#especially if your friends and family demand you follow the Existing Moral Framework under threat of being wrong and evil for something

[thebigcj]

I’ve got a slightly different interpretation to add. Don’t get me wrong, this is an absolutely like, objectively correct take described above, but to offer something that I think applies to a few more people in the real world:

It’s the “not being able to fit into an existing moral framework” quote from OP that really spoke to me here. Think of whatever Existing Moral Framework that you find yourself debating with wether online or irl (I won’t name names or point fingers, but all the ones I’m talking about are the reason I capitalized Existing Moral Framework). Now, when that person interacts with something that doesn’t fit into this Existing Moral Framework, they are quick to dismiss it, claim that thing doesn’t exist, or that it’s evil and wrong. The consequences of refusing to entertain change is that there will be more and more things that crop up in the world that simply cannot mesh with said Existing Moral Framework as it is.

The true horror of Lovecraft, I find, is just how much stuff this guy couldn’t adapt to. Like, interracial couples, complex math, even air conditioners??

Bro was so resistant to change that he made up monsters and demons about it.

You see that a lot with those who won’t accept change; that they will claim everything is monsters and demons because it’s simply easier than admitting that their Existing Moral Framework may be in any way incorrect.

People honestly didn’t go “mad” from seeing cosmic horror things in Lovecraft very often. That’s a modern thing, and honestly feels like modified “gorgon”

Usually its stress, paranoia or ptsd from near death experience.

The true terror was not really in seeing something horrifying and alien, but understanding the implications, or not being able to fit it into an existing mental framework.