Shrouds of a normal society
So I saw War of the Worlds tonight, starring Tom Cruise. It certainly wasn't Academy Award material, but it was thoroughly enjoyable - I sound like Siskel and Ebert. Regardless, it was really entertaining, and did what it was supposed to do as a summer adventure/disaster thriller blockbuster. I think that the part of the movie that left me the most shaken wasn't the bloodthirsty aliens, nor the vaporization of hundreds of people. It wasn't even the dozens of corpses floating down the river, or the creepy man with the shotgun in the farmhouse basement. It was a scene where Tom Cruise and his daughter are desperately trying to escape the coming onslaught, and they're surrounded by a mob that wants to steal their car - the only working one in New Jersey.
The mob is made up of normal people - folks who might otherwise be surgeons, lawyers, plumbers, you name it. But in that kind of emergency situation, they're looking out for themselves and their loved ones - and they become almost primal as they try to do so. They will do anything to stay alive, or to get one foot further away from potential death. All the shrouds of a normal society are cut away, and people become almost animalistic once more. It's disturbing to see people so devoid of rationality and civility, fighting and killing over the simplest things.
I spoke to someone after about it, wondering almost innocently if people would really act like that in such a situation. "Of course," they replied. "I definitely think people would act like that, trying to protect their families." The more I think about it, the more I agree. Most people seem so normal in day-to-day life, in the context of civilization and society - but how would we act in a situation where there are no rules, where it's everyone for themselves, where our very survival is at stake?
I'm willing to bet that it'd be pretty close to that mob situation - and that's pretty terrifying. I like to think that I'd be rational, that I would continue to be civil and compassionate. But I'm really not sure. I hope that I don't ever have to test out that thought.
