Thesis

Horror as we Know It
Post-modern Cinematic Horror as it Reflects Western
Societal Taboos and Anxieties
Brittany Kahn

What can we define as “horror?” Horror is a genre that is meant to illicit a
reaction in the audience. It can come in the form of a book, such as Bram Stoker’s
Dracula or anything by Stephen King. It can be a movie— John Carpenter’s Halloween
(1978) and Wes Craven’s Scream (1996) to name just two. Horror can also be a TV
series, to use FX’s American Horror Story (2011- ) and ABC’s Dark Shadows (1966-
1971) as examples. Horror can even be a musical. The tale of a vengeful barber who
slits peoples’ throats and then sends the bodies down a chute to be used as the stuffing for
his neighbor’s meat pies isn’t exactly Oklahoma!, musical though it may be. I am
naturally referring to the Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s classic, Sweeney Todd:
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Horror can be seen in many extraordinarily different
forms; today, however, I’m going to be focusing on the movie branch of this field,
specifically: cinematic horror.
As I stated earlier, when the term “horror movie” is mentioned, a strong, visceral
reaction is characteristically invoked. This is because horror as a genre is based on the
dependence of fear. It is a subject that is rarely treated with trepidation by those who sit
through it, be it either positive or negative in reaction. Because of this horror is generally
seen as a cult genre, meaning it appeals to a very specific demographic that bans together
communally, there are many variations currently generated from the genre. Two of the
most fertile that arise are B-movies and psychological horror. These areas of horror, even
though they have been around since the early days of horror filmmaking, are rampant in
today’s cinematic landscape. Nosferatu, directed by F.W. Murnau, a vampire film from
1922, is traditionally referred to as a horror film, yet in today’s society it would probably
not fit into any of these categories. This is because horror evolves with time. What

drives horror now may not necessarily do so in forty, or even in just ten years. Horror
changes and evolves as a result of our constantly changing society.
Today, we would probably regard movies like King Kong (1933) or Nosferatu as
“funny,” because of the ancient special effects, and the campiness of it all. At the time,
however, each of those movies was incredibly socially relevant, and to many, quite
frightening. What we may have considered “scary” or “fearsome” years ago, might not
be seen as such now. I dare say that we might not even currently classify those movies as
“horror” movies because they do little to incite fear in the contemporary American;
especially the millennial generation who grew up on Pixar and computer generated
effects. Therefore, horror, even the term itself, is relative; it comes to mean different
things over time. Shalia K. Dewan, writing for the New York Times with her article Do
Horror Films Filter the Horrors of History? claims that movies are more specific than
just reflecting general anxieties, but that they reflect specific events; for example:
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is frequently read as a critique of
McCarthy-era pod people. King Kong? A metaphor for the Great
Depression or the threat of the black man to white social norms. Godzilla?
A Japanese reaction to the devastation of the bomb. And the vampires
haunting us of late? A coded response to the trauma of AIDS. (Dewan, 1)
Even Anne Rice, author of the original novel, and the subsequent screenplay for
Interview with the Vampire (1994) based the vampire curse off of her own experience
with leukemia. This is a disease that can be life threatening; a cancer of the blood.
Therefore it is not a far stretch to go from a scary experience with leukemia to a story
populated with creatures driven by a mad blood lust.

Even though horror can be seen in the form of gory B-movies or a more
sophisticated psychological horror, a certain dichotomy exists between the two. They are
both in the horror wheelhouse, but go about attaining their thrills in different ways. To
explore this, we also turn to Dewan:
In the late 60's and 70's horror films entered a cycle of unparalleled
carnage that has often been explained in the psychological terms of, say,
family dynamics or the subconscious. As filmmakers and scholars look
more closely at those seemingly exploitative films, however, they have
shifted their focus from the psyche to the era's history, arguing that
schlocky B-movies, in particular, deserve study as important social
artifacts or as a way people process the terrors of real life. (Dewan, 1)
While it may be hard to believe that movies such as The Human Centipede (2009) or
House of Wax (2005) hold any social weight in the scheme of things, these movies tend
to say a lot about the societies and time periods in which they were made. In fact, they
each have one very important thing in common: it is the promiscuous party-girl who is
punished most harshly, along with the alpha male. To explain this concept, I will present
a series of lines from the horror satire, The Cabin in the Woods (2012) written by Joss
Whedon and Drew Goddard:
Dana: No, it's simple. They don't just wanna see us killed. They wanna
see us punished.
Marty: Punished for what?
The Director: For being young. It's different in every culture, and it has
changed over the years, but it has always required youth. There must be at

least five. The whore, she's corrupted, she dies first. The athlete. The
scholar. The fool. All suffer and die at the hands of whatever horror they
have raised, leaving the last to live or die, as fate decides. The virgin.
(Movie Quotes, 2)
Dana, played by Kristen Connolly, in this movie is “The Virgin,” while Marty (Fran
Kranz) is “The Fool.” Each of them has watched their friends die brutal deaths at the
hands of a “zombie redneck torture family,” the Buckners. The Buckner family is one of
the many “nightmare creatures” controlled by a government organization that annually
organizes the cruel and horrific deaths of these five archetypes in America— the Whore,
the Fool, the Scholar, the Athlete, and the Virgin. However, the archetypes vary in each
culture, as well as over time. For example, J-horror (Japanese horror), usually involves
very young girls, typically aged 7-10, as both the victims and the monsters themselves
(i.e. Ju-on: The Grudge (2002), Ringu (1998)); and Stockholm usually has some kind of
natural disaster, rather than a creature as its “horror.”
In the scene with the Director (Sigourney Weaver), Marty and Dana, the lone
survivors, are made privy to this organization, and its purpose: to keep “The Ancient
Ones” satisfied, in order to keep the world from being destroyed. In the end, Marty and
Dana decide to ignore the Director’s warnings, having been exposed to every horror, and
share a joint as the world is subsequently obliterated.
Apart from the idea of Ancient gods who want to destroy the Earth, this movie is
a rather relevant reflection of the contemporary B-movie. Each of the nightmare
creatures seen in The Purge (a scene where Dana and Marty release all the nightmare
creatures into the government organization) is based on a real monster or villain from an

actual horror movie. The formula this organization must follow in their sacrifice to the
gods is quite ritual and follows a very strict formula that can be seen in almost any B-
movie made in the last twenty or so years. One of the main technicians, Gary Sitterson
(Richard Jenkins), explains it all:
Sitterson: They have to make the choice of their own free will. Otherwise,
system doesn't work. Like the harbinger: creepy old fuck practically wears
a sign saying "YOU WILL DIE". Why would we put him there? The
system. They have to choose to ignore him. They have to choose what
happens in the cellar. Yeah, we rig the game as much as we have to but in
the end, if they don't transgress they can't be punished. (Movie Quotes, 2)
The technicians and the director act as a pseudo Greek chorus for the audience,
practically breaking the fourth wall to explain to the audience the satire, the “game,” the
formula. At least five beautiful young people must give into their vices (sex, drugs, ego),
and make knowingly stupid or harmful choices of their own volition. We, the audience,
are the “Ancient-ones,” watching to see if the formula is followed, waiting for the over-
confident, pretty, young innocents to be punished. The first to go is the “whore,”
arguably the most corrupted of the group. In the scene leading up to her death, the
technicians are watching intently, waiting to see if she takes off her shirt, claiming that
they are not the only ones watching—that they have an audience to satisfy.
Why focus on this perhaps lowbrow B-movie trope? Because of its nature as a
farce, it was created to speak volumes of contemporary horror movies: what they entail
and the desires of their audiences. In Stephen Prince’s book, The Horror Film, Prince
believes that the monsters and nightmare creatures that pop up in these horror movies are

actually linked to secret masochistic pleasures that when mixed with anxiety, feed into
some kind of masochistic longing, dealing with sex and fear.
[Monsters] have been regarded as excavating ‘archaic fears…and deeply
buried wishes,’ anxieties connected with sexuality and death, masochistic
pleasures generated through the imagery of suffering, violence and death,
and fears of ideological collapse and breakdown. (Prince, 118)
While I don’t necessarily agree with Prince in the fact that monsters are based in our own
masochistic pleasure, I will say that the killings themselves are based on our own sadistic
indulgences with gory images. As Prince also states in his book, “Postmodern horror is
characterized by a fascination with showing the spectacle of the ruined body” (Prince,
92).
Schadenfreude is a German word describing the satisfaction one gets from
another’s pain or loss. I would argue that many of us experience a kind of schadenfreude
when watching, say, the drunk get brutally murdered. Although we may live vicariously
through these characters, through their reckless youth and sexuality, in order to eliminate
the guilt that is parting to these taboos, we must kill these characters, both quickly and
painfully. As The Director states, they must be punished.
Psychological horror, a sub-genre not symptomatically as gory, also tends to
focus on the punishment of youth and, in many cases, sexuality. Psychological horror
tends to differ from B-movies most notably in the fact that it tends to be regarded with
much more reverence and respect. However, because of their serious nature, they also
tend to gain less cult fandom. On the other hand, many would argue that psychological

horror films are much more intellectually written, and pull from more neurological
anxieties, as opposed to broader, social anxieties.
As an example, I will pull from Darren Aronofsky’s 2010 psychosexual horror,
Black Swan. Because of its strong sexual content and slowly growing insanity of its
“protagonist,” Nina Sayers, played by Natalie Portman, it incites extreme reactions from
its audience members. At first, Nina’s story seems highly relatable—Nina could really
be anyone; she is not particularly anything—she is a blank canvas. Because of this, as
she starts to go crazy, the audience takes that journey with her, making its biggest fear
come to life—the fear of losing sight of sanity and grips with reality. While this broad
statement may seem like a bit of a stretch, I will turn to Daniel Smith’s article, "It’s Still
the ‘Age of Anxiety.’ Or Is It?"
[“The Age of Anxiety”] has been used to characterize the consciousness of
our era, the awareness of everything perilous about the modern world: the
degradation of the environment, nuclear energy, religious fundamentalism,
threats to privacy and the family, drugs, pornography, violence,
terrorism. (Smith, 1)
According to Smith, it has been the “Age of Anxiety” in America since 1948, when poet,
W.H. Auden, coined the term. We live in a culture when, in 2010, 46.3 million people
were prescribed Alprazolam (i.e. Xanax), one of the most common anti-anxiety
pharmaceuticals on the market. Clearly, Anxiety Disorder is not a rare condition. It is
anxiety that fuels our productivity-centered culture. To “pull an all-nighter” and resort to
having one’s body run on caffeine is considered an accomplishment. To be on some kind
of anti-anxiety medication, or any psychological medication for that matter, is

commonplace. And yet, for whatever reason, mental illness still has quite the stigma in
contemporary American society.
Though many suffer from it, mental illness is still a taboo topic when used in
casual conversation—a topic, unlike horror, that is met with much trepidation. Society
sees the mentally ill as “crazy,” “weird” or “insane.” However, “from a sufferer’s
perspective, anxiety is not epochal. It is always and absolutely personal” (Smith, 1).
This is what makes Aronofsky’s piece so relevant to its audience. He makes Nina’s
battle with mental illness “always and absolutely personal.” Nina is someone with whom
the audience can sympathize. She’s quiet, kind, and for all intensive purposes, virginal—
meek and mild. All these pieces together make it entirely shocking and, at times,
frightening, when she becomes her own villain—dealing with self-mutilation,
promiscuity, and jealousy. All these traits combined with her assumed and worsening
schizophrenia are what kill Nina in the end. In other words, she is victim to her own
hand. This film is not a bunch of monsters running around with blood dripping from
their teeth; it is the story of one girl’s struggle to beat her greatest enemy, herself—and
get a little maimed in the process.
IMDb, standing for Internet Movie Database, is a site that lists every movie ever
made, along with the year, the cast, trivia, etc. What makes this site so curious, however,
are the message boards that lie at the bottom of every webpage, where regular viewers get
to post their opinions for the world to see and respond. The most common threads
typically deal with which actors are “hot,” or general plot questions about the movies.
On the other hand, one thread I found particularly interesting was a thread entitled “ ‘Oh,
you just don’t gettttttttt iiiiiiiittttttttttt’ ” on the Cabin in the Woods page.

You see, those of us who have always loathed these movies, with the
isolated group of kids getting hacked and slashed by some evil beings
(pick your type), well, we've ALWAYS had the thought that they were so
stupid and cliche'd that they may as well portray the events as taking place
in a 'Truman Show' type bubble world…You know the evil, under the
ground, blood drinking entities which will wreak havoc on the world if
they are left unquenched? The ones for whose benefit all the carnage is
perpetrated? Well, that's something you didn't get, but we did: they are,
allegorically, YOU - the ever-faithful audience for these not scary but
simply nauseating torture-pornos. That these movies continue to get made,
year after year, and continue to make money, is an elegant little
summation of just about everything that is wrong with the world. (IMDb)
This post was met with much hostility from many die-hard Cabin fans, yet, the message
was the same: each of the posters agreed with what the original poster had to say—that
these movies are continually made because something in us likes, wants or even needs to
see these kids punished. Why? Perhaps it is embarrassment at our own lustful desires.
In an interview I conducted with an Emerson College film major, I was told that people
are ashamed to like sex, be obsessed with youth, and give in to their vices. In order to
vindicate ourselves from indulging in these depravities, we must admonish that guilt by
killing whatever has allowed us to partake in our vices.
As can bee seen with the making of these films, the relationship between horror
and its audience is essential; it is perhaps the backbone of the genre itself. In his book,

“The Philosophy of Horror or Paradoxes of the Heart,” Noel Carroll attempts to define
this relationship, and what it is that pulls an audience so deeply into horror plots.
…In consuming horror fictions we are not only involved in relation with
horrific beings; we are also in relations with fictional protagonists. In this
context, one wonders whether there is something special about our relation
to the protagonists in horror fictions. Do we, for example, identify with
these characters—is our fear of monsters their fear of monsters?—or is the
relation one other than identification? (Carroll, 59)
Because we sympathize so profoundly with these characters, be it relational or other, we
must be able to empathize with their plights and struggles. That being said, it is also
shameful for us to admit to this empathy—to admit to one’s own struggle with a mental
disorder, or one’s own relationship with alcohol or sex.
As with B movies, the audiences of psychological horrors must also be able to
indulge in taboos, be it sex, drugs, or in the case of Black Swan, mental illness, and then
be willing to sacrifice the character(s) who brought on these indulgences. In "Stanley
Kubrick and the Aesthetics of the Grotesque," James Naramore writes how he Stanley
Kubrick, the director of The Shining (1980), creates his psychological horror
masterpieces. “He doesn’t like people much; they interest him mainly when they do
unspeakably hideous things or when their idiocy is so malignant as to be horrifyingly
amusing” (Naramore). It is as if Kubrick is taking a mirror to society with his films—
depicting what he finds to be “horrifyingly amusing.” However, admitting that you find
someone’s mental decline “amusing” will probably not be received too well by a public

audience; again, highlighting the fact that horror movies allow its audiences to access
their secret desires in a culturally-accepted context.
Again, I turn to IMDb to get the everyman perspective on psychological horror.
On the Black Swan message boards, people’s reactions were equally as strong and
heartfelt as with The Cabin in the Woods—they either loved it, or hated it. One thread I
found particularly interesting was entitled “Creepiest Parts.” Interestingly, almost every
poster’s response said virtually the same thing: Nina’s psychological episodes were what
made the movie terrifying. One poster wrote, “It is deffinately freeky…Was Nina
posessed by something? mentally ill? I did not understand?? [Sic].” The concept that
makes movies like Black Swan or The Shining so frightening is the notion that they are a
not-so foreign reflection of mental illness and the horrors of losing grips with reality. We
have medications for everything nowadays—pills to wake up, pills to sleep, pills to calm
us down, pills to excite us, pills to make us happy, pills to void us of emotion, etc. Our
biggest fear is not having a solution to save us from ourselves.
Two of the most popular monsters used in an overabundance of movies and
television shows are zombies and vampires. What makes these creatures so fascinating is
that they are human-born—in other words, each creature was, at some point, human, and
in fact, still possesses many human qualities. They represent a direct reflection of our
worst human selves, introducing the idea that when we give into our greatest temptations,
in this case wrath and/or sex, we become dehumanized; we become monsters. Harry
Shannon, author and member of The Horror Writers Association states,
I remember reading years ago that most serial killers are not sociopaths,
and often have a very punishing conscience. At first that floored me, but it

makes sense. Imagine an endless war between sadistic, violent urges and
a relentlessly judgmental, highly critical parent voice. It’s the human
condition, but squared. The resulting cognitive dissonance is so
overwhelming it cannot be contained and must be acted out to gain even a
brief respite from the pain (Castle, 15)
In Jack Torrance’s case, he becomes a bloodthirsty axe-murderer, out to kill his own wife
and son (The Shining). Nina Sayers’ madness is what eventually drives her to stab
herself in the stomach (Black Swan). Even the archetypes in Cabin must die at their own
hands.
Dana: In the cellar, the shit we were playing with. They made us choose.
They made us choose how we die. (Movie Quotes, 2)
So what does this say about us? The knowledge that we are our own worst enemies is the
theory that fuels the entirety of the horror genre. After all, which is more frightening:
Snakes on a plane (Snakes on a Plane (2006)) or the thought of a daughter eating her own
mother (Night of the Living Dead (1968))? My guess would be the latter, since it reflects
a real-life relationship: a being that you brought into the world is the very cause of your
own agonizing, and painful death. We are the creators of our own worst nightmares. It is
part of the reason we scream, “Don’t go in there!” while watching a horror movie—we
are privy to the disheartening fact that, in many ways, these characters are the causes of
their own deaths.
In a conversation I had with the Emerson film major, the interviewee, Gavin
claimed that zombies and vampires were more than just fiction—that they are actually
fictional representations of our greatest political fears in post-millenial America. He

claimed that the zombie apocalyptic fear was rooted in the fear of a Republican
Presidency. This is, obviously, a relatively new fear, stemming from post-9/11 political
anxiety. However, he did make a few good points. Here are just a few examples of
zombie movies that emerged during the Bush Presidency: Resident Evil Series (2002),
Shawn of the Dead (2004), Planet Terror (2007), Land of the Dead (2005), I Am Legend
(2007). Republicans are seen as zombies because of their notoriously cold personas in
the media—Democratic fear reflects Republicans as the brainwashed, unfeeling masses
anxious to suck the life out of anything and everything—intent on stopping others from
using their brains. Funny, yet, in just a few years, we have seen the tables turned.
As Obama took presidency in 2008, zombie movies have either taken a back seat
or become funnier—less horrific. For example, Zombieland (2009) is a comedy, Warm
Bodies (2013), a love story. According to Gavin’s theory, more vampires have appeared
in the media as a result of Republican fear in a democratic presidency (i.e. Let Me In
2010), Thirst (2009), Fright Night (2011), Perfect Creatures (2006)). In the eyes of
Republicans, Democrats can be seen as vampires—oversexed, blood-sucking, amoral
humanoid creatures.
While this theory may not necessarily be a hundred percent accurate, it certainly
highlights many of the anxieties of American culture post 9/11, going back to the idea
that horror changes and evolves over time. As Dewan states so eloquently in her article,
“The changes [in horror films] had more to do with what was going on outside the studio
than inside it.” It is the creator’s job to play off of the current fears and pleasures of
society in order to create something worth-watching—something to which people can
relate—something that will scare them yet somehow entice them. Horror must be

founded in something real. Even the goriest of the B movies reflect something societally
and/or socially relevant in one-way or another.
Stephen King is perhaps the most notorious writer and creator of horror. His
works are both socially and culturally relevant, and reflect the idea that as humans, we
are our own worst enemies. The Happening, a movie that surfaced in 2008 based on the
Stephen King novel centers around the notion that plants, having been abused by
mankind for many years, take revenge on humankind by releasing some sort of toxin into
the air that drives people to commit brutal suicides. The Mist (2007), also originally a
Stephen King novel is about the consequences of human gusto—when army scientists
decide to open a portal to explore new worlds, releasing countless unearthly creatures
hell-bent on destroying mankind.
Therefore, not only does horror evolve with time, horror serves as a warning—as
a cautionary tale that changes over time. In Film, Horror and the Body Fantastic, Linda
Badley lays out the theory that horror functions as “safe pornography,” –that “its
conventions are fetishistic substitutes for the objects of sexual fears and desires” (Badley,
12). She goes on,
In Dreadful Pleasures: An anatomy of Modern Horror (1985), James
Twitchell argues that horror films are cautionary tales and rites of passage
for adolescents. They covertly demonstrate the dangers of incest and
implant taboos while providing safe outlets for sexual energy and anxiety.
(Badley, 12)

However, these desires need not be limited to sexuality in nature. As can be seen with
Stephen King, horror can serve as a warning for any human vice, and these vices are
subject to change over time.
And yet, the question still remains: why are we so drawn to horror? I would
argue that by giving in to this “safe pornography,” there is a catharsis experienced by the
audience. While the audience is able to indulge in fantasy and vice, this eventually
becomes the death of the main characters, and the audience is vindicated from its
shameful and secretive indulgence. Movies carry an experience unlike any other.
Noel Carrol asserts that this concept is, in itself, a paradox:
This paradox amounts to the question of how people can be attracted by
what is repulsive. That is, the imagery of horror fiction seems to be
necessarily repulsive and, yet, the genre has no lack of consumers.
Moreover, it does not seem plausible to regard these consumers—given
the vast number of them—as abnormal or perverse in any way that does
not beg the question. (Carroll, 160)
I would argue that for a person to admit his/her desire for sex, hubris, or even violence
might bring upon him/her the label of perverse; yet, in a horror context, this allowance is
acceptable.
With this in mind, it is no wonder that the genre itself carries with it many taboos.
In fact, films and topics that were once taboo may now be seen as anything but.
Not only has the horror film become more socially acceptable, movies that
were once considered radical and taboo, like Halloween and The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre, are now considered classic masterpieces of the same

genre. It seems ridiculous to claim that any horror movie today is
“repressed” or “taboo.” (Prince, 170)
Horrors evolve with the taboos that change over time. Many of the taboos, such as
scientific hubris, are staples of the horror genre, even early horror—just look at Mary
Shelley (Frankenstein, Golem). Yet the ways in which these taboos are depicted vary
and progress over time. In its day, Nosferatu was a film that dealt with sex and sexual
awakening as well as sex’s inherent dangers.
Part of the reason horror movies differ so much nowadays from their original
form in the 1910’s and ‘20’s is because society has become desensitized to horror. It
takes more than just a man in a monster suit to scare audiences now. As Steve Hadley,
Gary Sitterson’s partner, jokes in Cabin, “Remember when you could just throw a girl in
a volcano?” indicating that the process to scare an audience now is harder than it ever
has been before; undoubtedly due to audiences’ desensitization to horror. And thus,
torture porn was born.
Torture porn is as it sounds: an overabundance of gore and torture of its victims as
the primary exhibition of the horror film. Plot is secondary to this visual spectacle—what
is most important is that the victims suffer—immensely and visibly. Some examples
include the Saw series (2004-2009), The Human Centipede: The First Sequence (2009),
and The Human Centipede II: The Full Sequence (2011). Movies of this genre were once
known as “slasher flicks,” however, as technology and visual effects progressed, they
came to be known as gore (or torture) porn. This genre is an emergence of a constantly
changing audience.

And thus is the story with all horror—a genre made specifically for an audience,
subject to a necessary evolvement as ideals and society change. Certain staples of horror,
such as the consequences of human curiosity, seem to be constants in the genre; yet, the
punishment seems to have gotten worse over the years, as well as the sins themselves.
Where Red Riding Hood was once simply calling attention to herself with a red cape, a
girl must now be naked and physically involved in intercourse to receive the label
“whore,” and thus be brutally killed. Where a doctor was once guilty of sewing together
a man out of severed body parts (Frankenstein), the scientists at an army base are now
being accused of being responsible for opening up other worldly portals (The Mist). In
each case, the humans have brought their grim fates upon themselves.
As I stated earlier, what makes the horror genre so malleable are the forces that
change over time, as well as the events that transpire. Like any other genre, horror is
driven by its surroundings. Whether it be the political climate, the air of war, the threat
of terrorism, or the sheer anxiety that has haunted America since the 1940’s, we, as
humans, become victim to our circumstances, and need an outlet to release our fears and
even our guilt. It is no coincidence that the majority of horrors shown in movies are due
to some sort of human folly—this “safe pornography” is meant to serve as a warning to
mankind.
Keeping in mind that cinematic horror has had much time to evolve since the
1910’s, horror has become gorier, sexier, and more dramatic than ever before.
Filmmakers are pushing the envelope as the societal hunger for this safe pornography
becomes greater, and more complex. And with this increased desire, comes increased
“sin”—increased guilt that must be admonished. As the 2013 United States Senate

sequester prayer stated so perfectly, “O God…save us from ourselves,”—our greatest,
and most dangerous enemy.
Bibliography
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