He Gave Us Dragons

H. P. Lovecraft writes:

THE OLDEST and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. These facts few psychologists will dispute, and their admitted truth must establish for all time the genuineness and dignity of the weirdly horrible tale as a literary form. Against it are discharged all the shafts of a materialistic sophistication which clings to frequently felt emotions and external events, and of a naïvely insipid idealism which deprecates the æsthetic motive and calls for a didactic literature to "uplift" the reader toward a suitable degree of smirking optimism. But in spite of all this opposition the weird tale has survived, developed, and attained remarkable heights of perfection; founded as it is on a profound and elementary principle whose appeal, if not always universal, must necessarily be poignant and permanent to minds of the requisite sensitiveness.

This is from Lovecraft’s monograph Supernatural Horror In Literature, which is considered the seminal 20th century treatment on the subject. In it, he surveys many masters of the macabre in the centuries and decades up to his time.

I don’t agree with him that fear is the oldest or strongest emotion or that fear of the unknown in particular is. I think mankind came into this word (whether you buy evolutionary accounts or not) with a robust set of emotions, no one of which predominates the others.

That being said, fear is a powerful, primal emotion, and fear of the unknown is one of its major expressions.

That is a sufficient reason for horror stories being popular despite the efforts of those who would cramp literature down into just those forms of naive realism that would seek to uplift all readers into "smirking optimism." (Gotta love that phrase.)

God gave the human imagination dragons, whether as symbols of actual or fanciful evils, and as Lovecraft points out in his monograph, the weirdly horrible has haunted human literature since its dim beginnings in primitive folklore. It’s part of the human psyche, and nothing is going to change that.

One of my own theories is that we like such literature for the same reason that kittens and puppies wrestle with each other and that boys play mock combat games: It’s a way of preparing ourselves psychologically when we may have to face horrible dangers, a way of experiencing such situations in a safe way (think: holodeck with the safeties on) so that we will be psychologically prepared for them when we face terrible real-life situations with the safeties off. To prep us for these, we have an inbuilt drive that makes us want to "play" dangerous situations so that we have something to fall back on when we encounter them for real.

When we’re young, we physicalize this through play. When we’re older, we internalize it through literature. But it’s the same phenomenon.

We may never encounter in real life the specific dangers we read about in horror stories or thrillers. Cthulhu is, after all, fiction. But there are things in the world just as evil and–to us as individuals–just as deadly as Cthulhu.

Better to have some experience of such evils in a simulator than to face them cold.

GET THE STORIES.

Uncle Sam Wants Your Child

… in the public-school system, that is:

"One day after jazz band practice, 14-year-old Peter Wilson’s band teacher pulled him aside.

"The instructor wanted to know whether Peter, who is home-schooled alongside his three brothers, liked being taught by his mother, and why he didn’t come to public school full-time, instead of just for music.

"The teacher seemed uncomfortable bringing it up, and the conversation was brief, Peter said. When he got home, he told his parents.

"Mark and Teckla Wilson, who are raising their four sons in Mark Wilson’s roomy childhood home in this former timber town, soon found out to their annoyance that the teacher’s questions were part of an effort by the Myrtle Point school district to persuade home-schooling families to give the public system a shot."

GET THE STORY.

(Nod to Crowhill for the link.)

A Doctor's Modest Proposal

One M.D. has a novel solution to warnings of an impending physician shortage: Embrace the shortage and become, in her words, "a rare commodity":

"Why would anyone in their right mind want to go into medicine now? Until something is done to corral the HMO and government administrators (who are expensive and time-consuming annoyances); until the pay for family practice and general practice doctors is made equal to that of general pediatricians and general internists; until there are special courts for malpractice complaints instead of the current lawyer-stealing-from-doctor tort system; and until we aren’t having to cope daily with the tragic stories of people who cannot afford medications and of people who are being dumped off insurance when they are sick, I’m advising my bright young patients to look elsewhere for an occupation.

"I think we should be allowed to become a rare commodity. Maybe then we will be paid enough and respected enough to make the profession worth doing again" (source).

After my second spit-take at the line suggesting that doctors aren’t compensated enough in money and respect for their services, I got to thinking.

In some ways, I can see this physician’s point. Given their long years of expensive training, the malpractice coverage they must pay, and the risks entailed with running a business (especially one where they are beholden to insurance companies to cough up payments in a timely manner) the dazzling salaries doctors reportedly make do seem less-glittering. And, of course, it is specialization that pays the most. General practice and teaching doctors do not make dazzling salaries. I can also concede that respect for doctors flies out the window when it’s time to start looking around for a scapegoat for a tragedy, whether or not an individual doctor could have done anything differently.

Still.

Advising that physicians allow themselves to become a "rare commodity" will only mean that patients, those whom doctors are supposed to serve, will only receive worse care as the insurance companies ration out treatment options ever more thinly to meet the increased demand. And, as the physicians left in the field grow ever more gray, who will replace them? Will it take a decade-plus to train the new physicians once the potential doctors and early-retiree doctors decide to come back from their "strike"?

All in all, a silly proposal for a serious problem.

(Nod to Kevin, M.D., for the links.)

A Doctor’s Modest Proposal

One M.D. has a novel solution to warnings of an impending physician shortage: Embrace the shortage and become, in her words, "a rare commodity":

"Why would anyone in their right mind want to go into medicine now? Until something is done to corral the HMO and government administrators (who are expensive and time-consuming annoyances); until the pay for family practice and general practice doctors is made equal to that of general pediatricians and general internists; until there are special courts for malpractice complaints instead of the current lawyer-stealing-from-doctor tort system; and until we aren’t having to cope daily with the tragic stories of people who cannot afford medications and of people who are being dumped off insurance when they are sick, I’m advising my bright young patients to look elsewhere for an occupation.

"I think we should be allowed to become a rare commodity. Maybe then we will be paid enough and respected enough to make the profession worth doing again" (source).

After my second spit-take at the line suggesting that doctors aren’t compensated enough in money and respect for their services, I got to thinking.

In some ways, I can see this physician’s point. Given their long years of expensive training, the malpractice coverage they must pay, and the risks entailed with running a business (especially one where they are beholden to insurance companies to cough up payments in a timely manner) the dazzling salaries doctors reportedly make do seem less-glittering. And, of course, it is specialization that pays the most. General practice and teaching doctors do not make dazzling salaries. I can also concede that respect for doctors flies out the window when it’s time to start looking around for a scapegoat for a tragedy, whether or not an individual doctor could have done anything differently.

Still.

Advising that physicians allow themselves to become a "rare commodity" will only mean that patients, those whom doctors are supposed to serve, will only receive worse care as the insurance companies ration out treatment options ever more thinly to meet the increased demand. And, as the physicians left in the field grow ever more gray, who will replace them? Will it take a decade-plus to train the new physicians once the potential doctors and early-retiree doctors decide to come back from their "strike"?

All in all, a silly proposal for a serious problem.

(Nod to Kevin, M.D., for the links.)

JPII's Biblical Vision

Scott Hahn reflects on Pope John Paul II’s "superior command of [S]cripture" and how that influenced many Protestant Evangelicals — including Dr. Hahn, who converted to the Church in 1986:

"Though I was then a Protestant minister–Calvinist in training, evangelical in approach, and instinctively anti-Catholic–I was first drawn to Pope John Paul II in the early 1980s. I was not alone among his hesitant admirers. He captured our attention because of his effective combat in the culture wars. But he kept our attention because of something else.

"Gradually and grudgingly, many of us, Protestants and Catholics alike, came to admit that he was effective in the culture wars, not because of his bully pulpit or his media savvy or his philosophical suavity, but because of his superior command of scripture."

GET THE STORY.

(Nod to Karen Hall of Some Have Hats for the link.)

JPII’s Biblical Vision

Scott Hahn reflects on Pope John Paul II’s "superior command of [S]cripture" and how that influenced many Protestant Evangelicals — including Dr. Hahn, who converted to the Church in 1986:

"Though I was then a Protestant minister–Calvinist in training, evangelical in approach, and instinctively anti-Catholic–I was first drawn to Pope John Paul II in the early 1980s. I was not alone among his hesitant admirers. He captured our attention because of his effective combat in the culture wars. But he kept our attention because of something else.

"Gradually and grudgingly, many of us, Protestants and Catholics alike, came to admit that he was effective in the culture wars, not because of his bully pulpit or his media savvy or his philosophical suavity, but because of his superior command of scripture."

GET THE STORY.

(Nod to Karen Hall of Some Have Hats for the link.)

…Let God Sort 'Em Out?

Economist Steven Levitt has become the ELVIS of statistics by crunching numbers in unexpected ways and analyzing the results. He’s ruffled feathers on both ends of the political spectrum by arguing on the one hand that it is far more dangerous to own a swimming pool than a gun, and on the other that abortion reduces crime.

That’s right! We’ve all been enjoying a drop in crime thanks in part to the fact that we have been killing criminals in the womb.

This last theory seems to prop up the old truism that poverty causes crime. The two are statistically linked. What I have never heard discussed is to what extent crime causes poverty. Does he have his plow before his mule?

READ HIS PAPER (with John Donahue) HERE.

…Let God Sort ‘Em Out?

Economist Steven Levitt has become the ELVIS of statistics by crunching numbers in unexpected ways and analyzing the results. He’s ruffled feathers on both ends of the political spectrum by arguing on the one hand that it is far more dangerous to own a swimming pool than a gun, and on the other that abortion reduces crime.

That’s right! We’ve all been enjoying a drop in crime thanks in part to the fact that we have been killing criminals in the womb.

This last theory seems to prop up the old truism that poverty causes crime. The two are statistically linked. What I have never heard discussed is to what extent crime causes poverty. Does he have his plow before his mule?

READ HIS PAPER (with John Donahue) HERE.