Why are Zombies so popular? A philosophical investigation

A book review of ‘Zombies in Western Culture
A Twenty-First Century Crisis’

I have been a fan of Vervaeke for a while, and I was excited when he finally published a book. The book is largely within the theme of his newest and most famous lecture series of the “meaning crisis”, although here it explores it in the very particular context of the zombie myth.

Myths provide structure to culture. In narrative form, it gives us an existential map of why we are here, where we came from and what will happen in the future. Myths can have many forms, but they often include monsters, and those monsters have several symbolic purposes, which aren’t necessarily explicit.

For example, in the 20th century, the alien was one of the most popular “monster” stories, representing the fear of the “other” — the foreigner. The book argues that our current myth is the zombie, and it’s the monster that represents our society. The zombie symbol is the anti-tradegy. In the classical Greek tragedy, suffering nevertheless can still have meaning and purpose.

Most zombies stories do not have an end. It is a perversion of the Christian mythos of death and resurrection. There is no salvation, no redemption.

Zombies have no language — they lack Logos and cannot transmit truth. They are not self-aware — they can’t represent themselves and have meaningful cognition that frames the environment.

They eat brains because they are hungry to have a “mind”, to acquire intelligibility. Yet, they can never have it. They are stuck in an eternal and hopeless cycle of wanting, no matter how much they eat, their hunger persists.

They do not have a Home, they don’t belong anywhere — they drift in a completely random manner. Zombies are all isolated from each other. They are infected, and infection is transmitted by touch. It is the antithesis of intimacy, and it’s hard if not impossible to not get infected.

They are such a powerful symbol because zombies are us, the modern man. They are a monster of nihilism. All the features that the zombie has is a representation of what our culture and society have become and where it is headed.

The authors explore this connection in great detail, going through each detail and explaining the causal connection of both the myth to the culture and what led to our current cultural paradigm. It’s very well written and well-argued, I highly recommend it!

PS: This book is available online for free here.

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Tiago V.F.