Salt City Sinner

  In a parallel universe, a popular thinker like Thomas Frank correctly identified the problem currently tearing the US and much of the world apart. In this alternate reality, this thinker may have even been able to proffer a solution, given a keen enough intellect or the right insight. 

  Metaphors! You know them, you love them, you need them – but much like motor vehicles, semiautomatic rifles, and pet chinchillas, they are easily abused! 

  Why do people love horror? It seems like a bland enough question; we might as well ask why people like kimchi, or ghost peppers. Humans are endlessly delighted by stimulation, and as even a casual fan of BDSM can tell you, sometimes pleasure is sweeter when it’s been spiked (so to speak) with a little pain. Is that all it is? Are fans of horror indulging our taste for having our neurons flogged? Are horror nerds high on adrenaline the way an extreme sports enthusiast or roller coaster fanatic is? Or is there a deeper attraction – cold metaphorical bones beneath the twitchy flesh of scares-as-thrills?