Our Responsibility

As with any apocalyptic scenario, conversation routinely turns to defensive and offensive measure against the particular threat in question be it human, zombie or otherwise. Anyone who knows me understands how much I enjoy weighing in on such discussion but I would like to pose another question.

One thing that I tend to bristle at is a concept I have heard many times in which women become the unfortunate thralls of whatever stronger, gun toting male happens to “rescue” them from whatever unfortunate fate they would have been privy to without our heroic intervention. I would posit that this is nonsense in its most legitimate form. To that end, I would like to provide some of my own hypotheses on how human behavior must change in order that humanity as a whole survive this, or any other apocalyptic scenario.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that all of our preparation, combined with a convergence of fortunate circumstances allows us to survive what I often refer to as the “First Wave” of the Zombie Apocalypse (heretofore referred to as the “ZA”). The First Wave of the ZA can be defined as the period following which the virus becomes exponentially prevalent in the major population centers. By this time, most prepared survivors will either be in the process of or already have, executed their survival scenarios.

I feel that as men, the only way for us to ensure the continued survival of the human species is to sacrifice everything we have to ensure that our fellow female survivors continue to grace the world with their presence. Some of you may attempt to construe this as some misogynist statement but that is not it’s intention, it is simple math. Two men and twenty women can repopulate a small town, two women and twenty men cannot. Before I go on, let me make sure that anyone who reads this understands that the intention of this statement is NOT to insinuate that women are little more than baby making machines…if that is all you get from that statement, please stop reading now since any of you who know me understand that I am not so narrow minded as that. Instead, I mean that Women, for MANY reasons, are more important than men are in the grand scheme of things.

Men, by and large, have a tendency to be preoccupied with physicality in some aspect or another. We like our big guns and our shiny toys and we love to brag to each other about how big and tough we are. We are essentially doing this because intrinsically we understand that such violent tendencies will ultimately make us more valuable to members of the opposite sex because we also understand that women are not as steped in physicality as we are. In fact, it is an arguable position that women, as a generality, are far more adept socially than men are and therefore less preoccupied with the male held belief of physical security. In the general collective opinion of most men this makes women less likely to be able to defend themselves from physical threat.

However human beings were designed, whether it be some Omnipotent intelligence or simple evolution, the greatest strength of the human design was the separation of one sex from the other. In nature, many of the principles that I speak about here can be observed in the animal kingdom. While many may wish to look at this as “Well they are animals, it’s instinct” I would argue that many of the complex emotions that humans use to separate themselves from their animals brothers and sisters can be traced back to simple genetic and instinctual imperatives that are literally built into us. As we evolved more complex social skills, these instincts were modified and incorporated into modern behavior. Speaking from a general scientific perspective, it ensures that the species continues to carry genetic traits across a greater variety of individuals from generation to generation. It has been my experience that Men and Women are NOT equal in all things but that the sum of their strengths makes up for the sum of their inequalities.

It is my belief that men have subjugated women through history because they have failed to respect this balance in favor of psychological politics which, as I have already stated, spring from instinctual behaviors. As we observe in nature, the male counterpart in most animal relationships fill one of two basic roles.

1.) Sperm Donor
2.) Leader of the Pack

As we all know, I am a fan of Bears. In Nature, Male Bears have been known to eat the young whether it is theirs or not. Females are therefore naturally more aggressive to deal with the constant threat. In fact, Mother Bears are known to be some of the most aggressive and dangerous animals in nature when protecting their young from a threat. What this means to me is that nature has a way of balancing itself. If one side gets to heavy in one aspect, the other side must increase its own weight to compensate. Human beings are the only animal on the planet that disregard this balance and the result is that we have upset the equilibrium of almost everything around us.

In a post apocalyptic society, can we really afford to make the same mistakes that our forefathers have? I would say “No”. When working with equals, it takes both sides to pull in order to reach equilibrium. When once side is pushed and the other pulled, everything goes in one direction.

If you are still reading this, I commend you. This is not the usual fare for a Zombie website in which gore, cracked skulls, guns, swords and battle axes tend to rule the day. In truth, I suspect that this post will be largely ignored and that is okay. My goal here is to foster some thought on a subject which I think is largely ignored by many people and I feel that there are some very intelligent people on this site.

That said, let’s open the discussion. What do you feel are our responsibilities beyond simple survival in a post apocalypse? What changes do you think will be necessary?

I ask only two things, please be respectful of others opinions. Considering the subject matter and the assertions I have made, I can see the possibility of some smaller minded individuals posting something that is simply egregious and offensive. This is for honest discourse and intelligent conversation, if you can’t handle that, please do not post.

The other thing is that you speak honestly. I am legitimately interested in what other people feel about this concept, what things they think our society fails at and what ways they think it can be fixed. Let’s face it, the Zombie Apocalypse is a reset button scenario!