Scary Stories

I came across a collection of H. P. Lovecraft stories in Costco a couple of weeks ago, and have started reading it. The first impression that I received is that it's a lot like reading Charles Darwin. One thing that occurred me when I was reading "On the Origins of Species" was the odd sensation of watching someone discover something that's now considered to be everyday knowledge. While Mr. Darwin's insights were pioneering 150 years ago, our knowledge has far surpassed that point, and so it now seems surprisingly basic. Reading Lovecraft is the same way. The settings for his stories are almost a century in the past at this point, and the stories themselves seem like the sorts of things that you'd find Cub Scouts and Brownies attempting to scare one another with during campouts. The subject matter does tend to be little beyond what one would expect grade-school children to work with, but the overall "tell instead of show" construction reminds me of how I remember the stories of my childhood to work - there wasn't any truly frightening imagery in the stories, just the repeated reminders that the characters were terrified.

Robert E. Howard, a contemporary of and correspondent with Mr. Lovecraft seemed to do the strange and weird somewhat better. But this is, I think, because Mr. Howard wrote the Conan the Barbarian stories in the third person, and was much more able to create rich descriptions of the character's physical reactions. And so while Mr. Lovecraft's first-person narrators would often simply inform the reader that they felt some indescribable terror, Mr. Howard would convey that through characters' reactions to that emotion.

This creates an interesting disconnect. I've been told countless times that H. P. Lovecraft was a master of the horror genre. But the genre has come so far, and moved so quickly, that it is difficult for me to perceive that mastery in the works that I've read to this point. Instead, it seems pioneering, and it's interesting for that. I can understand how people were drawn to this new variety of scary story, even if by now, it's old hat.

LOL

Recently, I've started noticing ways, large and small, that people seem to go out of their way to laugh at one another. I was noting this to a friend of mine, and they said: "Well, sometimes, laughing at people is a good way to get them to look at themselves and make changes."

"When," I asked, "was the last time that you made a positive change because people laughed at you?"

Crisis Ethics

There’s a very high cost to our politics for celebrating the Trump style, but what is most personally painful to me as a person of the Christian faith is the cost to the Christian witness. Nonchalantly jettisoning the ethic of Jesus in favor of a political leader who embraces the ethic of Thrasymachus and Nietzsche—might makes right, the strong should rule over the weak, justice has no intrinsic worth, moral values are socially constructed and subjective—is troubling enough.
Peter Wehner “The Deepening Crisis in Evangelical Christianity”

There are a number of religions that are going to run into this sort of "crisis" again and again. And, as I understand things, it's due to a simple, but often ignored, reality. Ethics, whether they are those attributed to Jesus or those laid out by Nietzsche, are means rather than ends; ethics are goal-oriented, they are not goals in and of themselves. This is especially true in a religious context organized in the way that Christianity is. People may speak of certain activities as "doing God's work," but an omnipotent deity would presumably have no pressing need for everyday people, with their limited faculties, to do anything important. The work is about showing oneself to be aligned with one's faith.

The anonymous "pro-Trump figure" that Mr. Wehner corresponded with touches on this when he notes that “And to a person, it was all about ‘the fight’.” And if the fight is all about preserving a specific vision of America, American culture and American Christianity so that they may be deployed to do their god's work, then whatever ethics helps to win the fight are the right ones. This isn't about an understanding that “might makes right, the strong should rule over the weak, justice has no intrinsic worth, moral values are socially constructed and subjective,” or even whether those points are objectively true or false. It's about an understanding that a genuine loss, a genuine victory for whatever conceptualization of "evil" they believe in, is a real and present possibility.

I was listening to a radio story today about the Democratic contenders for their party's nomination, and how many of them were making the point that in order to save American democracy, people had to shift their focus away from playing the game better, as it were, and change the rules of the game. And this, I think points to something that a lot of people may not fully appreciate. It's one thing to contest something with someone else to find out which is better. It's quite another to engage in a "fight" or to play a "game" with the understanding that there's a correct outcome and an incorrect outcome.

In other words: "Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing."

And this is always the danger of bringing moral/ethical considerations into politics. When the rules of a game, or the ethics of the fight are threatening to lead to the wrong outcome, then it is they that are incorrect. An attachment to a strategy, treating “the ethic of Jesus” as the most important thing come from only a limited number of places. One is that the proper ethic is an end in itself that transcends all other ends; that as long as the proper strategy is employed, whether other conflicts are won or lost is immaterial. Another is that the proper means will eventually guarantee the proper ends; that if there genuinely is some sort of “existential struggle” under way, then properly prosecuting the conflict will guarantee victory. There may be others, but without at least one them in play, then it stands to reason that the “Conservatives & Christians” that Jerry Fallwell Jr. was speaking to would seek a “street fighter” over a “great Christian leader” who turns out to be too much of a “nice guy” and a “wimp” to ensure the correct outcome.

Perhaps the crisis is really one of significance. While an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent deity should have no real need of assistance in shaping the universe to its whims, this does kind of make people unimportant in the grand scheme of things. And not all religions do well with the idea that people are unimportant. And so perhaps the need to have, and to win, “the fight” is more about a need to be instrumental in the final outcome, and thus, to matter. And when do things matter more than in a crisis?

The Extremists' Censor

So Nike had apparently created a line of shoes for this Fourth of July with the flag attributed to Betsy Ross on it. They then pulled said line of shoes, after they'd already made and shipped them, due to complaints from Colin Kaepernick. At least, this is what the Wall Street Journal reports. From what I understand, this was based on anonymous sourcing, so I couldn't tell you how accurate it is. Of course, is being taken as ironclad truth, especially on the conservative side, some of whom (at least on LinkedIn) are now loudly decrying the lack of love of country on display.

But I get it. This sort of thing happens all the time. There is an understanding that White Supremacist and other "Alternative Right" groups have adopted the "Betsy Ross" flag as a symbol.

And... so?

Why cede this particular symbol to them? While I understand people being upset about Nike pulling a shoe with what is commonly regarded as a symbol of American history on it, it may have made more sense to push back against the idea that people who wish to deploy that symbol in the name of racism and nationalism should be allowed to retain it.

True, this sort of thing is par for the course. The swastika has been effectively given over entirely to the former Nazi Germany and those who would resurrect its ideology in the modern day, without any real thought to the other people who understand very different meanings for it. I'm of the opinion that we've done them a disservice, but that's neither here nor there. Fleeing from any symbolism appropriate by the wrong sorts of people, lest one be considered the wrong sort of person (or someone who sympathizes with them) oneself is unlikely to go away anytime soon. So instead, people are left to argue over what symbols should or should not be abandoned and whether ulterior motives or "hateful agendas" are actually at work.

The desire to purge discourse of symbolism used by extremists (however one defines that term) is understandable. The fear that extremists will use innocuous-seeming items to communicate and coordinate their actions in the public square, to the detriment of the public, is rational. But it's a game of whack-a-mole that can't ever be won. There are a few words and images that are so ubiquitous that attempting to use them as codes would be fruitless; but a lot of the language is fair game, and so the codes, like euphemisms and dysphemisms, will simply drift from one thing to the next. And the language, and the general body of speakers, will be the people who end up poorer for that.

Finger Pointing

I saw a "sponsored link" from Taboola titled: "Dear Sen. Harris, here's why Biden worked with segregationists in Senate." I didn't bother with it, for a few different reasons. One, Taboola = clickbait. The World Wide Web already suffers from a fairly low signal-to-noise ratio (even without random blogs like this one cluttering up the place) and, in my experience, Taboola links are pretty much all noise. Secondly, I already understand why Senator Biden worked with segregationist Senators in the past. Back in 1973, when he joined the Senate, there were still enough segregationists in it that one couldn't simply ignore them or oppose everything they did. And finally, I already understand why Senator Harris picked this particular fight. She's angling for a demographic that considers the compromises that were made in the past to be morally reprehensible, and is seeking to differentiate herself from the former Vice President, and the policies (not to mention the constituency) that he represents.

There is a strain of idealism that understands that the way to bring about change is to be both critical and unforgiving of people for not having been the change; either in the present or in the past. This mode of thinking has always had adherents, but it does seem to be more common among younger people than Generation X or Baby Boomers (although I may be wrong about this). Given the importance that is being placed on the Millennial (and perhaps post-Millennial) vote, it makes sense to appeal to them, and even though Senator Harris is herself a member of Generation X, she seems to be angling for the "young person" vote.

And this is just the way the electoral game is played. Senator Harris is a longshot candidate, at least at this stage of the game. To be sure, there are a LOT of longshots in this race, given that about a quarter of registered Democrats (and some people who aren't registered) are running for the party's nomination. Former Vice-President Biden is currently the front-runner, and so he may as well have a bull's-eye embroidered on the back of his suit for the other candidates to throw knives at. American campaigning is not a process in which candidates explain that while the other candidates might be good, they themselves are better. Rather, they state reasons why the other candidates are bad - given that the only votes that matter are the ones that are actually cast, sowing Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt in a bid to make the less-committed take a pass is just as effective as turning out ardent supporters to vote, and likely vastly easier than minting new ardent supporters.

And this brings us back to idealism. Senator Harris has come in for quite a bit of criticism herself for criticizing the former Vice President. But this is how the game is played. Whether Senator Harris is angling for a Cabinet office, the Vice Presidential position or to genuinely be the United States' first woman and second non-White President, seeking to undermine the front-runner for her own advantage is simply politics as usual. It's fair to criticize the Senator for not changing the game that she's playing, but, at least for the time being, that has to also come with a realization that she's unlikely to win if she does so, unless the public themselves change their voting habits. Given that, I think that the Senator made the right bet.