Could it be that another reason we find monsters so revolting is because they present us with a merciless picture of what we ourselves are as isolated, "organic" individuals? That we perceive that a locus of Truth in us denies this supposed individuality as something that "should not be"? That what we shrink away from is the realisation of our own unreality?
I agree that preaching of doom for its own sake is useless and dangerous. But I think it's worth asking if folly, loss and ultimately death can really be overcome if they have not first concretely appeared in our experience. (In the words of the Christian myth: "Was it not necessary that the Christ suffer these things and [so] enter into His glory?").
Here I see a perpetually valid task for horror fiction: to help to bring to manifestation and put us face to face with the chaos, contradiction and ultimate impossibility of everything we consider as solid reality, "ourselves" included, so that the nightmare might truly and definitively be surpassed by the glory of that which we eternally are.
I find your perspective interesting on all of these counts, Gabriele. Regarding the importance of being brought to a confrontation with the ultimate contingency, or relativity, or -- as contrasted with the absoluteness of the Absolute -- frank unreality of the world and our customary sense of who and what we are who inhabit it, I think you and I are in lockstep. Ditto the role that horror fiction may play in cultivating this epiphany.
Thank you Matt for an enlightening instalment.
Could it be that another reason we find monsters so revolting is because they present us with a merciless picture of what we ourselves are as isolated, "organic" individuals? That we perceive that a locus of Truth in us denies this supposed individuality as something that "should not be"? That what we shrink away from is the realisation of our own unreality?
I agree that preaching of doom for its own sake is useless and dangerous. But I think it's worth asking if folly, loss and ultimately death can really be overcome if they have not first concretely appeared in our experience. (In the words of the Christian myth: "Was it not necessary that the Christ suffer these things and [so] enter into His glory?").
Here I see a perpetually valid task for horror fiction: to help to bring to manifestation and put us face to face with the chaos, contradiction and ultimate impossibility of everything we consider as solid reality, "ourselves" included, so that the nightmare might truly and definitively be surpassed by the glory of that which we eternally are.
I find your perspective interesting on all of these counts, Gabriele. Regarding the importance of being brought to a confrontation with the ultimate contingency, or relativity, or -- as contrasted with the absoluteness of the Absolute -- frank unreality of the world and our customary sense of who and what we are who inhabit it, I think you and I are in lockstep. Ditto the role that horror fiction may play in cultivating this epiphany.