| Chapter 2: | Helpless Ignorance, Helpless Awareness?: Social Identit(ies) in The Memoirs of a Survivor |
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In Memoirs, the “new” groups which form in the vacuum follow a law-of-the-jungle philosophy in an environment where food, water, and even air are bought and sold, or stolen if necessary, and where pets and sometimes humans become food according to the needs of the group. Like the State authority which preceded them, these tribes make a conscious choice to manipulate, rather than eradicate, violence, according to the dictates of the moment (Redding, 34).
In the transitional phase before tribes begin to form, the general breakdown of the old order causes much anxiety, especially among those who have the most to lose in terms of private property and status. The middle and upper classes have benefited from the fictions of the past, and now, as the façade of “civilization” falls apart, these people are forced to look more directly at the underpinnings of their artificial world, and they do not like what they see. In fact, reality has become the enemy (indeed, reality has always been the enemy), even as people continue trying to carry on as before, as though what was happening were only a temporary situation:
Such behavior, as Lessing goes on to say, is of course a defense mechanism, a way of keeping up appearances to preserve a sense of social order as well as a sense of oneself which can alternatively be seen as admirable, absurd, or necessary (19). Efforts to keep reality at bay will continue for some time, until all hope is lost: citizen’s groups concerned about old-age pensions, school lunch programs, house-bound invalids, animal protection and the like (20–21). Certain people, however, have been on the margins of the old order, disenfranchised, seen as problematic by the authorities, and it is this class of people who adapt most quickly to changing circumstances.