting off subhuman barbarian hordes, after the decadent and corrupt urban lifestyle has collapsed upon itself, with most organizations being a mixture of column A and B. Such indeed carries all sorts of fascist undertones or overtones. It'd be interesting to see someone go through post-apocalyptic and zombie apocalypse works to see what works consistently reflect such messaging and which don't.

That said a lot of post-apocalyptic settings are really more of a post-post-apocalyptic, where the past apocalypse just gets used as the mechanism by which you go from "modern day America" to "Panem" or whatever nonsensical YA dystopia or whatever you're going for. The messages for those are all over the place.

 

[Cetashwayo]

I mean you have The Road where the most powerful and dangerous people are those willing to go the full mile to survive- slavery, using woman as chattel, cannibalism. In the end, though, it's hinted that humanity as a whole is going extinct anyways, and rather than this phalanx of hard men being some sort of progenitor to a new civilization, they're the twisted and barbaric aspect of self-preservation taken to its worst extent. They're the primary antagonists, and in the end, when the main character dies, his son is saved by those that explicitly refuse to commit horrific amoral acts simply for survival. Now, there's a lot of debate about The Road since it's a prime target for Lit major graduate students as an essay topic, but I'd say it's a refutation of that sort of Action Man mentality. It certainly doesn't at all shirk at the terrible things that these people do.

 

[Sublink]

It's pretty common for it to boil down to the author telling us '... and now that I'M in charge, everything will be great'. But frankly I think this is probably part of the appeal of the genre, at least in the recent decade - people are more interested in hearing about the strongman solving the problems (simpler solutions preferred) than they are in hearing about how terrible something is and why they should avoid it. Lots of work like that is misinterpreted anyway: look at the 80s where movies about how unrestrained greed is terrible and leads to negative outcomes actually made people love it.

 

[Triggerhappy]

Now, there's a lot of debate about The Road since it's a prime target for Lit major graduate students as an essay topic, but I'd say it's a refutation of that sort of Action Man mentality. It certainly doesn't at all shirk at the terrible things that these people do.

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That's a pretty valid reading of the themes of the road. And part of the reason why I find the book so very depressing. It's just reading the long agonizingly drawn out extinction of the human race.

Another reading we discussed in a scifi lit class was the complete degradation and extinction of the old world and the fears of a parent who is barred from following their child into the new one with all its horrors, if there even is a new one. Really big if.

Considering the road was written by McCarthy when his second son was eight (and he was . . . 73?) that is certainly a theme that would have born heavily on him.

While it's not directly applicable to the above discussion it does bring to mind the fact that Post Apocalyptic Fiction often has little interest in describing a return to any sort of stable society, and when it does, it's usually a misunderstood amalgam of historical artifacts conjured up from the authors mind.

 

[Memphet'ran]

Post-apocalypse when framed as a selfish utopia seems like it'd perfectly appeal to the crazy right-wingers and nutcases who want to "rebuild" or "build their perfect society". Thoughts, SV?

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If your invested in the idea that the current order of things is wrong, your probably going to find fantasies of it being swept away and suddenly having the freedom to rebuild along different principals pretty appealing.

Doesn't matter if your vision is right, left, totalitarian or anarchist.

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Yeah, I don't think this is a phenomenon at all exclusive to the right; I see plenty of distastefully gleeful looking forward to the collapse of present civilization on the left too. The fantasy is of the present order collapsing under (what you think are) its own flaws, clearing the way for (your idea of) a better society to be built on the ruins. The revealing thing is how in such fantasies the apocalypse is imagined as catalyzing the sort of changes you like, so conservatives imagine it catalyzing a return to hardy frontier values, deep greens imagine it catalyzing a return to a more rural and less consumerist existence more in harmony with nature, and SDN types imagine it catalyzing the rise of a rationalist technocratic state which will implement left-technocrat-collectivist solutions at gunpoint.

Edit: on a different note, this reminds me, I myself recently did a little foray into writing apocalyptic fiction (set during the Bronze Age Collapse). I suspect it's the sort the OP article author would approve of, as its overarching themes were 1) the collapse of civilization, even a civilization that arguably is better razed so something better can grow from the ruins, is really awful for the people who have to live through it (or, often, die in it), 2) I don't think I'd be one of the survivors.

 

[teslashark]

I mean you have The Road where the most powerful and dangerous people are those willing to go the full mile to survive- slavery, using woman as chattel, cannibalism. In the end, though, it's hinted that humanity as a whole is going extinct anyways, and rather than this phalanx of hard men being some sort of progenitor to a new civilization, they're the twisted and barbaric aspect of self-preservation taken to its worst extent. They're the primary antagonists, and in the end, when the main character dies, his son is saved by those that explicitly refuse to commit horrific amoral acts simply for survival. Now, there's a lot of debate about The Road since it's a prime target for Lit major graduate students as an essay topic, but I'd say it's a refutation of that sort of Action Man mentality. It certainly doesn't at all shirk at the terrible things that these people do.

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Interstellar, while it may suck in other places, could be paired with The Road. It's still some institutional effort that saved the world instead of the hard men types.

 

[Reveen]

Interstellar, while it may suck in other places, could be paired with The Road. It's still some institutional effort that saved the world instead of the hard men types.

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Lol wut. There was no dumbass institutional effort that saved the world in the Road. The world is fucked in the Road as if rational governments never existed in the first place. The only thing that's left is basic human kindness that might save a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of humanity.