THERE
IS NO REASON WHY
It is no coincidence
that many images through the ages depicting evil beings and
demons have many visual similarities to the appearances of corpses
in various states of decomposition, and that many religions
consider the lack of decomposition after death as a sign of
holiness or sainthood. Evil, here, is manifested and personified
by all the biological realities surrounding physical death that
the human eye can see. Unlike modern society, people in the
past were far more exposed to the appearance of the dying, dead
and decaying. Their experiences and their culture were far less
insulated from and sanitized against the putrid everyday encounter
with death that punctuated the commonplace horrors of violence,
disease, aging, decay.
“There
is no reason why!” screamed the Beast.
Before man had a
word for evil, he had an image of the horrific and terrifying.
Before man had a reason for the existence of the horrific and
terrifying, he understood it existed. The terrifying and the
horrific existed… even if there was no reason why. Terror
and horror exist… for no reason... beyond the ones man
or God imagine and create.
Evil exists because
man had to name the unnamable threats to his existence. Man
had to name the unnamable to control it, to achieve power over
it. Naming “it” gave him a reason for its existence
and a plan for defeating it. For if you know how and why something
came to be, you may be able to undo it. Unlike the unbearable
suffering of Cassandra who could see all future disasters with
no power to stop it, knowing the threat by naming it is the
first step to stopping it. Knowing your enemy by naming him
is the first step to defeating him. Without a name, there is
no diagnosis, there is no prognosis, there is no plan, there
is no purpose, there is no hope.
Horror in popular
culture isn’t fighting an army of zombies; horror and
the popular imagination are fighting mortal images of our own
impending death and decay. Heroes wage war against armies of
the damned. But no art can cure the ugly truth. Man is doomed.
Man is the damned. No amount of visualization against diseased
or cancerous cells will save him. No amount of cosmetic surgery
will immortalize him.
What is art if not
the most subtle, most superficial form of cosmetic surgery we
perform on our pained psyches to cut out, block out or transform
a threatening, ugly world in ways too subtle or superficial
for most to grasp or care? Oblivious, man marches to oblivion.
Ignorance of his coming destruction comforts him.
“I
came from nowhere. I’m going nowhere. I’m going…
going… gone!” wailed the Beast.
There is no reason
to mortal terror. There is no reason to the horror this beast
experiences and inspires. There is no hidden inner beauty to
be unlocked in this beast’s savagery or his screams; nothing
and no one to redeem the pain and suffering this beast suffers
and inflicts. Terror and horror inspire awe in the vulnerable.
Awe inspires beauty. Nothing is more awe-inspiring than invulnerability.
Nothing is more beautiful than power. But is it real? Know
your enemy.
Know your enemy.
Then...
Disfigure him.
Know your enemy.
Then kill him. |
