{"id":33752,"date":"2024-05-17T13:11:29","date_gmt":"2024-05-17T20:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=33752"},"modified":"2024-05-17T13:11:30","modified_gmt":"2024-05-17T20:11:30","slug":"in-midnight-interview-dracula-sees-bright-future-for-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/05\/17\/in-midnight-interview-dracula-sees-bright-future-for-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"IN MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW, DRACULA SEES BRIGHT FUTURE FOR\u00a0DEMOCRACY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u2018Democracy and Vampires Have a Lot in Common,\u2019 Says 600-Year-Old Romanian Count  <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What does the world\u2019s most famous vampire think about the future of democracy? Columnist Joe Mathews finds out in an exclusive interview with Dracula. Photo from the film Dracula (1931). Courtesy of Universal Studios via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>. Public domain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

by<\/em> JOE MATHEWS | MAY 14, 2024 (ZocaloPublicSquare.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I emailed Dracula\u2019s people because I was heading to Romania, for a global democracy forum that I help lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I\u2019m in Bucharest, I asked, could I take the train up to Transylvania and spend a day chopping it up with the Count? After all, he\u2019s been around for 600 years and has seen many, many dark times for governance and democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reply, I got a cryptic text telling me to arrive by midnight at an address in Beachwood Canyon, high in the Hollywood Hills above L.A. The place was invisible from the street, and so dark I had to turn on my iPhone flashlight to find the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then, at my knock, the world\u2019s most famous vampire opened the door. He ushered me to a chair in a room lit only by fireplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dracula: Welcome to my castle in the air. Now, can my servant Renfield get you something to drink? Want to join me for a pint of O-negative?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me: Thanks, but I\u2019m fine, Count.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dracula: Please, call me Vlad<\/a>. And suit yourself (pouring blood into a glass). I need a drink from a stiff before discussing democracy these days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me: I hoped we\u2019d be meeting in Eastern Europe and talking about June\u2019s European elections and rising authoritarianism there. What are you doing in L.A.?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dracula: Romania will always be home, but many decades ago, I realized that Hollywood would never stop calling. I used to stay with my friend Bela Lugosi<\/a>, right down the street, but he got tired of the LAPD knocking on the door asking for me every time some teenage girl got a hickey. So, I had this place built. It\u2019s small for a castle, but I never went and had a family like Gomez Addams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s more than paid for itself. To date, more than 80 films<\/a> have been made about me. Yes, those Netflix execs\u2014who suck more blood in a half-hour pitch meeting than I have in my whole existence\u2014don\u2019t pay well. But it\u2019s amazing how much work my fellow vampires at CAA can get me for uncredited script doctoring and story consulting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I advised the cast during the New Orleans shoot of Renfield<\/em><\/a>, a 2023 comedy with Nicholas Cage playing me. Nick and I hit it off. I\u2019m not saying he\u2019s a vampire\u2014I respect his privacy\u2014but I will say he didn\u2019t have to do much to get into character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me: Do you see the story of Dracula having an impact on how the world runs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

D: Sometimes I worry I have too much impact. Porphyria\u2014which they call the vampire disease, because you have trouble with sunlight and sometimes must retreat into darkness\u2014used to be considered rare. Now, with everyone up half the night on their screens, people are becoming more like me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despair has its own calms, I suppose. And I enjoy a long night. But the fact that we\u2019re so atomized makes democracy and self-government quite difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AI means that humans can stay alive digitally long after our human bodies are dust. We are all vampires now. Which means that humans need to take a much longer view and build more flexible institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me: Vlad, you\u2019ve been around longer than anyone living. In human form, you lived as the ruthless ruler of Wallachia<\/a> in the 1400s, famous for your cruelty toward your enemies. Then, vampires became an obsession in the 1700s, and you emerged publicly in Bram Stoker\u2019s 1897 novel, Dracula,<\/em> and have been famous ever since. In all that time, what has changed the most in how humans govern themselves?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

D: What\u2019s changing the most is the very nature of what it means to be human. And that\u2019s changed self-government and everything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We not only live longer, but we never go away. I died in 1476, yet I\u2019m still around, sort of human. AI means that humans can stay alive digitally long after our human bodies are dust. We are all vampires now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which means that humans need to take a much longer view and build more flexible institutions. Because humans and vampires alike are changing so fast. Look at me. I started as this figure of fear\u2014of violence, of disease<\/a>. I was the bad, undead guy. But now in popular culture, I\u2019m the cool Gothic mainstay<\/a>, an outsider. Just look at how I\u2019m portrayed by younger, better-looking actors<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The secret of my success is flexibility: I don\u2019t fit into categories or labels. I\u2019m good and I\u2019m bad, real and unreal, dead and alive. And this makes me emblematic of what the British literary historian Nick Groom, in The Vampire: A New History<\/em><\/a>, calls our \u201cvampirocene era\u2026 in which the human race has the transformed the world, but in doing so has also lost its primacy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me: Vampirocene? So, you\u2019re saying the world is getting better?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

D: It\u2019s definitely more open, inclusive and democratic. I know that sounds strange\u2014Dracula, optimist. But that\u2019s only because so many people are still thinking too short-term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GET MORE Z\u00d3CALO<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ideas journalism with a head and heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may opt out or contact us<\/a> anytime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Look at Romania. Just two generations ago, we were ruled by a far crueler villain than I ever was, Nicolae Ceau\u0219escu, a communist dictator who built a society nearly as totalitarian as North Korea. But we learn from failure, not from success. Now Romania<\/a> is in the European Union and the eurozone, and we have a real democracy, despite the pressures coming from that other Vlad<\/a>, who impaled far more people than I ever did, running Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me: Aren\u2019t you worried about potential right-wing gains in June\u2019s European elections<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

D: Sure. The world seems full of good men\u2014but there are monsters in it<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are always people trying to scapegoat democracy for our problems. There are always tyrants trying to kill off democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just like there are always people who hate vampires. Some hate us so much that, like that Buffy chick<\/a>, they seek to slay us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But no matter how hard they try to kill us, we vampires keep coming back, because people want us. Take Interview with the Vampire<\/em>\u2014it was a book, then a movie, and now it\u2019s a TV show, all huge hits!  The same thing is true of democracy. Look at Turkey\u2014its national government goes theocratic and authoritarian, and yet its cities respond by becoming more democratic<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democracy and vampires have a lot in common.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me: Do you really think that vampires can inspire a more democratic world?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

D:  If an undead guy with a story as ugly and bloody as mine can still bring magic into the universe, then I\u2019m quite sure that the living can collectively recognize that knowledge is stronger than memory<\/a>, and conquer Earth\u2019s scariest problems together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOE MATHEWS<\/strong>is columnist for Zocalo Public Square<\/a>, founder-publisher of Democracy Local<\/a>, and a leader of the 2024 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy<\/a>, in Bucharest, Romania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Democracy and Vampires Have a Lot in Common,\u2019 Says 600-Year-Old Romanian Count   What does the world\u2019s most famous vampire think about the future of democracy? Columnist Joe Mathews finds out in an exclusive interview with Dracula. Photo from the film Dracula (1931). Courtesy of Universal Studios via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain…. Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33752"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33753,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33752\/revisions\/33753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}