Military psychology and normal existence
I've been reading up on the field of military psychology. This practice has many applications, including (but not limited to) counseling people after they return from war, helping families cope with their loved ones being away, but also with figuring out how to overcome the aversion to taking life (and the subsequent counseling needed when these individuals return to "normal" society).
Having not yet seen a zombie, I cannot speak with any accuracy, but rather with feeble hope. I hope that zombies differ enough from living, breathing humans, that the mind is able to make a mental division. Therefore the aversion to killing humans will not need to be overcome.
Granted, we have spent a lot of time discussing the need to overcome the mortal ties with loved ones in order to kill their reanimated corpses; yet I feel this is a special circumstance. The vast majority of zombies will likely be strangers, perhaps (again, speaking hopefully) zombies will behave so differently as to not register as the same species? If these circumstances prove to be true, and the humans do succeed against the zombie uprising, there may be a chance that humanity will return to a semi-normal, albeit more informed existence? One can only hope.
Having not yet seen a zombie, I cannot speak with any accuracy, but rather with feeble hope. I hope that zombies differ enough from living, breathing humans, that the mind is able to make a mental division. Therefore the aversion to killing humans will not need to be overcome.
Granted, we have spent a lot of time discussing the need to overcome the mortal ties with loved ones in order to kill their reanimated corpses; yet I feel this is a special circumstance. The vast majority of zombies will likely be strangers, perhaps (again, speaking hopefully) zombies will behave so differently as to not register as the same species? If these circumstances prove to be true, and the humans do succeed against the zombie uprising, there may be a chance that humanity will return to a semi-normal, albeit more informed existence? One can only hope.
posted by Melissa at 9:10 PM
2 Comments:
My big concern with your hope that we can recognise (and thus destroy) a zombie as simply a zombie is the importance to humans of the visual impression. The appearance of a zombiefied loved one is still the appearance of a loved one.
Incidentally: what's the correct collective noun for zombies - herd/pack/swarm/school - any ideas?
Yeah, I think the situation surrounding loved ones is seriously problematic. I don't think it is possible to make this division under these circumstances. Still, I'm hopeful that the vast numbers of zombies I encounter will be strangers, and that I can see them as a species apart.
Here's to hoping!
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