6 ms·

OP is echoing, with a Catholic-centric viewpoint, a point that's been made in much greater depth by others: I suggest https://gwern.net/doc/economics/2014-robbi

by gwern 3y ago

OP is echoing, with a Catholic-centric viewpoint, a point that's been made in much greater depth by others: I suggest https://gwern.net/doc/economics/2014-robbins.pdf https://gwern.net/doc/economics/2014-robbins.pdf and then more briefly, https://www.thefitzwilliam.com/p/turning-back-the-economic-clock https://www.thefitzwilliam.com/p/turning-back-the-economic-c... https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/02/bram-stoker-dracula-and-progress-studies.html https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/02/br... I read _Dracula_ afterwards, and I think this perspective is 100% correct, and perhaps the single largest theme from Bram Stoker's _Dracula_ which has been thrown out by successors. (For fellow Gene Wolfe fans: I was reading up on this topic earlier because of "Suzanne Delage", where I interpret (https://gwern.net/suzanne-delage https://gwern.net/suzanne-delage) as an inversion of _Dracula_ - in "Suzanne Delage", the protagonist & his allies are defeated by Dracula due to a lack of coordination/technology, in contrast to the successful protagonists of _Dracula_.)

exolymph 3y ago
Out of sheer nerdy curiosity, have you read The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova and if so what did you think? I didn't realize Dracula lore was among your many sidelines :P
- gwern 3y ago
  I haven't, sorry. I didn't realize either until August last year!
wisty 3y ago
A lot of vampire fiction includes themes about technology vs the supernatural, Anne Rice especially has the vampires being overwhelmed by the new world. The focus (not so much in Ann Rice books) can be more on more action oriented technology (trains and gadgets) rather than the modern weapons of a detective though. Weird steam-punk gun gadgets (even in a modern setting like Dusk to Dawn) are a common and lazy example of these. I think a wacky invention is a shorthand to the audience for "technology". A modern Dracula with detective themes could use a "hacker" to put together the kind of digital trail that a modern police officer would follow, so we understand that checking a person's Facebook page is modern and high tech.
- PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
  it's been a few years since I've read through Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles but I don't recall them getting overwhelmed by the "new world". What I recall is that vampires who don't occasionally "go to sleep" never make it long enough to become truly strong. In essence, they burn out. Almost as if the world becomes so boring that they must sleep for centuries so they can wake up and find the new world _invigorating_ rather than overwhelming. In her books, both the original vampires did this, as did Lestat.
- networked 3y ago
  > Anne Rice especially has the vampires being overwhelmed by the new world. I think the point Rice makes in the books I have read is that the vampires are not equally overwhelmed. The Vampire Lestat is about capital-P Progress even more explicitly than Dracula. The protagonist, Lestat, is influenced by the Age of Reason he is born into. He witnesses the end of the old ways in the French Revolution. All of it prepares him for the future. This is in contrast to the younger Louis and the older Armand, who hang on to the past. The introduction to that book is memorable for being an over-the-top paean to its time. Lestat is not overwhelmed; he loves the 1980s. Quote: > As I roamed the streets of New Orleans in 1984 this is what I beheld: > The dark dreary industrial world that I'd gone to sleep on had burnt itself out finally, and the old bourgeois prudery and conformity had lost their hold on the American mind. > People were adventurous and erotic again the way they'd been in the old days, before the great middle-class revolutions of the late 1700s. They even looked the way they had in those times. The men didn't wear the Sam Spade uniform of shirt, tie, gray suit, and gray hat any longer. Once again, they costumed themselves in velvet and silk and brilliant colors if they felt like it. They did not have to clip their hair like Roman soldiers anymore; they wore it any length they desired. And the women-ah, the women were glorious, naked in the spring warmth as they'd been under the Egyptian pharaohs, in skimpy short skirts and tunic like dresses, or wearing men's pants and shirts skintight over their curvaceous bodies if they pleased. They painted, and decked themselves out in gold and silver, even to walk to the grocery store. Or they went fresh scrubbed and without ornament-it didn't matter. They curled their hair like Marie Antoinette or cut it off or let it blow free. > For the first time in history, perhaps, they were as strong and as interesting as men. > And these were the common people of America. Not just the rich who've always achieved a certain androgyny, a certain joie de vivre that the middle-class revolutionaries called decadence in the past. > The old aristocratic sensuality now belonged to everybody. It was wed to the promises of the middle-class revolution, and all people had a right to love and to luxury and to graceful things.
autio 3y ago
Thank you for that brilliant write-up on Suzanne Delage.
jackjeff 3y ago
It’s really Dracula vs Modernity. There’s nothing in the blog post that justifies the usage of the “Catholic” epithet. London is the seat of Anglican faith after all and using type writers and records are secular endeavors.
- sdwr 3y ago
  That's really splitting hairs. Crucifixes, holy water, and communion wafers are symbols from formal, organized Christianity, of which Catholicism is the most prominent example. It's also a sneaky, underhanded way to make a point. The shell game of argument tactics.
- PhasmaFelis 3y ago
  Dracula vs. Christian Modernity, maybe, but you can't really argue that religious items weren't crucial and powerful weapons in the the story.
- thsksbd 3y ago
  But the sacramentals used against him are Catholic (and in Romania Orthodox). I didn't read all of it, but the first two pages of [1] demonstrate how the book is "Catholic" as opposed to Anglican, with the protagonist feeling awkward, as an Anglican, at the icons and crucifixes used as (in the book effective) protection. Keep in mind, for the purposes of the book Catholicism and Orthodoxy can be considered the same as we both believe in icons, consecrated sacraments, apostolic succession, transubstination, etc https://eprints.qut.edu.au/5244/1/5244_1.pdf https://eprints.qut.edu.au/5244/1/5244_1.pdf
  - pavel_lishin 3y ago
    > But the sacramentals used against him are Catholic (and in Romania Orthodox). Sure, but they sure ain't modern.
  - joosters 3y ago
    But Dracula was defeated by being decapitated and stabbed in the heart. I do hope religion isn't claiming those as their own! FWIW, I like the concept in the book 'I Am Legend' where the vampires are repelled by religious symbols that are meaningful to them, rather than any religion in particular.
nagonago 3y ago
Thank you for introducing me to "Suzanne Delage," I am a Gene Wolfe fan but was unaware of this story until now. I found your interpretation incredibly convincing, too.
082349872349872 3y ago
From an MR comment: > Bram Stoker died in April 1912: wonder what he might have made of the spectacle of Progress known as World War One, the applications of all that beloved industry, the rational pursuit of rational ends with well-engineered (hence, rational) means, the wholesale destruction of quaint rural culture and peoples, the royal connections by blood among the crowned heads of so many of the contending parties, to say little or nothing of the Easter Rebellion of 1916. This reminds me of Heinrich Böll's At the Bridge (An der Brücke), published 1949. Its protagonist makes his own attempt to efface the legibility to technological modernity of his beloved, but as Böll had briefly worked as a statistician before turning to writing, the author was surely aware of the futility, or at least the limits, of his character's effort!

by gwern 3y ago

exolymph 3y ago

Out of sheer nerdy curiosity, have you read The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova and if so what did you think? I didn't realize Dracula lore was among your many sidelines :P

gwern 3y ago
I haven't, sorry. I didn't realize either until August last year!

wisty 3y ago

A lot of vampire fiction includes themes about technology vs the supernatural, Anne Rice especially has the vampires being overwhelmed by the new world. The focus (not so much in Ann Rice books) can be more on more action oriented technology (trains and gadgets) rather than the modern weapons of a detective though. Weird steam-punk gun gadgets (even in a modern setting like Dusk to Dawn) are a common and lazy example of these. I think a wacky invention is a shorthand to the audience for "technology". A modern Dracula with detective themes could use a "hacker" to put together the kind of digital trail that a modern police officer would follow, so we understand that checking a person's Facebook page is modern and high tech.

PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
it's been a few years since I've read through Anne Rice Vampire Chronicles but I don't recall them getting overwhelmed by the "new world". What I recall is that vampires who don't occasionally "go to sleep" never make it long enough to become truly strong. In essence, they burn out. Almost as if the world becomes so boring that they must sleep for centuries so they can wake up and find the new world _invigorating_ rather than overwhelming. In her books, both the original vampires did this, as did Lestat.
networked 3y ago
> Anne Rice especially has the vampires being overwhelmed by the new world. I think the point Rice makes in the books I have read is that the vampires are not equally overwhelmed. The Vampire Lestat is about capital-P Progress even more explicitly than Dracula. The protagonist, Lestat, is influenced by the Age of Reason he is born into. He witnesses the end of the old ways in the French Revolution. All of it prepares him for the future. This is in contrast to the younger Louis and the older Armand, who hang on to the past. The introduction to that book is memorable for being an over-the-top paean to its time. Lestat is not overwhelmed; he loves the 1980s. Quote: > As I roamed the streets of New Orleans in 1984 this is what I beheld: > The dark dreary industrial world that I'd gone to sleep on had burnt itself out finally, and the old bourgeois prudery and conformity had lost their hold on the American mind. > People were adventurous and erotic again the way they'd been in the old days, before the great middle-class revolutions of the late 1700s. They even looked the way they had in those times. The men didn't wear the Sam Spade uniform of shirt, tie, gray suit, and gray hat any longer. Once again, they costumed themselves in velvet and silk and brilliant colors if they felt like it. They did not have to clip their hair like Roman soldiers anymore; they wore it any length they desired. And the women-ah, the women were glorious, naked in the spring warmth as they'd been under the Egyptian pharaohs, in skimpy short skirts and tunic like dresses, or wearing men's pants and shirts skintight over their curvaceous bodies if they pleased. They painted, and decked themselves out in gold and silver, even to walk to the grocery store. Or they went fresh scrubbed and without ornament-it didn't matter. They curled their hair like Marie Antoinette or cut it off or let it blow free. > For the first time in history, perhaps, they were as strong and as interesting as men. > And these were the common people of America. Not just the rich who've always achieved a certain androgyny, a certain joie de vivre that the middle-class revolutionaries called decadence in the past. > The old aristocratic sensuality now belonged to everybody. It was wed to the promises of the middle-class revolution, and all people had a right to love and to luxury and to graceful things.

autio 3y ago

Thank you for that brilliant write-up on Suzanne Delage.

jackjeff 3y ago

It’s really Dracula vs Modernity. There’s nothing in the blog post that justifies the usage of the “Catholic” epithet. London is the seat of Anglican faith after all and using type writers and records are secular endeavors.

sdwr 3y ago
That's really splitting hairs. Crucifixes, holy water, and communion wafers are symbols from formal, organized Christianity, of which Catholicism is the most prominent example. It's also a sneaky, underhanded way to make a point. The shell game of argument tactics.
PhasmaFelis 3y ago
Dracula vs. Christian Modernity, maybe, but you can't really argue that religious items weren't crucial and powerful weapons in the the story.
thsksbd 3y ago
But the sacramentals used against him are Catholic (and in Romania Orthodox). I didn't read all of it, but the first two pages of [1] demonstrate how the book is "Catholic" as opposed to Anglican, with the protagonist feeling awkward, as an Anglican, at the icons and crucifixes used as (in the book effective) protection. Keep in mind, for the purposes of the book Catholicism and Orthodoxy can be considered the same as we both believe in icons, consecrated sacraments, apostolic succession, transubstination, etc https://eprints.qut.edu.au/5244/1/5244_1.pdf https://eprints.qut.edu.au/5244/1/5244_1.pdf
- pavel_lishin 3y ago
  > But the sacramentals used against him are Catholic (and in Romania Orthodox). Sure, but they sure ain't modern.
- joosters 3y ago
  But Dracula was defeated by being decapitated and stabbed in the heart. I do hope religion isn't claiming those as their own! FWIW, I like the concept in the book 'I Am Legend' where the vampires are repelled by religious symbols that are meaningful to them, rather than any religion in particular.

nagonago 3y ago

Thank you for introducing me to "Suzanne Delage," I am a Gene Wolfe fan but was unaware of this story until now. I found your interpretation incredibly convincing, too.

082349872349872 3y ago

From an MR comment: > Bram Stoker died in April 1912: wonder what he might have made of the spectacle of Progress known as World War One, the applications of all that beloved industry, the rational pursuit of rational ends with well-engineered (hence, rational) means, the wholesale destruction of quaint rural culture and peoples, the royal connections by blood among the crowned heads of so many of the contending parties, to say little or nothing of the Easter Rebellion of 1916. This reminds me of Heinrich Böll's At the Bridge (An der Brücke), published 1949. Its protagonist makes his own attempt to efface the legibility to technological modernity of his beloved, but as Böll had briefly worked as a statistician before turning to writing, the author was surely aware of the futility, or at least the limits, of his character's effort!