It's Creepy and It's Kooky, Mysterious and Spooky: Mark Fisher's The Weird and the Eerie (Part 1)

Front cover image from Mark Fisher's 

The Weird and the Eerie (Repeater Books, 2016)

 

 

I. 

 

Let me confess from the outset that one of the main problems I have with Mark Fisher's work is that I'm unfamiliar with many of the books, films, and records that he chooses as points of reference, so often feel unable to comment. Thus, I intend sticking here to his more general remarks on the weird and the eerie, about which I feel better able to discuss.

 

According to Mark Fisher, the weird and the eerie are closely related (but distinct) modes of strangeness, each with their own properties. The former draws our attention to that which does not belong and instills a sense of wrongness; the latter troubles the notion of agency (human and non-human) and makes us question existence and non-existence. 

 

Neither terrifies or deeply distresses, so much as make us feel vaguely apprehensive or uneasy.    

 

And neither has much to do with with Freud's concept of the unheimlich and should not be equated to the latter. The attempt to do so, says Fisher, is "symptomatic of a secular retreat from the outside" [a]; i.e., returning to the safety of a long familiar (if hugely influential) idea that ultimately serves to domesticate and contain the outside "in terms of a modernist family drama" [10]. 

 

 

II.

 

Perhaps not surprisingly, Fisher begins his study of the weird by turning to H. P. Lovecraft - a writer whom Graham Harman predicts will one day displace Hölderlin as the philosopher's favourite [b] and someone who intuitively grasped that nothing is weirder than reality (i.e., the natural-material cosmos).

 

As Fisher rightly says, when you really stop to think about it, a black hole is weirder than a vampire or werewolf. 

 

Lovecraft is the daddy of weird fiction; the man who long before George Michael encouraged characters and readers alike to venture outside - even if doing so "often ends in breakdown and psychosis" [16] for the former and fascination "mixed with a certain trepidation" [17] for the latter.

 

There is nothing surprising or suspensful or even truly terrible in Lovecraft's weird tales. And yet they compel our attention, even as they repel us at the same time with their inhuman quality; i.e., their insistence that "human concerns, perspectives and concepts have only a local reference" [18].    

Fisher is spot-on to insist that Lovecraft is neither a horror writer nor a fantasy author; that his weird realism is something very different from either of these genres and that his tales "depend for their power on the difference between the terrestrial-empirical and the outside" [20][c] and on their sheer originality.

 

 

III.

 

Like Lovecraft, H. G. Wells also understood something of the weird, even if his work is, in many respects, very different from the former's. 

 

One thing both writers shared is a concern with thresholds and the fatal possibility of "contact between incommensurable worlds" [28], an idea best illustrated in an episode of Seinfeld when George's independence (and sanity) are threatened by the transcendental shock of worlds colliding [d].   

 

It's probably always best (if not always possible) to keep worlds apart, although the weird, as a phenomenon, is that which unfolds in the space between them. 

 

 

IV.  

 

Moving on, Fisher introduces a notion of the grotesque, which, like the weird, "evokes something which is out of place" [32] - although unlike the latter it often evokes laughter (the only humour in Lovecraft, says Fisher, is accidental).

 

And the "confluence of the weird and the grotesque is no better exemplified than in the work of the post-punk group The Fall" [33], particularly in the period 1980-82. 

Unfortunately, my knowledge of Mark E. Smith's combo is limited. In fact, I can only name one of their songs; the 1980 single 'How I Wrote Elastic Man' (and that's only because I often heard it on John Peel, not because I went out and bought it). 

 

So I'll just have to take Fisher's word for it when he insists The Fall "are remarkabe for the way in which they draw out a cultural politics of the weird and the grotesque" [33] and produced "what could be called a popular modernist weird [...] with all the difficulties and compulsions of post-punk sound" [33] [e].

 

In the same period Fisher was getting worked up over The Fall, I was listening to Adam and the Ants and Bow Wow Wow and had more interest in post-punk piracy than the weird and grotesque; indeed, I seem to remember finding groups like The Fall too depressing (perhaps even too Northern) for my tastes; even their laughter issues "from a psychotic outside" [35] and that didn't sound very funny to me at the time.           

 

However, if what Fisher says is true, I would probably find The Fall more amusing now (although I suspect I would still find them a band more interesting to read about, than fun to listen to).   

 

 

V.

 

Is there not an intrinsically weird dimension to the time travel story? 

Mark Fisher thinks so:

 

"By its very nature, the time travel story [...] combines entities and objects that do not belong together. Here the threshold between worlds is the apparatus that allows travel between different time periods [...] and the weird effect typically manifests as a sense of achronism." [40]

 

Again, that's one of those true-but-kind-of-obvious statements that Fisher seems to specialise in. Here's another: time-paradoxes also trigger a feeling weirdness. Indeed - who would argue with that?  

 

 

VI.

 

"There is another type of weird effect that is generated by strange loops [...] not just tangles in cause and effect [...] but confusions of ontological level." [45]

 

These confusions particularly play out at the level of simulacra and simulation, putting the nature of being and reality into question - just ask Thomas (Neo) Anderson. Or Baudrillard. Is there anything weirder than living in a world one knows to be a cleverly constructed simulation but which still feels real?      

 

 

VII.

 

If it wasn't in the least surprising that Fisher should open his study of the weird with Lovecraft, it's equally unsurprising that he should close it with the director of Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, David Lynch.

 

For in many ways Fisher seems weirdly trapped in the 1980s and '90s; a man still gripped by the same philosophical ideas (and postmodern obsessions) that shaped his thinking when writing his Ph.D. on cybernetic fiction-theory [f]. Indeed, Fisher readily admits that his fascination with the weird and eerie goes back as far as he can remember. 

     

Now, whilst some might suggest he move on and find new interests, I rather admire the manner in which he has stayed true to the authors, singers, and filmmakers, he loves best. But David Lynch isn't a particular favourite of mine, I'm afraid; there are certainly films by the other two Davids - Fisher and Cronenberg - I like more than Mulholland Drive (2001), though they're perhaps not as weird in the sense that Fisher uses the term.   

 

As for Inland Empire (2006), not only have I not seen it, I've not even heard of it - how weird is that?

 

 

Notes

 

[a] Mark Fisher, The Weird and the Eerie, (Repeater Books, 2016), p. 10. Future page references to this work will be given directly in the main text. 

 

[b] See Graham Harman, Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy (Zero Books, 2012).

 

[c] Just to be clear: "The outside is not 'empirically' exterior; it is transcendentally exterior; i.e. it is not just a matter of something being distant in space and time, but of something which is beyond our ordinary experience and conception of space and time itself." - Mark Fisher, The Weird and the Eerie, p. 22. 

 

[d] Seinfeld, 'The Pool Guy' [S7/E8], dir. Andy Ackerman, written by David Mandel (1995). Click here to observe the devastating effect it has upon George's mental health when he experiences the colliding of worlds: George is getting upset! Nevertheless, it's interesting to note that this tale unfolds within a weirdly comic universe, rather than a weirdly tragic or melancholic one.

 

[e] Perhaps the only author who writes with such intense conviction about the pop music they love is poet and playwright Síomón Solomon; see his 2020 text Hölderlin's Poltergeists in which he celebrates that other critically-acclaimed post-punk band from Manchester, Joy Division.     

 

[f] Fisher's Ph.D. thesis was entitled: Flatline constructs: Gothic materialism and cybernetic theory-fiction. It was completed in the Philosophy Dept. at the University of Warwick and submitted in July 1999. A PDF of this work is available via the University of Warwick publications service website: click here. The first line opens with the words "Isn't it strange [...]". 

      Fisher was a founding member of the interdisciplinary collective inspired by the work of Nick Land and Sadie Plant known as the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit. Although I was also in the Philosophy Dept. at Warwick at this time and initially had Land as my Graduate Progress Committee member overseeing my own doctoral research project, I never crossed paths with Fisher, which, looking back, I now rather regret.  

 

 

Part two of this post - on the eerie - can be read by clicking here. 

 

 

The Shocking Case of Sacco and Vanzetti

Sacco e Vanzetti

Solo gli anarchici sono carini ...?

I.

I recently published a post discussing the racism and discrimination faced by Italian immigrants to the United States, detailing the manner in which they were regarded as not quite white enough for good society and, if not inherently inferior, then almost certainly natural born criminals: click here.

Such thinking, which was widespread and particularly virulent during the late 19th and early 20th century, ultimately has tragic consequences. I mentioned the New Orleans lynchings (1891), but I have been reminded also of the case of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti; two Italian anarchists who were controversially convicted of armed robbery and first degree murder in 1920 and, seven years later, executed by electric chair in Charlestown State Prison (Boston, MA).  

Were they guilty? I don't know. Probably. But what does seem certain is that anti-Italian sentiment (to some degree at least) influenced the jury verdict and sentence passed by the trial judge. A series of appeals were denied, but, as the case increasingly drew global attention, Sacco and Vanzetti found themselves the centre of one the greatest causes célèbres in modern times. In 1927, protests in support of the pair were held all over North America and Europe, as well as in Tokyo, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, and many other major cities.

Writers, artists, and academics all jumped aboard the Sacco and Vanzetti bandwagon and pleaded either for a pardon or, at the very least, a new trial (whilst also, of course, promoting their own work and signalling their own virtue). [1] Even Mussolini was prepared to speak up for them! Finally, a commissional investigation was launched, but, after interviewing the judge, lawyers, and several witnesses, the original verdict was upheld.

And so, at round midnight on 23 August, 1927, the pair were introduced to Old Sparky ... To their credit, both men, as atheists as well as anarchists, refused the attendance of a priest. Whilst Vanzetti thanked his guards for their kindness, Sacco went to the chair bidding arrivaderci to his mother. 


II.

That, however, was not the close of the case - even if it was very much the mortal end of the two men concerned. Investigations continued in the following decades and the belief in their innocence intensified. Finally, on the 50th anniversary of the execution, the Governor of Massachusetts (Michael Dukakis) proclaimed that Sacco and Vanzetti had been unfairly tried and convicted and that "any disgrace should forever be removed from their names".

One might just point out, however, that guilty or not of the murder for which they were eventually executed, they were followers of Luigi Galleani, the Italian anarchist who advocated violent revolution and had no qualms about political assassination, bombing campaigns, and even the mass poisoning of class enemies. So whilst Sacco and Vanzetti - a shoemaker and a fishmonger by trade - are now regarded as angels by those devoted to their memory, they were at best angels with dirty faces (and blood on their hands). [2]

For at the very least they imagined themselves as terroristas and, when arrested, although they told the police they didn't own any firearms, each was found to be carrying a loaded weapon. It should also be noted that following their indictment for murder, anarchist comrades began a campaign of violent retaliation; including the Wall Street bombing in September 1920, that killed 38 people and injured over 100.       

And whilst one might well imagine their being peeved at being found guilty of a crime which they (possibly) didn't commit, I'm not sure it's legitimate (from an ethical perspective) to then call for the death of the judge and demand revenge against those who have wronged them. [3]

Such petty vindictiveness is not very pretty to my eyes ...

Notes

[1] Most commentators who have studied this topic now believe that Sacco and Vanzetti were involved at some level in the Galleanist bombing campaign, although their precise roles have not been determined.

[2] In October 1927, H. G. Wells wrote an essay that discussed the case at length, comparing it to the Dreyfus Affair; one that tested and displayed the soul of a people. The following year, Upton Sinclair published his novel Boston (1928), which condemned the American judicial system and made use of Vanzetti's life and writings. However, whilst his fictional portrait of the latter was sympathetic, Sinclair failed to absolve Sacco and Vanzetti of their crimes - hugely disappointing their more fanatic supporters. Years later, he claimed that he had been told (off the record) by their lawyer that the two were, in fact, guilty and he was inclined to believe this was the case. Guilty or not, intellectuals and artists continue to revere Sacco and Vanzetti and there are numerous plays, poems, songs, and films continuing to push the line that only anarchists are pretty.  
 
[3] Following their deaths, several bomb attacks did in fact take place; on the New York City Subway, for example, as well as in a Philadelphia church and at the home of one of the jurors.


Thanks to David Brock, editor of The Lawrentian, for suggesting this post.

Hurrah for the Horta! (Notes on the Possibility of Silicon Based Life)

The Horta: 'The Devil in the Dark'
Star Trek: The Original Series (S1/E25, 1967)

Image: startrek.com

I. C (6)

Carbon - as everybody knows - is the key component of terrestrial life and it's commonly assumed that, if there is life elsewhere in the universe, then it too will be carbon-based.

The reason for this, explains astronomer and popular science writer David Darling, "is not only carbon's ability to form a vast range of large, complicated molecules with itself and other elements, especially hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, but also its unique facility for maintaining the right balance of stability and flexibility in molecular transformations that underlie the dynamic complexity of life".

Nevertheless, this is an assumption and Darling concedes that we may - as carbon-based life-forms ourselves - suffer from what Carl Sagan termed carbon chauvinism; i.e., a form of prejudice that prevents us from seriously considering viable alternatives. And so, whilst it's true that scientists have yet to find anything in the chemistry of other elements that suggests they might be able to give rise to organic compounds, we shouldn't dismiss the idea out of hand.

Indeed, it seems to me perfectly legitimate to consider silicon, for example, as a possible basis of alien life. For not only is silicon a similar element to carbon, but it's also an important constituent of many living cells. In fact, silicon is the great white hope of many astrobiologists and science fiction writers who dream of strange and beautiful possibilities of being ...

II. Si (14)

People began speculating on the suitability of silicon as a basis for life at the end of the 19th century and they have continued to do so to the present day. In 1894, and drawing closely on the ideas of his time, H. G. Wells wrote:

"One is startled towards fantastic imaginings by such a suggestion: visions of silicon-aluminium organisms - why not silicon-aluminium men at once? - wandering through an atmosphere of gaseous sulphur, let us say, by the shores of a sea of liquid iron some thousand degrees or so above the temperature of a blast furnace."

Over sixty years later, American screen-writer Gene L. Coon conceived of a silicon-based entity called the Horta in an episode of Star Trek.

Basically a living rock, the Horta was both sentient and sensitive - a bit too touchy-feely for me, as a matter of fact - and moved through rock like a hot knife through butter, shitting bricks as it went, thereby solving one of the main problems that would face siliceous life (one of the flaws in silicon's biological credentials is that the oxidation of silicon yields solid waste material that would be difficult - to say the least - for a creature to excrete). 

Sadly, even if silicon has had a part to play in the origin of life, the astronomical evidence suggests it's unlikely we're going to be encountering any silicon-aluminium organisms, or mind-melding with Horta, in the near future. For as Darling notes:

"Wherever astronomers have looked - in meteorites, in comets, in the atmospheres of the giant planets, in the interstellar medium, and in the outer layers of cool stars - they have found molecules of oxidized silicon (silicon dioxide and silicates) but no substances such as silanes or silicones which might be the precursors of a silicon biochemistry."

See: 

David Darling, entry on carbon in his online encyclopedia of science: click here. 

David Darling, entry on silicone-based life in his online encyclopedia of science: click here. 

H. G. Wells, 'Another Basis for Life', Saturday Review, (December 22, 1894), p. 676.

Even the Moon's Frightened of Me! (Philosophical Reflections on the Case of the Invisible Man)

 Claude Rains as The Invisible Man

(Universal Pictures, 1933)

"We'll begin with a reign of terror, a few murders here and there; murders of great men, murders of little men - 

just to show we make no distinction." 

I: The Invisible Man and the Ring of Gyges

The Invisible Man is one of the most philosophically interesting fictional characters within the cultural imagination. First appearing (and disappearing) in a short novel by H. G. Wells in 1897, he challenges us to address important ethical questions, including the following: Is virtuous behaviour dependent upon observation?  
 
In order to answer, we might refer back to Plato's Republic and the Ring of Gyges ...

The Ring of Gyges, for those unfamiliar with the above text, is a magical object which granted its owner the power to become invisible at will. In the Republic, Plato's brother Glaucon doubts that any man is so naturally good that he'd resist the temptation of performing wicked deeds were he invisible:

"No man would keep his hands off what was not his own if he could safely steal what he liked from the market, or enter houses and fuck with any one at his pleasure, kill, or release from prison whom he wished and in all respects be like a god among men."

This proves, he argues, that morality is a social construct - not an inherent trait - whose foundation is a desire to maintain one's reputation and avoid public shame or punishment. If, however, there was no danger of that thanks to an ability to become invisible, then one's moral character would also soon vanish and the just man would be indistinguishable from the unjust. 

Glaucon concludes that all men know in their hearts that crime pays and that anyone who had the power of invisibility but failed to exploit it fully would be thought to be an idiot by others. Thus he's obliged to take personal advantage of the power in order not to seem stupid. In other words, whilst the man who can be seen protects his public image by being virtuous, the man who becomes imperceptible only keeps face by behaving in an immoral fashion.

It takes him a while, but Socrates eventually addresses this argument and reaffirms his belief that moral virtue is divine in origin rather than social and that it's ultimately always in the individual's best interest to be just rather than unjust, because the gods love the former and will reward them accordingly if not in this life then in the next.

Those who would abuse the gift of invisibility, are, says Socrates, enslaved by their own base appetites; only the man who freely chooses not to use such power remains master of himself and is therefore truly happy.      


II: The Invisible Man and the Helm of Darkness

If Plato helps explain why Dr Griffin's invisibility triggers his criminality, it doesn't answer why we find him so much more disturbing and unheimlich than other masked maniacs, such as the Phantom of the Opera, for example. Why is it that the latter exposing his facial disfigurement doesn't unnerve us as much as when the former strips away his bandages to reveal no face at all?

To help answer this, we must again turn to the ancient Greeks and consider the Helm of Darkness worn by Hades ...

In Greek mythology, the Helm of Darkness is a helmet that enables the wearer to become invisible. Zeus has his lightning bolt; Poseidon has his trident. But it's Hades, the chthonic god, who possesses the magical helmet which gained him his title of the Unseen One.    

It's because of this link between invisibility and the Underword - i.e., between invisibility and the gloomy realm of death - that the Invisible Man continues to unsettle as a figure. For no one wants to be reminded of the death that awaits them; an undifferentiated state devoid of all personal characterization into which all mortal things eventually vanish.  

Certainly the ancient Greeks didn't. To them, Hades was a fearsome figure and they avoided even mentioning his name if possible (indeed, around the 5th century BC they began to refer to him by the more positive-sounding name of Pluto) and when they made a sacrifice to him (often of a black sheep) they always made sure to hide or avert their faces - as if making themselves invisible before him.  

In sum, in as much as the Invisible Man triggers some kind of mythological memory of Hades, this is why he creeps us out. He particularly upsets those who refuse to confront the ontological truth that Dasein rests upon the void of non-being (sein Nicht-mehr-dasein, as Heidegger writes). It's this that produces horror in those egoists who, as D. H. Lawrence says, dare not die for fear they should be nothing at all.


See: Plato, The Republic, 2:358a-2:360d and 10:612b. 

What Big Extraterrestrial Eyes You Have

Matilda the Cat is something of an internet sensation, with thousands of followers on social media. But, despite her appearance, she's actually a perfectly normal moggie. The poor thing does suffer, however, from a rare condition in which the lenses of her eyes have spontaneously detached, causing blindness, and giving her the look of an alien being. 

Those who are interested in reading more about her case should visit: aliencatmatilda.com - her official website. Because, fascinating as her story is, what I really wish to discuss here is the origin of the idea that aliens - particularly those known as Greys - have large, black, glassy-looking eyes. 

Obviously it doesn't come from the actual world, because there are no entities from out of space visiting planet Earth on a regular basis and abducting large numbers of human beings in order to probe them and fuck with their minds. Many people - mostly Americans - might believe contrary to this and insist that there's a global conspiracy covering up the facts, but, alas, it is of course complete nonsense; a mad fantasy on behalf of the needy, the lonely, and the fearful. A bit like the belief in a loving - but vengeful - God. 

For God, like ET, is a convenient fiction. Not surprisingly therefore, we find that our idea of what an alien looks like first comes from literature: H. G. Wells to be precise, who, as long ago as 1893 was already imagining futuristic grey-skinned beings with big heads and large eyes. Then, in 1901, he depicted the natives of the moon (Selenites) in very similar terms. 

He was followed in this belief that alien races would conform closely to a certain body type, by the Swedish writer Gustav Sandgren who, in 1933, under the pen name of Gabriel Linde, published a sci-fi novel translated into English as The Unknown Danger. Here, once again, a race of aliens were described as chinless wonders possessing big bald heads, large gleaming eyes, and small mouths. 

Thirty years later and press reports of the Betty and Barney Hill alien abduction case described those doing the abducting in this identikit manner. All stereotypes are grey; but by now all Greys were stereotypical.

Spielberg unimaginatively gave us more of the same in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). And then, in the 1990s, Mulder and Scully chased very familiar looking aliens for nine seasons, The X-Files firmly establishing the link in the paranoid imagination between Greys and the military-industrial complex of the New World Order.

As Oscar Wilde once said, Life imitates art far more than art imitates life. The disappointing thing is how few people realise this (and how tragic the consequences can be).