From ez052135@chip.ucdavis.edu Sat May 8 17:55:21 1999 Date: 20 Apr 1995 09:13:57 GMT From: Daniel Hertzfeldt Newsgroups: alt.gothic, alt.slack Subject: Re: Goth Philosophy Followup-To: alt.gothic,alt.slack : A DAY AT AUSCHWITZLAND : by Phineas Narco : : (with creative inspiration from Janor Hypercleets) : Little Billy strained to look out of the crack in the : rotted wood of the slowing train as it entered the camp. : Aunt Bertha stood next to him peering out the window slit he : was too small to reach. : "Let me see! Let me see!" yelled Timmy excitedly. etc.etc.etc....... I suppose this is a worthy example of what I was getting at before simply because this would offend and disturb a great many people...I on the other hand, found it an amusing piece of clever parody that really has nothing to do with true evil at all. The real Auschwitz was true evil....this story may be rather twisted, but it presents no great evil threat. And yet we both know that there are many, many people who would read it and take it the wrong way, perhaps reacting with anger and fear because to them it truly may represent something evil. In the same way a lot of people react when they see a goth walking down the street...to you and I, the goth is not "evil"...but to a majority of people he may represent soemthing close to it. This is because, sadly enough, most people never care to scratch beneath the surface...it takes too much effort and people would rather just be reactionary. I don't think then that I am underestimating Normals' ability to freely come and go as they please through an evil atmosphere....the kind I mentioned before....because they won't look at the true content: that there is no real evil, just an alluring image of it. They will experience the surface value of it and judge that it is evil, wrong, not in line with their beliefs, immoral, blasphemous, etc. For example....all the people that think Dungeons and Dragons is Satanic.....these are the same people that are threatened by the very things that goths embrace. All goths (and you now as well) know that what we delight in is a mere atmosphere of darkness and evil....those on the outside will simply judge that because of our fascination with these things, we MUST be evil, naughty, devil-worshipping bastards. I don't know...this all seems very straight-forward to me and I think we're essentially discussing the same viewpoint. I just think the distinction needs to be made between what people perceive and what actually lies beneath that perception.....and believe you me, I have experienced first hand many people's failures to make that distinction...believing that because of the movies I like, the clothes I wear and the music I listen to that I am the most twisted, evil, morbid fuck ever....and there is not much that can be done to change a lot of Normals' minds about it...and frankly, I don't give a shit about changing people's minds anyway. Let them think we are actually evil.....part of the fun of being a goth is delighting in the fact that a lot of people perceive you as all those horrible things when in reality we are all just people who happen to have a fascination with the darker side of human existence.....that's all! He Who Appears to Many as Evil But is Actually quite Lovable, Dan