That's interesting. I've been thinking a lot about the cross-cultural approaches to the post-apocalypse, and what they tell us about the cultures themselves. I'll write more on this in the future, but the two places I have the most examples of are from the United States and the United Kingdom — the US ones (at least those made by white m…
That's interesting. I've been thinking a lot about the cross-cultural approaches to the post-apocalypse, and what they tell us about the cultures themselves. I'll write more on this in the future, but the two places I have the most examples of are from the United States and the United Kingdom — the US ones (at least those made by white males, which is most of them) very heavy on essentially individualistic problem-solving, as you indicate, whereas the UK contributions are usually more focused on the idea that "civilization" is always just a few minutes away from "savagery." It is always interesting to me how obvious it feels when you read something that is from a very different "mother" culture and makes very different sorts of assumptions about what a given story ought to be about, how problems ought to be solved, etc. I hadn't thought about Boyscouts as a way to think about American survival tropes, but it's an apt analogy. (I was a former Boyscout myself, and was obsessed with books like _My Side of the Mountain_ as a kid.)
That's interesting. I've been thinking a lot about the cross-cultural approaches to the post-apocalypse, and what they tell us about the cultures themselves. I'll write more on this in the future, but the two places I have the most examples of are from the United States and the United Kingdom — the US ones (at least those made by white males, which is most of them) very heavy on essentially individualistic problem-solving, as you indicate, whereas the UK contributions are usually more focused on the idea that "civilization" is always just a few minutes away from "savagery." It is always interesting to me how obvious it feels when you read something that is from a very different "mother" culture and makes very different sorts of assumptions about what a given story ought to be about, how problems ought to be solved, etc. I hadn't thought about Boyscouts as a way to think about American survival tropes, but it's an apt analogy. (I was a former Boyscout myself, and was obsessed with books like _My Side of the Mountain_ as a kid.)