Great read, thanks for sharing Matteo! interesting point around how Gothic fiction historically emerged in 'response to moments of ideological uncertainty, power struggles, and shifting cultural value' - explains a lot why there's a return to darkness right now
Ok, I’m really grateful for this blog. I’ve been thinking about this a lot as a curator for Urban Dictionary (I pick the Word of the Day). Sometimes my job gets to me with the type of screen time I expose myself to but coupled with what is now our new default, this dark mode, even zoning out has started to feel bad. It’s like dealing with a secret trap door that gets reset every morning in your apartment, lol. Gotta adapt.
It’s nice that there’s a definition for this type of “evil”. You can work with a definition. Makes me think of William James on “healthy-mindedness”, who Ernest Becker quotes from in his forward for “Escape from Evil”:
“The method of averting one’s attention from evil, and living in the light of good is splendid as long as it will work. It will work with many persons; it will work far more generally than most of us are ready to suppose; and within the sphere of its successful operation there is nothing to be said against it as a religious solution. But it breaks down importantly as soon as melancholy comes; and even though one be quite free from melancholy one’s self, there is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine, because the evil facts which it refuses positively to account for are a genuine portion of reality; and may after all be the best key to life’s significance, and possibly the only openers of our eyes to the deepest levels of truth.“
This was so great, Alexi! Good questions and responses, and tbh I wouldn't have minded longer answers from him, there's a lot to unpack there. I'd be keen to know what Edmon thinks the 'snapping out of it' will look like (when it comes). Very nice.
I do to some extent agree with your comments, Lau takes a very luxury-centric approach to his observations and can't necessarily always be extrapolated to culture-at-large, and perhaps some of the examples we discussed in our conversation might feel like a stretch. But sometimes it's worth riffing on these ideas and playing around with which dots to connect to tell a bigger story!
And yes, Monahan's writing around boom boom aesthetics, as Lau mentions elsewhere as well, was part of the inspiration for dark mode, and is also a great framing IMO. But why I gravitated towards Lau's thinking, which Monahan didn't necessarily touch on is this feeling of darker undercurrents running through culture-at-large, which I think is very true.
It goes back to Matteo's post and his essay linked above - 'gothic', ominous undertones historically emerge in culture in response to moments of uncertainty and upheaval, which is very much what we're going through right now
So interesting, indeed, loved the conversation format too, and thanks a lot for a shout out <3
Thanks Auste, glad you liked the format!
So interesting. I think connected to the Dark Mode phenomenon, we’re seeing such a resurgence of gothic/dark aesthetics in culture, which I think says a lot about where the world is at. Wrote a few thoughts here https://open.substack.com/pub/whyyoushouldcare/p/a-gothic-mayhem?r=laov1&utm_medium=ios
Great read, thanks for sharing Matteo! interesting point around how Gothic fiction historically emerged in 'response to moments of ideological uncertainty, power struggles, and shifting cultural value' - explains a lot why there's a return to darkness right now
You did a great job on that!
Thank you so much!
Ok, I’m really grateful for this blog. I’ve been thinking about this a lot as a curator for Urban Dictionary (I pick the Word of the Day). Sometimes my job gets to me with the type of screen time I expose myself to but coupled with what is now our new default, this dark mode, even zoning out has started to feel bad. It’s like dealing with a secret trap door that gets reset every morning in your apartment, lol. Gotta adapt.
It’s nice that there’s a definition for this type of “evil”. You can work with a definition. Makes me think of William James on “healthy-mindedness”, who Ernest Becker quotes from in his forward for “Escape from Evil”:
“The method of averting one’s attention from evil, and living in the light of good is splendid as long as it will work. It will work with many persons; it will work far more generally than most of us are ready to suppose; and within the sphere of its successful operation there is nothing to be said against it as a religious solution. But it breaks down importantly as soon as melancholy comes; and even though one be quite free from melancholy one’s self, there is no doubt that healthy-mindedness is inadequate as a philosophical doctrine, because the evil facts which it refuses positively to account for are a genuine portion of reality; and may after all be the best key to life’s significance, and possibly the only openers of our eyes to the deepest levels of truth.“
This was so great, Alexi! Good questions and responses, and tbh I wouldn't have minded longer answers from him, there's a lot to unpack there. I'd be keen to know what Edmon thinks the 'snapping out of it' will look like (when it comes). Very nice.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment Philip!
I do to some extent agree with your comments, Lau takes a very luxury-centric approach to his observations and can't necessarily always be extrapolated to culture-at-large, and perhaps some of the examples we discussed in our conversation might feel like a stretch. But sometimes it's worth riffing on these ideas and playing around with which dots to connect to tell a bigger story!
And yes, Monahan's writing around boom boom aesthetics, as Lau mentions elsewhere as well, was part of the inspiration for dark mode, and is also a great framing IMO. But why I gravitated towards Lau's thinking, which Monahan didn't necessarily touch on is this feeling of darker undercurrents running through culture-at-large, which I think is very true.
It goes back to Matteo's post and his essay linked above - 'gothic', ominous undertones historically emerge in culture in response to moments of uncertainty and upheaval, which is very much what we're going through right now