“Perfect order is the forerunner of perfect horror.” This “Thought for the Day” was offered in the ABC News “Today in History” feature on 4/26/11. Credited to the great Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes, you are left on your own to ponder his meaning. Google itemizes over 5,000 websites that contain the quotation, mostly compilation sites that aggregate famous quotations, they offer nothing to the question of meaning. One writing blog posits that Fuentes is offering advice on how to write horror fiction à la Stephen King.
The quotation comes from Fuentes’ epic historical novel Terra Nostra written in 1975. In a chapter titled “Stages of the Night” set in Rome, Brother Julian is instructed that the night has seven stages: “crepusculum; fax, the moment at which the torches are lighted; concubium, the hour of sleep; nox intempesta, the time when all activity is suspended; gallicinium, the cock’s crow; conticinium, silence; and aurora”. Brother Julian rebels at this arbitrary partitioning. “The night is natural... and its division into phases a mere convention…”
Brother Julian concludes that “…perfect order is the forerunner of perfect horror; nature rejects that order, preferring instead to proceed with the multiple disorder of the certainty of freedom.”
In a later section, one of Fuente’s characters dreams "I travel from spirit to matter. I return from matter to spirit. There are no frontiers. Nothing is forbidden to me.” Absolute freedom seems the theme.
So rather than Fuentes giving us advice on how to write horror novels, I believe he is making an observation on the relationships between order and security, risk and freedom.
At one time, children played in the dirt, knee-torn trousers, scabby elbows and all. There was no hue and cry to equip them with alcohol hand wipes and helmets, and yet they thrived. In our security-burdened psyches today, perfect safety is the goal. As a result, we have arrived at such warped outcomes as TSA agents fondling the nether regions of 6-year-old girls and their great grandmothers.
The expansion of the nanny state has grown largely on citizens' fears and their desire to be safe. But unwilling to content themselves with personal choice, your neighbors are asking legislators to limit your choices as well. I don't personally smoke nor consume trans fats, but who am I to say that you can't enjoy a French fry? Laws banning foods or behaviors or practices remove from the individual the necessity to exercise common sense, to take personal responsibility for their life, to actually live their life.
Living entails risk. To be alive is to be exposed to risk. One could and should take reasonable measures to mitigate risk, but beware that in the act of doing so, you are always trading off freedom for security. For that reason, it is important that the bulk of these tradeoffs be made by personal choice, not a stultifying government.
Recognize that dreams of perfect order result in the nightmares of its victims. Witness Nazi Germany and the Soviet archipelago.
Accept some risks, manage them, and live your life. Remember that the only way to be perfectly safe is to be perfectly dead.
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