This relatively recent piece in Foreign Policy serves as a fascinating and outrageous reminder of the ways in which the academic and policy advocacy world at large continues to mistreat the Differently Animated, and also how world goverments, acting upon such misinformation, might unleash large-scale tragedy upon the Undead community.

FP starts out with a simple proposition: the current cultural obsession with Anti-Zombie media works may reflect an attempt to simulate, and therefore grapple with, intractable and unknown problems whose existence we could postulate but whose precise form is, by definition of being unknown, impossible to anticipate. Zombies are thus a proxy for future calamities whose nature we don’t know, but which will surely occur, human existence being a tenuous and frequently hazardous thing.

Thus they apply the standard Romero-Russo ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ scenario to three primary schools of international relations theory and try to predict how adherents to each one would respond.

Realists, who believe that the balance of power between states that can never trust one another is the status quo of human existence, are said to be particularly suited to a Romero-verse:

As this summary might suggest, realism has a rather dystopian and jaundiced view of the world. In other words, it is perfectly comfortable in the zombie universe — particularly the world of George Romero’s films.

How would the introduction of flesh-eating ghouls affect world politics? The realist answer is simple if surprising: International relations would be largely unaffected.

Liberals, being believers in the overwhelming benefits of mutual cooperation, are seen as likely to push for an international Zombie containment policy:

And what would liberals do after a ghoul invasion? Provided that the initial spread of zombies did not completely wipe out governments, the liberal expectation would be that an international counterzombie regime could make significant inroads into the problem.

And don’t even get me started on how they think neo-conservatives will react:

The neoconservative policy response to an undead uprising would be simple and direct. To paraphrase Robert Kagan, humans are from Earth, and zombies are from hell. Neither accommodation nor recognition would be sustainable options in the face of the zombie threat.

Have you noticed what’s missing from this discussion entirely? No, not morality, for to be fair, we’re discussing international relations, and realists in particular have already made the inherent amorality of their theoretical structure explicit. What’s missing here is any consideration that the Undead might have an agenda and ideology of their own, and constitute more than an uninformed, violent mass of flesh-devouring ghouls!

A singular lack of empathy and research into the actual practices of the Differently Animated pervades the work. Popular Anti-Zombie film constitutes almost the entirety of their conceptual understanding of Zombies, and thus, even though such works are hardly consistent in and of themselves (even when confined to the Romero-Russo paradigm), FP uses them to construct a simplistic and hyperviolent picture of the Undead community. Given this simplistic and wholly imagined ‘threat’, simplistic and uncaring responses seem to follow not just logically but necessarily.

For shame, Foreign Policy, for absolute shame. The Differently Animated Unlive and walk amongst you even now, and you haven’t deigned to notice them, yet, on the basis of the lowest common denominator’s thirst for Anti-Zombie media, you conclude that the most pressing international relations problems in a world with a significant Zombie minority is containment or destruction? How jaded, cynical, and yes, uninformed about the wants, needs and thought processes of the Differently Animated.

Unfortunately this sort of myopia is more than prevalent in academia, it seems to be nearly universal. The Zombie Rights Campaign’s only response is to roll up our sleeves and attempt to take the good word about our Cause to more institutions of learning and advocacy in the hopes of correcting these notions so that when the Undead make their wishes known, said wishes aren’t intentionally misconstrued as ‘Braaaaaaains’ and responded to with massive force. It is our challenge but also our calling to correct this awful state of affairs.

Tags: Journamalism, Romero, Social Justice

This entry was posted by John Sears on Thursday, December 9th, 2010 at 3:46 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.