Human security and the darkness in the world

The world has always been a dangerous place, but questions of security now go to the heart of the human condition, and popular cultural renditions seem to be actively rehearsing the ontological drama of this change in a way that politicians and policy makers cannot countenance. This is not to say that the rehearsals are politically astute. The concept of 'rehearsal' is important here. These films are no longer even what have been called 'critical dystopias', used to reflect on the human condition and to imagine how we might act otherwise. The only counter-practices in these popular representations are individual, heroic survivalism — keeping the vampires and zombies (and terrorists) at bay at night while working stoically during the day in a laboratory to unlock the secret of individual-planetary survival. It hardly works as a transitional practice prefiguring alternative and more sustainable worlds.