bemusement parks

As a connoisseur of post-apocalyptic literature and movies I am no stranger to wastelands. While ruined cities are usually sprinkled throughout the various landscapes, it’s the wastelands that are typically front and center in the narrative.

“A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,

And the dry stone no sound of water.”

― T.S. Eliot

In the various definitions you’ll find of wasteland, most of them lean heavily on words like barren, empty and desolate, you’ll also note that many of them are careful to throw in that these areas became barren, empty and desolate. That they weren’t always like that.

The world had seen so many Ages: the Age of Enlightenment; of Reformation; of Reason. Now, at last, the Age of Desire. And after this, an end to Ages; an end, perhaps, to everything.

― Clive Barker

Which I guess explains why so many of them have dilapidated amusement parks sitting right smack dab in the middle of nowhere. Little vaguely-haunted oases that smell of decay and cotton candy (or is that the vaguely-hauntedness?).

Libraries? Nope. Churches? Not a one. Maybe, just maybe, an oil-production plant. Those tricked-out dune buggies don’t run on sand after all.

But show me a post-apocalyptic wasteland and I’ll show you the remains of an amusement park.

It’s always a thrilling experience to go into a place that offers you a lot of choice. You know it’s like it reminds you of when you’re a kid and you go to the amusement park and whether it be Disneyworld or Six Flags you know that thrilling moment when you first enter and you know you’ve got all these possibilities for the day and it’s really a… it’s a wonderful feeling.

― Sheena Iyengar

Are all these writers trying to making a point about how the world went from how things are now to post-apocalyptic? I highly doubt it was conscious decisions for so many different creative types from so many different backgrounds and belief systems to offer up such a familiar trope, but there is definitely a case to be made that at least on a subconscious level the fact that amusement parks play such a big role in these stories while libraries and churches don’t even get a sniff isn’t an accident.

There’s no family that I know of that is going to pack up the kids for a two days walk through a sweltering desert to go check out a book or attend a religious service. But throw in a few rollercoasters and a water slide and they’ll fall all over themselves to strap on some sandals and start the trek.

“Our lives are fashioned by our choices. First we make our choices. Then our choices make us.”

— Anne Frank

So what’s my point?

Well, given writers have predicted everything from submarines to space travel, is anyone else a little worried about the uptick in the number of amusement parks being built?