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I.
Introduction
Here
is our general description of this course, which you have already seen:
“The Monsters We Make” is a year-long exploration of
monsters and the themes surrounding the concept of monstrosity. We will
look at the creation, development, and multiple reiterations of the
monstrous, through both classic and contemporary works in literature, film,
and art. Application of this information will help you identify the societal,
political, and cultural mechanisms used to influence and shape contemporary
conceptions of the monster in the real world.
But
why should we care about the concept of monstrosity or the monster in the
real world? As for the former, the
concept is just that, a concept, and as for the latter, there are no Grendels
running around pulling people's limbs off and eating them. This is an important
question, and it is one that I want to engage right away. Below, I will include my take on the purpose of this course. As you will see, concepts can be more than just concepts, and
monsters don’t need to have a taste for human flesh.
II. The Importance of Monsters
Monsters
are everywhere—cultures the world over identify and fear them. They have been the antagonists in stories
for millennia. A little reflection
suggests that it is a human reflex to identify and fear monsters. If there weren’t any, we would have to
invent a few to fill the void. If
this is true, then monsters are important because they give us insight into who
we are and how we engage with others and the world. But what can monsters
help us learn about ourselves? Well,
the course is designed to help us answer that question. At this point, though, we can say a few
things about how we identify monsters and how they figure into our
lives.
Perhaps
the best way to begin a monster hunt is to reflect on what you might be
inclined to call a monster. Would you
call, say, a serial murderer a monster?
What about a rabid St. Bernard?
A hungry grizzly? A cruel and
unusual math test? What about
fictional characters like Grendel and Frankenstein’s creature? Your answers
to these and similar questions reveal what you take monsters to be. In other words, they expose the conditions
that, when satisfied, qualify something as a monster. These conditions can be of two sorts: necessary, or conditions that must
be satisfied for something to be a monster, and sufficient, or
conditions that qualify something as a monster when they are satisfied, even
though there might be other ways to qualify.
For example, you might take <a thing that is a threat to
people> as a necessary condition—i.e., nothing can be a monster unless
it is a threat to people. As for a
sufficient condition, <a thing that eats people and enjoys it>
might work—you don’t have to eat people and enjoy it to be a monster, but if
you do, then you’re in the club. The
conditions that you regard as most essential to answering questions about
monsters form your concept of monstrosity. Thus, your concept of monstrosity is what guides you in
identifying monsters in the world. As
such, it is what determines whether the world you live in has monsters in it
or not, and so helps to shape your world.
So much for the concept of monstrosity, but what of monsters in the real
world? Well, what of the monster
truck I saw downtown the other day?
Or the monster final I like to give all my logic students? Are these monsters in the real world? I think not, and would recommend
distinguishing these figurative uses of “monster” from more literal
uses. Are there real monsters out
there? Most of us would answer “yes”,
and perhaps point to people like Jeffrey Dahmer, or Adolf Hitler, or
perhaps tyrannosaurus rex or Bigfoot, if you believe in that sort of
thing. Why regard these as
monsters? Here is a tentative
suggestion, one that we will review and evaluate as we move through the
course: we regard them as monsters because they threaten human safety,
security, and life in ways that we can’t control, and this frightens us. We call them “monsters” to highlight the
fact that they are different from us in ways that threaten and frighten
us. We demonize them because we take
them to be demons—creatures that are something other than human that we must
avoid at all costs. Thus, we make
monsters because we wish to survive in a world filled with people and things
that we cannot fully understand.
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