Cutting Your Losses

As a member of the ruling council in my community, The Wally World Warriors, I have realized that in a post-apocalyptic world, the decisions to preserve humanity don’t exactly run parallel with being “humane.” In an ideal situation, the decisions made by the ruling council should benefit everyone, leaving no one feel like a second-class citizen. However, when it comes to fighting to preserve the existence of the human race, cutting your losses can aid you in reaching this goal. I am talking about making sacrifices.

Through many of our readings this semester there have been sacrifices made in the fictional zombie-apocalypse worlds. Typically these sacrifices have been heroic decisions made by characters to help the rest of the group survive. This can clearly be seen in Courtney Summer’s novel, This is Not a Test, when Cary sacrifices his life so Rhys and Sloane can successfully evade the mass of zombies. The sacrificing of a characters life has often been synonymous with acts of heroism, which is why Cary redeems himself at the end of the novel.

However, there is also the less heroic side of sacrifices seen throughout our readings. I guess you can classify it as a systemic sacrifice, since it is planned out versus heat-of-the-moment with a heroic sacrifice. These systemic sacrifices have the same outcome; yet usually don’t involve willing volunteers. This is seen in This is Not a Test as well, when Cary tries to get Harrison to sacrifice himself in the beginning in order to make it to the High School. However, it was Trace and Grace’s parents who took the bait on that one.

A more important example of this is in our reading for this week, World War Z. The Redeker plan embodies a systemic sacrifice that actually worked in meeting its end goal. As explained in the interview, “there was no way to save everyone.” It came to a point for the political leaders of South Africa to make a choice: lose everyone or sacrifice a portion of the population to save humanity. The Redeker Plan consisted of having a small portion of the population reach a safe zone, while the other portion be used as “human bait” to lead the zombies to a secluded, isolated area for easy eradication.

All in all, in a post-apocalyptic world, when you’re fighting to preserve the human race, are human sacrifices needed? This is an interesting concept because there was nothing humane about the Redeker Plan to preserve humanity. However, as a member of the ruling council, I think the Redeker Plan is genius, pure evil genius. I guess all one can hope for is to be a significant member of society to be considered worthy of keeping alive.