Someone questioned me about what is radical imagination. I wasn’t sure if they were being merely disingenuous in playing Devil’s advocate as an intellectual pose. An intellectual debate about the issue wouldn’t have brought either of us closer to understanding.
Anyone who has ever had their mind shook loose by seeing in a new way knows the power of radical imagination, whether or not they could explain it. Radical means that which goes to the root. As such, radical imagination is what has the capacity to shake us to our foundation or send us tumbling down unexplored caverns.
The intellectual who was interrogating me seems more attracted to the dark imagination than to the radical imagination, not that the two are mutually exclusive. He considers himself a radical and yet he apparently has a hard time imagining what exists outside of the iron prison. I get the sense that he has come to romanticize dystopia and apocalypse, which he rationalizes as his seeking to understand. The danger is that it can lead to a mirror image of the dogmatic utopian, exchanging one absolutist fantasy for another.
I’m not dismissing this motivation to bleakly stare down ugly truths. Some of my favorite writers leaned heavily in this direction. There is a dark bent to Ursula K. Le Guin, Philip K. Dick, Octavia Butler, etc; but their speculations didn’t end in mere gloomy cynicism. They were always looking beyond. Even a perverse and pessimistic visionary like William S. Burroughs sought to creatively portray alternative societies and other ways of being.
In my own sense of radical imagination, what drives my thinking is a profound epistemological dissatisfaction and ideological disloyalty, not just toward the status quo but also toward much of what opposes it. I’ve grown tired of predictable conflicts that endlessly repeat, like some cosmic tragicomedy. Each side reinforces the other, making victory for either side impossible. Radical imagination, however, seeks to escape this trap.
No amount of studying the hegemonic order will necessarily help one to see the hidden aporia and lacuna, the gaps in the structure. Negative capability is only useful to the degree that it opens the mind to negative space as creative void and a passageway through. The darkness can paralyze us in blind immobility or it can shift our perception into other senses.
The stakes are high. And the consequences all too personal. It goes far beyond any social order. This touches upon our humanity, the psychological reality of our being.
We stand in a hallway of doors, not knowing what is behind them. The entire social reality we live within is that hallway. We stand there in that tight place, the crowd shuffling back and forth. Groups form taking up different positions along the hallway and sometimes fight with the other groups. A few curious souls notice the doors themselves, but the doors remain unopened. That hallway is warm and safe. We are surrounded by the familiar and we have no fear of loneliness.
But what if some of the doors were cracked open, allowing one to barely glimpse something else? What then? Radical imagination is that inability to ignore the light coming through the crack, the temptation to press against the door, the curiosity about what is on the other side.
Access: Public 
tuffy777 said
Actually, Philip K. Dick’s short story “The Father Thing” is horror. Hollywood ripped it off for the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
– nice article!
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Marmalade said
Nice to meet ya tuffy! I see you just joined. I’m glad you liked what I wrote and you compliment me by calling it an article.
You are correct about “The Father Thing”. That story is very much like a traditional horror story, but it was more of an original idea when he wrote it of course. Yes, Hollywood has benefited from PKD.
Do you know of any other PKD stories that could be considered horror?
tuffy777 said
well, there’s my favorite, “Roog”, in which the dog is trying to warn the family that the garbage collectors are monsters
– and many more, so I’ll name some more stories later
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Marmalade said
I’ve read Roog. I guess I didn’t think of that story as horror, but I guess it could be labelled such in a more general way. Its true that the dog did see the garbage collectors as monsters. As I see it, PKD does use elements of horror, but for me his fiction doesn’t usually have the feeling of horror. However, there is much from PKD I haven’t read and so maybe they’re are more horror-like stories I’m unaware of.
Do you read much horror? And how do you define horror? I usually define horror as any fiction that creates a feeling of horror, but that isn’t how everyone defines it. As I see it, many shows such as Buffy aren’t horror even though they use elements of horror because they don’t cause a feeling of horror. Then again, horror merges with dark fantasy and so there is a wide variety. And, besides, what causes horror to one person might not cause horror to another.
tuffy777 said
My choice of reading material is quite eclectic, ranging from newspapers and scientific journals to humorous poetry, and from classics to comic books.
Most of my “reading” of horror has been movies, but I have read “Frankenstein”, “Dracula” and “Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde”. I read Anne Rice’s “Interview with the Vampire”, but I classify that more as a romance than as horror.
I used to teach classes in horror fiction and film, and when I asked my students to define horror, I got many different answers. My own definition is that horror first evokes fear and then purges it, much as the Greek tragedies did. I have a book titled “The Thrill of Fear”, and that title suggests that horror is like a roller coaster ride – first we scream, but then we laugh.
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Marmalade said
Same here. My reading is eclectic too, but I can’t say I read scientific journals too often. I suppose that most of my “reading” of horror has also been movies. Plus, I’ve read some interesting nonfiction books about horror the past couple of years. Two really cool books are The Secret Life of Puppets by Victoria Nelson and The Melancholy Android by Eric G. Wilson.
I don’t think I’d previously heard of the book you mention. I did a search on it and I think I might enjoy it. I like books that give an overview. I also like books where the subject is analyzed across many media such as film and books.
Your definition of horror is pretty good. I think that fits a lot of horror. I was thinking, though, about how Ligotti would likely disagree. I get the sense that he wants to evoke fear without purging it aferwards, but maybe fear is purged just by the story ending.
tuffy777 said
Most horror fiction either kills or confines the monster at the end. That is why “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Halloween” were so shocking to audiences of their time.
The author of “The Thrill of Fear” is Walter Kendrick. Perhaps that will help you to find it?
1Vector3 said
Cool discussion. I like the generalizations you made, Ben.
One of the most horrific stories I ever read I am not sure whether was fantasy or scifi. I have read a ton of the latter and almost none of the former. It was about white spiders, and how their bite would cause one to live in an alternate reality but not know that…. I have no ideas of author or title. But I know it led me to doubt my reality for many days, and of course to get even more phobic about light-colored spiders than I already am about them ALL !!!!!!
Most people might not think that having one’s sense of reality undermined or shaken is “horror” but to me it might be the ultimate of horror…….
Does either of you consider Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as horror? I don’t remember any specifics about it now, except a few generalities, but the protagonist does say, at the end, as he looks back on his life “The horror [of it all that I have done…] and one FEELS that along with him. A kind of almost self-annihilating guilt. That’s pretty horrifying, too !!!!!!
Blessings,
OM Bastet
Marmalade said
Welcome to the discussion, OM. I’d have to think much more about it to figure out how much these generalizations make sense. I haven’t analyzed the horror genre all that thoroughly. I usually only care about horror to the extent that it relates to sf.
The experience of having your sense of reality undermined could potentially fit into the horror genre. I’m somewhat familiar with the horror writers Ligotti and Quentin S. Crisp, and they both play around with the sense of reality. I love any writer of any genre that plays around with my sense of reality.
PKD plays around with reality perception, but he doesn’t exactly focus on the horrific experience of it. The reason is that PKD’s characters tend to take on an attitude of problem-solving which lessens the emotional impact of horror. PKD’s protagonists don’t usually have a victim mindset. They most often either overcome their problems or at least aren’t overwhelmed by them.
I don’t know about Heart of Darkness. I did a quick search about it in reference to the horror genre. I saw an article which stated that it could’ve been categorized as horror when it was first published. I wouldn’t consider it horror myself, but my memory of it isn’t perfectly clear. I read it in highschool and don’t remember experiencing it as horrific. Even though some horror is expressed in it, I don’t think it has an overall feeling of horror. That is a good example though because I’m not sure what the dividing line is. My friend likes Conrad and I’ll ask him what he thinks.
Of books I read in highschool, I personally found some other books more horrific. Lord of the Flies was pretty darn horrific in that it was so believable. Another novel was Hardy’s Jude the Obscure which has had a longterm existentially horrific influence on my poor psyche.
Its kind of hard to make an objective definition of horror as the experience itself is so subjective.
1Vector3 said
Yeah, I agree about Lord of the Flies. I am glad I’ve never read Jude the Obscure !!
Must we distinguish horror from terror from upset? From being disturbed or shaken? As you say, the experience is so subjective. My question is prompted by a couple of disturbing books I read when much younger: George Orwell’s 1984 tops the list, and Animal Farm was very upsetting to me also, but there are psychological torture things in 1984 which freak/creep me out to this day if I ever think of them.
That’s cool, about the attitudes of PKD heroes !! And it’s cool that you love having your sense of reality messed with !! I can appreciate the great flexibility that requires. (I have more now than I did when younger.) Do you think that’s an Intuitive characterstic, flexibility around “realities?”
Marmalade said
We mustn’t anything at all. In some ways, genres are arbitrary categories. A funny thing is how any genre writer that is particularly talented gets put in the mainstream literature section of bookstores and libraries. If a writer is good, his writings must not be genre because by definition genre is crap. For instance, I’ve read plenty of genre fiction that is closer to mainstream literature than is Kafka. I think Kafka is one of the greatest horror writers who ever lived.
I’d be perfectly happy if they simply got rid of genre categories or else made them more relevant. In particular, horror doesn’t seem like a real genre to me. I’ve always considered it to be a sub-category of dark fantasy which is further a sub-category of speculative fiction overall.
Do I think flexibility around “realities” is an Intuitive characteristic? By definition, the Sensation function is the tendency towards concrete reality and a conservative attitude. Sensation types prefer life to not change and be reliable. It also comes down to the thin vs thick boundary types which correlates.
tuffy777 said
Hi, OM, and thanx fur joining the discussion! You have some pawesome ideas!
When we discuss horror, we tend to think of monsters like Godzilla and the Mummy, but the monster story is only a subdivision of the horror genre.
“Heart of Darkness” is an excellent choice because it is the story of a whtie European man coming to the realization that the horror of the “dark” continent of Africa is actually in his own heart, and not in the dark-sknned natives.
I believe that the horror is greater when you become a monster, than when a monster attacks you.
The irreality of one’s external world is also a type of horror. For example, in PKD’s novel “UBIK”, we can’t be sure who really died in the explosion and who survived. Somebody is in cryogenic storage with a futuristic telephone attached to the coffin, while somebody else is on the outside and still living.
Another PKD novel that I consider horror is “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch”, in which a recreational drug turns people into evil cyborgs.
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Marmalade said
Aron’s twofold task was to remind us, first, that there is no human nature unsullied by the Fall and, second, to suggest, as does orthodox Christianity, that what prophets of the absolute decry as a disaster was in fact a “fortunate fall,” a condition of our humanity. The utopian is optimistic about man, pessimistic about particular men and women: “I think I know man,” Rousseau sadly wrote, “but as for men, I know them not.” The anti-utopian is pessimistic, or at least disabused, about man; this forgiving pessimism frees him to be optimistic about individuals.
tuffy777 said
Hi, Marmalade. You make some good points, but consider this:
When a monster attacks, you can lose your life.
But when you become a monster, you can lose your soul.
Many children of the 1960s learned this tragic lesson when they became addicted to drugs and alcohol.
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Marmalade said
Horror is a rather general term. There are many kinds and degrees of horror. Its an interesting question to consider what is most horrific. Everyone would probably have a different answer. To me, ultimate horror is a complete metaphysical Otherness… the dark wrathful face of God or elsethe silent infinite Void.
What is horrific about how serial killers are portrayed isn’t the fact that they’re human, but that they’re made into the monstrous Other. I notice how the news media resists giving any explanations or insights which leaves every event as an inexplicable phenomena. There are no reasons, just the gritty details of reality, facts that add up to nothing… now, that is what seems horrific to me.
The movie “Monster” made this point. Its the only serial killer movie that fully expressed the human side of the killer and thus made her seem less monstrous. Its psychological realism is what encouraged empathy rather than horror.
As for the horror of addiction, “A Scanner Darkly” is truly awesome. Another good one (in a suicidally depressing kind of way) is “A Requiem for a Dream”.My favorite author that has great insights into addiction is Burroughts. Hiswork can be very dark.
Self-destruction is a very horrific topic. Its the Otherness felt within… something we can’t control. Its horrifying in that its so predictably human and yet so humanly incomprehensible. Addiction is akin to demonic possession. The sense of loss of soul is in how addiction can utterly transform someone. When at rock bottom, everything that one previously loved and cared for becomes unhinged and distant as if from a dream or a previous life.
What is horrific about it is that one’s normal sense of humanity (ie soul) is lost. One becomes the Other, a disconnection from self. What may be worse for the addict is that everyone else might also treat the addict as Other in having fallen from the grace of acceptable society… which leaves no lifeline back to “normal” reality.
tuffy777 said
Consider Dr. Jekyll, the kindly gentleman who becomes the loathsome Mr. Hyde whenever he drinks the potion. (They say that R.L. Stevenson based this character on an alcoholic uncle.) Eventually, he becomes Mr. Hyde without drinking the potion, and he is unable to resume his former identity as the good doctor when he most needs to revert.
Only in death can he subsume the monstrous side of his psyche and become the respectable gentleman once more.
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Marmalade said
Ah, yes… a good example. I love stories about doubles or alternate personalities. That is a theme that PKD usesextremely wellin “A Scanner Darkly”. Reintegration can come at a great cost.