If you scroll through the Top Ten list of the platform you use to listen to podcasts, you’ll notice a trend. Sprinkled between New York Times news discussions you’ll find titles like Morbid, Serial, Crime Junkie, and My Favorite Murder. While the hosts of these shows range from retired cops and prosecutors, to beauty school dropouts with a love of death, the topic remains constant: brutal, heinous murder. If you’re like me, this may sound like a pleasant soundtrack for your Tuesday evening shower–a good way to unwind from a stressful day. Or, you may find this subject matter rightfully repelling. But the Top Ten list speaks for itself–I’m not alone in my fascination with murder.
So, pretend for a moment that you’re me. You listen to true crime podcasts on your way to work or school in the morning. You listen on your lunch break, as you clean your room, while folding laundry, and lying in bed, trying to fall asleep. Are you addicted, as the title of the popular podcast Crime Junkie suggests? Wouldn’t such an addiction suggest you gain pleasure from each fix? The hosts of My Favorite Murder openly admit to enjoying the grim subject matter of their show…maybe you do too.
This “paradox of horror” has been debated philosophically since Aristotle felt troubled by the ancient attraction to tragedy. How can we derive pleasure from innately disturbing circumstances? Why do we continuously seek out horror, despite a natural repulsion to it?
A cognitivist theory of emotional appraisal could certainly account for such a discrepancy between what seems inherent and what humans truly act upon. Cognitvist philosophers of emotion defy the long-held belief that emotions are involuntary reactions to the world. Robert Solomon, one such cognitivist, instead suggests that “emotions are judgements”. Solomon argues that emotions are the result of one’s intellectual appraisals of their surroundings. And yet, Solomon dismisses the paradox of horror. I will argue that not only does the paradox of horror exist, but a cognitivist approach can be used to interpret it, and thus Solomon was wrong to dismiss it.
In his work, “True to Our Feelings”, Solomon begins by discussing anger and fear. He identifies these as basic emotions, defined by current theorists as emotions that are innate, arising from a neural and hormonal response. As a cognitivist, Solomon rejects the idea that emotions, even basic ones, are mere biological responses. He denies that the structure of emotion is a neurological one, instead asserting, ‘it is a structure that includes one’s thinking and behavior, what one pays attention to, what one remembers, what one imagines, even what one dreams, the metaphors one uses, and the way one engages in the neighborhood”. It is through this framework that Solomon asserts that no emotion can truly be classified as basic.
Up to this point, I have no objections to Solomon. He establishes his theory as a cognitivist, and introduces “basic” emotions as anything but basic. It’s when Solomon expands upon the emotion of fear, discussing the notion of horror, that he begins to contradict himself.
Solomon introduces horror as a derivative of fear. However, where Solomon argues fear is an evolutionarily useful emotion for its ability to initiate survival action patterns, he suggests that horror overwhelms oneself so thoroughly that it blocks all other responses. He writes, “we might say that horror is a “spectator” emotion, although this is not for a second to say that it is a detached or disinterested emotion. To the contrary, horror is usually an overwhelming emotional reaction. It is so obsessive that it blocks virtually any other response or emotion.”
Again, I (mostly) agree with Solomon here. I find the word choice of obsessive interesting, as it hints at the addictive nature of true crime that our case study explores. Yet, Solomon seems to instead use “obsessive” to categorize horror as an exclusionary emotion. He elaborates, writing, “I would argue that the fact that horror is so overwhelming also means that it is not one of those emotions that can be “mixed,” and, in particular, it does not mix with pleasure. Thus the “paradox of horror,” that is, how horror can be pleasurable, which has worried philosophers since Aristotle, is, I would argue, impossible.”
When first reading this, I was surprised, but curious. As a cognitivist, how does Solomon justify his claim that horror is so overwhelming, it supersedes rational evaluation? If the paradox of horror is blatantly impossible, what accounts for the attraction people have felt towards horrible subjects for centuries?
To account for his theory, Solomon analyzes the paradox of horror in the context of horror films. Just as Aristotle turned to ancient tragedy to consider the paradox of horror, Solomon bases his argument in fictionalized dramas. He writes, “I doubt that they get any pleasure out of it, that is, pleasure out of the horror. They may well take pleasure at the artifice of fright, or at their bravado in subjecting themselves to such a sight. But of course, rarely do horror movies provoke actual horror”. Here, Solomon uses horror films to suggest that the appeal of horror has nothing to do with the horror itself. This argument may hold when applied to fictionalized dramas such as horror movies; I agree that films such as The Conjuring or Silence of the Lambs hardly provoke true horror.
But I don’t think Solomon’s argument holds when applied to non-fabricated horror. The fascination with true “crime” is as old as crime itself. Public executions have drawn large crowds since the birth of laws. It seems, to me at least, that watching the death of another human as a form of entertainment begins to blur the line between horror and pleasure. Yet, it could be argued that the fascination with public execution stems more from the righteous desire for justice than from an enjoyment of horror.
Let’s then consider the interplay between justice and horror in a modern context. Maybe we are fascinated by serial murderers out of a desire for justice, and our feelings of horror don’t intervene. But if I asked you to name instances of environmental injustice resulting in poisoned resources and the injury or death of tens, hundreds, or thousands of people, how many could you name? In that top ten list on your podcast platform of choice, how many shows focus on corporations with unjust conditions resulting in the death of their workers? Victims in these examples face a similar injustice and harm as the victims of Ted Bundy; they have lost their life due to the selfish, unjust actions of another. But there are two major factors separating these examples: popularity as a form of entertainment, and the innate feeling of horror evoked.
All good scientists know: correlation does not imply causality. But a causal relationship between horror and pleasure is not needed to contradict Solomon’s claims. Solomon’s dismissal of the horror paradox hinges on the fact that horror eclipses all other reactions. He argues that when horror is felt, no other emotion can be present. Yet, the popularity of true crime content suggests otherwise. Horror may coexist with anger and an urge for justice. Horror could coexist with fear, drawing in individuals who hope to learn from tragedy of the circumstances. It could coexist with compassion for the victim, or disgust for the criminal. Horror could coexist with pleasure, in the cathartic release of all the emotions listed above.
What is clear to me in considering the popularity of true crime content is the presence of judgment and appraisal. The horror, the compassion, the anger felt by individuals reflects a complex level of processing. When I listen to this media, I often do feel overwhelmed by horror, as Solomon suggests. I pause the podcast. I freeze. Sometimes grief washes over me, and I cry. Disgust and anger towards the criminal is nearly always present. I think Solomon’s own words account for this complex mix of emotions. When discussing anger, another not-so-basic emotion, Solomon writes, “There is no doubt that anger (and some other emotions) are part of our evolutionary heritage and include physiological responses that we share with other animals. But this is surely just a piece of the story.”
There are many pieces to the story when approaching emotions cognitively. Horror, then, is not simply a freeze response which overwhelms all other cognitive appraisal. The paradox of horror is not solved, but it certainly isn’t impossible.
Shared by: Anonymous