Crime and the Imaginary of Disaster

Post-Apocalyptic Fictions and the Crisis of Social Order

M. Yar

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781137509062
• eBook ISBN: 9781137509079
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

This study explores the 'imaginary of disaster' that appears in popular fictions about the apocalyptic breakdown of society. Focusing on representations of crime, law, violence, vengeance and justice, it argues that an exploration post-apocalyptic story-telling offer us valuable insights into social anxieties.

1

Situating the Apocalypse, Crime and Problem of Social Order

Abstract: This chapter maps the theoretical and conceptual framework of the study, taking as its focus two key themes that organise the book as a whole. Firstly, it explores the meanings of the apocalyptic, situating these within the cultural history of the West. Tracing apocalyptic thinking from its religious roots in Christian and Judaic theology, it follows the evolution of such ideas into the supposedly secular era of modernity. Central here is the fundamental ambiguity of the apocalyptic – it can be both negative, marking the wholesale destruction of the world as we know it, but also positive, a mechanism of renewal and redemption. Secondly, it seeks to connect contemporary discourses on crime and disorder to apocalyptic thinking through their shared preoccupation with the problems of evil and suffering. It concludes by setting out the book’s approach to textual sampling and analysis, the basis for the exploration of post-apocalyptic fictions in the chapters that follow.

Yar, Majid. Crime and the Imaginary of Disaster: Post-Apocalyptic Fictions and the Crisis of Social Order. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. DOI: 10.1057/9781137509079.0003.

Introduction

In the realm of modern, popular culture, one doesn’t have to look very far to find the apocalypse. Setting aside for the moment the complex historical, theological and religious meanings of the term, we can suggest that in modern parlance the apocalypse refers to an event, act or occurrence (accidental or otherwise) that brings about the end of the world. Cultural discourses (such as films, novels and comics) that deal with such matters can be termed apocalyptic in tone, tenor and content. These representations may deal with events leading-up to ‘the end’, and depict heroic attempts (successful or doomed) to prevent catastrophe. Alternatively, post-apocalyptic culture imagines what comes after disaster has been visited upon us (Renner, 2012: 204). The end of the world may be interpreted in a most literal manner. For example, in the Hollywood movie End of Days (1999), Satan attempts to usher-in the end of the world on the eve of the new millennium. In The Core (2003), the molten iron core of the Earth stops spinning; without the magnetic field that its rotation generates, the planet will become a lifeless rock, irradiated by the sun’s emissions to such an extent that no life will be able to survive. In Sunshine (2007), the sun again threatens to eradicate all life on Earth, this time because it is dying. However, more commonplace are tales in which the Earth, humanity and life persist, but in a world where the familiar coordinates of social, cultural, political, economic and moral organisation are gone – in other words, what has ended is the world as we know it. As Yuen (2012: xiii) puts it:

The end of the world rarely is the end, at least in popular culture. Instead, it’s the beginning of a new world, a world that is devoid of strong central government and traditional social institutions ...

It is such post-apocalyptic scenarios, centred upon human existence in the wake of a radical break with life-as-we-know-it, that provide the focus for the present study.

There is a rich abundance of research and analysis that reflects upon apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic popular culture. For example, scholars from film studies have explored such fictions as manifestations of 20th century fears about imminent nuclear war (Newman, 1999; Shapiro, 2002). Others have related our preoccupation with these tales to a broader fin de siècle anxiety, or a postmodern nihilism that brings with it a loss of belief in ‘grand narratives’ (Lyotard, 1984) of progress, peace, emancipation or liberation. More specific crises, such as the legacy of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, have also been adopted as a lens through which to understand the conspicuous popularity of apocalyptic fictions (Walliss and Aston, 2011). Yet others have read such texts as indicators of a persistent (or perhaps resurgent) interest in religiosity (especially of an evangelical, ecstatic and rapturous kind) in an otherwise supposedly secular era (Bendle, 2005). However, despite this rich and diverse array of interventions, criminologists have been conspicuous by their absence when it comes to examining post-apocalyptic, cultural discourses. Over the past few decades, there has of course emerged a vibrant strand within criminology (often identified with ‘cultural criminology’) that focuses in significant part upon popular cultural forms such as film and television. Critical analysis of these products has aimed to uncover their contribution to reflecting, reinforcing and sometimes reshaping commonplace understandings of crime and deviance (Rafter, 2006; Young, 2009; Yar, 2010). Yet such interventions, as insightful as they are, have restricted their ambit to a clearly identifiable crime genre, examining films, TV shows and novels centred upon policing, organised crime, drugs, prisons, homicide, serial killers and the like (see, for example, Eschholz et al., 2004; Wilson and O’Sullivan, 2005; Fleming, 2007; Rafter and Brown, 2011). In the present work, I seek to extend the gaze of critical, cultural criminology beyond its most obvious textual materials to examine the post-apocalyptic genre. The relevance of such cultural outputs for criminology becomes clearer once we identify and acknowledge the extent to which they consistently deal with issues of crime, law and lawlessness, disorder, risk and violence. There are in fact very few popular representations of the post-apocalyptic world that do not address in some way, shape or fashion, crime and related issues.

The core contention in the analysis that follows can be stated fairly unambiguously, namely that post-apocalyptic fictions (like other popular genres) refract contemporary social concerns into the domain of story-telling, thereby dramatising the tensions, conflicts, fears and contradictions with which a society is wrestling. In other words, they:

transcode the discourses (the forms, figures, and representations) of social life into ... narratives. Rather than reflect a reality external to the ... medium, [they] execute a transfer from one discursive field to another. As a result [they] become part of that broader system of cultural representations that construct social reality. (Ryan and Kellner, 1990: 12)

Important here is an appreciation that cultural discourses cannot and should not be read as straightforward expression of a ‘dominant ideology’ that seeks to ‘dupe’ and thereby pacify the audience in the interests of maintaining the status quo. Such a reading of the political imperatives that configure popular culture has a long and influential history, most notably the theory and practice of ‘ideology critique’ in the Marxist tradition (Althusser, 1994; Murdock and Golding, 2000; Barthes, 2000). In lieu of such a reductive or deterministic approach, and following that of Ryan and Kellner, I suggest that in fact cultural texts give voice to multiple and competing standpoints on the social and political issues of the day. Focusing on Hollywood films, they argue that:

Much of what happens in Hollywood cinema is indeed ideological ... but not all Hollywood ... products are inherently ideological. The conception of cinematic ideology flattens out necessary distinctions between different films at different moments in history, and it overlooks the distinctive and multiple rhetorical and representational strategies and effects of films in varying social situations. (Ibid: 1)

We can legitimately extend this standpoint in considering other popular cultural products (for example novels, television shows and comics) as well as films emanating from centres of production other than Hollywood. Consequently, one does not find in post-apocalyptic representations (nor in popular culture more broadly) a single, unified or unambiguous perspectives on matters related to crime, law, justice and punishment. Instead we find a complex assembly of meanings and symbols, often contradictory in character. Again, this ‘incoherence’ should not be taken as indication of artistic incompetence or confusion on the part of writers, directors and producers, but as the inevitable reflection of a multiplicity of viewpoints, beliefs and judgements about crime, which we daily attempt to hold and reconcile in a precarious balance. One example of such ambivalence can be found in our simultaneous attachment both to a vision of law-and-order based in an objective system of justice, and a yearning for vengeance and retribution that sets-aside cool, calculated penal decision-making (Green, 2011; Yar, 2014a). Such tensions and contradictions become readily apparent in post-apocalyptic visions of crime.

However, before we can embark upon an exploration of popular culture’s framing of crime in post-apocalyptic worlds, we must engage in some preliminary, conceptual scene-setting. In the remainder of this chapter, such work will be undertaken by elaborating a framework that links understandings of the apocalyptic and the post-apocalyptic on the one hand with issues of crime and disorder on the other. What couples the apocalyptic with crime, I argue, are the common existential and moral concerns addressed by the discourses of ‘theodicy’, ‘sociodicy’ and ‘evil’.

The apocalyptic in context: antiquity and religion

There is no shortage of scholarly discussion and analysis of the apocalypse and the apocalyptic, spanning for example the fields of theology and religion (Collins, 1998; Rowland, 2002), philosophy (Gray, 2008; Zizek, 2011), art history (O’Hear, 2011) and literature (Kermode, 2000; Rosen, 2008). While there is much of value and insight to be gleaned from such a multi-disciplinary abundance of research and reflection, it is notable that contributions to these discussions are less prominent when it comes to the social sciences. Where the apocalyptic is addressed, it tends to serve largely as a convenient metaphor for various (actual, probable or possible) risks and dangers, such as climate change (Gow and Leahy, 2005; Feinberg and Willer, 2011) or pandemics of mutated infectious diseases (Brown and Crawford, 2009). One notable exception is sociologist John R. Hall’s Apocalypse: From Antiquity to the Empire of Modernity (2009). In this ground-breaking study, Hall links the historically shifting meanings of the apocalypse not only to the transition to modernity, but also to the conditions of economic and social dislocation that underpin a heightened ‘climate of apocalyptic expectation’ at particular times in particular societies (Ibid: 4). In doing so, he offers a valuable, historical-cultural sociology of apocalyptic discourse that grounds it in the realm of lived experience and social change. I will draw upon his analysis in the following discussion, alongside contributions from a broader range of humanities scholarship.

Hall begins his analysis of the apocalyptic in antiquity, arguing that early human societies lacked the conception of historical time which could underpin an apocalyptic narrative about the world and its eventual fate or ending. Rather, he contends that such societies experienced time in routine and cyclical terms, very much linked to the demands and patterns of everyday existence – for example the turning of the days and seasons, and the events of human birth, life and death. In other words, time was located ‘synchronically’ in the here-and-now of daily life, rather than being conceived (as it later came to be) as a ‘diachronic’ movement that links past, present and future in an unfolding sequence (Hall 2009: 13–14). This is not to suggest, however, that time was a ‘profane’ matter, devoid of those moral and existential meanings that we associate with the ‘sacred’. Instead, everyday temporality was organised around ritualised practices and rites (related to events such as birth, death, hunting, harvesting) through which the sacred or transcendent was introduced to the plane of synchronic, cyclical time (as elaborated, for example, in Durkheim’s classic study The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (2008[1995]). Nevertheless, in this mode, existence was conceptualised as belonging to an eternal time that was subject to endless repetition (Eliade, 2005[1954]), rather than as part of a purposive unfolding with a determinate end, after which human life as we have known it will no longer continue. It is the ‘invention’ of a diachronic and historical conception of time that permits human culture to project the apocalypse as the ‘end of the world’, and to link this to the realisation of a cosmic or divine purpose. We need to note here that ‘the end’ has an intertwined double meaning – it connotes both ‘the end’ in the sense of the culmination or conclusion of something (in this case human history) and also ‘end’ as in a governing goal or purpose (telos). After all, etymologically, ‘apocalypse’ is derived from the ancient Greek apokálupsis (αποκάλυψις), meaning to ‘uncover’ or ‘reveal’ – what is in fact uncovered or revealed at ‘the end of all things’ is the divinely or cosmically ordained plan for the world.

Hall argues that the anticipation of such an apocalyptic ending is first explored in Zoroastrianism, a religion whose appearance dates to around 1400 BC in Persia, and is named after the prophet Zoroaster (or Zarathustra) who is credited with its pronouncement or revelation (Stausberg, 2008: 562). In Zoroastrian thought, the cosmos is imagined as an ongoing battle between a benign creator-god (Ahura Mazda) who embodies goodness and wisdom, and his counterpart (Ahura Mainyu), who represents evil, chaos and disorder (Boyce, 2001: 19–20). Zoroastrian eschatology foretells ‘the ultimate triumph of good over evil at the final battle ... whereupon the world is made “glorious” ’ (Hall, 2009: 18). Zoroastrianism’s apocalyptic vision of temporality, as well as its dualism (cosmic history as an eternal battle of good versus evil), undoubtedly influenced the eschatology of Judaism, and subsequently the doctrines of early Christianity (Barr, 1985).

We find both similarities and differences in the visions of apocalyptic history offered by Judaism and Christianity. They are united insofar as they offer what is a fundamentally utopian account of time – the apocalypse is inextricably entwined with the notion of salvation, in which the faithful, righteous and virtuous will be rewarded and the evil will be punished (Cohn, 2001: 222). As we shall explore in the next section, this configuration of temporality as the realisation of justice (both distributive and punitive) is rooted in religious (and indeed secular) attempts to resolve the problems of theodicy and evil. For the moment, we should note that despite this commonality, the significant differences that exist between Old and New Testament accounts of the apocalypse. In Judaism:

The promise of salvation did not centre on heaven after individual death. It concerned the redemptive events that would affirm the destiny on earth of the Israelites as Yahweh’s chosen people ... If the conduct of the Israelites met with Yahweh’s approval, the covenant would be fulfilled through redemptive events occurring within history – for example the deliverance of Israel from the Egyptians. (Hall, 2009: 20)

At first glance, eschatology appears to play a very limited role in Old Testament theology, as it was ‘intensely grounded in space and time’ (Arnold, 2010: 23), that of the real lived experiences (especially the trials and tribulations) of the Jewish people. However, eschatology does take form as ‘the expectation of a future eon radically discontinuous from the present’, in which ‘the circumstances of history will be transformed but not transcended’ (Ibid.). For example, the Book of Daniel is both apocalyptic (Daniel is a seer or visionary who is blessed with divine revelation) and eschatological (the revelation offered to Daniel concerns the end of human history and the redemption of the faithful) (Collins, 1998: 26–29; Collins, 2003: 75–77).

In contrast to Judaism, Christian eschatology transposes the culmination of apocalyptic redemption into a space of otherworldly transcendence – heaven. In other words, the apocalypse comes to coincide with the end of historical time and of earthly existence as we know it. Thus in the Apocalypse of John, more commonly referred to as the Book of Revelation, the destruction of the earth serves as the pathway to eternal life for the faithful. It is notable that Revelation’s depiction of divinely-ordained catastrophe (from the Greek katastrephein – to overturn, turn down, trample on) provides an enduring repository of images that continue to figure in popular renditions of the apocalypse:

Torrents of hail and fire, pollution of the waters of the earth, the smiting of the sun, moon and stars that spreads darkness in the world ... the plague ... slaughter ... earthquake ... (Hall, 2009: 31)

As Maier (2002: ix) observes, ‘no other biblical writing captures the popular secular imagination more than the Apocalypse’. Such borrowings, albeit radically reconfigured when largely denuded of their overarching religious anchors, will be explored in the following chapters. Before moving on, however, it is worth noting that the legacy of this apocalyptic imaginary extends well beyond any circumscribed notion of ‘Western culture’. Rather, it is decisive for shaping the understanding of history and its end also within Islam, described by Norman O. Brown (1983: 169) as ‘an imperious restructuring of Christian Hellenistic and Judaic tradition’.

Apocalypse: suffering, evil and the problem of theodicy

It is readily apparent that the aforementioned apocalyptic and eschatological discourses, with their underlying orientation toward redemption, do not emerge ex nihilo. Instead, they comprise a form of social sense-making borne of very real historical experiences of suffering. As Hall (2009: 20) amongst many others notes, the narrative of apocalyptic history in the Old Testament is bound up with the persecution of the Israelites and their search for ‘political survival amidst the play of alien powers – Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Rome’. Likewise, it is no coincidence that the Old Testament’s nascent eschatology comes into clearest focus in the Book of Daniel, seemingly written during a period of particular trauma, namely the exile of the Jews in Babylon following the capture of Jerusalem by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar (dated to around 600 BCE). From the standpoint of functionalist sociology, the Exilic writings represent part of a ‘mechanism for survival’ under conditions of crisis (Smith, 1986), with promises of redemption holding at bay an existential threat to the Jewish people. Similarly, the New Testament Book of Revelations (conventionally dated to the latter half of the first century CE) has been located in the context of Christian suffering in the Roman Empire, as well as to intra-communal conflicts within early Christianity about accommodating or opposing ruling Imperial power (Collins, 1983: 85). In other words, religious anticipations of an apocalyptic reckoning are inextricably connected to collective or communal experiences of suffering, both material and symbolic in character. Here we can draw fruitfully upon the historical critique of ethics articulated by Nietzsche in On the Genealogy of Morals (1996 [1887]). His characterisation of Judeo-Christian ethics as a ‘slave morality’ may be received as an assault on the legitimacy of religion in general, and the enduring influence of Judeo-Christian thought in particular. However, it also offers an important quasi-sociological insight into the conditions under which moral systems are born and come to thrive. In essence, Nietzsche’s argument is that the redemptive visions of Judaism and Christianity (most clearly expressed in eschatological narratives in which oppressors shall be punished and the oppressed shall be saved an...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Situating the Apocalypse, Crime and Problem of Social Order
• 2  Law and Disorder in the Post-Apocalyptic Landscape: Social Breakdown, Sovereign Power and the State of Emergency
• 3  Dangerous Others: Race and Crime after the Apocalypse
• 4  Crime, Disaster and the Crisis of the Gender Order
• 5  The Utopian Apocalypse: Crime, Justice and Redemption
• List of Fictions
• Bibliography
• Index