The Night of the Living Dead (1968)
The Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Though only Horror fans seem to understand it, this is one of the most important works of cinema of the 20th c. To make that point, I will have to go through a longish preamble which begins long before the films’ Director and co-Writer George Romero was even born, and I will be talking about Themes in literature that are rarely associated with this film, but they should be.
Absurdism as a Theme in literature emerged in the late 19th c. and early 20th c. as a reaction to the Victorian-style novel which generally postured a certain form of realism and a strongly moral tone; key to Absurdism’s rebellion was that, unlike Victorian novels whose Melodramas and Plots that were supposed to reflect some level of Realism but were often unintentionally Ridiculous, emerging Absurdism pursued a broken Cause-and-Effect quite deliberately, undercutting the idea that World could ever, truly, be Rationally understood. Early on, most of the best examples of Absurdist literature could be found in Children’s books, like the novels and poetry of Lewis Carol (first published work was in 1854). Among moral adult fare, an early champion of the Absurd was Franz Kafka (first published work was in 1912).
At the same time Absurdism was emerging as a theme, three literary genres were also emerging that were also built around highly Subjective Causalities, our beloved SF,F&H. They shared some things with the early Absurdist literature, and sometimes over-lapped, but still, most work within these Genres seemed quite distinct from Absurdism because the Genres were mostly comfortable with the better-established Literary Models and were consciously trying to Domesticate their ridiculousness by pursuing an Illusion of Realism within their extreme unrealities, or put another way, Victorian SF,F&H was, well, Victorian. Who would call Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus” (first published in 1818) or Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” (first published 1897) works of the Absurd?
Absurdism as a Movement gained the most ground after World War II with the rise of Existentialist Philosophy. Existentialism itself was an expression of a Civilization reeling from a Self-Inflicted Nightmare of proportions beyond Comprehension, and these thinkers started asking tough questions about the efficacy of our daily struggles and the Rationality of our Faith in Religion, Ideology, Progress, as well as each other. The greatest champions of Absurdism as a Literary Movement were also leading Existentialists, notably the French Novelists/Philosophers/Critics Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Sartre explained Absurdism as, "That which is meaningless. Thus, man's existence is absurd because his contingency finds no external justification," and Camus added that it was the "confrontation between human need and the unreasonable silence of the world."
Camus’ essay, “The Myth of Sisyphus,” is the key work explaining the Absurdist Theme; the Character Sisyphus is from Greek Myth, he was sentenced to Hell where he repeats the same task for all Eternity because he is stymied in completing it. Camus argues that we’re all Sisyphus, and perhaps happiest when we are ignorant of that truth, but almost inevitably there will come a moment of conscious recognition of Absurd. “It happens that the stage sets collapse. Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or the factory, meal, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm—this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the ‘why’ arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement.”
Many decades later, Peter Nichols and John Chute would describe Absurdism as “set in worlds where we seem at the mercy of incomprehensible systems. These systems may work as metaphors of the human mind…they may work as representations of a cruelly arbitrary external world, in which our expectations of rational coherence, whether from God or from human agencies, are doomed to frustration,” and I’ll add to that a line from Wikipedia, “… the hallmark…is neither comedy nor nonsense, but rather, the study of human behavior under circumstances (whether realistic or fantastical) that appear to be purposeless and philosophically absurd.”
Then, in the wake of WWII, the genres of SF,F&H also became wildly popular. Despite an obvious overlapping with literature that explored the Absurd, there remained a profound tonal divide, in SF,F&H there was almost always a (pretending to be) Rational Set of Rules guiding the increasingly Subjective Realities demonstrated, so a Genre author might be reading Sartre and Camus, but generally didn’t want to follow in the same footsteps.
In 1954, Richard Matheson, a writer who would soon become famous because of his association with the TV “The Twilight Zone” (first aired 1959), published the landmark SF/Horror novel, “I Am Legend.” It was a tale where the Hero, Robert Neville, appears to be the Sole Survivor of a Pandemic that has killed most of the Human Race and turned the rest into Vampires. He’s lost his family and forced to battle nightly against Monsters who once were his friends. He trains himself in the Sciences, and develops viable Hypothesis, then Evidence-Based Theories, about the nature of the Plague that has ruined Mankind and feels he might even be close to finding a cure. The ending, in which the meaning of the title of the book is finally made clear, deconstructs what our concept of what a “Monster” is, and is breathe-taking Dark and Tragic.
The novel is deeply informed by Existentialist Philosophy, but probably not properly considered as Absurdist. It fits very comfortably into its Genre environment, and the Scientific Rationalizing (unusually well-worked out for a work such as this) speaks of a cruel but non-Absurd Universe. In “I Am Legend” there was once there was a proper order to things, things went wrong for discoverable reasons, and the Human Will and/or Intellect might be able to restore the earlier, proper, Order again if given enough opportunity.
It has been officially adapted to film three times, “The Last Man on Earth” (1964), “The Omega Man” (1971), and “I Am Legend” (2007). Only the first of these fully embraced the novel’s Ambitions and deep Darkness, but it was poorly Directed and immediately, Critically, marginalized. The other two were far superior pieces of cinema, but chickened-out on the novel’s Ambition and Darkness.
“The Night of the Living Dead” could not properly be called an adaptation of this novel, but co-Writer/Director George Romero has been explicit about the novel’s influence of his movie. It is generally accepted that this non-adaptation is the best evocation of the book…well, generally accepted by everyone except Matheson, he complained about all of the above.
The most vital differences between this film and the book makes a short, but telling, list. There is not one Survivor fighting for his life, but seven. The narrative doesn’t unfold over the space of years, but somewhat less than 24-hours. The Vampires have been replaced with somewhat similar Zombies, the Dead rising from their Graves, blindly driven to eat Human Flesh. None of the “normal” Humans have the skill and/or ambition to try and understand/cure the Plague, they are too busy fighting for their lives, and, very importantly, with each other. Everything they know about the threat that besieges them is information they receive passively through a TV set and it is mostly false.
Though I wouldn’t call the novel Absurdist, but I would apply the label to this film. There are many reasons for this, but the first, and easiest to explain, is the use of Scientific Rationalization. In the novel, it is thoughtfully worked out and has impact on the conclusion, in the film it's utter goobely-gook unworthy of the even the lowest B-movie dreg of the two decades before, and it is pretty clear the audience isn’t supposed to accept it as Fact. “Cosmic Radiation”? Seriously? It was nothing but the desperate prattlings of Authorities who need to say something but knew in their hearts they didn’t know what to say.
Critic Matthew Jones was kind enough to provide a Checklist for Absurdism as a Theme in cinema:
1. One or more characters become conscious of the inherent pointlessness of life.
2. One or more characters are faced with repetition, which gives rise to a sense of futility.
3. The narrative emphasizes chaos in the universe around the characters. Things and people and events continue haphazardly beyond the control of the protagonist or other characters.
4. One or more characters fall into a state of despair when faced with the infinite and indeterminable world around them.
5. One or more characters are faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
6. And finally, one or more characters exhibits confusion or a lack of comprehension with their life and surroundings.
“I Am Legend” delivers maybe three of these, and mostly in the post-climax, with the hero’s Pyrrhic victory. “Night of the…” delivers all six pretty much the whole way through.
Perhaps the greatest of all Absurdist films was “The Exterminating Angel” (1962), and though I haven’t read anything explicitly linking the two films, I personally suspect “The Exterminating Angel" was as strong an influence on “Night…” as “I Am Legend.” In “The Exterminating Angel" a largish group of wealthy Guests at a cocktail party find they are unable to leave. They don’t know what is holding there, just don’t have the power to make themselves walk through the door. This goes on for days, the outside world recognizes this as a crisis, but the potential Rescuers can’t enter any more than the trapped Guests can leave. Inside, the Guests run low on food and begin slaughtering sheep (that wandered in for no clear reason), they jerry-rig and outhouse, secure a water supply, have illicit Assignations, steal from each other, and squabble. Prayer does not release them. One Dies of Natural Causes, two commit Suicide, others contemplate Human Sacrifice to un-named Supernatural Entities. They never go as far as resorting to Cannibalism, but later Writer/Director Luis Buñuel spoke of regretting that he was too polite to include in the script.
Romero wasn’t so polite.
The key to the power of “Night of the …” was best explained in Critic Roger Ebert’s second review of the film. His first review was admiring making him an exception in the Critical community when the film first came out but anticipating the sea-change in Critical assessment of this film that would emerge over the next few decades.
He then chose to publish the second article separately as that was an enraged attack, not on the film, but the circumstances under which he saw it. You see, in those days before the movie rating system (G,PG,M,R, & X were invented the same year the "Night of the ..." was released, making the following grimy Ironic), Horror films often got their first run to an audience at Saturday Matinees; in other words, the first audience were often children under the age of ten.
Ebert outlines the plot, almost scene by scene, and describes the Audiences’ reaction. After two very appealing Characters die pointlessly (reducing the Survivors from seven to five) and their bodies are torn apart and feasted upon by the Monsters:
“At this point, the mood of the audience seemed to change. Horror movies were fun, sure, but this was pretty strong stuff. There wasn't a lot of screaming anymore; the place was pretty quiet...
“The kids in the audience were stunned. There was almost complete silence. The movie had stopped being delightfully scary about halfway through and had become unexpectedly terrifying. There was a little girl across the aisle from me, maybe nine years old, who was sitting very still in her seat and crying.”
Then he describes a little girl dying (and then there were four) turning into a Zombie, and then eating her own mother (and then there were three). At this juncture, the emotional climate among the Survivors had deteriorated to the point that the Hero guns down another still-living Character, the Zombie girl’s dad (and then there was two) and yet another character is pulled through a window to die at the hands of her own Zombie brother (and then there was one):
“I don't think the younger kids really knew what hit them. They were used to going to movies, sure, and they'd seen some horror movies before, sure, but this was something else. This was ghouls eating people up -- and you could actually see what they were eating. This was little girls killing their mothers. This was being set on fire. Worst of all, even the hero got killed.
“I felt real terror in that neighborhood theater last Saturday afternoon. I saw kids who had no resources they could draw upon to protect themselves from the dread and fear they felt.
“Censorship is not the answer. But I would be ashamed to make a civil libertarian argument defending the ‘right’ of those little girls and boys to see a film which left a lot of them stunned with terror.”
Ebert’s rage against this showing was entirely appropriate, but it also, almost accidentally, illuminated how important “Night of the ...” was. It’s not just too Gory (which is what its most remembered for), it was too Adult, and by this, I mean too Mature, for kids. Yeah, at six or ten, the silliness that the Universal Monsters had deteriorated into after 1941 was entirely appropriate, and for decades following most Horror movies generally targeted at that age group’s Intellect and Maturity. But “Night of the ...” aimed higher, as too few American films did at the time, and separated itself from even those few, truly mature, outings, as it embraced the purely Visceral as well.
This is remarkable, because the conceit is stupid, and that is what separates a fine Genre work like “I Am Legend” from fine Absurdist works, like “The Exterminating Angel" and “Night of the…” Its contemporary setting was also a break with the Gothic Lavishness of most other Horror cinema of its day, and its Social and Political Allusions made it even more Revolutionary.
Watching it again recently, I was impressed with the Intelligence of the Writing. What we see within the besieged Farmhouse is a powerful exploration of how people respond to crisis. It creates one of those rare Microcosms that really was a Microcosm, Claustrophobic and Intense. The dialogue is Naturalistic as everyone is pushed to Extremes and everyone, even the Hero, makes fatal Errors in Judgement as Warring Personalities inside distract from the Monsters outside. Yes, some of the acting is awkward, but all of it is believable.
In early drafts of the script, the Hero, Ben, was written as a working-class, perhaps illiterate, Truck-Driver, but a man of calm and somewhat-uncommon Common-Sense. With the eventual casting of Duane Jones for the part, Romero radically reimagined Ben, now as a clean cut, college-educated, Black man who looked like he more belonged with the then-still-active Freedom Riders than Fighting-Off Cannibalistic Zombies. A Black Hero in 1968 was somewhat bold, but that his Blackness was not a Plot-Point was bolder still.
Ben is starkly contrasted with Harry, played by Karl Hardman, seemingly a typical Middle-Class husband and father, but under Stress becomes Thuggish, Petulant, Panicked into Ignorance, and Reactionary. Though Ben is the only Black Character, his coolness, is his Logic, his capacity to Plan and Adapt, allows him to quickly take the Leadership role away from Harry. Harry resents this and Bullies his wife, played by Marilyn Eastman, to close ranks with him because he’s confused other’s demonstrations of Loyalty to him personally with the Problems of Staying Alive.
In the end, Ben kills Harry and then Ben himself dies pointlessly at the hands of the Authorities. They were hunting Zombies and fired at a shot at a shadowy figure; they couldn’t have known Ben was alive or Black. Still, the impression of a Southern Lynch Mob is inescapable, and deliberate. Racism, itself a hot button issue, is now turned into commentary on deeper, more Amorphous, but still Murderous, Bigotries and Ignorances.
It was broadly condemned by the Critics of the day because of its explicit content (a few other premiers with children in the audience didn’t much help things) and broadly Censored. Yet it proved to be the most financially successful Horror film in history (Romero saw little of the money because the Distributor screwed-up the Copywrites, but that a story for another day). Later Critics embraced it though, and the Library of Congress eventually selected this film for preservation in the National Film Registry as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant."
Romero’s politics were Mainstream Liberal, but what was more notable in his work was his Misanthropic leanings than his Ideological ones. He did intend to make a Social Statement, but one that was opened-ended enough that it could be applied to an ever-Mutating Zeitgeist of a USA with all its prevalent Rage, Disillusionment, Dissatisfaction and Ambiguous Fear. He intended to Push Buttons, but in his perfect Absurdism, forced the Audience to decide which exact Buttons got Pushed. This is demonstrated by later Critics embraced the film. Some observations:
“The film's grainy, banal seriousness works for it – gives it a crude realism.”
"It was not set in Transylvania, but Pennsylvania – this was Middle America at war, and the zombie carnage seemed a grotesque echo of the conflict then raging in Vietnam"
"disillusionment with government and patriarchal nuclear family"
"the flaws inherent in the media, local and federal government agencies, and the entire mechanism of civil defense"
"the grim fate of Duane Jones, the sole heroic figure and only African-American, had added resonance with the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X fresh in the minds of most Americans”
Romero had created a new Monster, his Zombies were distinct from, and soon completely eclipsed, the Zombies of Haitian folklore that had been a favorite Subject of the (often Idiotic and Racist) Horror films of the 1930s and '40s. Romero's Zombies are still a huge part of Horror media fifty-years later, but his Imitators rarely even try to attempt Romero’s thoughtful Characterization and Social Commentary. I believe the very first film to rip-off “Night…” was “I Drink Your Blood” (1970), and one would be hard pressed to find a more stupid Horror film released anytime in the following decade unless it was another Romero-Zombie-Rip-Off. Ironically it was Double-Billed with “I Eat Your Flesh,” which featured Zombies more in the mode of Haitian folklore, but did not feature the promised Cannibalism, and was, in fact, made in 1964, but languished without a distributor until Romero’s movie completely altered the face of Horror cinema, making this film a has-been even before it had a chance to be seen.
Finally, a decade later, Romero provided his own follow-up, “Dawn of the Dead” (1978), which is a rarity, a Sequel superior to the original. Like this film, it on virtually every list of Greatest Horror Movies. Still Low-Budgeted, but not nearly so as the first, and again with a no-name cast, it sharpened its Commentary and drew its Characters in greater depth. Again, it built a Microcosm in which to explore Group Dynamics in a Stress-Laden Nightmare, but the story-time was stretched from less-than twenty-four hours to almost nine- months, so the dynamics explored are radically reimagined the second time around.
“Dawn…” had a more Science Fiction feel than “Night…” but it did not sacrifice the Absurdist/Sisyphean themes. Now it is suggested that a Virus, not Cosmic Radiation, was the Culprit, but that option again comes from a TV Newscast that even the Newscasters don’t seem to believe. It strengthened the Themes by exploring the hopelessness of trying regaining control of the Environment, and here the Survivors are much better prepared and resourced than the ones in the first film. Both films make the case that the blunt threat of the Zombies isn’t as terrible as what the Living do to each other, but here the theme is explored with a kinder hand. In this case the people Under Siege, though not entirely Comfortable with each other, were not at Each Other’s Throats, and collectively they presented a much more positive image of Humanity. In the film’s masterstroke, Romero set most of it in a Shopping Mall that the four Leads walled off from Zombie intrusion. They tried to recreate Normalcy in the Safety of Objects while the World Outside was Ravaged. Something almost Utopian emerges in the film’s middle third, but sooner or later that Bubble had to Burst.
Romero inspired Zombie movies kept piling up, and in slow increments, Romero kept adding to his series. The next was “Day of the Dead” (1985) which, though inferior to the prior two, is still a fine film, and I’d argue, a seriously underrated one. “Night of the…” had a very cynical ending that none-the-less implied Humanity would overcome the Zombies. “Dawn of the…” had a less cynical ending, but implied Humanity’s Domination of this Planet was Coming to an End. “Day of the…” ended similarly to “Dawn” and was even more explicit regarding the passing of our Species. A notable aspect of “Day of the…” is that it was the only film in Romero’s series that featured a Scientist as a main Character, well played by Richard Liberty. As the film progresses, it is increasingly obvious he will never penetrate the Mystery of the Zombie Apocalypse and was beginning to prefer the company of Zombies to that of squabbling Humanity. None of these films are what one would call Happy, but this one was almost unrelentingly Bleak.
There were still more to come. “Land of the Dead” (2005) was the one where Romero had the Biggest Budget to work with, and the only film in the series with highly recognizable actors like Dennis Hopper, John Leguizamo, and Asia Argento. It was a huge disappointment for me, the Political Satire had become Ideologically Ham-Fisted, the plot poorly thought-out, the dialogue inferior to the previous installments. Also, bizarrely, the big-name cast provided the worst performances in the series.
This was followed by “Diary of the Dead” (2007), which was again extremely Low-Budgeted with a no-name cast. Though a big improvement on “Land of the…” it was still inferior to the first three. One of “Dairy’s…” distinctive elements was more Humor, though its jokes were no less Dead-Pan that the previous films. It came off more as a Commentary on the phenomena of Zombie films than a continuation of Romero’s Satirical examination of Human Nature.
Next was “Survival of the Dead” (2009), the weakest of the series. Romero seemed to be running out of ways to connect his Zombies to Commentary and placed his focus on all the wrong Characters causing the plot to meander.
There was supposed to be at least two more still, but those projects likely will never be realized because Romero died in 2017.
What I’d like you to notice regarding the list of sequels above is that they seem to decline in quality as the release dates narrowed the Timeframe between films. Though Romero’s having difficulty securing Funding was part of this, there’s also his Integrity as an Artist. Most Zombie films are painfully redundant, and some Zombie series by lesser Filmmakers have more installments over lesser Timeframes. Romero took the time to think, and whatever other faults there might be in the movies, the stories weren’t Redundant like his Imitators.
There are two things striking about the media phenomena of the Zombie Apocalypse:
1.) Since the Monster is a pretty narrow one, not allowing for as much variation from story-to-story and Vampires and Alien Invaders, why is the audience not bored with them yet? It only took fifteen-years or so for the audience to get bored with Slasher films (God, did I just write “only fifteen-years”? Let’s be clear, I was personally bored with Slasher films way back in 1980).
2.) How is it possible, fifty-years-later, that any Romero-inspired Zombie media still be original and worthwhile? Though only Drops in the Bucket compared to the Ocean of Ccrap there are still Jems. Outside of Romero’s own work I would personally recommend “28 Days Later” (2002), its sequel “28 Weeks Later” (2007), “Shaun of the Dead” (2003), “Pontypool” (2008), “Maggie” (2015), “The Girl with All the Gifts” (2016) and the first several seasons of the TV show “The Walking Dead” (first aired 2010).
Still, most Zombie films are not examinations of, but indulgences in, the Zombie-emptiness of our culture. The films shamble around mindlessly, repeating the same thing nasty, brutalizing things, over and over. I think that Zombies have proven Romero’s Frankenstein Monster, by which I mean he created something he couldn’t control. His first three were remade by others, never matching his achievements. "Night of the ..." was remade three times in 1990, 2006 and 2012. "Dawn of the ..." was remade in 2004 and was granted a Bigger Budget than Romero's own "Land of the ..." the most expensive of Romero-Directed films. "Day of the..." was remade twice in 2008 & 2017.
Romero's co-Screenwriter, John A. Russo, who also played a Zombie in the film, went out to create his own franchise, but when realized as "Return of the Living Dead" (1990) it was in the hands of other Creators and almost unrecognizable from his story. He also released a new version of the original film with new music and a few new scenes (1990) but it was broadly panned.
As the film was in public domain, several more of its revivals were altered in some way to allow them to be marketed as a new product to secure the revenues the original Creators were cheated of. It was colorized in 1986, again in 1997, and became the first entirely Live Action 2-D film to be converted to 3-D in 2006.
Anti-racist Themes were central ideas in his first two films and echoed in all that followed. Romero he even insisted that the Redneck Posse that killed Ben at the end of the first film were the, “real zombies.” But what were his Zombies really? The Anonymous Horde, the ultimate, Unwashed, Uncivilized, Other. They are the Tired, the Poor, the Huddled Masses yearning to take what is yours and Consume Without Paying First. Very early in this film, before we really knew what’s going on, a Johnny, played by Russell Streiner, teases his sister Barbara, played by Judith O'Dea, "They're coming to get you, Barbara. Look, there comes one of them now!"
Romero didn't sink to the Bigotries, but many of the Filmmakers following in Romero's Footsteps have found it easier to embrace Reactionary Themes instead of Romero’s surprisingly sophisticated ones. Too often Romero's Children simply indulge our Vicarious Pleasure in having total Moral Justification for shooting down the Other and the Zombies are Stand-ins for Blacks, Immigrants, Muslims, Welfare Queens, or whatever.
Sherronda J. Brown drew connections between the continued popularity of the Zombie Apocalypse and the re-emergence of White Supremacy on our National Scene. She insisted “apocalyptic whiteness” pervades the present moment:
“Apocalyptic whiteness actively seeks to hinder, not only the prosperity, but survival of non-white people for fear of their own extinction; from ethnic cleansing and forced sterilization, to enslavement and concentration camps, to immigration bans and deportation. Borders are a tool of apocalyptic whiteness. As are prisons and immigrant detention centers.”
Before one dismisses Ms. Brown as a Hysterical SJW (Social Justice Warrior) with a Hair Up Her Ass, please recognize that it is well-documented that both Radical Libertarians and White Supremacists love Zombie Apocalypse media. This is best reflected among the “key board commandos” playing the Romero-Influenced First-Person Shooter Games that often feature an endless string of Cannibalistic Zombies for you to Murder without Consequence.
Personally, I can’t think of anything more Sisyphean than a First-Person Shooter Game, but the Fans seem to love them. At least two Romero-Influenced Zombie Franchises, "Resident Evil" (first film 2002) and "House of the Dead" (first film 2003) are based on these games, and both enjoyed Bigger Budgets than any Romero-Directed film. Didn’t Camus teach us that Sisyphus was most happy if he was allowed to stay unaware?
Romero lived long enough to see this before he died, so he must be spinning before he hit grave. Maybe that's why he was such a public Misanthrope even though most who worked with him thought he was a really nice guy.
So, here we are, fifty-odd years later, and Romero’s own films stand in defiance of the Phenomena they created. Maybe Shelly’s “Frankenstein: or the ..." should be seen as an Absurdist work after all because, among other things, people keep forgetting that the title refers to the Character of the Creator, not the Monster he created, and almost all the Adaptations make the Monster mute and stupid so Shelly can't have her say through his lips anymore.
An important aspect of Existentialism (Coping with a Meaningless Universe) was that it was not Nihilism (Life has No Meaning). In some ways Existentialism is a reaction the ecstatic Nihilism of Fredrick Nietzsche (whose Deep Longings to Burn Everything Down and Play in the Ashes proved very appealing to Adolf Hitler) in much the same way that the Moralistic and Disciplined Stoics of Ancient times were a reaction to the articulate and Clever but still Insufferable frat-boys of the Cynics School. Many view Existentialism as an Amoral philosophy, but the most prominent Existentialists would argue the exact opposite, like Camus’ very public consideration, and then rejection of, Suicide. Camus was a hero of the French Resistance during WWII and pondered why he felt most Alive when facing Death for a Cause that was so Undeniably Purposeful that Even the Death of God couldn't Scare him.
Another prominent Existentialist was Nazi Death Camp Survivor and Healer, Victor Frankel. He lost most of his family and friends to Hitler, but even Post-War, his core Philosophy remained that all life has meaning even in the face of a universe devoid of the same. He was the Creator of a Psychiatric Treatment built around this idea called Logotherapy which can deftly summarize in the title of his most famous book, “Man’s Search for Meaning” (first published in 1946).
So how does Existentialism’s child, Absurdism, often so Cynical and Despairing, serve the higher Moral Purposes embedded in Existentialism? Or, put more bluntly, how can Cannibalistic Zombies actually be good for you?
Back in 2009 Travis Proulx of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Steven J. Heine of the University of British Columbia, published some good, old fashioned, Scientific Research based on Double-Blind tests and then went through proper Peer-Review. Their report, “Connections from Kafka: Exposure to Meaning Threats Improves Implicit Learning of an Artificial Grammar.” In it they had the subjects read one of two versions of one of the classics of Absurdist literature, “The Country Doctor” by Kafka, an exceptionally vivid and frustrating tale. One group got the original story in which, "the narrative gradually breaks down and ends abruptly after a series of non sequiturs…We also included a series of bizarre illustrations that were unrelated to the story." The other group got a revised version were provided perfectly reasonable explanations for everything that was going on and the illustrations related to what was being read.
The subjects were then given a test on paper where they were told they needed to find not easily decipherable, patterns in strings of 45 letters. Those who had read the Absurd story "demonstrated greater accuracy in identifying the genuinely pattern-congruent letter strings,” this suggested that "the cognitive mechanisms responsible for implicitly learning statistical regularities" are enhanced when we struggle to find meaning in a fragmented narrative. These results further suggested we have an innate tendency to impose order upon our experiences and create what they call "meaning frameworks." Any threat to this process will "activate a meaning-maintenance motivation that may call upon any other available associations to restore a sense of meaning."
Or, as reported by Tom Jacobs, “our ability to find patterns is stimulated when we are faced with the task of making sense of an absurd tale. What's more, this heightened capability carries over to unrelated tasks…So, it appears Viktor Frankl was right: Man is perpetually in search of meaning, and if a Kafkaesque work of literature seems strange on the surface, our brains amp up to dig deeper and discover its underlying design. Which, all things considered, is a hell of a lot better than waking up and discovering you've turned into a giant cockroach.”
So, go out and hug a Zombie, it is good for the Soul.
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