Horror stories about werewolves, vampires, and zombies allegorize epidemics and pandemics. Werewolves, vampires, and zombies are contagious. Each individual can infect a number of healthy humans. These in turn can infect a number of healthy human beings, so that the initial outbreak can spread at an exponential rate and quickly spiral out of control, leading to the collapse of civilization.
Werewolves are asymptomatic carriers except during a full moon. Vampires are largely asymptomatic carriers although there are telltale signs if you know what to look for (fangs, aversion to light, lack of vital signs), so they must take precautions to avoid detection.
Quarantine is a classic response to infectious disease. The success of quarantine depends in part on the incubation period. In some cases you have asymptomatic carriers who unwittingly infect others. By the time they become symptomatic, the disease has spread. It's too late to round them up.
STDs can be another example of asymptomatic carriers. In some cases the carrier may be aware of the STD, but conceals his condition and continues to infect others.
In scifi lore, werewolves, vampires, and zombies are killed without compunction in part because they are dangerous to humans and in part because they are inhuman or subhuman. Vampires are lucid serial killers. Werewolves have lupine psychology at the time they kill, while zombies operate at an instinctual level.
Some zombie flicks are comedies while others use the genre for social commentay. Zombie preparedness alerts and kits are humorous. The zombie apocalypse is a humorous trope.
This is all fictional (except for STDs) but it has real-world counterparts. As I write, we are witnessing the Coronavirus. It remains to be seen how damaging that outbreak will be.
Because we're social creatures, many humans have compassion for the sick and injured. That, however, depends on whether the sick and injured are perceived as posing a threat to healthy members of the population.
Quarantine is a classic response to outbreak but quarantine isn't risk free because it requires some contact between the sick and the healthy. The OT has quarantine laws. It was humanitarian.
A more ruthless impulse is to contain an outbreak by killing the infected. And since carriers may be asymptotic, to kill everyone within a designated zone to provide a margin for error. A fictional example is 28 Weeks Later.
In an atheist regime like Red China, we see real-world analogies. The idea of risking your life to nurse the sick is a very Christian impulse. It taps into moral heroism. And it makes sense if you can afford to die because this life is not all there is.
But atheists don't have that luxury. So the gov't is welding residential buildings closed. Sealing all the residents inside, sick and healthy alike, to die en masse from disease or starvation, dehydration, and lack of sanitation.
Good post!
ReplyDeleteIn addition:
1. It's interesting vampires are often killed by exposing them to sunlight, werewolves by silver bullet (silver has long been known to have beneficial medicinal properties), and zombies by destroying their brains (killing it outright).
2. Almost every relevant medical expert in the West thinks the figures for the coronavirus (i.e. SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19, which is akin to HIV/AIDS where the former is the virus that causes the latter disease) in China are underreported. Both total infected as well as fatalities. That's quite likely due to impotence and incompetence as well as the Chinese gov't actively hiding the true figures.
3. It seems several medical experts in China (including physicians and nurses) have died after issuing warnings about coronavirus. They may have died from the coronavirus itself, but it's equally plausible the Chinese gov't made them "disappear". Of course, the two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive!
4. By contrast, Christians in China are risking their lives to help the infected (e.g. see here).
5. The coronavirus is extremely serious in China. Already much worse than SARS. The question is whether it'll spill over to neighboring nations and, indeed, the rest of the world. At this point, it seems unlikely to come to our shores and overwhelm us like it has overwhelmed China, but no one can say for sure. We just have to watch and wait. Like Minas Tirith hearing rumors that Sauron, the Nazgul, orcs, and other fell beasts are marching toward their city but unsure if they'll be stopped beforehand.
--But atheists don't have that luxury. So the gov't is welding residential buildings closed. Sealing all the residents inside, sick and healthy alike, to die en masse from disease or starvation, dehydration, and lack of sanitation.--
ReplyDeleteIn World War Z (both the novel and the film), North Korea responded to rumours of the zombie outbreak by forcibly removing the teeth of every citizen. No bite, much lower chance of spreading the virus. Note that the novel has slow undead zombies, while the film has fast living 'zombies'. (I'm just waiting for a film to combine both - first you have to incapacitate the running living infected, then you have to burn out the corpse which would otherwise reanimate as a hard to 'kill' undead!)
Also, patient zero probably came from China - some unusual virus released when the Three Gorges Dam flooded a vast area. The virus' initial spread was also intentionally kept under wraps by the govt IIRC.
Recently a Christian had a near death experience and said that they had a vision of the great tribulation. It had a ring of truth about it.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things he saw was a gigantic stack of dead bodies being pushed into a massive pit by huge earth moving machines.
All the hallmarks of death by pandemic.
Interesting. Do you have more information about who this Christian is, etc.?
DeleteI can't remember where I saw it. It might of been a post on Rapture Ready.
DeleteThe other things he saw was lawlessness straight out of mad max. Money being worthless.
Cool, thanks, Andrew.
DeleteSpeaking of Mad Max, Mad Max: Fury Road was perhaps the best action film I've ever seen. But I wouldn't wish to live in that world! :)