Given the return of ‘The Walking Dead’, io9 (our longtime foes) decided to solicit opinions on when it’s ‘okay’ to murder people for the supposedly heinous crime of being Undead:

The Walking Dead returns tomorrow night in the wake of a moral dilemma: Should zombies be killed on sight, or quarantined as sick humans? We look at some of the issues surrounding zombie murder, and want to hear what you think about the ethics of killing these infection-spreading cannibals.

Yes, I’m sure framing the question in that Yellow Journalism manner would have no impact on the answers one might receive. Kudos, io9, for showing that the grand American journalism tradition of William Randolph Hearst is still alive and well in the internet age.

Moving on, first they ask the CDC via its spokesman about when it’s ‘okay’ to kill innocent Undead, neither accused nor convicted of any crime, and receive a surprising (to us and them) response:

Since the CDC has already put out a pamphlet on zombie preparedness, we asked CDC spokesman David Daigle whether the government agency would ever recommend killing a zombie. The answer was a resolute no:

‘No, I can think of no scenario where that recommendation would be employed, breaking the cycle of transmission is key and if we look at SARS, H1N1 we see pandemics that public health battled one without a vax and one where a vax was developed later using public health techniques of quarantine, isolation, changing behaviors (more washing of hands, social distancing, avoiding mass gatherings, etc)’.

I have to say this sudden reversal from the CDC is astonishing in light of their complete and shamelessly tawdry embrace of Anti-Zombiism in the recent past. Has the CDC found itself responsible for a wave of new Living Supremacism in the wake of its odious and shameful Anti-Zombie campaign last year, and reconsidered? Have cooler heads prevailed at the once-proud, now-disgraced disease fighting agency?

The ZRC wonders, but is thankful nonetheless for this definitive retraction. It gives us some limited hope for meaningful change from our federal government in the near future on the Zombie Rights issue.

Having been stymied in obtaining official governmental sanction for their violent proclivities the io9 Living Supremacists seek out a ‘bioethicist’ by the name of Kyle Munkittrick, who apparently labors at a website called Pop Bioethics, to justify their behavior using odious theories of inherent Living biological superiority:

Thus, the resolution is that, should a cure become available, it comes with the presumption that active killing may still be necessary to prevent further suffering. Delivering the cure during the transition of an individual may result in recovery with none, minor, significant, severe, or mortal brain damage. Based on the individual and the decisions of trusted surrogates, it may be necessary to euthanize anyone with significant or worse brain damage. To persist in such a state is undignified and violates [the dignity of the human body].

Tragically throughout history there has never been a shortage of individuals like Mr. Munkittrick, eager to apply the dominant quasi-scientific paradigm of the day to rationalize the oppression, and even, as here, eradication of a disfavored minority population. Reading his hateful screeds reminded me of nothing quite so much as the 19th century Positivist criminology or the early Eugenics movement here in the United States.

In both cases supposedly learned men came up with oh-so-reasonable excuses for the exclusion, persecution, even elimination of groups of people who, the evidence *clearly* showed, were no longer fully human. Criminals, the positivists thought, were atavistic throwbacks to earlier stages in human evolution. If possible, they should be isolated and forbidden to breed, lest they spread their inferior traits and contaminate the mainstream population. Likewise the eugenicists looked out at society and concluded that social ills stemmed from weaker genes being carried by subhuman populations; they too advocated isolation, where possible, and compulsory sterilization where not.

The parallels would be eerie if they were not so tragic. First, Mr. Munkittrick on ‘Rage’ Zombies:

It is possible that the 28 Days Later rage zombies actually exist in this category, in that they are not “dead” per se, but reduced to madness….[I]t is ethically permissible to terminate anyone infected with rage because of 1) the extremely high potential for harm to others 2) the strong possibility of current harm to the individual (presuming a nugget of preserved consciousness likely experiencing nothing but pain and fear) 3) and the fact that involuntary rage behavior violates [their dignity as a human being].

Compare that with the reasoning of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in Buck v. Bell, which legalized compulsory sterilization of social undesirables in the United States on eugenicist grounds:

We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes.

Yes, the interests of ‘society’ must be preserved, must they not? The inherent danger posed by the unfit/Zombies, who can of course transmit their unfitness to larger society by reproducing, justifies strong state action to eliminate this threat. The body politic must be preserved. Sacrifices must be made, and at any rate, they’re simply ‘degenerate’ individuals whose very condition ‘violates [their dignity as a human being]‘

I could go on but this topic is, quite frankly, sickening. History should serve as a warning about blasé speculation about how best to justify the removal of human populations, but somehow it rarely does. Instead we repeat the same mistakes over and over again. If it’s not fear of the Native Americans, it’s the Germans. If not the Germans, the Jews, the Irish, the Italians, African-Americans, Arabs and Middle Easterners, even our ideological foes are maligned as subhuman savages (why else would they believe in things like Communism/Socialism/Anarchy/etc?) in need of the strict and paternalistic controlling hand of the state.

And now, of course, it’s Zombies.

For shame, io9. You’ve really outdone yourselves this time.

Tags: Academia, Journamalism, Mainstream Media

This entry was posted by John Sears on Sunday, February 12th, 2012 at 10:49 pm and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.