Disaster, Apocalypse, and the State of Nature

Reading Notes

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)

• Men are essentially equal when all is “reckoned together.” Equal in power, equal in common sense or wisdom. We might think that we are smarter than others, but we are mostly the same.

This sense of equality leads to three causes of “quarrel”:

• COMPETITION: Because we know ourselves to be equals, we become hopeful of attaining ends, goals, possessions. However, this puts us at odds with others; when two people want the same thing, they become enemies. As a result, they attempt to “subdue” or “destroy” each other. Sometimes this is just for self-preservation; sometimes it is just out of pleasure. Thus, if you grow crops, or have a house, or money, and you are alone, without protection, someone will come and take it from you. And this invader is likewise vulnerable to someone else–perhaps someone bigger, stronger, or perhaps a bunch of people who might come to kill you and take your stuff.

• DIFFIDENCE: We desire security, the “conservation” of our lives and what we need to live. This is living within the “modest bounds” of human life. In this case, we “master” only those who seek to take our lives or the things we need to live. However, there are others who are not so modest, who desire power, control over others, dominance, “conquest.” Therefore, this compels even the “modest” person to engage in the conquest of others; merely trying to defend oneself is a losing proposition. The logic of this situation demands that I take what other’s have before they take everything from me.

• GLORY: Without an authority that keeps humans in “awe” with it’s power, we seek to elevate ourselves over each other for reputation.

• Key summary about Hobbes’ view on the nature of mankind: “So that in the nature of man, we find three principles of quarrel. First, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men’s persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons or by reflection in their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession, their name”.

• War is a “tract of time”: War isn’t just moments of battle; war is “a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known.” By this, I believe, Hobbes means that when we all know we are experiencing a time of war, that knowledge has consequences and introduces a new dynamic to our thinking. For example, when I encounter a stranger, the logic of war demands that I kill first and ask questions later: I know that you know; you know that I know; and I know that you know that I know that this is war. When we find ourselves in this situation, the most logical reaction is to kill everyone you encounter and take all that you see because everyone else will do the same. And even if they wouldn’t, we must act as if they would. Thus, even a reasonable and nonviolent person is forced into a stance of violence. And this has further consequences. Our behavior doesn’t just change when we are engaged in battles. This war is like weather, a “tract of time” when a battle may occur at any moment unexpectedly. Thus, when we know we are in this time of war, there is no: 1) economy, 2) no planting or harvesting of food, 3) no transportation of goods, 4) no exploration, 5) no arts, or books, or culture. What exists is “continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

• The State of Nature is amoral: there is no good or evil, no notion of right or wrong, there is just a basic, violent, struggle of survival. There is no “mine” and “thine,” no property: just what we have as long as we can keep it.

Claire Curtis, Post-Apocalyptic Fiction and the Social Contract, “Introduction”

• The book is about social contract theory, the state of nature, and post-apocalyptic fiction. The main thesis is that this fiction is about our desire to “start over” (2).

• This fiction describes a surviving remnant of humanity within the blank slate of the state of nature. As such, it foregrounds human motivations, human nature, the different ways that we “seek to live together” and the conflict between those two visions.

• This fiction imaginatively considers the “conditions under which we would like to live” (2).

• Curtis notes that this form of fiction has completely “suffused the popular culture” (3). I wonder: what does that say about our views on the civilization we’ve built? What does it suggest about us and our present-day culture that our popular art forms are so obsessed with this? This would be a cultural studies-type interpretive move.

• Curtis argues that social contract theory is always “backward” looking: it attempts to justify the present civilization and state of affairs—it is a whiggish historical vantage. In that sense, it is a conservative exercise or theory. However, post-apocalyptic fiction is “forward looking” in that it imagines what could be. Thus, it is potentially “utopian” in nature. While Curtis doesn’t say this, we might just say that it is a revolutionary act to produce such imaginings in that they are implicitly a criticism of the status quo and its various social arrangements. Like social contract theory, it questions the legitimacy and inevitability of the State.

• Social contract theory is dry and boring; post-apocalyptic fiction dramatizes the theory, helps us imagine it, makes it more powerful and personal (4). Post-apocalyptic fiction is cathartic, in that by seeing the fictional destruction we are purged of our fears or “awakened” to the need to prevent it. It is often a warning, a call to action—it has a political objective. Post-apocalyptic fiction provides a “useful fiction” that we may use to “come together and renegotiate our lives.” It asks the question: How do we want to live? (6).

• Post-apocalyptic fiction is similar to older narratives like the utopian or pioneer text, but offers a narrative more suited for modern life.

• Great quote here about the multiple purposes of post-apocalyptic fiction: It destroys all systems of order: “All hierarchies, all laws and systems for organizing people have been destroyed,” all constraints about sexuality, gender, morality. We can build the world again. They provide an opportunity to examine our civilization, our nations, our cultures and re-evaluate them. Again, this can be a radical, revolutionary act to imagine the destruction of the current order (6-7).

• Curtis describes two modes of this PAF: There are dystopian fictions where there is no starting over (like in The Road), and utopian fictions where we start over again (7). This might be helpful in doing some cultural analysis. What mode is dominant at the time? What does this suggest about the culture performing the imaginings?

• PAF allows us to ask: “what do we fear, what do we desire, how do we plan to allay those fears and realize those desires”? (7).

• Narrative structure of Post-apocalyptic fiction: 1) White man is the hero —>DESTRUCTION —> He finds a companion —> They encounter “the other”—> THREAT —> Form larger community —> Connect with other communities —> Defeat Others. This structure emulates the social contract theory in that it shows the need for some kind of social agreement that can govern human interests and produce outcomes that are equitable.

• Purpose of social contract theory is to: 1) argue against the idea that government is natural (like divine right of kings) (10). Instead, it is a construct, something made by mankind. Thus, it can be revised, altered. This allows us to imagine what kind of world or government we would want to have in place of the existing one. 2) Offers a “mechanism” for “seeing humans as they actually are” absent some controlling authority or system of rules/laws. 3) Allows us to consider what kind of society we would like to inhabit, what kind of government we’d like to live under.

• She mentions John Rawls’ idea of the “Original Position” from his Theory of Justice (1973).

Mathias Nilges, “The Aesthetics of Destruction”

• Representations of destruction are narratives, stories that cultures attempt to explain “the relationship between our existence and the external world” (23).

• The particular form that the destruction takes is historically determined; thus we need to study that particular history if we are to understand the form it gave rise to (and understand why we find it appealing or beautiful).

• Important quote: “The first step in such an analysis is to suggest that representations of destruction grow in number and popularity especially in times of (national) political, moral, and psychological uncertainty. Thus, we must analyze the beauty of such representations in relation to the specific fears, anxieties, and desires a historical period produces—psychological reactions that directly affect cultural form and our understanding of beauty” (23).

• Thesis Questions: Nilges argues that there has been a large increase in the production of “(post)apocalyptic” narrative. If we examine them in the historical context of the War on Terror, what can we learn? What do these narratives reveal about our psychological condition?

• He argues that these representations of destruction are “a popular way of working through or at least highlighting psychological contradictions produced by moments of severe crisis” (24). For example, we feared nuclear destruction or “body snatchers” during the Cold War. But now, in the post-9/11 world we see a return of the destruction narrative that focuses on things like terrorism. I’m thinking about shows like 24, Homeland, etc.

• Solutions to problems and anxiety: Examining the beauty in these depictions of destruction helps us move beyond a mere description of our fears; it helps us analyze and understand “how these fears are being resolved ideologically, sociopolitically and, ultimately, culturally” (24). These representations of destruction function “primarily as a solution to the problems posed by a complex and anxiety-inducing present”(24).

• Destruction is now viewed as antidote: Nilges argues that, unlike the Cold war films, when the fear was the nuclear bombs would destroy a world we loved, today we find the destruction beautiful because we see it as “an antidote to the world that produces the fears we seek to escape” (24). Translation: our views of what is beautiful are historically contingent—they change over time and are unique to particular cultures. Today, we find absolute destruction of the world beautiful because we secretly wish to leave our world. Since we fear it, we wish it destroyed so we can be free of it.

• He gives examples of I am Legend and The Day After Tomorrow where the destruction is “retroactively endowed with beauty” because it makes possible a new world that is “more enjoyable than our present” (24-5).

This leads us to the historical question: what is it about today’s world that we fear or don’t like?

1. Globalization: After 9/11 we want to isolate ourselves; however, our economy is so entwined with the rest of the world that this is impossible.

2. Global Identity: We have become post-national in our identities, favoring a “citizen of the world” model of identity. However, this “stateless” identity is precisely the identity assumed by terrorists, who are stateless actors who have no national home. As a result, we fear that we are fighting our own “dark double” (28-9). As a result, Nilges argues, that our cinema and literature depict our fights against terror as losing battles. For example, Jack Bauer in 24 might catch one terrorist, but the next “day” a new terrorist plot spawns again, which he will have to battle. It is never ending.

3. Crisis of the white male. Heroic, white male characters from the 80s, like Die Hard’s John McClane, are useless against new threats, like cyber warfare. In the past they could save the world; but it today’s world their old bag of tricks don’t work. They appear impotent.

4. Rejection of social revision and pluralism: Nilges argues that current cinema narratives reject any progressive or radical suggestions about pluralism, and the acceptance of others into the human family. Instead, there is a conservatism that harkens back to more traditional arrangements. (I Am Legend is used as an example).

• Dread vs. Anxiety. He argues that anxiety stems from a future that is not defined, where there is great doubt and uncertainty. Dread, on the other hand, is when you contemplate something that you know for certain will happen. Our current era is one of anxiety. The representation or narrative of destruction represents a desire to escape the anxiety of our time and return nostalgically to a past, when thing were more defined and certain (29-30).

• Return to Paternalism. The age of terrorism produces a crisis of masculinity which creates a nostalgic desire to return to a more paternalistic and conservative social structure.

• Hypermasculinity: This also promotes a kind of “hypermasculinity” which perhaps might relate to things like “prepping,” survivalists, increased gun ownership, spectacles of violence, etc. Returns to nature, like in Survivor, etc.