Horror, High and Low (pt. 3)

In case you missed 'em,

Part 1

Part 2

and on to Part 3 . . .

Primary and Secondary Process: A Lateral View

So far I've argued that the characteristics that typify genre fiction and literary fiction derive from primary process and secondary process, respectively. That explains what each set of characteristics has in common, and also why the sets form such a stark dichotomy.

It also begins to explain why so many critics and creators despise the genre characteristics as vices, and praise the literary characteristics as virtues. Primary process tends to be disparaged as low, childish, and primitive, whereas secondary process tends to be esteemed as elevated, mature, and sophisticated.

Now, let's be clear--I'm not claiming that critics or anyone else hold these attitudes in terms of "primary process" and "secondary process." I'm using those technical terms as shorthand for everything that falls within two broad modes of cognitive/emotional/psychological processing. The truth is, most people, even most critics, just see certain forms of thought or expression as childish or mature, primitive or sophisticated, etc., and that's all there is to it, as far as they're concerned.

Anyway, I'd argue that this bias against primary process in favor of secondary process is a groundless prejudice that commonly emerges, for reasons that aren't hard to understand, in the natural course of our development. What's more, it's a prejudice that further development should correct, but often doesn't.

Freud remarks that we have a natural tendency to form a repressive, antagonistic "defence against a phase of development that has been surmounted." His favorite example to illustrate this is when "the gods of a superseded period of civilization turn into demons." I'd suggest that this quirk of human psychology is what gives rise to the prejudice against primary process and everything it characterizes.

Here's a very simple example. Let's say I'm a child. Before I learn to read, the only things in books that speak to me are pictures. As I begin to learn to read, I rely on the pictures to give me information, and from that, I begin to grasp the simple words that accompany them. A gradual reversal takes place, where I look more and more to the words for meaning and information; the books I read have fewer pictures, and the illustrations begin to function more like training wheels on a bike--they merely confirm what I'm drawing from the words. Eventually, I reach a point where I don't need pictures either to sustain my attention or to supply any information. I can gather all the meaning and information from the words themselves. I'm a big boy--I can read!

Now, this is quite an accomplishment, and one that any child should feel proud of. Often, though, there's an unfortunate side effect--illustrated text now represents something the child has gotten beyond. That stuff's for babies! And to reinforce the notion, there's little brother, flipping through a picture book because he can't read like I can. Is there anything inherently childish or inferior about illustrated text? Of course not. But that's the impression that emerges all too naturally from such a course of development.

That's not all, though. Secondary process is necessary for full adulthood in literate modern civilization, but it's only acquired through long and difficult learning, discipline, and training. It presents itself initially as something alien and even hostile to the child, who is quite content with the natural, comfortable, and familiar primary process. Inevitably, achievement toward secondary process is praised and rewarded, and continued reliance on primary process is disparaged and even shamed, to spur the child to take the arduous steps toward acquiring the secondary process.

What's more, primary process can never be finally conquered or dispelled, because it's rooted so deeply in our instinctual lives as organisms. That means secondary process is never entirely secure as the dominant mode. Reversion to primary process (i.e. regression) always remains a possibility, and by its nature, a temptation. Now, there are many contexts in modern adult life where primary process is absolutely very appropriately subordinated to secondary process--the world of work being probably the paradigm example. In these contexts, it takes continued discipline and energy to be a professional, rational, competent, polite, reality-based grown-up, and sometimes we have to admonish ourselves or others for inappropriate lapses. Again, though, the necessary and legitimate stigmatization of primary process in inappropriate contexts has an unfortunate tendency to foster a stigmatization that is more general or even absolute.

Considering such factors, it's no wonder we tend to view primary and secondary process in terms of a vertical, polar hierarchy. Primary process appears childish and primitive, something of low or negative value to be outgrown and left behind by individuals and cultures. Secondary process becomes the exclusive measure of individual and cultural achievement. What I hope I've shown here is that this bias emerges as the outcome of certain dynamics that tend to skew our perspective even as they drive our development.

Gisela Labouvie-Vief et al. actually see this alienation from primary process as the natural cost of one stage of development. And they do see it as a cost. They see the acquisition of secondary process as entailing not only gain, but also significant loss. That loss, specifically, involves a "devaluation of the inner, subjective, and organic," and a disconnect from "meaning systems that originate in the organismic, the sensorimotor, the figurative, the dynamic, and the personal."

Fortunately, that cost can be recuperated--and should be, in further development, in a subsequent stage of reconnection with the "organismic core of meaning." Labouvie-Vief et al. argue that, once the secondary process has been acquired, the primary process must come to be appreciated, embraced, and reintegrated all over again, from the vantage of maturity. Full maturity has not yet been achieved, on this view, so long as the individual persists in a generally negative attitude toward primary process, and regards "a whole mode of potentially adaptive adult functioning . . . only in pejorative terms." Further development, they argue, properly replaces the hierarchical view with a view according to which,

[Primary and secondary process] constitute two irreducible forms of knowing, experiencing, and processing. One of them provides structured closure, stability, and precision; the other, dynamic openness, richness and personal significance. Thus the two modes are laterally organized, and they cooperate in a mutually enriching exchange.

A Positive Account of Genre Fiction

To say that genre fiction at its most typical is characterized by primary process is to say that it's oriented toward that "organismic core of meaning."

That lends it a kind of immediate, near-universal accessibility. This is what critics sneer at as "mass" or "popular" appeal, and it's why, as Jahsonic points out, genre fiction travels and translates so well.

This orientation also lends heat, vitality, a deeply human pulse.

Ultimately, it means that genre fiction not only doesn't achieve literary ideals, but doesn't even aim for them. Genre fiction's orientation, diametrically opposed to that of literary fiction, suggests different ideals altogether. And if we accept the lateral view of primary and secondary process outlined above, we must recognize that the ideals of genre fiction are, in fact, legitimate ideals. They emphasize intensity of experience, warming oneself at the radiant core of life, unleashing the id, connecting with the archetypal and reconnecting with the primal. These, in my judgement, represent the promise of genre fiction at its "lowest," and its own measures of excellence. These are what I aspire to in my own writing, and why I've chosen the lowest roads through horror: sex, violence, and the supernatural.

The funny thing is, just as primary process may be embraced both before and after acquisition of secondary process, so genre fiction can be created and appreciated "on both sides" of literary fiction. Many people, "the masses," only establish the secondary process in themselves to the minimal, rudimentary degree necessary to function in modern society, and then cultivate it no further. For them (and I know how condescending this will sound, but tough shit--it's the truth) reversion to primary process may be very easy, comfortable, and natural, so that hacking out genre fiction or enjoying it would pose no difficulty whatsoever.

For someone who has more drastically transformed their personality and cognitive style, on the other hand, secondary process may feel much more like second nature; it may be much more difficult to relax and regress to a point where primary process may be accessed and indulged, and genre fiction may be created or enjoyed. And yet, this capacity to relax and regress to primary process does represent a higher stage of maturity than a rigid clinging to secondary process.

Critics who disdain genre fiction out of hand, and writers who scorn to create it, thus reveal not an elevated taste or any special sophistication, but rather a kind of immaturity and psychological rigidity. They cling to a prejudice founded upon a fallacy that emerges from a middle stage of development. They're stuck at the stage of having acquired secondary process--perhaps to a remarkable degree--but haven't taken the next step of recuperating what's worthwhile in primary process. A more mature critical attitude, one that has made that reconnection, rather manifests a healthy flexibility described by Ernst Kris as,

The capacity of gaining easy access to id material without being overwhelmed by it, of retaining control over the primary process [i.e., while indulging it], and, perhaps specifically, the capability of making rapid or at least appropriately rapid shifts in levels of psychic function . . .

I think this truly positive account of genre fiction is what's needed to put Jahsonic's "nobrow" position on its firmest footing. I'm no more interested in Danielle Steele than Jan is, but now we're in a position to say something about her--at least to the extent that we're in a position to say something about genre fiction in general. Likewise, when Jan likens exclusively highbrow critics to someone who "only know[s] two colors, let's say green and blue," we're now in a position to complete that metaphor by filling in the blanks of what the other colors represent that are missing from that palette--the warm colors, appropriately enough!

This completes the fundamental argument I'd like to make about genre fiction and its merits. In future posts in this series, I'll elaborate more specifically how the various characteristics that typify genre fiction derive from primary process, and the possibilities they hold for excellence, contrary to the view of most critics who see them only as flaws. And, of course, eventually I'll get to horror. Stay tuned!