Christopher Spencer's Blog: C. Lee Spencer's Blog - Posts Tagged "apocalypse"

I chatted yesterday with my Course Mentor at the college I'm attending about "Event Day". She's been slowly making her way through the book on Kindle. Slow because she gets a headache trying to read fiction on a computer screen. I offered to mail her a copy of the paperback, which she accepted only after she insisted on paying for the postage.
She grew up in Detroit. Her father worked for Ford. She now lives in a suburb of Detroit. She admitted to having mixed feelings about reading of its destruction. I apologized for killing her dad, then went on to explain why any apocalypse that occurred in 1972 HAD to be centered on Detroit.

First off, why did I choose 1972? The first and foremost reason is the true story of a meteorite that flew over the Midwest on August 10th. (Great Midwest Fireball). I was fascinated with the fact that it traveled from south to north. The only way it could do that is if it came from outside the solar system.

But after I chose that very specific date, I started noticing other interesting associations. Roe V. Wade was decided in 1973, but was argued in October 1972, thus around 3 months AFTER I dated "The Event". While feminism got a good running start in the 1960's, it hadn't become the political movement it became post-RvW. I very much wanted to explore the idea of powerful women in an essentially pre-feminist society.

The last Apollo mission happened in December of 1972. After this mission, Nixon and congress gutted NASA's manned program. This is a major transition point, one where American exceptionalism was deemed irrelevant.

Porn went mainstream in 1972 with "Deep Throat". While there'd been plenty of filmed pornography before this, "Deep Throat" made it okay to view. Major entertainment figures sung its praises and were proudly photographed attending screenings. This started an explosion of pornography and is in many ways the true start of the sexual revolution in America. What if that revolution never happened? Again, like feminism, I wanted to explore a microcosm of the sexual revolution.

In 1973, homosexuality was removed from the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the "manual" for American psychiatry). How would homosexuality be perceived if this change never happened?

1972 was also, in many ways, the top of the peak before the fall of American manufactured goods. It's a fall no one saw coming. (Of course, as I write this, someone is going to prove me wrong.) But the age of American industry, unarguably, was about to meet Japan's meat grinder.

The biggest symbol of American industry was, without a doubt, Detroit. Detroit, and the cars it made, reshaped America at its very roots. People started moving to the suburbs and commuting to work in the 50's. People weren't stuck shopping at local stores. They could drive some distance to get to a mall. Their entertainment options moved from a locality to a municipality. It can be successfully argued that the fast food industry would never exist without cars. The interstate highway system spelled the doom of the rail lines. Offered a wider range of job choices, the concept of "upward mobility" entered the lexicon. Jobs slowly changed from a lifelong career to a temporary step on the way to a higher wage.

The typical household car, manufactured in Detroit, was not just "one of" the influences of modern America. It can be argued that the car was THE influence that created modern America. And that car was built in Detroit.

I wanted to destroy America in an apocalypse. There's no better way of doing that than wiping Detroit off the face of the Earth. And there's no more pivotal time to do it than in 1972.

Sorry, Detroit. You had to go.