Monsters, big and small
ICE raids in our streets are a pathological form of distraction
1.
I think a lot about demons. It’s an occupational hazard of the kind of work I do. As an academic, I have one foot planted firmly in the world of religious studies, and the other planted firmly in the world of media studies. That means that I spend some of my time thinking about metaphysical creatures, like demons, and I spend a lot of my time thinking about the representation of these sorts of creatures in the stories we tell.
One thing I have never quite understood about demons is, why do they care? Let me explain. See, as I understand it, demons are fallen angels, right? Which means they have access to some ungodly kind of power. They have the ability to roam the cosmos, spreading malevolent influences far and wide. They could corrupt galaxies, but apparently their real distraction is whether or not I engage in some gossip or eat too many twinkies.
Why do they care? That is to say, why make the malevolence human sized? I know that C.S. Lewis probably has an answer to that question somewhere in The Screwtape Letters, but even if I had an answer, I’m not sure it would be an answer. Why mess with humans at all? Why should they bother?
This is the thing about monsters. When we tell stories about them, they are often so strong and intimidating, and yet they seem to want to play for such small stakes. The monsters want to scare humans, often one particular human (think about the so-called “final girl” in slasher films) or a small group of folks (think about any group of scientists in any number of remote arctic or deep sea research stations). The over-powered monster spends all its time making mayhem and terror, but directing it right at the puny humans.
The monsters want to scare us. They seem obsessed with it. In the stories we tell, the monsters would be disappointed, almost, if we didn’t jump when they said “boo!” More than the blood and the gore, they want our goosebumps, right?
The think about all these monsters is the scale. These scary creatures keep their gaze right here at ground level, looking us right square in the eyes, waiting for us to shiver. It seems we are the most important thing in their universe.
2.
There is another style of monster, though. This is the kind of monster that inhabits the stories of writers like H.P. Lovecraft. These monsters are often referred to as The Old Ones, and the genre of stories and media that feature them are referred to as cosmic horror. Probably the best known of these monsters is the dread Cthulhu.
I think a lot about these kinds of monsters, too. The main feature of these kinds of monster stories is almost the opposite of the human-focused monsters I mentioned above. The main feature of these creatures is their utter indifference to humanity. The terrifying aspect of a cosmic horror story is that the actions of the monsters are so large and transcendent that humanity is not even an afterthought; humanity is not a factor at all.
Let me give a graphic example of what I mean here. When you go to the bathroom, and you eliminate solid waste, that solid waste is full of tiny little bacteria. It is quite possible that, until you have read this sentence, you have never paused to think about the bacteria that you left behind and flushed away. You have not thought about that bacteria individually or collectively. In fact, even now that I am mentioning it, you can only think about that bacteria in the most distant way possible. It is a completely alien concept to imagine that you could ever care about that bacteria in your waste, let alone form a relationship with it.
That is how the monsters in a Lovecraft story relate to humanity. In this analogy, we are the bacteria in the poop.
In the Lovecraft sense, the monstrous effect is not brought about by the monster’s intense focus on us and our affairs. Instead, it’s the opposite. Our affairs, and our very existence, could not matter in the least to a monster like Cthulhu. There is no human emotion or meaning that can relate to them or their actions in any way. Instead of right-sizing their horror to our meaning-making, the cosmic horror transcends meaning entirely.
This might be why so many of Lovecraft’s stories climax in the narrator going insane. Whether you scream or laugh or sing lullabies in the presence of dread Cthulhu makes no difference. The universe is vast and dark and no one is listening. In the face of the cosmic horror, all human achievements are nothing. All our technologies and our aspirations are so much dust.
It’s depressing, when you stop and think about it.
3.
We live with monsters every day. Monsters, big and small.
When I think about the mercenaries roaming the streets of Chicago, masked and marauding as they kidnapped members of families and terrorized neighborhoods with tear gas, I found myself again thinking about the demons. Like the fallen angels of our mythologies, these guys could have been doing literally anything else with their time. And yet, here they were, in the streets, practically demanding that we perform our goosebumps at their presence.
Chicago, however, didn’t seem to get scared. We got organized. Everybody bought whistles. Soccer moms formed mutual aid circles and neighborhood patrols to help keep the kids safe at the schools. Sleepy judges found their spines, and stood up against the masked monsters roaming our streets, demanding transparency in their actions and accountability among their ranks. The fog of fear dissipated in the wake of these stalwart actions, and I must say I have never been more proud to live in this city.
When the human-focused monsters finally realized they couldn’t make us perform fear for their pleasure, they pretty much packed up and left town. Now they are trying out their tricks down south in Charlotte, and I pray for that fair city. I hope that the citizens stock up on their whistles, and that the soccer moms form their protective circles. That’s what it takes, when the little monsters come.
4.
But there are bigger monsters, too. Monsters that terrify by their indifference.
As I write this, we are making our way through an unseasonably warm fall. The meteorologists describe our current conditions as “erratic.” The weather is lashing out in unpredictable ways. Bigger hurricanes, melting ice caps, strange migrations.
The terror of these bigger sorts of monster is that they are not performing their horrors to get a rise out of us. Our reactions do not matter at all to them. Once they start in a direction, they have no interest in our descriptions or meaning-making. We are like the bacteria in the waste, too insignificant to even think about.
I wish we could finally focus on this bigger sort of horror, and find a way to battle this bigger sort of monster. Alas, it almost seems as if, because we feared this cosmic horror, we have turned our entire world into a theater of little monsters to distract ourselves from that big, indifferent force that will most likely kill us.
This is all the more reason not to give the time of day to the petty monsters that roam our streets. They are hunting for their thrills at our expense, and we have bigger fish to fry. We’ve got no time for small-time demons anymore, and no more goosebumps to spare. The world’s on fire.