Modern Apocalyptic Fears: Corruption and Possession in the Atomic and Cold War Age

The apocalyptic is the story of impending doom or widespread devastation. Primarily characterized by stories of the end of the world by natural disaster, disease, invasion, or war, the modern apocalyptic narrative represents humanity’s fear of realizing he is his own worst enemy. Corruption and possession correspond to twin evils of humanity in the modern apocalyptic narrative, the internal and the external. The external is merely routine or innate: the desire to have things, to eat, to protect one’s self and kin. That which is external is not malicious but instinctive. External is the corporate greed displayed in the marketing of fallout shelters and home improvement items. The desire to possess is not limited to the corporate world. Materialism becomes a form of magical protection from nuclear harm. This profiteering behavior is the function of a corporation; profit, not public interests fuels the belly of the corporate beast. This same behavior is seen in the individual as he loses his sense of self in favor of survival. In the apocalyptic genre, self-possession is questioned, signifying the fear that humankind will not have the ability to maintain its wits or ethics in a crisis. The loss of self-possession leads to the final step in the ultimate destruction of the world, corruption. Corruption gives voice to the fear that man faces annihilation from within. Corruption represents itself through material and moral decay, a litter on the landscape of the devastated world, the proverbial insult to nuclear injury. The fear of the world’s end is only surpassed by the fear humankind will be the cause of that end. Possession, the external evil, is the lesser of the fears that motivate the apocalyptic echoes heard throughout the atomic and cold war age media and literature; it is corruption, the internal reflection of evil most feared by humanity.
Corporations use the fear of the nuclear family to profit by creating public service films, primarily intended to lend credibility to their advertisement claims that their products somehow contributed to civil defense goals. The House in the Middle, a 1954 documentary film produced by the Federal Civil Defense Administration, is an example of the commercialization of civil defense. The companies were aware these products would not be very useful against nuclear attack. Corporations took the initiative to sooth public fears and the advantage to profit simultaneously. Corporations’ sponsorship of these projects also furthered the idea of the ability to defeat or defend against the dangers of nuclear use with good moral fiber and a fastidious ethic. These infomercials allied the behavior and habits of people to whether or not they deserved to survive nuclear bombardment. Those who had the means to purchase products for their homes or maintain a well kept home were deemed worthy of survival by virtue of their wealth. It seemed a total denial of reality but the apocalyptic does not require reality as a foundation. Mass hysteria created by fears of atomic destruction demanded action of any sort. "Beauty, cleanliness, health, and safety are the four basic doctrines that protect our homes, our cities," decries the documentary. The mere suggestion that a clean home, properly painted, would do anymore than minimize the destruction was enough to allow the affluent citizen to feel they could do something.
Peace of mind would not be available to those who could not afford to bomb proof their lives. For these people there would be chaos as they struggled to find lodging with sympathetic neighbors or public shelters that may have been ill stocked. The “haves” would be assaulted by the “have nots” simply for survival’s sake. A regular storyline in the apocalyptic tale is the loss of personal ethics and the loss of humanity in the face of impending doom. After the disaster, people would try to gain access to existing shelter; the owners of those shelters would be ready to protect them for their own survival. There are a few problems at this point. First, many people stocked only what supplies they felt they and their immediate family would need for a prescribed amount of time. Additional people would constitute a drain on resources and a danger to the family’s survival. Then, one must consider the perfect stranger who is destitute and willing to kill for his own shelter, in this time of unimaginable horrors. This person would have to be dealt with in a swift and possibly deadly manner to protect the dwelling and its inhabitants. Finally, there is the simple problem of logistics. Most shelters were rather small and could only accommodate a few. People would like to believe they would act with honor and courage in the face of disaster and are shocked to learn that they act with animalistic instinct to survive. This loss personal principle is a great human fear.
Fallout and bomb shelter advertisements of the atomic age expose fears of man’s own propensity for destruction Fallout scenarios force the one to face his own ability for brutality, not only in the protection of the shelter, for the sanctity of his family but also in his mad desire for possessions. A responsible shelter owner would plan for looters and crashers. Materials and food items necessary for survival would be horded and one’s fellow man would be the enemy of all enemies as his survival competes with those without. Some apocalyptic themes envision an utopist view where humanity would bond together for the benefit of all. Most reveal themes of the deeply embedded evils of men in the face of disaster. This is where the fear of loosing self-possession turns to the dreaded task of facing the truth of one’s situation. When humankind loses his moral and ethical ground, he loses his humanity and corrupts his soul.
Desolation is a component of apocalyptic corruption; the genre sees the earth as an eventual wasteland. In the popular novel by author Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles, this corruption of property and person, reverently handled through the character Spender, is poignantly portrayed. Spender empathizes with the Martians through his examination of the remains of their civilization. He sadly speaks of the inevitable defilement of the Martian landscape with human trash. Prophetically Spender says, “There’d be time for that later; time to throw condensed-milk cans in the proud Martian canals; time for copies of the New York times to blow and caper and rustle across the lone gray Martian sea bottoms; time for banana peels and picnic papers in the fluted, delicate ruins of the old Martian valley towns.” Spender is soon proven correct when Biggs, “…carried six empty bottles and dropped them one by one into the deep blue canal waters. They made empty, hollow, drowning sounds as they sank.” Litter may seem very different from desolation; it is the desecration of the formerly proud Martian landscape that demonstrates corruption. It is the carelessness of littering a new planet that proves the corrupting influence of man.
The theme of corruption is not limited to the physical land. It is feared, in its most heinous form, as the corruption of the human soul. The corruption of the soul happens when one allows their basest needs or desires to overrule their moral or ethical self. The soul is corrupted when one no longer reacts to atrocities or is silent in the face of obvious wrongdoing. The Martian population littered the landscape with their bodies decimated by chicken pox, from contact with an earlier crew. A member of the space crew, Hathaway, acknowledged the cause of this desolation was their arrival, though unintentional. The sense of the land being empty of living people is echoed in the moral emptiness at being the cause of the destruction. Desecration of what was once sacred, the party atmosphere in the face of obvious and overwhelming devastation, is the internal face of human evil. The next inhabitants of the now littered death-filled town are eulogizing the end of one civilization to inaugurate the beginning of their own. Corruption is the barrenness of the soul. When humans no longer acknowledge their culpability in the defilement of a people or a land, the existence of one’s humanity becomes questionable.
Ruthless pursuits of technology, the inability to protect ourselves from alien invasion, or nature’s revenge are a few of the vehicles that drive our truest fears; in the apocalyptic narrative, it is through greed, deficiency, or carelessness that the world is destroyed. The media, literature of the atomic, and cold war age deliver images reflecting the fears of this era’s population. Dropping the atomic bomb forced Americans to reevaluate their own ethical and moral ideology. Corporations have no ideology to uphold, save for profit. From commercial hawking of civil defense related products to the not so subtle messages of class espoused in the infomercials, corporate America used public fear to generate profits. Prevalent amongst those fears are those of the internal and external evil. Possession, the external, can be seen in two ways, self-possession or self-control and ownership. The desire to survive overwhelms the sensibilities of the individual and again man faces his own self as he deals with primal instinct to survive. Rioting, looting, hording, are all classical examples in the modern apocalyptic narrative denoting a lack of self-possession. Class dictates who deserves to survive and who does not; the person who can afford to paint the house he owns or buy a fall out shelter to protect his family is the one who deserves to live. The idea of possession being fearful enough, corruption is the greater concern of those of the atomic and cold war age. Most feared was the realization that they were the creators of the means of their own potential destruction. America manufactured and dropped the first bomb of titanic destruction. The fear of retribution was a major subconscious concern because now that this weapon of mass destruction had been created, the use of it against its creators was possible. The apocalyptic narrative did not start with the atomic age and its associated psychology yet it is in the literature and media of the atomic age that the fears of apocalypse are made palpable.