Zombies are disturbing because they are like us, but also very different. They fall into the category of Julia Kristeva’s Abject. Blood, guts, and dead bodies fall into this category as well. This is interesting because we are a little more squeamish about bodily fluids that are our ancestors. It’s like zombies are tailor-made to terrorize us. Hmmm.
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Hmm? Makes sense.
Why is drug culture celebrated and praised in placed like California for instance, but then it's flipped upside down in giving "moral" justification for bulldozing the shelters of homeless people?
It's actually the ABJECT POVERTY which people do not wish to have in their neighborhoods (NIMBY), but because it's too self exposing to admit a deep prejudice (or the hipocracy), they use correllary evidence to equate homelessness with drugs, theft and other crime. There is even a euphemistic catchword now: OPTICS.
Anyway, just writing thoughts that spring to mind though they may stray a bit from the central topic, but I think that's kinda how it works when a topic is more profound, with more applicability to real life issues, than most people are willing to acknowledge.
An explanation why some people, including some strong brave men, get faint at the sight of their own blood?
Is it too much of a stretch to wonder all the more at the Last Supper? When our Lord and Savior gives up His flesh and blood for sinners, aren't those sinners changed from being "other" to being joined with Jesus?
A grunt's life (the infantryman) is in large part one where the veneer of civilized culture is stripped away. A grunt is one (along with medics and a few others) who is expected to operate unperturbed in an environment of sweat, 💩, urine, puss, blood and guts.
I do not think it's just coincidence that long before the hit series of the same name, a certain battalion of US Marines, part of the 9th Marines in Vietnam, were called and known as The Walking Dead.
Nevertheless, another aspect of life, expressed in words sometimes attributed to an unknown Marine Grunt of the same era and geography, is as follows:
"To those who fight for it, life has a special flavor the protected will never know"
I wonder whether maybe more is lost than gained in maintaining the illusion of separation whereby most "civilized" people live their lives pretending that the abject does not exist.