Perhaps… or perhaps the actual point was to be intentionally obtuse.
I don’t know, and I honestly don’t care.
I’m much more concerned about the tendency of some people in our society who will try to justify or rationalize indefensible things which have no rationality.
But that’s another, more complex conversation for another time.
To address your own valid points:
Agreed.
Unfaltering belief in one’s own “personal mythology”, yes; that’s a highly problematic factor in many of society’s failings.
But as for that interesting part about ‘monsters’:
I can recall an old Vincent Price B-movie that was a vignette of horror stories, where all the tales were relayed via a sort of ‘monster’s bragging contest’; with different types of creatures claiming that they were each ‘the most horrific monster.’
While I don’t remember much about any of the individual stories, what did stick with me was the ending, where Vincent Price declares that the most horrific monster of all is mankind:
As campy as the dashing old gent may have been in his delivery, he made a damn good point.
You are quite correct in that when most of us think of “monsters,” we often pair the idea with a big dose of ‘othering’; even when it’s in a fictional capacity.
Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster, the Wolfman; what are these but psychological metaphors for the darker side of human nature, and the potential monsters that could lurk in any one of us?
Our fear of our own innate sexuality and the impossible desire to remain youthful and/or to be immortal?
That’s Dracula, in a nutshell.
Fear of our own creations/inventions going horribly awry and turning against us?
The Frankenstein Monster encompasses that particular anxiety perfectly.
Our fear of our primitive baser nature overcoming all our evolutionary progress as a species, and reverting us back into uncontrollable savagery?
Thy name is the Wolfman.
There’s a school of thought which posits that practically every fictional monster you can think of is merely a subconscious reflection or representation of the very worst aspects of human behavior, made slightly more ‘manageable’ by othering them into some sort of abstract which bears little resemblance to the “ideal” image that we have of ourselves.
But I digress.
Agreed.
I contend that by that point it’s too late, but it does beg another pertinent question:
What can you do to turn a human being into a monster?
The answer would seem to be many things, including physical and emotional abuse, torture and psychological manipulation.
Perhaps some people see it that way, but if they do then they are engaging in flagrant logical fallacy.
Monsters are not born, they are made.
Agreed, and like most people, I have no real idea why that is.
I have lots of theories, such as severe mental illness and the vicious cycle of abuse, but nothing concrete.
Or perhaps it’s the other way around, and people are just potential monsters given the right set of ‘extenuating circumstances.’
Bottom line, I agree with you that there is no set phenotype to ‘be on the lookout for’; you cant tell who is ‘good and decent’ from those who are ‘malignant and reprehensible’ just by looking.
Because individual human behavior is too complex to be reduced down to a binary construct of “good” or ‘bad’; as we all possess elements of both.
The questions posed in your comment were spot on; I only wish I had some viable answers to offer.
