Recently, I wrote about the Eldritch in the 21st century. In there, I made the case that cosmic horror is the major theme of the modern condition.

We are dominated by super-structures, Eldritch Deities, that we neither understand nor control.

𝕄𝕒𝕣𝕜𝕖𝕥𝕤, 𝔾𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕟𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕤, 𝕀𝕕𝕖𝕠𝕝𝕠𝕘𝕚𝕖𝕤, 𝕊𝕠𝕔𝕚𝕒𝕝 𝕄𝕖𝕕𝕚𝕒. They all dominate our lives, with little we can do about them, despite us having built them in the first place.

While we give them names, we understand very little of them. What understanding of their 𝔾𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕟𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥 does the average citizen have? Almost none, it’s a completely Eldritch Entity that takes, binds, rules, and sometimes gives.1

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Most feel that this is dreadfully wrong. Some even feel that we are losing ground to the Eldritch.

Sadly, people are bad at living with this feeling. With The Absurd. With the felt sense that most of existence is meaningless, because we are at the mercy of circumstances far beyond our control.

All modern movements must come up with a satisfying answer, lest they be outcompeted.

What can we meaningfully do in a world ruled by The Eldritch?

In this essay, I want to show a couple of bad ways in which modern movements answer this crucial question.

I believe their answers to the Eldritch are representative of a large part of the psychology that underpins these movements.

(Of course, political movements are partly intellectual, and offer some depth of thought. However, this essay is specifically not about addressing their intellectual points. It is only about how their answer to The Eldritch drives many of their talking points regardless of their intellectual content.)

FIGHT

A common answer is FIGHT. FIGHT says that all problems come from some Modern Eldritch Deity, and that we should fight it.

Sweet man-made horrors beyond my comprehension. : r/blackmirror — FIGHT’s favourite cynical meme.

FIGHT is very confused.

FIGHT doesn’t address why we conjured the specific Deity they want to tear down. There’s a reason why we built Media, States, Markets and all the like. Even though they introduce problems, destroying them wholesale is not viable.

FIGHT misses that a world free of some specific Modern Eldritch Deity is not a free world. It is just a world dominated by other Modern Eldritch Deities, Traditional Eldritch Deities or Natural Eldritch Deities.

Nonetheless, FIGHT does one thing well. It catalyses confusion and fear into action. The sad part is that these actions are usually un...

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