How far would you go if it meant preventing the death of a loved one? Would you go beyond everything taught as wrong in order to save your family? Would you do wrong? In an attempt to answer these questions, this edition of Monday Mayhem explores humanity’s moral weakness during an apocalyptic event.
When things go well, humans tend to enjoy the spoils of their labor in relative peace and security thinking no one or anything could possibly disrupt their harmony. But throw in a crisis of biological proportions and the average person runs into the streets terrified their life as they know it is over.
The first thing to happen during a disaster of this kind is a run up on cash. Folks try to get as much of it as they can. But the old adage “cash is king” will not work when humanity is on the cusp of a new paradigm. It will all be about bartering and sharing. Even if folks head to the grocery store in an attempt to outwit their neighbor hoarding the last bit of the foodstuffs, they will have to do more than search, beg, and borrow. Guaranteed the neighbors have weapons. Guaranteed they wouldn’t be afraid to use them.
The question is, how far would you go?
Once society breaks down and the last morsels of food disappear, it will be up to the survivors to make due with what remains. And if the biological catastrophe involves a change in a large percentage of the population’s eating habits, there will be far more to fear than starvation. A new enemy will have emerged to either unite the survivors or tear them apart. An enemy so brutal and carnal, the survivors would have to do anything and everything to avoid them in order to remain alive.
Again, how far would you go?
A simple bath in clean water may take weeks. A warm bed with covers and sheets may take months. The joy of listening to any of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos or any music for that matter may never happen again. The simplicities in life, the things we take for granted, a quick walk through the woods, a chat on the phone, an email, reading a letter, a caress, taking a bus, riding on a train, walking a dog, smelling a flower, sitting on the veranda watching the rain fall, a hug, the taste of vanilla, a dance, a play, a movie, the joy of writing, talking, humming, a kiss—may disappear forever.
How far would you go?
Looking to God 
I don’t think I would necessarily enjoy killing others or stealing, but I guess I would do whatever I have to in order to protect my family and get by. Obviously violence would not be my first option and only used as a last resort, but It’s something I would definitely have to prepare for and expect on a daily basis. Interesting thread going on here.
I would do whatever it took to feed my family. Lie? Check! Steal? Check! Kill? Absolutely! I think that morality is something easier found in abundance; and would fall away quicker than we ever would want to admit. Look at New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, if you need proof.
Gives a person a lot to think about.
Would you care to provide a one or two sentence synopsis about your site to accompany the link?
You can use the first paragraph to my bio in the “About Jack” tab, that’ll work…
Thanks again!
I’ve started a “My favorite end-of-world blogs” page over at http://zworldnewz.com/ I will post links to blogs like yours along with a brief description of the site by the author if they so choose. No strings attached. Let me know if you’re interested. Just drop me a line over at “Z” at the above address.
All good to me. Link away!
I always assume that I’d be one of the first to die because I don’t like fighting, my spiritual beliefs are that there is more to existence than this physical world, and I don’t have kids or anyone that I would need to defend. When I think about what I would do should an apocalypse of some sort hit, I usually just wonder if I’d kill myself or wait for someone to kill me. Would I want to risk being killed slowly and savagely?
I think it also depends on the type of threat. If this were a slow-moving zombie-like threat, then I’d have time to see what people have to deal with before making my decision. Alien invasion from a violent species? Well, the decision would be made pretty quickly for me. You don’t deal with a house fire the same way that you deal with a flood. I guess I’m going to have to get a bunch of manilla envelopes with action plans for the various catastrophes so that I can just grab one and go (or die) as needed.
If you ever want to see how quickly people stop playing by the rules, spend a hurricane season down in Florida or the Bahamas and watch what happens as the a big storm approaches (I’ve been through a few of them down there). Absolute mayhem as even the nicest people get caught up in the panic and end up punching out some little old lady over the last can of spam (even though their vegetarians!). All it takes is one person to step out of line and everyone follows suit (its basic human psychology).That’s just for a storm, let alone a zombie apocalypse and I think things would be many times worse then.
Personally, I’d probably just try to get together a small group of people I knew I could really trust (i.e. people I’d know well enough before to know what they’re really like) and then find somewhere to lay low where there’d be very little chance of anyone (living or dead!) finding you (a remote island would be my favoured location and I have my eye on a few just in case). If I couldn’t get these people together (I pretty much already know who they are), I’d just try and stick it out alone, and I certainly wouldn’t join up with any strangers – you’d just never know if you could trust them.
It might not be the bravest strategy but it would probably be one that would keep you alive the longest…It would also save me having to make any really hard choices – if you can avoid other people, you’ll never need to find out how far you’d go!
All the best,
Colin
PS Jack, I just noticed you’ve been commenting on one of my posts while I’ve been commenting on yours! Just off to check out what you’ve said on my ‘Can Animal Become Zombies?’ post.
I noticed the cross commenting as well. What is that saying? Great minds…?
Must be something in the water, or the air, or the insects – Just been writing a piece about different ways a zombie disease might spread that was inspired by your last comment on my blog (you can check it out at http://cmdrysdale.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/the-importance-of-transmission-or-how-could-i-catch-a-zombie-disease/).
Thanks for the mention, Colin! Ideas are always floating in and out of my brain. I can’t stop them. Glad I can inspire 🙂
I’m resistant to panic, but my ruthlessness is quite lacking. So in the beginning, it would be hard to cope. Though, I think after a month or so, everyone would acclimate to the change and the world would become an even worse place for it.
The age old question … but how necessary would it be? We got this far through so much, why turn on each other now? Personally, I would defend myself, family and anyone else that would be attacked for whatever reason, no different than today. I’m not convinced we couldn’t all band together and work it out though. The only things I would change would be my daily routine; gardening for food, finding fresh water, raising fuzzy sheep for clothing, things like that. Just like today, I would only defend, never attack.
I consider myself a ride or die type of chick, so I know that my survival instincts would kick in. I would fiercely be protective of my friends and family. We are so use to the simple things in life that its hard to imagine sometimes what you would do to survive. Will you have a strong will to live if catastrophe struck and you had to use your survival instincts? I would like to think I would. I watch the Walking Dead as well. One of the characters Rick is having a mini-meltdown and Hershel, the elder in the group basically tells him to put his helmet on and get back in the game. Its easy to just break down mentally but in times like that, you can’t. Jack it was a great read as usual.
I’m worse than a mama bear with her cubs in today’s society. 😉
Scary question. It would be mayhem for sure. I like your last paragraph about what would be missed. On walking dead recently one of the characters said that before, she hated the noise. After, she’d give anything to hear the sound of a jet plane overhead.
Deep thoughts and good questions. I’m a member of the Zombie Squad and even though they help you prepare for short and long term disasters, it always comes down to the what if’s. I honestly don’t know if I could kill someone to steal their food, but maybe if they were trying to take away my grandchildren’s food. I don’t like hurting any living thing.