Luke already talked about this a little in his post, but I was wondering what is it about post-apocalyptic narratives that makes them so popular. It’s an odd trend, when you take a step back and really look at it. Why do we enjoy reading and watching stories that describe a world where society has collapsed, millions (possibly billions) of people are dead, and the way of life we know has forever disappeared? It’s rather macabre, in a way, the imagining of a “post-human” world. Station Eleven does a great job of creating just such a world, giving us just enough details to flesh it out, but not too much as to leave our imagination out of the process. In a strange way, the novel relies on our previous encounters with post-apocalyptic narratives. When we read about the “Georgia Flu:, we don’t need a bunch of chapters detailing how society collapsed. We know how those stories go. We’ve read them, we’ve seen them, they’re almost everywhere these days. So, what’s the reason for the popularity of this type of story? What draws us to them?
One possibility is what I mentioned before, the vaguely thrilling sense of macabre. There’s something in us that wants to read stories of destruction, of death and ruin, of something so terrible it has the potential to wipe out the most successful species in Earth’s history. It’s like a penny dreadful or the murder scene in a mystery novel, just on a global scale. We’re drawn to death, however much we hate to admit it. Any sort of apocalypse would be a tragedy, by any and every measure, something tragic, awful, and ruinous. And yet…wouldn’t you almost want to watch it happen? Not to you of course, maybe to some other planet as you sit on the moon and watch, but the feeling is there. It’s odd, this fascination with what happens after the end. We sit in our air-conditioned houses, staring at smart phones, watching tv, playing video games, boarding flights to far-off countries, secure in the knowledge that there has never been a better time to be alive than right now. But then our minds begin to wander, and we almost start to wish it would all come crashing down around us.
Very interesting post. I do have my own take on it which I think is worth sharing since I had very similar thoughts reading the story. Despite agreeing that there is a kind of covert admiration for the macabre, and in general dark things – which are often labelled as weird, morbid, and taboo (which is why the admiration is usually covert) – I think there is a different reason for the fascination. And I see it as being much more related to nature, than some obscure feature of being human, which loves death.
I think it is in our nature to not actually abide by laws and rules, despite understanding that they are better for everyone across the board, not following rules is a selfish way of helping oneself prosper and is a feeling that needs to be subdued at times, either through moral contemplation, or meta-rules like the honor code (the rule is to not break the rules). I think everyone is tempted to at some point get an edge over others, even if it means making other worse off. I attribute this to our animal nature, which is much less civilized and trusting, but still very present in our DNA.
Expanding on that, I think there is something about vicariously experiencing tragedy and death that is another taboo topic which seems prevalent. People love watching others’ misfortune, but nobody openly admits it. Everyone is okay with watching videos of other people falling, injuring themselves, sometimes even mortally, but the enjoyment remains the elephant in the room. And this enjoyment has been around for a long time. For a long time, it was just simply the law of the land to be violent, but with civilization, people had less access to such “enjoyment”, so people made things like gladiator arenas to satisfy that odd craving. Today we have recordings for people falling over, being in pain, and suffering, and yet it’s just kind of okay.
Have you ever asked yourself, isn’t it weird that we have monthly and weekly compilations of peoples’ fails? It’s like our primal competitiveness enjoys the failure of others, because the failure of others must mean personal success, and in DNA terms, that’s a win win win.
(I didn’t write win three times for a higher word count, or did I? Maybe I wrote this for a higher word count as well? You’ll never know. Is it cheating? I don’t know, ask Dr Sample, but I’m well over 350 words without all of this)