The lure of excess

Abstract

This article anatomizes the experience of violence. Drawing on the phenomenological observations of classic literature, and in particular, the horror genre, this article proposes that the tendency toward violence is a complex, multifaceted phenomenon. While brain pathology, genetic disposition, and quantifiable stressors all appear to play a role in the outbreak of violence, the literary genre points to other, less well‐appreciated dimensions. Among these are: a sense of emptiness, the need to compensate for that emptiness through extreme and dramatic acts, and a lack of the sense of awe, meaning, and the carnivalesque in people's lives. This article argues for the restoration of awe, meaning, and the carnivalesque‐and not only as a hedge against the kind of violence observed on September 11th, 2001‐but as a virtue in its own right, and as an antidote, comparatively, to our desolate times.