{"id":68429,"date":"2023-08-15T06:00:13","date_gmt":"2023-08-15T10:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=68429"},"modified":"2023-08-09T20:27:05","modified_gmt":"2023-08-10T00:27:05","slug":"the-zombification-of-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2023\/08\/the-zombification-of-america\/","title":{"rendered":"The Zombification of America"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Jacob Howland, the provost of the new anti-woke University of Austin<\/a>, has written a searing critique of our times entitled\u00a0America is now a zombie state<\/a>. I\u2019d like to consider the metaphors that he uses.<\/p>\n

A zombie, of course, is \u201cthe walking dead.\u201d\u00a0 According to Dictionary.com, a zombie<\/a> in the original Voodoo is \u201ca mute and will-less body, robbed of its soul and given the semblance of life by a supernatural force, usually for manual labor or some evil purpose.\u201d\u00a0 By extension, it is \u201ca person who is or\u00a0appears\u00a0to be\u00a0lifeless,\u00a0apathetic, or totally lacking in\u00a0independent\u00a0judgment;\u00a0automaton.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Howland describes the old, decrepit, senescent leaders of both parties as emblematic of \u201cthe approaching death by senescence of the American experiment in ordered liberty.\u201d\u00a0 The general lifelessness of our leaders and their\u00a0 ideas reminds him of zombies:<\/p>\n

The zombification of the Capitol \u2014 not to mention our city streets, which have become permanent encampments of the dazed and disturbed \u2014 is merely a symptom of the underlying disease.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Howland uses other metaphors of what happens to something that was once alive but then dies.\u00a0 It decays.\u00a0 And rots.<\/p>\n

This drama of political decadence defies easy categorisation.<\/p>\n

A wasting tide of bad education and corruption is rotting the cultural and constitutional piers that, since the Civil War, have kept the US above the waters of chaos.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
He uses other metaphors as well:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The American regime has become a tawdry theatrocracy in which political actors,\u00a0hypokritai<\/em>\u00a0in Greek, play stock characters in a loathsome farce.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Theatrocracy!\u00a0 Government by actors who are just playing a part!<\/p>\n

Here is a sample paragraph of his invective, which continues his survey of our culture\u2019s lifelessness:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just in politics that the wellsprings of individual and social vitality have dried up. Americans are marrying\u00a0less<\/a>\u00a0and later, and having\u00a0too few children<\/a>, to reproduce themselves and the families that nurtured them. What is more, our public schools have largely ceased to transmit the accumulated knowledge and civilisational wisdom of the past to the children we do have. A taste for historical repudiation has taken hold across the culture, leading\u00a0curators<\/a>\u00a0to \u201ccontextualise\u201d art, city governments to take down statues, colleges to rename buildings, and publishers to censor or rewrite books. But creativity withers when it ceases to be nourished by the oxygenated blood of the tradition. Little wonder that Hollywood increasingly cannibalises its legacy by pouring old films into new plastic scripts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Finally, he names what he has been describing:<\/p>\n

Cultural exhaustion, social withdrawal, and the general enfeeblement of life forces are the practical expression of a will to nothing. There is a name for this spiritual and intellectual condition, and it is nihilism. Nihilism is demonic to the extent that the will to nothing is still a will, a life force. That it is only a negative one is by no means reassuring, because it is easier and more economical to tear down than to build up. Destruction is dramatic and accomplishes the illusion of vitality with relatively little energy. And who in this apocalyptic time, including the nihilist, doesn\u2019t want to feel even a little alive?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nihilism!\u00a0 That\u2019s exactly why we have such disregard for truth, morality, and other people.<\/p>\n

I would add this to Howland\u2019s diagnosis:\u00a0 Surely the nihilism, the death-in-life that permeates our culture, is related to the decline of religious faith.<\/p>\n

When we think of the \u201cNones\u201d and the rise of secularism, we tend to think of what that means for our churches, the lower rates of attendance and the growing hostility to faith.\u00a0 But surely there are intellectual, moral, and cultural consequences when a society loses its religion.<\/p>\n

And a living death\u2013zombification\u2013is exactly the right way to describe what happens.\u00a0\u00a0(See, for example, Romans 8:6 and 1 John 3:14.)<\/p>\n

What is the solution to this death-in-life?\u00a0 \u00a0New life.\u00a0 Being born again. Resurrection.<\/p>\n

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTruly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0 (John 5:24-25)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo by\u00a0form\u00a0PxHere<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, CC0, Public Domain<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jacob Howland has written a searing critique of our times entitled\u00a0“America is now a zombie state.” What that means, the implications of our current nihilism, and the only way to bring back life and vitality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":68465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,14,15,19,27,36],"tags":[13757,2606,1587,1985,2401],"class_list":["post-68429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-education","category-ethics","category-government","category-life-issues","category-politics","tag-contemporary-american-culture","tag-death","tag-nihilism","tag-secularization","tag-zombies"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Zombification of America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jacob Howland has written a searing critique of our times entitled\u00a0"America is now a zombie state." 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