Praise of the Uncanny

As you've probably heard, Republicans are called “weird.”

In a joke that spawned one million memes, Minnesota Governor and eventual vice presidential candidate Tim Walz referred to his right-wing political opposition as “weird people” in a July 23, 2024, article. Interview on MSNBC.

Since then, the dig has stuck with leading figures within the Democratic Party, from the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as presidential candidate Kamala Harrisand branded their Republican opposition with this nickname.

Of course, Republicans have tried to flip the script, using the classic response, “I know you are, but what am I?”

“You know what’s really strange?” Donald Trump Jr. commented on X. “Politicians like Kamala, who are lenient on crime, let illegal immigrants out of prison so they can violently attack Americans.” And in an interview with conservative radio host Clay Travis: Former President Donald Trump said of the Democrats“These are the weird guys. Nobody has ever called me weird. I'm a lot of things, but I'm not weird.”

While I understand why each side throw weird bombs at one another, I still disagree with all of the “weird-shaming.” Not only is it hypocritical for either side to assert to talk on behalf of the forgotten and marginalized while derisively calling the opposite side weird, it's also deeply regressive.

The uncanny, I’d say, deserves respect. As someone who has spent the last three many years researching, writing about, and teaching about subjects resembling vampires, ghosts, monsters, cult movies, and what’s categorized as “uncanny fiction,” I should know.

'Wyrd' story

When politicians use the term “weird,” they are attempting to portray their opponents as strange or odd. However, the origins of the term are much broader and deeper.

The Old English “wyrd,” from which the trendy usage is derived, was actually a noun meaning fate or destiny.”Wyrd” referred to the forces that direct the course of human affairs – an understanding that is reflected, for example, in Shakespeare’s three prophetic “uncanny sisters” in “Macbeth.” The “weird” of a person was his destiny, while using the term “weird” as an adjective implied the supernatural power to control human destiny.

Despite the increasing generalization of the term to explain all strange, incredible and strange things, echoes of the “wyrd” origins of the uncanny remain in what’s today called “strange fictiona subgenre of speculative fiction.

The strange story, explains an early twentieth century author H.P. Lovecraft in his 1927 treatise “Supernatural horror in literature”, challenges our taken-for-granted understanding of how the world works. It does so through – to make use of Lovecraft's characteristically flowery prose – a “malign and peculiar suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of nature which are our only safeguards against the onslaughts of chaos and the demons of uncharted space.”

The eerie story challenges human megalomania and shows how little we all know in regards to the universe and the way precarious our situation really is.

Meanwhile, the freaks, geeks, outsiders, misfits and loners are the oddballs who fight back in other ways. They are the nonconformists who, as Ralph Waldo Emerson noted in his 1841 essay,Independence”, “the world lashes … with its displeasure.”

I ponder where we can be without the artists, scientists and thinkers who develop “strange” ideas and unorthodox ways of seeing and appreciating the world?

In this sense, just about all progress is an element of a wierd story, driven by visionaries who were often misunderstood of their time.

From denigration to celebration

Of course, not all nutcases change the world through grand gestures and earth-shattering interventions; sometimes nutcases just do their very own thing.

This too was an enormous a part of the story of the last century, when Western culture increasingly – albeit reluctantly – made room for once unorthodox and even taboo types of self-expression, of tattoos Shows attract.

Nevertheless, the increasing proliferation of subcultures, gender identities and types of self-expression – undoubtedly driven by capitalist market forces – shows that individualism is extremely valued today.

In fact, popular culture has been very thinking about welcoming historical oddballs back into society – a lot in order that vampires, ogres and fairy tale villains like Maleficent from “Sleeping Beauty” now win the audience’s sympathy by telling their side of the story.

The real villains today are sometimes seen as those that demonize difference and demand on restricting individual freedom of expression. Many contemporary monsters will not be evil, They are simply misunderstood – and their monstrous behavior is the results of bullying, exclusion, insults and rejection because they’re “weird.”

Reclaiming the uncanny

However serious this claim could also be, there are, after all, strategic reasons for the Democrats' use of this strange characterization.

Walz's barb clearly struck a chord with a crowd that appears to be troubled by the concept of ​​not being “normal,” and that’s the reason I believe Democrats have repeatedly tried to sell them on that concept.

Historian of political rhetoric Jennifer Mercieca told Associated Press“The opposite of normalising authoritarianism is to portray it as strange, to denounce it and to some extent to ridicule it.” In other words, to call the opposition and its policies “strange” is to denigrate them as abnormal.

But political expediency has consequences – and here, to my great regret, I have to agree with Vivek Ramaswamy, the conservative businessman who ran unsuccessfully for the Republican presidential nomination.

Ramaswamy wrote on X that the strange insults are “a little ironic, since they come from a party that preaches 'diversity and inclusion'.” Ironic remains to be a gentle formulation.

While it could actually make sense to make use of the term “weird” to frustrate political opponents, I’d slightly reclaim weirdness as something to be valued, respected, and celebrated.

The weird is what creates cracks within the edifice of the established order and opens up possibilities for other futures and expressions. There are many various, more specific adjectives that politicians and others can use to characterize their rivals.

Let's keep America weird.