arts and aesthetics and fear (1)

Locating Fear At the Center... Again

 In literary works, at least in the West, there is a long tradition of showing how "FEAR" is the great corruption (along with "power" of course)-- of all things good. In this 2014 sci-fi apocalyptic novel, Grant spins out another version of this ever-literary-metaphoric "truth" about fear and human civility (and its Shadow): The advertisement on amazon.com books tells it all in the future "FEARSCAPE" of humanity/desiny: 

PLOT: "It's been one year since all the adults disappeared. Gone.

Despite the hunger, despite the lies, even despite the plague, the kids of Perdido Beach are determined to survive. Creeping into the tenuous new world they've built, though, is the worst incarnation yet of the enemy known as the Darkness: fear." 

****

 Unfortunately, the gift of the aesthetic, arational and arts modalities in depicting "fear" (FEAR) in so many ways it does, leaves us still as a populus with "okay, so what now?" kind of feelings... and, I keep thinking what would happen if artists of all kinds were better informed by the philosophy of fearism, could they produce works on fear that are more than horror, terrorology-- and, actually do some good fearwork for the planet? I think they could...

Read more…