tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post3631493302314254873..comments2024-03-28T08:27:51.420-04:00Comments on Tellers of Weird Tales: A Monster for the Twenty-First CenturyTerence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-56959620962616332652014-12-26T11:01:21.657-05:002014-12-26T11:01:21.657-05:00Dear Thomas,
I hope I didn't overstate my cas...Dear Thomas,<br /><br />I hope I didn't overstate my case on the meaning and popularity of the zombie. Call it just one interpretation. I think it's key, however, that zombies look like but are no longer human beings, and that they travel in hoards or masses. That suggest to me that they represent the monstrousness in us. In any case, thanks for your comments. I'm always glad to spark thought and further research.<br /><br />Terence HanleyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-65235699595650248092014-12-10T13:56:02.638-05:002014-12-10T13:56:02.638-05:00Great article! Lots of food for thought. I love mo...Great article! Lots of food for thought. I love monsters for the philosophical ideas behind them, but I've never undertstood the zombie. You've sparked something for me. Thanks. THOMAShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11813124910386890089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-36180830561457129302014-10-18T22:34:53.133-04:002014-10-18T22:34:53.133-04:00Roger,
We speak of this technocratic man dependen...Roger,<br /><br />We speak of this technocratic man dependent upon technology with some sense of superiority even as we write our thoughts on a computer and spend (or waste) our hours and our lives in front of one kind of electronic screen or other. The real danger in technology may be that we see ourselves and each other as pieces of technology, as mere machines, and not as full, ensouled human beings.<br /><br />Thanks for writing.<br /><br />THTerence E. Hanleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-63531914025586113112014-10-04T12:03:18.565-04:002014-10-04T12:03:18.565-04:00I think Hope used "technocratic" as an a...I think Hope used "technocratic" as an analogy of democratic or aristocratic- meaning "governed or ruled by technology". The idea is that technocratic man lives inside his technology and feeds off it just as a tapeworm lives in the guts of its host. Rather like the four-walled personalised television in Fahrenheit 451.Roger Allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11012987757094423896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-17773096037840424182014-10-04T08:11:35.405-04:002014-10-04T08:11:35.405-04:00Roger,
I had never heard of A.D. Hope. I just fou...Roger,<br /><br />I had never heard of A.D. Hope. I just found and read his very powerful poem "The Kings," which you have quoted here. An apt monster for our time. It reminds me of a quote from Camus:<br /><br />"The worm is in man's heart."<br /><br />A worm of a different kind and in an entirely different context.<br /><br />It also makes me think of Nietzsche's Last Man and of T.S. Eliot's Prufrock who asked himself:<br /><br />"Do I dare to eat a peach?"<br /><br />I wrote down a quote for this series but never used it. The author was Cicero:<br /><br />"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. <br /><br />But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. <br /><br />He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. <br /><br />A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague."<br /><br />I'm not sure exactly what A.D. Hope meant by "Technocratic Man." He probably wasn't referring specifically to the movement Technocracy of the 1920s and '30s. Like socialism, communism, and totalitarianism, Technocracy dehumanizes and makes man into a mass to be used according to the Technocrat's scheme. I suppose it's a branch of Scientism. By weird coincidence, the term itself was coined in 1919.<br /><br />Thanks for reading, writing, and bringing "The Kings" to my attention.<br /><br />THTerence E. Hanleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-43035923911828446672014-10-04T07:33:17.069-04:002014-10-04T07:33:17.069-04:00The Australian poet A.D. Hope found a different mo...The Australian poet A.D. Hope found a different monster for our time, to be:<br />... a symbol to describe.<br /><br />The secret life of Technocratic Man,<br />Abject desire, base fear that shapes his law,<br />His idols of the cave, the mart, the sty -<br />No lion at bay for a beleaguered clan,<br />No eagle with the serpent in his claw,<br />Nor dragon soter with his searing eye,<br /><br />But the great, greedy, parasitic worm,<br />Sucking the life of nations from within<br />Blind and degenerate, snug in excrement.<br /><br />Roger Allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11012987757094423896noreply@blogger.com