The Alpha Male stuff can be annoying. "Alas, Babylon" is one of my favorite post-apoc books, but it still irritates the hell out of me. The strapping, square-jawed retired military guy leads people to build civilization, with the help of commandeering his black tenants Model A and well water (which they have been using to live for years.)
In this subgenre, there's a lot of meek inheriting the earth kind of stuff, which is why it's almost always the middle class. In British ideologies (as evident with what happened during WWI and earlier when the Upstairs/Downstairs culture was going strong) characters of the middle class might try to preserve their aristocracy. Much the same way as they were running headlong into battle and jumping on grenades for their masters.
From my personal experience, if Shit were to Go Down, my neighbors would probably only be concerned with a sudden scarcity of Sudafed and Natty Light. They could hardly care less about survival as long as they can cook meth and get their drink on. The middle class, who is in a constant flux of getting by and living in convenience, would probably be the most able to drag themselves out of the muck and carry on. The rich would probably soon realize once money wasn't worth much, and how little they mattered. That's the whole crux of the situation.
With "Alas, Babylon," on a realistic model, those neighbors with the Model A would have told soldier-boy to hit the road. What I hated about that book was a need to return America to what it was before the bombs dropped. Which back then, more than likely included Jim Crow, gas-guzzling cars, fighting the Soviets, and all the other bullshit subscribed to in a modern society.
Honestly, I think the whole appeal stems from the fall of the Roman Empire, where the conquering/colonizing Romans finally just had to get the hell out, leaving the natives of any given area to return to a semi-traditional way of life. The original Post-Colonial movement.
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Date: 2011-04-19 02:45 pm (UTC)In this subgenre, there's a lot of meek inheriting the earth kind of stuff, which is why it's almost always the middle class. In British ideologies (as evident with what happened during WWI and earlier when the Upstairs/Downstairs culture was going strong) characters of the middle class might try to preserve their aristocracy. Much the same way as they were running headlong into battle and jumping on grenades for their masters.
From my personal experience, if Shit were to Go Down, my neighbors would probably only be concerned with a sudden scarcity of Sudafed and Natty Light. They could hardly care less about survival as long as they can cook meth and get their drink on. The middle class, who is in a constant flux of getting by and living in convenience, would probably be the most able to drag themselves out of the muck and carry on. The rich would probably soon realize once money wasn't worth much, and how little they mattered. That's the whole crux of the situation.
With "Alas, Babylon," on a realistic model, those neighbors with the Model A would have told soldier-boy to hit the road. What I hated about that book was a need to return America to what it was before the bombs dropped. Which back then, more than likely included Jim Crow, gas-guzzling cars, fighting the Soviets, and all the other bullshit subscribed to in a modern society.
Honestly, I think the whole appeal stems from the fall of the Roman Empire, where the conquering/colonizing Romans finally just had to get the hell out, leaving the natives of any given area to return to a semi-traditional way of life. The original Post-Colonial movement.