Modern Bullshit and the Walking Dead

Modern Bullshit and the Walking Dead: A Sobering Consequence of 21st Century Living

The Walking Dead is an interesting franchise that seems to have consumers divided. You either love the show or you can’t stand it. Say what you want about the story and characters. We all have our opinions. But one thing is certain, and it’s the reason why I love the show so much. This epic series reminds us of something we’ve been profoundly ignoring for a very long time; what life was like before modern society.

Who cares, though? It’s all in the past, right? It doesn’t matter anymore because we’re moving forward. Well things are definitely getting better, but who is to say this won’t change? There are a multitude of different doomsday scenarios that could very well wipe civilization out as we know it. And even if we don’t succumb to the “apocalypse”, at least we know that in the future humanity will have to overcome a lot of difficult challenges that could easily set us back.

That’s one of the reasons why it’s so important to remember the past, because the truth is we’re not really that far apart from our ancestors. Technological progression has always gone hand in hand with social progression, which means that if we hadn’t advanced technologically, then we would still hold on to very limited views of reality. Thus we would have been unable to optimize our political institutions, which provide us with the modern societies we’re so accustomed to, today. In other words modernity is our collective response to technological progression.

So what if it was taken away? What if there was a huge disaster and the World as we know it suddenly stopped? What if we lost the ability to run machines that allows us to meet our modern demands? You can’t put the genie back in the bottle, of course. A lot of us would use the knowledge we have today to rebuild society, but in the short run we would probably revert back to our more “primal” selves.

And it is at this point when we would learn something different about ourselves; something we can’t see under the cloak of modern society: The power of bullshit and how devastating it can be on ourselves and each other. Now what exactly do I mean by bullshit?

I mean everything we do to each other that’s deceiving, misleading, or down-right disingenuous. Everything from bullying and making fun of others to scamming someone out of a deal is the kind of bullshit I’m talking about. This is certainly something we’re all privy to. We hate bullshit and want it out of our lives, even though many of us paradoxically engage in it; if only a little from time to time. But do we really understand how dangerous these acts can be?

To find out let’s examine The Walking Dead and compare ourselves to that hypothetical scenario. This is a world where we find several characters stuck in a zombie apocalypse. Each of them came from completely different backgrounds, but they all grew up in the modern world. They all lived in houses with electricity and worked regular jobs (for the exception of Daryl, of course). They could take a walk down the street and not have to worry about getting shot or eaten, and they went to grocery stores and retail chains to get what they needed.
But beyond the obvious they lived in a time where it wasn’t as threatening to bullshit people. However when the zombies came? Well that changed everything.

In the World of The Walking Dead you can’t lie, cheat, or steal. You can’t try to manipulate others or become irrationally mad, because in doing so you’re risking the lives of others and yourself. The stakes are much too high to bullshit. The show follows a group of people who discover this harsh reality, which is arguably more threatening than the zombies, and it’s through their stories that we learn something very fundamental about our story, today.

See modern-living gives us the rule of law that’s enforced by a monopolized institution. We don’t carry guns and enforce justice anymore because we hire the police to do it for us…for better and for worse. But we set boundaries on what’s admissible because there are billions of varying opinions on what’s right and wrong. A line in the sand is drawn and as long as no one goes beyond that just about anything is fair game no matter how irritating the act of another can be. Many smaller acts of bullshit are suddenly carried out with little or no consequences.

There are a lot of “insignificant” things we can do to each other that’s both legal and something, which causes tension and fighting to erupt. It’s the age-old grey area that was once resolved by murder. Before modern law and the police state, you had to resolve your own disputes and often times that meant, “Dueling”. Life was cheap back then, but people were genuine.

You didn’t see as much bullshit because the consequences were dire. Everyone had to behave. But today those little grey areas are exempt from law, and therefore null of any sort of rectification. After all it’s not like anyone would seriously duel you, unless of course they’re out of their minds. So in the end we’re forced to deal with bullshit. And that fosters a sort of tension that honestly has little to no release.

Now when you talk about billions living in a modern police state, the level of social tension becomes unfathomable to comprehend. Every now and then it shows its face. Usually it’s a public massacre that seems utterly senseless, but don’t be mistaken. Every murder has a reason, no matter how petty or unjustifiable they may be.
These monsters we see a few times out of the year are in actuality the hardest hit victims of social bullshit. Maybe it’s a mental illness that caused social ineptitude and loneliness. Or maybe they’re just too sensitive to shame and rejection.

Either way they get bullshit, often times more than others. They feel trapped like there’s nothing anyone can do for them. It’s not as though they can call the cops and have them threaten all the bullies at gunpoint. Even their parents and teachers can only do so much. Their conflicts like the ones many of us experience falls within the grey zone. But it builds up and over time that can be dangerous, depending on the individual.

Now I’m not suggesting we amend laws that take care of these grey areas. Using legal coercion would only make things worse. It’s good to have lines drawn. And I’m definitely not saying we should go back to the old days where we could duel each other to the death. I’m thankful to live in modernity, but even though murder rates are lower than they ever were before, we’re still unhappy and irritated.

It’s because of the bullshit; something modern society is unable to address. And that can make things emotionally stressful. It’s hard to ignore someone who is acting like a jackass, and we often feel stuck when having to confront them. We want to teach them a lesson, but we can’t. That would be crossing the line. So we let it build, but that isn’t healthy either.

Really the only thing anyone can do is understand that unless we minimize the bullshit we create then we’ll always have it. Modern society is awesome, but it’s also sad. It doesn’t have to be that way, though. We can better ourselves by helping each other out as much as possible whether we love them or hate them. We can’t deal with bullshit the same way we did before modern society, so it’s up to us to make life bearable for one another.

We’re not in a zombie apocalypse, let alone any apocalypse that’s disrupting modern society and hopefully we never will. So we don’t have to be like Rick Rimes who took care of the bullshit. We have a modern police state to do that for us, regardless of how effective they really are at doing it. But consequently because of this we have to live with the stresses that come with tiny acts of bullshit; the kind that makes life harder; like a slow and agonizing death by a thousand cuts.

So if you ever have the opportunity to be an asshole, regardless of the motive or reason, whether you’re the perpetrator or the victim just don’t do it. We’re all victims and perpetrators, but if we just blindly walk around thinking we’re the victims all the time then we make it much easier to bullshit others. And that bullshit adds up, especially if everyone’s doing it. That can make life painfully stressful for yourself and others because unlike, The Walking Dead, you can’t kill your way out of it. So we have to learn to interact better if we want to live happier lives.

Out of every kind act from giving lots of money away to volunteering at a soup kitchen; nothing can ever trump the simple act of just being an all around good person to yourself and others. If everyone did that, then we’d be able to solve a lot of our problems; no bullshit attached.
 
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