How does one explain the efflorescence of the vampire in popular culture? David Solway has an idea:

One can’t help but notice the growing prevalence of the vampire archetype in contemporary fiction and film, corresponding to the popular fascination with the Titanic story. The vampire and the Titanic constitute cultural paradigms, aspects of the subliminal awareness of deep social currents, suppressed forces, and nocturnal apprehensions expressed as aesthetic configurations.

It used to be “sympathy for the devil.” Now it’s sympathy for cognizable evil:

The premonition that something is awfully wrong haunts the imagination, although much of the time we cannot isolate precisely what it is that lurks in the shadows of our doubts and misgivings. Terrorism and a revived Islam, for example, clearly stalk the collective psyche. According to ancient lore, the vampire must first be invited into the premises he subsequently terrorizes, and this is certainly the case with the Islamic demographic. At the same time, all too many of us refuse to consciously acknowledge the threat and strive instead to prettify the image of Islam as a “religion of peace” — just as the modern vampire tends to be nipped and tucked into a cosmetic semblance of nobility and innocence.

The vampire literary paradigm taps into our apprehensiveness of imminent upheaval:

Perhaps the specter that most keenly taxes the confidence of many Americans is the suspicion of impending cataclysm. Its sepulchral origin may escape the majority of those who are distressed by the prospect of a coming debacle, but it is embodied in a pervasive and commanding presence. The determined scavenger crouching beneath the casements of the national edifice should not be hard to identify, for it too has been invited past the threshold and treated by many as an honored guest.

For Solway, the vampire is a reification of today’s debased politico-cultural milieu:

. . . it proceeds systematically to undermine the strength of those among whom it freely moves, surviving by transfusions of the energy and substance of others who remain unaware that they are the quarry and not the beneficiaries. It redistributes the lifeblood of nations throughout its own body and the collective body of its adherents. It offers ease, comfort, and security, but at the insidious expense of vitality and freedom — and ultimately of the very ease, comfort, and security it has guaranteed. Its manner can be suave and polished though often enough a rough impatience pokes through its carefully constructed veneer. It responds to challenges with aristocratic haughtiness and gutter ruthlessness. It is clever and unscrupulous. It is a purveyor of lies and deceptions. It loves the accoutrements of power and the grand architecture of its residence. It embraces what appear to be noble causes the better to hide its appetite for dominion. It is both furtive and conspicuous. And the irony is that eventually it must run out of blood, to everyone’s cost, even the vampire’s.

Solway leaves it to the reader to identify to whom and what he’s referring. His Pajamas Media article — “The Return of the Vampire” — is here.