[Joy Division's] Ian Curtis was epileptic and suffered from depression. That could make you melancholy anywhere.
...
Quite so.
Let's build on this to go further and faster, into an uncanny valley of shadows.
I think that the melancholia of Joy Division and The Cure were, contrary to popular belief and my own thinking of only a few years ago, not merely the indulgence of suburban adolescence or a geo-sociologically explainable manifestation of the fallen moods of neglected British cities but a harbinger of our collective, future psyche.
People who intelligently embrace their melancholia, who explore the meaning of these states of mind, are ahead of the rest of us who doggedly insist on finding silver linings, looking for bright sides and clinging to 'hope' like a shipwreck survivor to a burning hull remnant.
Everything from the death of the illusion of a pure other called 'Nature' (one of the consequences of climate change is a realization of negative interconnectedness...always there of course, but now made explicit) to the reduction of serious left politics to the level of the sincerely pursued hobby of a dedicated few, to the splintering of feminism into innumerable fiefdoms, to the triumph of capitalism (a triumph which is the equivalent of placing a narrowly clever, but mostly stupid child on the throne of a vast empire) should give us pause, should inspire quiet reflection and feelings of melancholy.
Not paralysis, but an acknowledged and warmly embraced darkness. Before you can plan for future success you must acknowledge how badly you've been beaten and, mourn.
[P.S. At the heart of classic Morrissey lyrics is a delight in imagined and practiced evil, hidden beneath layers of what, to impatient American and British ears, in love with the fantasy of six pack ab action, sounds like impotent whining. We need more of this, I think. It is a successful adaptation to the modern moment.]
.d.