Zombies are everywhere in our culture, in movies and shows, and even in real life, on zombie walks.  They’ve gone from being an object of horror to one of fascination, one that seems to reflect something back to us.  In “Zombies in Western Culture,” zombies are analyzed as a myth of Western culture and a symbol of the meaning crisis.  In this episode, we discuss chapter one, where Vervaeke and his coauthors discuss the zombie as part of the zeitgeist, of something hugely significant in and about our culture.  They think this reflects the crisis based in the loss of the “sacred canopy” of Christianity.  

We briefly summarize the chapter and the riff off it.  We compare the zombie with other monsters and discuss its link to consumerism.  We discuss other attempts to awaken us from our slumber and the difficulty to doing so, and we talk about returning to the senses, the body, knowledge, and life.

“Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis,” by John Vervaeke, Christopher Mastropietro, and Filip Miscevic:

http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0113

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction 

03:31 General Thoughts & the Aesthetic of the Zombie

05:35 “A Choice to Sleep Through Modernity”

16:00 The Hebrew Golem

17:22 Play Acting a Walking Dead

22:15 Zombie Walks and Serious Play

30:15 Muay Thai, Civilization, and “Fight Club”

34:54 No Meaning Out of Consumption

42:42 The Zombie Mirror, Marketing, & Anger in Society Now

48:45 “The White Zombie” 

52:15 Everything is Seen from Your Own Need

56:55 The Zombie & Christian Resurrection

1:01:49 Healthy Seeing by Returning to the Body

1:08:01 The Nightmare of Descartes’ Idea

1:10:30 HP Lovecraft’s Monster and the Desacralization of Our World

1:15:10 The Artist as Shaman

1:22:03 The Usefulness of Form in Art & Twisted Messages

1:29:45 Articulate the Meaning of Your Monsters

(From a discussion on “Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis,” Ch. 1)

Thank you for watching!  If you’re interested in the full discussion, see below:

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https://youtu.be/9Cab_C9YhNk?si=x5SDEOQlL0vAU1Iq

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About our guest:

Ian Reclusado is currently off exploring the poetic wilds of psychology, neuroscience, and spirituality. 

He also offers guidance services for those interested in delving into their own inner wilderness.

You can find his weekly dispatches at www.thekindknife.com or follow him on Instagram: @ian_reclusado

Photo by Jose Rueda on Unsplash

I plan to conduct more interviews with various guests, so please check back later for those.