Reflections on Halloween
This entry was originally posted on 1 November 2004 at 12:11 p.m.
People don't fear demons much anymore. Most folks would say this is a good thing. After all, technology gets closer and closer evey day to proving that there's no such thing, that they're imaginings (or worse yet, delusions)--and really, what good could come of a nation populated entirely by the delusional?
(What's that? We're already all delusional? Oh, good. And here i thought it was just me.
Meanwhile, back at the diatribe...)
Now, just because most people don't believe in demons doesn't mean they don't feel deep, unseating, horrifying fear. Thing is, that fear is different now.
There was a time when the vast majority of people feared things like demonic possession, hellfire, damnation--in short, they feared danger to their immortal souls. But seeing as we don't seem to have immortal souls these days, it seems silly to fear these things. Right?
So what do we fear now? Let's take stock: War. Terrorism, obviously. Poverty, or even hints of it, like not being able to pay the rent on time, or having to charge the groceries. Car accidents. Death. Being unable to save for retirement and unable to live on the pittance doled out by Social Security. Disease (that's a good one--no one likes the thought of wasting away for weeks or months or years with a horrible disease like AIDS or cancer or ALS or the like). Car accidents. Plane accidents. Train accidents. Bus accidents. (Have i covered all the accidents?) What about public humiliation--does anyone fear that anymore? Oh, and don't forget being mugged, robbed, raped, murdered, tortured, or forced to live without cable TV.
Lots of fears there. Tons.
So what's the difference between all those fears and the fear of demons? You could make the argument that the former are aspiritual and the latter are necessarily spiritual, but i think that misses the point. And the point is this: time-reference.
Fear of demons, of danger to one's immortal soul (switching back, momentarily, to the days when it was okay to believe in these slippery things, and when most people did for fear of being ostracized by the community--i.e., back in the days when there was such thing as community to begin with...) requires one to think ahead. Not just tomorrow-ahead or five years hence-ahead or old age-ahead. They required people to think about the implications of all of their actions over the entire course of their lifetime. That's a lot of thinking ahead. (My old friends Gottfredson and Hirschi would argue that that takes quite a bit of self-control to pull off, it does.)
Fears like accidents, poverty, terrorism, and so on are far more immediate. Maybe they're less abstract in some ways, and maybe they're more generalized in others, but when it comes down to it, these fears are in the here and now, not the great hereafter. It's a big difference.
It's the difference between a game of chess between masters and a game of chess between novices: in the case of the former, both parties are thinking seven to fifteen moves ahead. In the case of the latter, both parties are just looking for the best possible move with the configuration that's on the board right now, future be damned and bridges to be crossed over when met.
And when it comes down to it, it's also the difference between moral fear and amoral fear. If you fear the wrath of some supreme being, or the fires of Hell or the like, your fear stems from the moral content of your actions. If you fear being mugged or raped or attacked by terrorists, well, you already have the moral high ground. We've gone from being responsible for our actions to being innocent victims of chance and malice.
It's an interesting shift, don't you think? Says quite a bit about our culture (stretched thin though it might be).
I'm not a religious person. Sure, i was raised Catholic (as long-time readers will know), but have since made my peace with the Church and struck off on my own. But that doesn't mean i think that fear stemming from the moral consequences of one's actions is a bad thing. Quite the contrary, i'm thinking that people have for too long associated morality with religion, and in the technolust that has swept through our gloriously decadent nation, they've forgotten that morality doesn't have to come from a Cross or a Star of David or any of the religious symbols we've got left.
When it comes down to it--and i think the religious aspect is just a shortcut for those less introspectively-inclined--morality, in its purest form, should come from a sense of humanity. The Golden Rule (or rather, it's inverse--"Do not do unto others as you wouldn't have them do unto you") has solid groundings in humanity, not in a distant supreme being.
This digression into the nature of morality aside, let's get back to fear. Fear and Halloween.
Now, quick disclaimer: Halloween, in its ancient form, isn't necessarily about fear. And it's not necessarily about demons, either. But it's a holiday that has come to be associated with both fear and either the dead or the supernatural, so let's just accept this as the modern nature of the holiday (which, clearly, is no longer so holy, if it ever was) and go from there.
My point is this: fear of demons, fear of danger to the eternal and immortal soul is much bigger than any other kind of fear imaginable. The other fears may be horrifying and dreadful things, but really, nothing compares to the fear that creeps into one's heart when faced with the notion of suffering forever, of not finding rest even in death (and we're all weary, so don't deny it).
And that fear of demons serves a purpose. It's a fear of something bigger. Not just something bigger than ourselves, but something bigger than all the heads of state in the world combined, bigger even than the fear of natural disaster--because that fear is, at its root, fear of humanity itself, fear of all the evil of which we're capable. Think about it: all that we've been taught to fear about Hell is really something that we've had to imagine ourselves. And if we can imagine it, we can (for the most part) do it. And that's big.
So when kids come around for Halloween dressed as Spiderman or as fairies or princesses or dragons or Batman, as cute and lovely as they are, i have to wonder whether they're missing out. Okay, maybe this isn't such a problem for the small ones, as, clearly, you don't want to traumatize them. But the older ones, they should know. They should know that the fear of demons isn't necessarily out of touch with the modern world.
There's a valuable lesson hidden in that fear, something everyone can take to heart, something at the very root of what it means to be human, of what it means to be capable of evil and responsible for one's actions.
We have a holiday that in a roundabout way celebrates that fear. We just have to make sure we're not forgetting this in the rush to create costumes that are clever or silly or slutty. Call it a non-religious holiday. Call it a day of remembrance of humanity.
And for Pete's sake, dress up as something scary next year, will you?
People don't fear demons much anymore. Most folks would say this is a good thing. After all, technology gets closer and closer evey day to proving that there's no such thing, that they're imaginings (or worse yet, delusions)--and really, what good could come of a nation populated entirely by the delusional?
(What's that? We're already all delusional? Oh, good. And here i thought it was just me.
Meanwhile, back at the diatribe...)
Now, just because most people don't believe in demons doesn't mean they don't feel deep, unseating, horrifying fear. Thing is, that fear is different now.
There was a time when the vast majority of people feared things like demonic possession, hellfire, damnation--in short, they feared danger to their immortal souls. But seeing as we don't seem to have immortal souls these days, it seems silly to fear these things. Right?
So what do we fear now? Let's take stock: War. Terrorism, obviously. Poverty, or even hints of it, like not being able to pay the rent on time, or having to charge the groceries. Car accidents. Death. Being unable to save for retirement and unable to live on the pittance doled out by Social Security. Disease (that's a good one--no one likes the thought of wasting away for weeks or months or years with a horrible disease like AIDS or cancer or ALS or the like). Car accidents. Plane accidents. Train accidents. Bus accidents. (Have i covered all the accidents?) What about public humiliation--does anyone fear that anymore? Oh, and don't forget being mugged, robbed, raped, murdered, tortured, or forced to live without cable TV.
Lots of fears there. Tons.
So what's the difference between all those fears and the fear of demons? You could make the argument that the former are aspiritual and the latter are necessarily spiritual, but i think that misses the point. And the point is this: time-reference.
Fear of demons, of danger to one's immortal soul (switching back, momentarily, to the days when it was okay to believe in these slippery things, and when most people did for fear of being ostracized by the community--i.e., back in the days when there was such thing as community to begin with...) requires one to think ahead. Not just tomorrow-ahead or five years hence-ahead or old age-ahead. They required people to think about the implications of all of their actions over the entire course of their lifetime. That's a lot of thinking ahead. (My old friends Gottfredson and Hirschi would argue that that takes quite a bit of self-control to pull off, it does.)
Fears like accidents, poverty, terrorism, and so on are far more immediate. Maybe they're less abstract in some ways, and maybe they're more generalized in others, but when it comes down to it, these fears are in the here and now, not the great hereafter. It's a big difference.
It's the difference between a game of chess between masters and a game of chess between novices: in the case of the former, both parties are thinking seven to fifteen moves ahead. In the case of the latter, both parties are just looking for the best possible move with the configuration that's on the board right now, future be damned and bridges to be crossed over when met.
And when it comes down to it, it's also the difference between moral fear and amoral fear. If you fear the wrath of some supreme being, or the fires of Hell or the like, your fear stems from the moral content of your actions. If you fear being mugged or raped or attacked by terrorists, well, you already have the moral high ground. We've gone from being responsible for our actions to being innocent victims of chance and malice.
It's an interesting shift, don't you think? Says quite a bit about our culture (stretched thin though it might be).
I'm not a religious person. Sure, i was raised Catholic (as long-time readers will know), but have since made my peace with the Church and struck off on my own. But that doesn't mean i think that fear stemming from the moral consequences of one's actions is a bad thing. Quite the contrary, i'm thinking that people have for too long associated morality with religion, and in the technolust that has swept through our gloriously decadent nation, they've forgotten that morality doesn't have to come from a Cross or a Star of David or any of the religious symbols we've got left.
When it comes down to it--and i think the religious aspect is just a shortcut for those less introspectively-inclined--morality, in its purest form, should come from a sense of humanity. The Golden Rule (or rather, it's inverse--"Do not do unto others as you wouldn't have them do unto you") has solid groundings in humanity, not in a distant supreme being.
This digression into the nature of morality aside, let's get back to fear. Fear and Halloween.
Now, quick disclaimer: Halloween, in its ancient form, isn't necessarily about fear. And it's not necessarily about demons, either. But it's a holiday that has come to be associated with both fear and either the dead or the supernatural, so let's just accept this as the modern nature of the holiday (which, clearly, is no longer so holy, if it ever was) and go from there.
My point is this: fear of demons, fear of danger to the eternal and immortal soul is much bigger than any other kind of fear imaginable. The other fears may be horrifying and dreadful things, but really, nothing compares to the fear that creeps into one's heart when faced with the notion of suffering forever, of not finding rest even in death (and we're all weary, so don't deny it).
And that fear of demons serves a purpose. It's a fear of something bigger. Not just something bigger than ourselves, but something bigger than all the heads of state in the world combined, bigger even than the fear of natural disaster--because that fear is, at its root, fear of humanity itself, fear of all the evil of which we're capable. Think about it: all that we've been taught to fear about Hell is really something that we've had to imagine ourselves. And if we can imagine it, we can (for the most part) do it. And that's big.
So when kids come around for Halloween dressed as Spiderman or as fairies or princesses or dragons or Batman, as cute and lovely as they are, i have to wonder whether they're missing out. Okay, maybe this isn't such a problem for the small ones, as, clearly, you don't want to traumatize them. But the older ones, they should know. They should know that the fear of demons isn't necessarily out of touch with the modern world.
There's a valuable lesson hidden in that fear, something everyone can take to heart, something at the very root of what it means to be human, of what it means to be capable of evil and responsible for one's actions.
We have a holiday that in a roundabout way celebrates that fear. We just have to make sure we're not forgetting this in the rush to create costumes that are clever or silly or slutty. Call it a non-religious holiday. Call it a day of remembrance of humanity.
And for Pete's sake, dress up as something scary next year, will you?
posted by Circus at 10:22 AM
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