[lit-ideas] Re: Violence without Horror
- From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 02:32:17 -0400
if this is a true and recent story..
It happened a long time ago (hence the distance of "laundry, natch")
when I lived in PA and owned a car. The "way into it," or what I
hoped to discuss, was the experience of extreme situations, the
complete absence of horror in the face of grievous catastrophe.
I mean, we're talking about film violence and the horror of violence
per se, but here's a real-life experience of arriving by chance at a
stretch of road littered with dead or dying people and body parts.
No horror. Shock, to be sure, and delayed reaction to the carnage.
But in the experience itself, no horror. There was a disaster,
things to do during the disaster, and a delayed reaction of a couple
hours before I could get settled into my emotions. But there was no
horror. It was more about the pity of those poor people and the
buzzing of my nervous system from too much adrenaline.
Maybe we have a natural defense mechanism that engages in that kind
of extreme situation, and "horror" is really a leisurely product of
our imaginations, something contemplated only in the absence of
extreme situations? Such as a film.
The notion is similar to what Andy and I were discussing about the
imagination of pain versus real in-the-moment pain.
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