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Thinking through Zombies, Conestoga College, fall 2017

Dr. Mark Zlomislic


Week V
Zombie Sociology and the Master Signifier

In this section we will analyze the social theory of Henry Giroux. We will focus on what
zombies represent socially; examine what is meant by disposability; look at the politics of the
living dead and its culture of cruelty and try to explain the celebration of hyper-violence.
Giroux argues that unless we have real democracy in place that actually helps us to flourish, be
educated and find our vocation, then we are prey to living a zombified life.
Giroux shows that democracy involves having social freedom- the freedom from poverty, the
freedom from lack of care, the freedom from lack of education etc. Here we actually become
citizens who have a shared sense of hope and responsibility to others.
Giroux argues that our current system is informed by a machinery of social and civil death. It
is not the survival of the fittest, but the survival of the wealthiest who feed off our labor, work
and energy. Giroux writes, You have a consolidation of power that is so overwhelming, not just
in its ability to control resources and drive the economy to re distribute wealth upward but
basically to provide the most fraudulent definition of what a democracy should be. What are the
assumptions of this capitalist zombie state? Giroux argues, The notion that profit making is the
essence of democracy, the notion that economics is divorced from ethics, the notion that the only
obligation of citizenship is consumerism, the notion that the welfare state is pathology that any
form of dependency basically is disreputable and needs to be attacked.
Capitalism is not democracy. This fact is clear which is the reason why capitalism can function
in China, North Korea and in Saudi Arabia. Capitalism is the monster that can take root in any
state.
Why power is regulated to benefit the rich; to serve the wealthy and so called elites then society
cannot survive for long. If it does survive then its very existence begins to resemble a work camp
as Agamben showed.
Giroux believes in the social contract that takes seriously the moral obligations that people have
to each other. This means that governments provide for the health, safety and welfare of all its
citizens. It means that hospitals become actual places of healing; that schools become actual
places of education rather than mere training; that spiritual centers actually transform lives. Of
course, there are individual persons that do make society better but overall, institutions seem
only to serve narrow minded corporate interests.
In America especially anything that is public and government funded is seen as pathological.
Notice how three trillion were spent on invading other countries when mere billions could have
fixed social inequities across the world.
Giroux argues, that the government- the larger social order has no responsibility. In such a
state blame is placed on the person for being poor, sick, uneducated etc. This is what Giroux
calls a politics of disposability. In a throw away culture, persons are treated as mere things and
commodities. Giroux reasons that life begins to resemble a mall. You cant walk on a college
campus today.and not see everybody represented there from local banks to Disneyland to local
shops, all selling things.
For Giroux, the school imitates the mall. Everything becomes a brand while values that cannot
be commodified such as trust, justice, honesty, integrity, caring for others, compassion are
simply absent.
Like zombies who feed on brains, the wars of culture have always been a war on the mind.
This is why philosophy is the antidote to zombie mindlessness and to the idiocy that currently
dominates our culture.
Zombie politics is designed to oppose any kind of legislation that lessens human suffering. The
scenes of people foraging in zombie films are the actual lives of human persons across all of our
cultural worlds. In such a state where human life is discarded, death, violence and cruelty are the
norm. Giroux writes, Zombies love death-dealing institutions which account for why they rarely
criticize the bloated military budget and the rise of the punishing state and its expanding prison
system.
The culture of cruelty establishes its reign when thinking and compassion are over-ruled by
greed and selfishness. In the United States there are 13.3 million homeless children. One in five
live in poverty. As Evelyn Pringle writes, in 2006 more money was spent on treating mental
disorders in children aged 0-17 than for any other medical condition.
A drugged population cannot rebel especially if it is in prison. It is not that the language of
certain politician is indifferent. It is the fact that their language actively seeks out the destruction
of others. When a Republican politician says, that people on public assistance are like stray
animals. what can be done to counter such willful stupidity? This is especially problematic in a
nation that calls itself Christian.
Giroux writes the financial elite produce inhuman policies that treat the most vulnerable with
contemptand forcing them to inhabit a society increasingly indifferent to human suffering.
Persons are being robbed of a decent life, of dignity and hope.
Giroux argues that the line between virtual and real violence becomes blurred. He writes,
popular culture not only trades in violence as entertainment, it also delivers violence to a society
addicted to an endless barrage of sensations, the lure of instant gratification and a pleasure
principle steeped in a graphic and extreme images of human mayhem and torture. It is little
wonder that zombie films answer this pathological need for violence.
Giroux argues that the violence inherent in culture are not isolated expressions of marginalized
failures of s system. They are a system, a system of authoritarianisms that has intensified without
apology.
His thesis is if police brutality is one highly visible expression of the politics of disposability,
mass incarceration is its invisible underworld.
He continues, When ethics and any vestige of social responsibility and the public good are
trampled beneath the hooves of the financial state there is no space for democratic values or
justice.
The Master-Signified is like a symbol that we all come to believe in. We believe that there is a
King or Queen and throne. There really isnt a King or Queen but through our imagination and
symbolism we elevate the common chair into a throne and an ordinary person into a King or
Queen. Zombies are the Master-Signifier or Symbol of our times. Like the shark in Jaws,
zombies can stand in for anything- the fighting back of nature, the eruption of sexuality, the
threat of the so called third world, and the excesses of capitalism.
The zombies, make explicit unspoken ideologies and beliefs. The zombie converges as a point
de caption- a quilting point that shows culture to be a culture of death; a kind of Walking Dead
Sanctuary that is no sanctuary at all.
Take any encounter that is one sided in terms of power. Person A believe that he/she can enforce
the law, enact violence because of a uniform. Person B was taught that the law must be obeyed at
all costs. It is the symbolism of the law that props up the unequal encounter. Once A and B see
each other as fallible human beings, the props of culture and repression simply vanish because
they never had any real life. This is not to say that these cultural systems were not deadly. Think
of the Berlin Wall, the fall of the Soviet Union or the open air prison that is North Korea. What
was once a deadly wall became simple concrete to be torn down?
The thin line that prevents us from seeing our own shared humanity is where violence and
cruelty are enacted. It is not the fictions of Hollywood that we should believe as true. These
zombies do not exist. The zombie that is the monster is the one that looks like a normal human
and yet can with ease murder so many of us.

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