On Rainbows and Space: 2.

What is a Monster?

– 1a. an abnormal form of structure. b. one who deviates from normal or acceptable behavior or character.
[Freak: 1a. A sudden or seemingly pointless idea or turn of mind…

3a. One that is markedly unusual or abnormal

b: slang (1) a sexual deviant. (2) a person who uses an illicit drug…

4a: an ardent enthusiast b: a person who is obsessed with something]

2. a threatening force

3a. an animal or thing of strange and terrifying shape b. one unusually large for its kind. …
5. one that is highly successful.

Through these definitions, I see polarities within social discourse from which the other end will determine their monster.

Man Threat <---------------------> Grotesque

Man Village <---------------------> Frontier
Abstract <---------------------> Representative


Consider the space in between a theoretical bridge, as I described media to be. The context of monstrosity is created when, being of one end of the spectrum, you cannot cross this bridge – either because you cannot cross or the other side will not allow you. Social reality is built on these parameters, and when this is forced, we witness another polar spectrum shifted between:
Construct <----------------->Transgress.

In order to function: Use what you got.
Know where you are.

2a. The Man Threat: Man as Monster.

The dominant culture inspires terror to prevent transgression. I call the monstrous form of the dominant culture the Man Threat. He abuses you through his methods of control and abstraction. We all have a right as people to space, safety, consideration, and will. The Man Threat wants to keep you from any of those rights which only other Man Threat can have.
Man Threat pins transgressors and the grotesque against his complicated construct. Because you are excluded from the construct, he can make you believe you are not human and that he is. He makes you believe that other people aren’t, either. He created a hierarchy (or low-archy) of sub-people. The Man threat demands dependency, he demands his power over you, he demands your inhumanity.


2b.The Man Village: An Arena for Monstrosity to Veil Itself.
The Man Village is the constructed social microcosm with which one interacts and lives among. The Man Threat built the village and said no where else is safer. In the Man Village, Man Threat makes laws and enables them through utilizing our terror and projecting from the gaps made in communication/technology/media. He fills the gaps by wrapping context around the form – breaking, suffocating, killing – like a boa constrictor.
Walled in (and wrapped within), hierarchy (or low-archy) can be understood. Here, customs and culture are familiar. It is here where you must first carve your hole of space within. [myth making. Adapting culture of man village to your agenda.] Here, you will first discover who will listen and how you can make those who don’t. Refuse to do anything that is not exactly what you want. Expect no less. If you consider what someone tells you to do, it’s because you want what they want. You should only expect the same returned. Always engage in the interactivity of communication/technology/media. This agent enables automation through cooperation.

2c. The Frontier: An Arena for Transgression and the Grotesque
“The serene confidence in their amorous destinies like that of birds in their wings—that tranquil, ruthless belief in immediate deserved personal happiness which fledges them instantaneous and full-winged from the haven of respectability, into untried and unsupportive space where no shore was visible… and this without terror or alarm and hence inferring neither courage nor hardihood: just an utter and complete faith in airy and fragile and untried wings…”
-William Faulkner; The Wild Palms (54)

The frontier lies beyond the man village. The frontier is always considered wild. In the Frontier, you are more susceptible to harm, but fearing harm disengages you from performing with full agency. We learn behavior through exploration. It has been this way since we were born; immediately, in order to survive, we were forced to engage in the unknown. We knew nothing else. However, we tend to hold onto what is tangible. In the frontier, everything is tangible only if you reach in the dark and pluck it out. We began to learn by way of the Man Threat that the wild and the uncontrollable was not where you could be safe. How can the abstract – hearsay – be safer than experiencing safety when one can find and live out the tangible? Fulfillment occurs through the representative.