{"id":5689,"date":"2020-08-26T05:34:07","date_gmt":"2020-08-26T11:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/?p=5689"},"modified":"2025-08-02T23:20:58","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T05:20:58","slug":"le-plus-grand-zombie-is-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qualityofmercy.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/26\/le-plus-grand-zombie-is-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Le plus grand zombie is US"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pardon merci, je suis le grand zombie
I’m just not human tonight<\/p>\n

\u2014 Mekons, “Big Zombie”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I haven’t thought about anthropologist Wade Davis much since his 1985 nonfiction book The Serpent and the Rainbow<\/em> was turned into what I thought was an icky film by Wes Craven in 1988.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In L.A. I had a habit of picking up review copies and other first editions at Cosmopolitan Book Shop, where I got Davis’s book. I always had good luck there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his book Davis recounts his attempt to see if zombification in Haitian Vodou had a pharmacological component. I remember his tale being akin to Terence McKenna’s Food of the Gods<\/em>, published seven years later, taking the reader on a similar, esoteric journey regarding psychedelics.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, on my birthday, last Monday, Wade Davis shows up on of all things, Christiane Amanpour’s PBS show. And he ain’t talking zombies. But perhaps he is. He was tapped because of an August 6 Rolling Stone<\/em> article that went viral:<\/p>\n\n\n

\n\t<\/a>\t\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tThe Unraveling of America\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\tAnthropologist Wade Davis on how COVID-19 signals the end of the American era\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

A sampling from that article\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • \n
      \n
    • In a dark season of pestilence, COVID has reduced to tatters the illusion of American exceptionalism.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • More than any other country, the United States in the post-war era lionized the individual at the expense of community and family. It was the sociological equivalent of splitting the atom.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • In truth, at least in economic terms, the country of the 1950s resembled Denmark as much as the America of today. Marginal tax rates for the wealthy were 90 percent.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

      (Hmm\u2026 Maybe there is<\/em> something to that MAGA hashtag.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      And then there is this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      The United States, virtually a demilitarized nation on the eve of the Second World War, never stood down in the wake of victory. To this day, American troops are deployed in 150 countries. Since the 1970s, China has not once gone to war; the U.S. has not spent a day at peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n