Robert Tulip wrote:Geo, I think your comment here explains the core theme of the book. Ineffectual apathy towards impending disaster is a central issue in world politics, and Brooks uses it later to raise searching questions about the capacity of democracy to respond to existential threats. If people habitually lie and conceal an infectious fatal disease, out of a misguided sense of compassion, how can political leaders respond in a way that will be in line with collective best interests?geo wrote:Brooks, the author, takes a cynical view of politics in general, imagining a scenario of catastrophic outbreak and how ineffectual the government's response would be. He also describes the general apathy we have towards impending disasters. People will generally try to downplay the seriousness of things they don’t really understand, be it global warming, avian flu or zombie apocalypse. And by the time we’re ready to take action it's far too late. Brooks seems to be particularly cynical about our politicians, how they are concerned only with their own re-elections. I see parallels with the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, slow to act and with a bureaucratic indifference to human suffering.
You mention the global warming parallel which Brooks raises in this chapter. I suspect he intends this as an important subtext, with the idea that people can go into denial about something that will be catastrophic, and that our social instincts are not adequate to providing rational response to global problems.
It is more than just apathy though. There is an admission of the limitations of government, although I believe this touched upon more in the second chapter than the first. The government relies heavily on the placebo effect- a vaccination for the flu, or zombies-duck and cover for dropping the bomb. Rather than admit the the government doesn't know what to do, or can do nothing, they make up a fake solution that keeps people from questioning reality.