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A swarm of bees is both scary and enchanting
Insects terrify me. Well, not all insects and really only once. In my days as an insect ecologist, I descended into a deep draw on the prairie, where there was still some green vegetation so the grasshoppers had amassed into a bristling carpet of wings and legs. Upon my arrival, grasshoppers began boiling in every direction, ricocheting off my face, latching onto my bare arms, and crawling into my clothing. I panicked. But a week later I felt compelled to return and was torn between wanting to enter that appalling superabundance of crapping, crawling copulation—and to run from the grotesque gulch. Why?
Why are we drawn to places, events and things that evoke horror? In his darkly fascinating book on monsters, Stephen Asma recounts a conversation between a mother and her son at a medical museum. The boy was entranced by a display of a human fetus with two heads. When the mother asked, “Is this disturbing to you, William?” he replied, “God, yes. Very.” But when the she suggested they leave, the boy replied, “No, absolutely not.” I know how he felt.
We’ve all felt this Janus-faced phenomenon. Who hasn’t been tempted to look while passing an auto accident or been drawn to touch (even with a long stick) that enormous insect lurking in the garden or basement? Freudian psychologists have proposed that we emotionally abhor what we secretly desire.
And it’s not just humans. Having read that monkeys would go ape in the presence of snakes, Charles Darwin confirmed this phenomenon by putting a stuffed snake into the monkey house at the London Zoo. But then, the famed scientist tried another experiment:
I then placed a live snake in a paper bag, with the mouth loosely closed, in one of the larger compartments. One of the monkeys immediately approached, cautiously opened the bag a little, peeped in, and instantly dashed away. [Then] monkey after monkey, with head raised high and turned on one side, could not resist taking a momentary peep into the upright bag, at the dreadful object lying quietly at the bottom.
I know how they felt. And maybe monkeys understand the emotional state called “the sublime.” Conventionally, sublimity is defined in positive terms as, “The greatness of beauty, scale, goodness or brilliance which draws us closer but terrifies us with its power and supremacy.” Waterfalls, storms, and canyons can evoke this experience. But so can cockroach infestations, maggoty corpses, and grasshopper swarms in an obverse manner through the negative sublime—a depth of awfulness which draws us closer for its malevolence.
This is where science comes back into the picture. As we learn about our psychological and evolutionary links to that which authentically horrifies us, we have a basis for deep engagement with nature. The sublime is biologically genuine and worthy of wonder.
So go ahead and turn over that dung pat, or poke that ant nest. Feel a wave of paradoxical attraction and repulsion, without feeling a need to seek therapy.
