By Thomas Anderson
I love the political symbolism in science fiction movies, especially zombie flicks and TV series like The Walking Dead. Movie titles like 28 Days Later and World War Z are some of my favorites. They encapsulate the feeling I get when I examine our political system holistically across the entire spectrum, our society’s trajectory within this system, and the effects the system has on our different political classes. The zombies in these works also reflect my idea of the grotesque nature of what they symbolize in the real world. I view political zombies as victims of a dying world depleted of resources, led astray by false prophets and teachers who have programmed them to act in groups as mindless hoards to shake down anything not nailed down. Danny Boyle, the director of 28 Days Later, is so good at depicting this dystopian, but accurate, take on modern society that his work on the London 2012 Summer Olympics became a Covid Urban Legend.
The zombies of 28 Days Later and World War Z are depicting political zombies of the real world, people who have been rewired mentally and are now essentially preprogrammed automatons scrolling through waves of emotional roller coaster rides on social media. Many are self-medicating, others are taking cocktails of pharmaceuticals to get through the days of raging at Biden or MAGA/Trump. Juxtaposing the shell of a human who was programmed by a group of social media influencers in a technological world where every answer to every political problem is a simple compromise within the wealthiest nation in the history of the world reflects the grotesque nature of zombies in these movies. Something is disgusting about billionaires roaming social media spouting nonsense programmed into their heads by some influencer, very zombie-like. Like in the movies, zombie infections happen to everyone rich or poor which is how we get billionaires working with lawyers and activists to instigate things like protests against the police or the campus protests happening today.
We live in a world where all of our sci-fi fantasies inspired by Hollywood are becoming reality through the fast evolution of technology. Elon Musk recently tweeted something that got me thinking along these lines:
Essentially, the world over time will descend into chaos as if the natural world is by design a world of destruction- is what I read in that tweet. This is only partially true, as too much focus on entropy may blind one to the synergetic escape hatches entropy naturally creates. I saw this when researching Standard Oil recently. Theodore Roosevelt’s breaking up of the monopolies was supposed to suppress and disperse the Standard Oil stranglehold on the world’s economy, when in reality the entropic strategy Roosevelt embarked on made Standard Oil a multi-headed international beast. A multi-national synergy was created between Standard Oil entities after the breakup of the corporation that can be viewed today. Chevron is a former Standard Oil company that happens to find themselves in a battle with Exxon- another Standard Oil company- over a deal with Hess. This “battle” is one where the only loser will be Hess, unfortunately. But this is how synergy created through entropy works in the real world. Standard Oil still exists, but in a form much harder to compete with because of the hardened shell created by political entropy (anti-trust) applied over 100 years ago.
I feel Musk is in danger of falling prey to the political zombie infection his platform propagates based on that entropy tweet and other antics he’s been involved in lately. This is a bigger problem than most realize as his connections to our military and intelligence agencies weigh heavy on the current technological transformation we’re embarking on through an across-the-board modernization of most systems of our national defense. Reports of him taking pharmaceuticals is even more worrisome as a big part of our media structure depends on his ability to wield the powers of the platform X proficiently. Modern-day war weapons tend to be weapons that have a big impact on a population’s mental state and platforms like X are integral parts of what I view as a very vulnerable system to foreign-funded psychological operations meant to derail our nation politically.
I find it worrisome our political elite and billionaire class appear to have gone down their own rabbit hole machinations they’ve been creating throughout their careers for their opponents to slip on. They’re becoming the political zombies they’ve been creating by victimizing the public on a 24/7 toxic content buffet of short-term satisfaction that leads to nothing but loss down the road. They’re drinking their own Kool-Aid, and very few can voice this without coming under attack of the hords our political class is churning out. This is the real zombie flick we are living where the world comes grinding to a halt because a few billionaires got infected with their own zombie disease.