Originally Posted By: Dagny
In The Walking Dead's America (and world), there is no law.

There are no rights.

...

If we get into a discussion of property rights in our actual real world, this thread will quickly go off the rails into the land of the political.


The fantasy world of The Walking Dead means something to us because it speaks to the issues of the real world. A show about a fantasy world that means absolutely nothing to us will not attract any audience, because we simply will not be able to relate to it in any way. We will be bored by it. Instead, we want to see things from our lives play out in new ways that are not possible in the real world.

Now I respect the forum's stance on avoiding politics, and I think there is a way to talk about the show and its greater cultural significance without actually talking about politics. To do that, we will have to stick to the show as a laboratory space in which the elements familiar to us in the real world can interact, be tested, etc. For example, if we take your observations (no law, no rights) to their logical conclusion, then what the show implies is that notions such as property and individual rights have become for us ethical rather than institutional. Why, even in such a world of no laws, Hershel's wishes still seem to carry power (with people like Rick and Dale) because he is the property owner.

I guess the larger relevance to the tenor of our forum is that even in such a lawless situation, there may still be ethics, as long as there are people, and ethics may be shaped by our prior acquaintance of the law.