Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Horror and Politics

I've had an interest in horror fiction probably since about 12, when I read The Hobbit and encountered Gollum. Probably even before that, if you count the folk tales my parents read me as a little kid (folk tales - misnamed "fairy tales - are almost all horror stories - think "Cinderella" and "Snow White," or for that matter, Lord of the Rings or 1984 or Brave New World or Animal Farm or Lord of the Flies - novels read in my middle-school classes).

Since art imitates life, there is horror in life (the purpose of civilization and culture and science and technology is to get rid of that horror as much as possible).

If there was no horror in life there would be no horror stories.

The archetype of the horror story is always the same: Good attacked by Evil, Order attacked by Chaos, always by human monsters (even if disguised as something else) possessed by the demon of Hubris/Pride/the Monstrous Self. (Stephen King, in his Danse Macabre called it the Apollonian attacked by the Dionysian, which, mythologically, is inaccurate).

You can apply the archetype of the horror story to just about everything, including politics.

Politics is always based on perceiving your opponents as evil. That's why those who are horrified by Trump see him as a Nazi and a fascist who is also a racist and a sexist - a monster! It's also why those who oppose Clinton see her as the Hildabeast - a career criminal who is utterly corrupt and a pathological liar - another monster!

I actually don't believe in "evil, not in the usual sense. Most people who use the word evil" use it in the conventional sense since they are unable to analyze what it really means - the Monstrous Self and its various manifestations such as murder. (By the way, the word "sin" comes from the archery word "hamartia," which means "to miss the mark," which is why in the more accurate translations of the New Testament Jesus talks about "You have missed the mark" instead of "You have sinned," just as the more accurate translation of "repent" is "change your heart and mind").

If you want to believe in Good and Evil it would be a continuum and not just either/or, which is the way it is in folk tales. Little kids only understand things as either good or evil, which is why folk tales take the form they do.

Life doesn't take that form. It is never either/or when it comes to good and bad.

Propaganda, unfortunately, is always based on Good attacked by Evil. That's why Dubya Shrub said "We were attacked for our goodness" by the "Evil ones," I get the impression he was dumb enough to really believe it (the imbecile bragged he didn't "do nuance" and should be dictator).

I see "government" as a good thing (anarchists are completely clueless about things getting better if all government was gone). When it goes beyond protecting "life, liberty and property" or the right to pursue happiness) it turns into the State, which just keeps expanding like the Blob (which of course was a horror film).

When it expands it destroy all those intermediate institutions such as family and church (which is why the ministers during the founding of this country wanted government to stay out of religion - they knew it corrupted it).

As for the Manosphere, it exists as a reaction against the State-sponsored monster known as feminism. And if marriage and the birth of babies is disappearing, you can blame it on the interference of the State. It's happened in the past many times.

Monsters are actually "offences against the natural order." Strangely enough, they sometimes can be benign, like Frankenstein, whose problem that he was ostracized and attacked and humiliated and so sought revenge, which always happens - it's an attempt to replace shame with pride.

The State isn't a benign monster. It also creates monsters though ostracism and humiliation of people (think of "Dead White Males") and interference in their lives.

Not at all surprisingly, monsters create monsters. The interference of the State in society will always do that. And then those monsters seek revenge, although they see it as justice.

2 comments:

lowly said...

I wrestled with 'good' and 'evil' for a while as as teenager, until I defined good as what is beneficial for me and mine, and bad as what is detrimental for me and mine. It's only at that point that good and evil began to make some sense to me.

Around that time I also decided to ignore motives for good and bad deeds, as I figured it didn't really matter whether someone was stupid, ignorant or evil since the result is what really mattered.

Unknown said...

"Monsters are actually "offences against the natural order.""

Is it any wonder that many of these feminists and SJWs are both physically and psychologically hideous? The Feminist - most often grotesquely fat, bizarre hair colors, and in many cases physically asymmetrical. And their psychology . . . . believing in this bizarre notion that the Patriarchy is everywhere, yet we can't see it. We have to take it on faith.

Indeed they are a perversion of nature. I have no hope in them being reformed. I have read many fictional stories about monsters and they usually end up destroying themselves before others introduce them to oblivion.