Cute Monsters and the Problem of Evil
Whatever happened to the good old days when we recognized that some things are ugly, some things are monsters and you can't fix them? In this episode, I address the increasingly prevalent phenomenon of cute monsters in fiction and why it is a symptom of a more significant breakdown of a concrete worldview in society. Monsters without teeth are really just a way to say that there is no such thing as evil; there is only misunderstanding. The minimization of all monstrosity to nothing but a lack of tolerant understanding removes the task of human self-examination, seeing the potential of evil inside of us, and having the hope for redemption. Malevolence is a force, simmering under the surface of all humans, and it is real.