Freud argued that in everyone's unconscious mind there is a constant force that causes an individual to want to live, and to produce life. This is why we want to have sex all the time. It's also why you can't kill yourself by holding your breath. At a certain point, some part of your unconscious decides you're being silly and takes control, forcing you to breath. Your mind wants you to live, so you can go create more life. Freud's theory however, like most of his theories, is more complicated than that. He argued that there was an opposing force present in our unconscious mind, that of the death drive. This is, simply put, a desire to destroy everything, including ourselves. It's a simple wish to return complex things to base forms. Freud thought that part of the death drive manifested itself in aggression, accounting for most of the world's woes. Everything from flying a plane into a building to smashing your brother's sandcastle is basically an outlet for the death drive. While these are most likely unhealthy ways to divert the death drive, there are others. I assert that our cultural obsession with the Apocalypse, and specifically zombies, has something to do with Freud's theory.
The Apocalypse, in our cultural imagination at least, is some horrific event in which most, or all of the people on the planet die. This could be due to a meteor, alien invasion, robot uprising, divine intervention, zombies, or mutant molemen. It doesn't really matter. All that matters is the fact that millions of people are obsessed with the thought that at any moment some catastrophic event could kill everyone they loved. But not them. When someone envisions the Apocalypse, I would argue that they almost never picture themselves dying. It's always, "How would I deal with being one of the survivors?" This shows the life drive still in play, but it doesn't quite explain secretly hoping billions of people were dead.
I think our obsession with the world's end is just a way to divert our death drive onto something other than ourselves. I would say the same thing about violent video games. Without actually hurting other people, we are able to fantasize about death on a monumental scale. This fantasy satisfies our actual cravings, which are inherently violent, and allows us to go on functioning in society.
Zombies are an interesting manifestation of the Apocalypse. They are the most blunt version of Death we could envision (dead people walking), and I think this is why they are so popular. We picture ourselves slashing through a zombie head, or mowing them down with machine gun fire, and think nothing of it. They aren't alive, after all. We may even picture ourselves as happy to be in the Zombie Apocalypse, as it allows us the freedom to run around like a lunatic and kill everything that moves. Are we thankful to the zombies? Are we glad that they wiped out humanity? I think .001 people, if asked, would say they would be actually thankful if zombies wiped out humanity. On the other hand, zombies are their own genre now, with TV shows, movies, reproductions of classic novels, survival guides, etc. At what point does obsession become hope? And what does this hope mean? Unfortunately, the only way to really answer this question is to live through the Apocalypse, and that's probably not gonna happen is it?
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Interesting Yames. Would you contend that the death drive is quantifiable? In which case, does the pendulum swing differently person to person? Or are zombies, and zombie culture, indicative of a cultural desire for carnage?
I think so. Given the current distaste for senseless aggression in our culture, couldn't these primal desires be mediated through accepted forms of aggression? I hate to use Fight Club as a source. But I think MMA is a valid example.