ghosts & admissons

Bridging the gap

Yeah I'm that corporate. Now I'm writing to appease fans rather than keeping it street and writing what I want. So here's my attempt to reconcile the desires of my two audiences. The first, my original following, those who look to me for the latest updates on underworld phenomenon, and the second, those who pity me and my woeful tales of anguish and my reflections on love.

As mentioned before I've been kicking the idea around of zombies and love. Up until now, two separate and distinct genres, but I think it's high time that someone explores the ramifications of zombies in love! I will look at philosophy, palaeontology and my own experience to render a judgement on the age old question; just how much of their humanity do zombies retain?

So one of the defining characteristics of a zombie is it's regression to a primal being. Zombies are thought to be only set on one thing-killing, or more specifically eating. The zombie gene, when attached to human DNA mutates it so that only the most primitive of impulses are received. This has to do with synapses along the central nervous system. Due to the fact that zombies are now dead and subject to decay, these synapses also degenerate so they are no longer receptive to more sophisticated or refined impulses. Only those that are hard wired through evolution into the human brain, like the need for food and water, transfer from one neuron to the next. So whether a zombie is hungry or not it will always hunt and kill. That's why you see in zombie movies a lot of biting and tearing of flesh but very little chewing and swallowing.

So here we have evidence of primal behaviour that is really just the result of succumbing to man's oldest needs. These same impulses are in all of us, but it is only when we get the zombie gene that we (usually) succumb to them. In my Grade 10 book report on the Lord of the Flies (that's right I'm quoting myself, I'm that cocky!) "Primitive man has found nature to be unfeeling, harsh and cruel. Nature has only become 'beautiful' since technology has insulated us from it." We must remember that zombies and human don't share a common experience of nature. For us it's remote, far removed from our existence. Something we choose to encounter in a leisurely fashion. However, for a zombie or a hombie (someone who's making the transition from a human to a zombie) nature is not an option, it's all they have, and so they descend to what we would consider a savage state. Yet who are we to judge? If the only consideration were those of the civilized, rational man, we would have seen those poor souls who were forced to eat each other when their plane crashed in the Andes found guilty by a jury of their peers. Yet they weren't. Civility is relative, relative to the circumstance that one finds them self in. The enlightened thinker Rousseau believed that man was more noble in his savage state than anyone realized. "Very often it is profitable to let humans be humans, individuals, some strong and brave, some weak, some good, some bad..or given the right circumstances both." Who among us can claim to be anything but human? Then who among us can deny that our basic components comprise of nothing more than a thin veil of civility over unabashed and savage need?

So this bring me to my next point, another primal urge, love or sexual desire. Now it has to be noted that early humans probably experienced something closer to jealousy or a mere desire for possession then love itself. But as witness by countless cave drawings or early statuettes there was a certain level of devotion that was put into the crafting of these artefacts. Consider the Venus of Willendorf from the Upper Palaeolithic period, sure the motivation may have been out of superstition or fear, but still attention was paid and the concept of service was born. So it is possible that the ability to love was present in early humans. The same humans with their hunter instinct, the same humans that exhibited the most brutal of behaviour (which are now being exhibited by zombies) were able to grasp this advanced human emotion. Any scholar who has studied the works of these early artisans would be unable to deny the devotion of these people. They demonstrated advanced cognitive behaviour in the recognition of a abstract idea, so why would they not posses the ability to recognize a value system pertaining to a tangible reality, another human. So it is my belief that love is also hardwired into the human subconscious, and it is in fact an inherant trait rather than a learned behaviour.

So if human DNA were to become mutated with the introduction of the zombie gene, it is possible that man would retain their ability to love. Again it would probably be insatiable much in the same way that hunger is, but still present none the less. The reason zombies don't typically display this emotion is for a number of reasons. For one, humans keep killing them in a fit of judgmental rage. Another reason, although it is a fundamental need, it is still subservient to other desires i.e. hunger. So if zombies were allowed to persist long enough to recognize the fact that they had their fill of bloody human, they may very well turn their attention to that need that they've been neglecting, and one that they probably require more than anything else-love. For with love comes understanding, and with understanding comes acceptance. And that is when zombies will begin to feel a sense of self actualization, and may very well recognize that they're not all that different from humans after all. Perhaps the next time you meet a zombie a little love would go along way in bridging the gap between two species that have historically been at odds. Good luck out there! And remember garlic only works on vampires as I discovered the hard way!

posted by El Chupacabra @ 2:57 PM