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Savage Continent
May. 23rd, 2014 02:35 pmI have started reading Savage Continent by Keith Lowe. I forgot who recommended this to me, but I am only a hundred pages in and it is incredible. It is about Europe in the immediate aftermath of World War II, and points out that our narrative of the Marshal Plan and Europe arising like a phoenix from the ashes glosses over a whole lot.
What is striking me most is that, those post-apocalyptic movies and books that posit a dystopian future where society completely breaks down? That's already happened. On a massive, massive scale. ( Cut for an inherently disturbing topic )
And it's not like post-WWII Europe is alone. All of that still happens, all over the world.
I am finding it...weirdly hopeful to read? Because it shows that this post-apocalyptic future we fear isn't the end. The worst happens, everything falls apart, violence is a normal part of every day, trust in any kind of authority is shattered, the infrastructure we rely on to bring us the food we need disintegrates, but that isn't the end. Somehow, after that, we recover. Society gets rebuilt. It may take generations, and many things that were lost can never be regained, but it isn't actually the end of everything. I don't know if I'm articulating myself well, but it helps me to think that there is still a future, even after something that I'm learning was infinitely worse than I had ever previously realized it was.
What is striking me most is that, those post-apocalyptic movies and books that posit a dystopian future where society completely breaks down? That's already happened. On a massive, massive scale. ( Cut for an inherently disturbing topic )
And it's not like post-WWII Europe is alone. All of that still happens, all over the world.
I am finding it...weirdly hopeful to read? Because it shows that this post-apocalyptic future we fear isn't the end. The worst happens, everything falls apart, violence is a normal part of every day, trust in any kind of authority is shattered, the infrastructure we rely on to bring us the food we need disintegrates, but that isn't the end. Somehow, after that, we recover. Society gets rebuilt. It may take generations, and many things that were lost can never be regained, but it isn't actually the end of everything. I don't know if I'm articulating myself well, but it helps me to think that there is still a future, even after something that I'm learning was infinitely worse than I had ever previously realized it was.