So with everything going on, i have not gotten much work done on the FOW stuff. But while scanning some old faimly photos I found an essay I wrote in the first year at college. I was trying to explain the points of view of Thomas Hobbs and John Locke, and using zombies as the backdrop. Please feel free to let me know what you think.
I have probably spent far too much of my free time
(and not-so-free time) dedicated to the development of zombie survival strategies. I drove my roommates crazy while looking for
a new house, because I rated all available places on how defensible they were
against a zombie horde. I have two
theories on how the world will react to the zombie outbreak. Both theories are dependent on the extent of
outbreak. I feel that the survivors will
take ether a John Locke or a Thomas Hobbs view toward their fellow man.
In
the first situation, we are looking at a very small zombie outbreak; a few
dozen walking dead terrorizing a small remote town. The humans far outnumber the zombies. In this type of outbreak the world that these
people know still exists; all-be-it in turmoil and chaos. These people maintain hope that everything
will go back to normal once they defeat the walking dead, or if they make it to
the next town. The societal structure
that they are used to is still intact and the survivors will work together. While there may be one person who everyone
looks to, decisions will be made in a democratic style, with everyone receiving
a vote. They would have a John Locke
approach to their group; that people are generally good and will look after
each other. They will also expect the
military to arrive to protect them, and liberate their homes (protection of
property). Survival rate for this group
is very high in a small outbreak; however their chances of survival decrease if
the outbreak proceeds to the second stage.
In
the second scenario, society as we have known it has broken down. The zombies now surpass the humans as the
dominate being all over the world. Because
the survivors relies that there is no going back to the “way it was”, they will
organize into very small groups and only look out for each other. While in the smaller outbreak other survivors
were seen as additional people to help liberate, on the apocalyptic scale,
those same people are now seen as competition for limited recourses and
conflicts between surviving groups will occur.
Only a small, well organized group
where every able-body adult assists and is lead by a strong individual has any
really chance at prolonged survival.
Larger groups are too hard to control.
Food and shelter will be scarce and if there is not an adequate supply of
each, the group will quickly devolve into anarchy. At this point, survivors in a large group will
have to be weary of others in the same group as well as the zombies. I think that on the apocalyptic level survivors
will abandon the democratic mentality and adopt autonomous leader figure to
make the difficult choices that they don’t really want to make.
A system where everyone has equal
say does not work when survival is measured in minutes. If a group is going to survive, there needs
to be one person who will make decisions and give directions and the others
will listen. This person, Thomas Hobbes
would call the “Leviathan”, would create law and order. He will make the hard decisions that would
rarely ever reach a decisive result in a democratic vote. For instance, what to
do if one of their party was bitten by a zombie. The Leviathan leader must be the one who
makes this choice for everyone. Every
moment a decision is not made puts the whole group at risk.
The main difference that separates
both approaches to surviving the zombie apocalypse will be “society”. I believe that as long as people feel that
the zombie threat is only temporary they will be civil and assist each
other. This is not to say that there
will not be some people that will take advantage of other, but these are the
same people who would be doing that regardless of the zombie apocalypse. Only when every remnant of society is gone,
and life is a constant fight for survival will people turn away from each
other. They will do whatever it takes
for them and the members of their small group to survive one more day, even at
the expense of another group.
Kevin
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