Post-Apocalypse
Although I’m sure I’ve had this thought before (it’s certainly not original), it struck me this week with a fresh potency: Our North American culture is obsessed with all things post-apocalyptic, and has been for some time.
All you need to do is look at popular movies, tv-shows, video games, and even novels from the last decade to see the proof of our obsession. I’ll admit the genre is interesting and takes many forms which can make for enjoyable consumption.
Sometimes aliens end the world, more often it’s the “undead” in one form or another. Increasingly, it’s a climate related apocalyptic event looming on the horizon.
In many explorations of this theme, the main plot point is averting the end of the world, but increasingly I’m noticing an exploration of what life will be like after the end. A true post-apocalypse.
How will humanity survive? What will society and civilization look like in this new era? These are key questions.
What truly fascinates me are the assumptions and tropes that drive this genre. Here are a few that come to mind:
- An “apocalyptic” event is inevitable. The details of the event and its aversion are up for debate, but such an event is surely coming.
- In the new-era, the worst inclinations of humanity will govern the world. Sometimes in the form of barbaric tribalism (think Mad Max), sometimes in the form of a sophisticated dystopia (I’m looking at you Hunger Games). Social Darwinism finds an unusually pure expression in post-apocalyptic civilizations.
- Hope is in short supply. Even though many (if not all) entries in the post-apocalyptic genre end on a hopeful note, the future is pretty much still as bleak as it was at the beginning. Sure the current despot is overthrown, but tyrants are a dime a dozen. Things may still be bad, but at least they’re not as bad as they were before. Yet overall the tone is that in the long term things are not likely to get much better than they are now.
It’s this last one that troubles me the most.
Apocalyptic as a genre has always, to a certain extant, been an extrapolation and exaggeration of a society’s current state of affairs. It’s a way of exposing certain aspects of our culture and our lives that we gloss over and take for granted, so they can be re-examined and our future reimagined.
Yet hope always seems in short supply, like a limited resource that will eventually run out.
In most post-end time futures there is just enough hope to keep a family, or maybe even a small community, alive for a short time. Certainly there isn’t enough lasting hope for the whole world.
Even though we live in a culture that tacitly believes progress will create a brighter tomorrow for us, apocalyptic (which literally in Greek means “revelation” as in to “uncover what was hidden”) reveals the conflicting belief that progress will also result in our destruction. Progress doesn’t offer any consistent or reliable hope for the future. It is a double edged sword leading to both life and death.
Our real hopes for the future seem small. Earning just enough to retire, send our kids to school, buy a house, etc. Maybe achieve some measure of social change through a #movement and litigation. On the whole the future seems to hold mainly more of the same. More of the worst parts of humanity with less of the noblest and most truly human aspects of our existence, like kindness, empathy, and friendship.
But hope is not a limited good. It’s a commitment to a future that transcends our current ability to grasp it. It describes a future that will only seem certain in hindsight.
The futures portrayed in post-apocalyptic movies and books are generally pretty frightful to imagine yourself living in. They emphasize the fickle nature of humanity and the uncertainty we create.
Part of finding true, unlimited hope is letting go of all the things that ultimately offer only empty promises for the future. It means starring into the abyss, honestly acknowledging the dire circumstances of our lives along with all the uncertainty that looms on the horizon.
Hope ultimately must transcend you, your ability to know it, to control it, and even to imagine its realization. Hope is about a future on the far side of uncertainty.
I guess you could say, true hope is post-apocalyptic.
