I expand here on a comment made under a new Grognardia post on Lovecraft and the decay of Geek Culture™. This is only tangentially about RPGs or even Geek Culture™ to begin with, and then it falls off a cliff into amateur philosophy. This as also written in a rush, so I may return to the subject with more thought. You have been warned.
(And just as I was finishing, another comment came up which is exactly appropriate to what I was writing about. Well, I have a game in half an hour and I'm not pushing the post back. John, I'll get back to you.)
James' post covers the transformation of Lovecraftian fiction and its elements, most obviously Cthulhu, into commodified, brandified, blandified, domesticated products, completely alien from the horror they originally evoked. Most obviously in the form of Cthulhu plushies and plastic figures.
I must confess to being one of James' targets in this, in spirit if not materially. I don't own any Cthulhu plushies, but I don't take Lovecraft seriously. I love the work, but I don't regard it as really horrific anymore.
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| Why yes, I am being deliberately provocative |
I referred to Lovecraft, Speculative Realism and silly nihilism, a post by David Chapman, a former MIT AI scientist turned Buddhist philosopher and blogger (a quote from one of his papers adorns the blog banner at the moment). Chapman's point, which I summarized in the comment, is that the horror of Lovecraftian fiction hinges on the subversion of the assumption of human importance and a benevolent plan. Chapman calls this stance 'eternalism.'
And yes, Chapman does in fact own a Cthulhu plushie.
Nihilism is a subversion of eternalism, and the infringement of one on the other can bring about the sense of hopelessness and cosmic irrelevance which made Lovecraft important. Lovecraft's writing technique and storytelling are methods for emphasizing this.
But without an eternalist stance to subvert, the actual horror of Lovecraft loses potency. I, and most other Lovecraft fans I know, started reading him in their early to mid teens. Stories like Pickman's Model (by far my favorite) are excellently creepy by introducing disgusting, disturbing elements into our own world. But stories like Call of Cthulhu fell flatter for me; they were still enjoyable as adventure fiction, but they weren't quite so scary.
Chapman explains this is because eternalism as a stance no longer holds so much sway. Two other commenters, Anon#8107 and John Higgins (of Playing Dice with the Universe) point out how technological advancement, especially in biology and astronomy, turned eternalism on its head. When the existence of black holes is a documented physical phenomena, when deep space telescopes can reconstruct the birth of the universe, and we can show definitively how organisms evolved, without any distinct plan, over billions of years, the eternalist position becomes untenable.
The forbidden knowledge which mankind cannot comprehend, was in fact comprehended, and we're still here. Did that mean it had no effect?
Not quite. Chapman makes the case that the expansion of nihilism into the public consciousness, predicted by Nietzsche and moaned about endlessly by existential philosophers since, was a disaster. Some claim it was the cause of the World Wars. Certainly, the world is dramatically different in spirit than it was a century ago.
Comment Responses
One reply to my comment offers a good point. knobgobbler writes:
Maybe that's where you live, but I see a whole lotta people who are neck deep in delusions about themselves, the universe and their place in it. If they're losing one religion they're joining another. Consumerism promises a sort of immortality through your purchases if you just. keep. buying.
I don't think 'cosmic meaninglessness' has gained anywhere near the acceptance you think it has.
I can confirm that people are neck deep in delusions about themselves where I live too. I regard this as baseline (cf Elephant in the Brain, Simler and Hanson, highly recommended). Nihilism is one of the foremost delusions I see in my general area, but knobgobbler's region may have a different flavor.
And I would bet good money that the religions people in knobgobbler's area are joining are one of two types. First, spineless, maximally vague creeds like Consensus Buddhism, or Universalist Christianity, or some New Age faith which throws everything from spirit guardians to energy healing in a spiritual grab-basket. Second, evangelical faiths with a high degree of orthodoxy and which prioritize faith, most likely one of any number of evangelical Christian sects, but also possibly Islam depending on the region.
These two approaches to religion are major responses to the advent of nihilism; monist and dualist flavors of eternalism. The former tends to emphasize the idea of 'oneness' in a variety of domains, while the latter emphasizes, clear, eternal and objective boundaries.
As to the third point, I must confess I've never gotten this line of criticism. I assume it's Marxist in origin, but consumerism as a religion doesn't have much traction in my head (though perhaps I will understand if I start buying plastic figurines). Chapman does discuss consumerist spirituality, but in the sense that contemporary attitudes treat religions and faith as piles from which one can grab elements and stick them elsewhere, as opposed to coherent systems which must be taken whole.
Another commenter, Corathon writes:
I disagree that most people - at least in the USA, where I live - subscribe to the belief that existence is meaningless, or that murdering a human being has no more moral weight than swatting an insect, or that nothing is true (and consequently everything is permitted). And even those that claim that they do believe don't usually act like they do. Thankfully.
I first want to make a distinction: first, the statement that life/the universe/everything is not ultimately meaningful. Second, the statement that life/the universe/everything is meaningless.
There are degrees: the core of nihilism is that there is no ultimate meaning. From there, some go ahead and say that life is meaningless. Some go as far as Lovecraft and say that everything is meaningless. The Speculative Realists described by Chapman seem hellbent on going further. But those are not the only options.
The core problem with nihilism, which makes it thoroughly silly in retrospect, is that it shares eternalism's view that meaning requires something objective, or eternal or obvious to be real. Eternalism claims there is such a thing, so there is meaning. Nihilism claims there is not, so there is no meaning (to whichever degree). The third option here is to recognize that you can make your own meaning. In fact, it's not all that hard.
Behavior is a better indicator about what people 'really' believe than what they say about themselves (again, Elephant in the Brain, read it already). It is not original to point out that virtually nobody acts as if they believe in the faith they profess. The stock phrase is, "People used to believe their religion, now they believe in their religion." Likewise, none but the most dedicated nihilists can bring themselves to act as if life is meaningless. Most don't get further than dressing in black and giving in to malnutrition.
No shit they don't act like they believe that life is meaningless. It's pretense. It's pure edginess. It's a fucked up form of play that's trendy among philosophy majors. Even they manage to make some meaning out of their lives (possibly by trying to outcompete each other in how much they definitely don't care) while desperately trying not to.
After Nihilism
We already went through nihilism. To butcher another sci-fi property, nihilism passed over and through us, and we remained.
Nihilism used to be very scary. It threatened the social and philosophical order at the very base. It was a major cause for concern among the academic and religious establishment when it first began to spread. And it kept spreading. And the face of the world changed utterly as a result, with dire and harmful results for faith, family and society as a whole. Once it came, the only way to escape it was to, in Lovecraft's phrase, to flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
And people did flee. The explosion of evangelical faiths following the World Wars in particular seems to me everything that Lovecraft predicted.
But the result of this was not the destruction of humanity by an Elder God. It was a new generation growing up amid the ruined shells of prior meaning systems. The terror of nihilism was in the anticipation, but once it arrived, people were still here, and after they got over their goth phases, they still managed to make some meaning out of their lives.
Nihilism is no longer scary. It's just a problem. A massive problem, with distinct and visible harm to those it afflicts, but nevertheless a problem which can be ameliorated and solved.
That's why Lovecraft doesn't horrify. Stories like Pickman's Model can very effectively creep out, but, in Chapman's words, his overwrought aghastness at the lack of ultimate meaning just comes off as funny. Silly. Endearing, in the same way that mathematicians horrified by non-Euclidean geometry are endearing in retrospect.
That's why we can show Lovecraft's stories to children, buy Cthulhu plushies, and play RPGs where the player characters go insane as a result of comprehending the vast indifference of the universe. It no longer hits close to home. Hell, when James Maliszewski first came back to the blogging scene, I announced 'That is not dead which can eternal lie!'
A Personal Digression
If you allow me a personal digression: When I was very young, I was an aficionado of astronomy. One night, I watched an educational video which taught me that, in the far future, the Milky Way would collide with the Andromeda galaxy. This distressed me for days, until I wrapped my head around the times and distances involved, and realized that I didn't actually have much riding on the integrity of the Milky Way.
For a much longer period of time, starting some years after that, I was distressed by nuclear war. For years I remained convinced that nuclear holocaust was likely to occur, and in the dark of night, when a strong wind picked up or a truck passed along the road or a plane passed overhead, I would cross my fingers and toes, close my eyes, and think to myself, 'Ah, so this is how it ends.'
This happened quite frequently, though more rarely as time passed and Armageddon never seemed to come when I expected it.
It lasted for so long because I reasoned myself into that position through a shoddy understanding of global nuclear policy. I did not actually live my life as if I expected to die horrifically, except at those times, when alone, because I recognized I would be teased for it. If I actually believed, I might have insisted on moving to a secure bunker.
Likewise, a great number of people reason themselves into any number of positions, from nihilism to wicca, and may talk at length about them, while still acting in largely reasonable ways, and not acting on the obvious results of their philosophy.
(Closely regarding John's comment linked at the top, I also routinely induced existential fear in myself by trying very hard to imagine death. I can generally scare myself a lot with that, but less than before. I intend to use this as a practice for desensitization to that terror, and hopefully to understand it better. I have also heard that some psychedelics induce a sense of non-dual awareness which offers some insight, but I have not yet been able to confirm this myself).
Snarkiness
Another practice I find quite funny is the use of quotes from authors who would have hated my essay to support it. CS Lewis likely would not appreciate the points made here. Still, I leave you with a quote of his which summarizes my feelings about the passing of nihilism, from the Screwtape Letters, Chapter 31:
Defeated, out-manoeuvred fool! Did you mark how naturally — as if he’d been born for it — the earth-born vermin entered the new life? How all his doubts became, in the twinkling of an eye, ridiculous? I know what the creature was saying to itself! “Yes. Of course. It always was like this. All horrors have followed the same course, getting worse and worse and forcing you into a kind of bottle-neck till, at the very moment when you thought you must be crushed, behold! you were out of the narrows and all was suddenly well. The extraction hurt more and more and then the tooth was out. The dream became a nightmare and then you woke. You die and die and then you are beyond death. How could I ever have doubted it?”
P.S.
None of this is to say that I condone the commodification that James describes. I am told that those plastic big-headed figurines are called 'funkopops' and I find them revolting.
If you have enjoyed what you read here, please comment below and follow the blog. I have no doubt that my conclusions here will be picked apart, and I will likely come back to this. Until the next post, have an excellent week!
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