Apocalyptica Modernica: A Prelude
What is it about the genre of "collapse-porn" and Post-Apocalyptica that really draws us as a society?
Is it the underlying need to prove oneself, the action hero conviction to survive one assault after another in a series of cascading horrors to an eventual and climatic triumph?
Is it the underlying need to destroy oneself, the martyr seeking opportunity to be blamelessly eradicated at the height of tragedy, to be both erased and yet somehow, horribly, glorified through the action?
Is it a return to the individualistic impetuous that drives us to seek our own accomplishments, the strength and power of knowing your successes are your own?
Or is it a return to the communal support, the intimacy of knowing your neighbors not just as faces and mailbox names, but as the trades, skills, and values that create a local currency of survival?
Is it a preoccupation with death, the change from which we emerge utterly different?
Or is it a preoccupation with birth, the creation of a new being derived from past life but new and altered to and by the world it enters, developing into a more mature body?
Is it the underlying need to prove oneself, the action hero conviction to survive one assault after another in a series of cascading horrors to an eventual and climatic triumph?
Is it the underlying need to destroy oneself, the martyr seeking opportunity to be blamelessly eradicated at the height of tragedy, to be both erased and yet somehow, horribly, glorified through the action?
Is it a return to the individualistic impetuous that drives us to seek our own accomplishments, the strength and power of knowing your successes are your own?
Or is it a return to the communal support, the intimacy of knowing your neighbors not just as faces and mailbox names, but as the trades, skills, and values that create a local currency of survival?
Is it a preoccupation with death, the change from which we emerge utterly different?
Or is it a preoccupation with birth, the creation of a new being derived from past life but new and altered to and by the world it enters, developing into a more mature body?