You guys are missing a huge part of the appeal of post apocalyptic storytelling: There are no laws, and might makes right once society breaks down. For a not insignificant number of people, they either fantasize about being able to mete out their own justice or carve out their own kingdom, or wonder how they would fare without society’s rules and protection.
It’s a very masculine fantasy.
Saying that the popularity of apocalyptic movies means we want an apocalypse is like saying that the popularity of slasher flicks means we want to be stabbed to death. Apocalyptic scenarios are popular because we’re *afraid *of the end of the world. Creating a narrative in which people face the end of the world, and survive, is a way we can process these fears.
You have to admit, though. On some level you want that fear. Don’t lie.
I’m not certain how common this is, but I often find myself hoping/wondering/wishing this particular occurrence of any given phenomenon will be of greater magnitude or significance than all others in the past - for example, this wave will be the biggest ever; this storm will have the highest wind speed ever, etc.
I figure I can’t be the only human who experiences this feeling, as the weather reports are always telling us that this is the somethingest-something since records began.
Mary Shelley wrote “The Last Man” in 1826. The genre has a long history.
Personally, I do not care for the current fad for zombie apocalypse stories. Zombies are not part of my mental playscape; my dystopian futures are more of the Mad Max/ Alas Babylon style where an intelligent and resourceful person can begin to rebuild a better society from the wreckage. Reset, clean slate, let’s avoid the mistakes we made last time optimism.
Depends on who you mean by “us.” That’s really an American thing, and maybe a bit British. But in both cultures it’s now more historical-iconography than an actual desire.
That or cheap space travel.
There is a certain longing for the apocalypse. Millenial religious movements are the extreme example of this.
A good discription of what sorts of things lead top such a desire can be found in Eric Hoffer’s old book, The True Believer. Essentially, where people are convinced that the state of things here and now is irredeemably corrupt, an apocalypse can seem like a cleansing - allowing the “saved” (however defined) to start afresh and put together the perfect society - whether here or in some heaven or other.
Because we think that the world is a fucked-up place and we inevitably think of ourselves as survivors.
I tend to daydream about living on the moon or a space station in extreme low gravity. Mars not quite as much but I have been giving it thought recently. A totally different planetary system would mean either a generation ship or some new propulsion, though a brand new planet would be fantastic.
Unfortunately medically I am now a wash out for most of anything except moon and space station [well hubby just reminded me of the movie Hello Down There, so an underwater research station would work also] because I would need regular shipments of insulin and cardiac meds.
I think for some people the apocalypse is the only way they see to get out of credit card debt.
Dylan got it in Talkin’ WW III Blues
Personally, I don’t want it, but I grew up practicing for the end of the world in school.
I prefer Isaac Asimov, who wrote mostly about optimistic futures – humans explore space, robots do our work, etc.
As far as “The End is Near” types, I think people have an attraction to the idea that the particular time they live in (i.e. now) is the most critical time in all of human history. Maybe it gives them a feeling of importance or usefulness. Politicians use this idea in every election.
As far as apocalyptic fiction, I think a lot of people have an attraction to an idea of a more simple life- absent of the myriad of day-to-day worries us modern people have, and back to the basics. If I think long and hard about it, actually worrying about what my next meal is would suck. Worrying about random violence would suck even worse. But it’s pretty easy to fantasize about a “woodsy” existence, or to imagine oneself as a fearsome, honorable warrior.
Cracked’s After Hours discussed this. I think it is required viewing for this thread: Which Apocalypse Would be the most fun?
Indeed, some regard it as more than fantasy. Jack Donovan, a masculist/anarchist writer, proposes that a tribal survival scenario is the natural, fundamental test of male character, and that measuring manliness by anything further up the scale of civilization will only degenerate men into androgynes.
I wonder if there is a libertarian component at work here. Some of the more rabid ones no doubt feel they could become as rich and powerful as they think they deserve to be if the man in the form of big bad government weren’t keeping them down. They probably seem themselves as the town’s bossman, not the schmuck dead on the side of the road.
Being scared is not being a man. Like that scared little man that brought all those guns to the Dark Knight Rises -
http://gawker.com/5932469/man-arrested-at-ohio-dark-knight-rises-showing-with-satchel-full-of-weapons
This guy must be Jack Donovan’s hero.
So was McQueary I am sure. He didn’t break “man-code” and out Sandusky. He was another scared manly hero. He was a corporate warrior. He should rise to the top at a large corporation.
All of our existance is an escape and/or forget-about-death scenario. Everything we do is about death.
The Apocalypse scenario is just another way to indulge the fear of death. Just like the boogey man (Freddy, Jason, etc.)
Certain personalities would rather take the easy way out of problem situations and would rather let “god take us all” in some armageddon fantasy or (if not religious) a zombie apocalypse, which are simply fantasies that allow people to disavow any personal responsibility for understanding and taking positive control of the world around them. This is sometimes also part of a Walter Mitty fantasy that some (men in particular) hold of themselves standing off their real or imagined enemies. People who act out on such fantasies often seem to end up being mass murderers, as we have seen lately.
I have no axe to grind, but there is really no post-apoc fiction that follows this scenario at all.
A recent hit in both novel and film was The Road, a brutally gritty tale that mostly concerned the relationship between parent and child.
The most recent post apoc fiction that sounds anything like your description I can think of would be Jericho TV show and that was years back.