During a question-and-answer session with students on February 7, 2014, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Noam Chomsky was asked why there’s a cultural preoccupation with “the zombie apocalypse” in United States.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.
DonateNoam Chomsky (born on December 7, 1928, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historical essayist, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and an Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and is the author of more than 150 books. He has written and lectured widely on linguistics, philosophy, intellectual history, contemporary issues, and particularly international affairs and U.S. foreign policy. Chomsky has been a writer for Z projects since their earliest inception, and is a tireless supporter of our operations.
All the latest from Z, directly to your inbox.
Institute for Social and Cultural Communications, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit.
Our EIN# is #22-2959506. Your donation is tax-deductible to the extent allowable by law.
We do not accept funding from advertising or corporate sponsors. We rely on donors like you to do our work.
All the latest from Z, directly to your inbox.
We’re glad you keep coming back. If Z’s work has informed, challenged, or inspired you, that’s no accident: there are no paywalls, no ads, and no billionaire owners here, and there never will be. Independent media survives because readers choose to support it.
Billionaires fund their own media. We fund ours. Help us reach 1,000 sustaining donors:
Sustainers at $9/month or more receive the digital Z Magazine.
Already a sustainer? Click here and we won’t ask again. Thank you!
Your reading count is stored only in your browser and is never sent to us.Sound is muted by default. Tap 🔊 for the full experience
Critical Action is a longtime friend of Z and a music and storytelling project grounded in liberation, solidarity, and resistance to authoritarian power. Through music, narrative, and multimedia, the project engages the same political realities and movement traditions that guide and motivate Z’s work.
If this project resonates with you, you can learn more about it and find ways to support the work using the link below.
It is disappearing because platforms reward speed, outrage, and algorithmic visibility over thoughtful analysis.
More than 100,000 people read Z every month, free of paywalls, ads, and billionaire owners. It takes fewer than 1 in 100 of them to fund all of it: 1,000 donors who keep Z independent, for everyone, and build what comes next.
Sustainers at $9/month or more receive the digital Z Magazine.
Join the Z Community – receive event invites, announcements, a Weekly Digest, and opportunities to engage.
5 Comments
Seems the video is unavailable.
Watch this short movie from this year, it’s on the same topic https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VjQ2t_yNHQs
The social angle was there from the beginning. The seminal Day of the Dead features the mindless hordes drifting around a shopping mall, etc. There, Romero’s over-the-top satire was directed at a public stripped of community, self-awareness and individuality, rather than at some threat-group.
On the fear of outsider-groups writ large: I’d say that a deeper cause is that this kind of stuff allows an outlet for the predictable feelings of threat and anger bought on by the atomisation and insecurity that people are subject to, socially and economically. These feelings are not being widely admitted to and talked out in more constructive ways; here we see them bubbling up. The Walking Dead’s world of extreme threat, uncertainty, and desperation speaks to people in a way that the general depiction of society and everyday life on TV does not. I think that also lies behind the fear of “threat-groups” itself — we all know it’s easier to whip up the more socially insecure people feel.
As Mr. Chomsky says, there is a new subconscious fear in America. Before, the” aliens” represented the Russians, the immigrants, the illegal aliens. In other words, aliens represented a external threat against the American society. Nowadays, the fear comes from inside. It’s about recession, unemployment, poverty, drugs and social trouble. The Zombies represent the desperate poor, the homeless, the junkies we see on the streets.
This phenomena started in a street protests where the zombies represented the apathetic society controlled by corporations. However, this idea was hijacked by Hollywood, and the zombies were associate with the marginalized, playing a different mind game.
Yeah I did a piece on this last summer: http://www.redmoonrising.com/zombieapocalypse.htm