tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post6683700837436541832..comments2024-03-29T20:04:30.755+08:00Comments on Monsters and Manuals: The Death of HP LovecraftUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-62619989225964553022015-11-29T03:12:13.624+08:002015-11-29T03:12:13.624+08:00I have to say that reading HPL's stories I nev...I have to say that reading HPL's stories I never really made the connection with racism against real people. It's not like reading eg Maddison Grant 'the Passing of the Great Race' (ie Nordic Anglos). If you're not looking for it or sensitive to it I think it's pretty easy to miss. When you're looking for it it is pretty obvious in places (just reread 'The Street').Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01173759805310975320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-66552903419588867802015-11-29T03:08:26.533+08:002015-11-29T03:08:26.533+08:00Well the revolutionary pigs & human farmers ar...Well the revolutionary pigs & human farmers are the cultural Marxists and the Capitalist plutocrats. The two groups always get along very well, as Orwell saw. Partly this is because the Capitalists are great at co-opting whatever comes along (and indeed the original cultural Marxists were heavily backed by the OSS then the CIA, who I suspect are capitalist-friendly). But c-M is comfy with or strongly pro a lot of things that directly benefit capitalist interests by increasing the labour supply - women working & not having children; immigration of cheaper labour; are two big ones.Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01173759805310975320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-51067133254165802562015-11-29T03:04:13.072+08:002015-11-29T03:04:13.072+08:00They shanked HPL for cultural Marxist reasons. Tha...They shanked HPL for cultural Marxist reasons. That this might have beneficial effects in exposing people to wider reading (I doubt it) is orthogonal to the first statement.Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01173759805310975320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-87144481251430333202015-11-29T03:02:18.962+08:002015-11-29T03:02:18.962+08:00Depending on how broadly you define cultural Marxi...Depending on how broadly you define cultural Marxism, they're basically right (eg the original c-Ms were less radical on race than the current version, and it's not a rigid top-down conspiracy, but Marcuse, Adorno & co influenced the 1960s New Left which then influenced the current zeitgeist).Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01173759805310975320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-2440119503208512312015-11-29T02:56:57.747+08:002015-11-29T02:56:57.747+08:00My favourite inversion is the frequency with which...My favourite inversion is the frequency with which Nazis espousing Nordic racial purity notions very similar to Lovecraft's own are cast as the Cthulu-summoning cultists. You could take it a stage further and have the sinister Yankee devils using Cthuloid sorcery to seek control of a small South American country, say - perhaps defeated by the power of the Virgin Mary in the hands of good Catholic priests aid by Elder Sign-wielding Indio shamans...<br />I have to confess to doing this a bit in my own Wilderlands game, making Nerath (the fallen 'good white human' empire of 4e D&D) into villainous neo-Nazi Neo-Nerath, led by Necromancer occultists channeling Necrotic energies from the Domain of the Old Ones through the Gate of the Black Sun... opposed by Heavy Metal Barbarians, the red-skinned Altanians who are Iron Maiden meets Conan meets Native America, with a bit of John Carter's Red Martians.Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01173759805310975320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-27759621421939057372015-11-23T11:44:23.113+08:002015-11-23T11:44:23.113+08:00"What has he done to change the world for bet..."What has he done to change the world for better in his time?"<br /><br />His writing directly or (through its influence) indirectly made hundreds of millions of people's lives more enjoyable.Revenanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11374515200055384226noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-91232544823906695972015-11-20T23:55:57.440+08:002015-11-20T23:55:57.440+08:00That kind of stuff is interesting and worth lookin...That kind of stuff is interesting and worth looking at, and I don't think Barthes would say otherwise - he was just trying to be provocative. The central point is that it doesn't matter to how you as the reader interpret the text. You can interpret it through the lens of his life and experiences, great, if that's what you want to do, but you're free to do whatever you like with it.noismshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09933436762608669966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-52499262833095052722015-11-20T23:31:02.524+08:002015-11-20T23:31:02.524+08:00Lovecraft is kind of weird, though. His oeuvre has...Lovecraft is kind of weird, though. His oeuvre has indeed percolated into the collected cultural mind space and been reinterpreted countless times. But there is also a lot of effort made to ground the things he wrote in the context of his specific life and experiences. I own the Penguin Classic editions of his stuff, which is introduced and edited by ST Joshi, and the very first paragraph is Joshi saying that, despite the popularity of the "Death of the Author", it's not the best way to approach Lovecraft's work. And the annotations almost exclusively connect Lovecraft's fantastic with the quotidian New England.<br /><br />So you can look at Lovecraft today and focus on how noted critics are saying that his personal life is fundamental to what he did; and, therefore, he shouldn't be on the award. I don't know if that was the motivation for his removal; the actual motivation could be more censorship-based or whatever. But I think there is reasonable ground for that decision.maimed autarchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01519668649420482914noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-75904089634876394522015-11-20T03:59:10.552+08:002015-11-20T03:59:10.552+08:00Hello Everybody,
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Dollar, he is a GOD fearing man, if you are in need of loan and you will pay back the loan please contact him tell him that is Mrs Sharon, that refer you to him. contact Dr Purva Pius,via email:(urgentloan22@gmail.com) Thank you.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01503326754695325051noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-82824724107714535432015-11-19T02:05:03.113+08:002015-11-19T02:05:03.113+08:00Luka, how can there be a guilt when there's no...Luka, how can there be a guilt when there's no crime?<br /><br />Having bad ideas is not a crime. Acting upon them is. And only in certain ways.<br /><br />There's a dictionary definition that fits quite well the systematic chase and exile of "bad ideas". Bigotry.<br /><br />You can try to rationalize it, but there's no weaseling out from it. This is a soft damnatio memoriae based on ideology.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-18377947021666454112015-11-18T18:25:36.433+08:002015-11-18T18:25:36.433+08:00I'd just like to add that the whole point of t...I'd just like to add that the whole point of this post is that Lovecraft was an appalling bigot but that it <i>doesn't matter</i>.noismshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09933436762608669966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-31457205575870370482015-11-18T17:32:01.541+08:002015-11-18T17:32:01.541+08:00Thanks for your polite comment, Mr Anonymous. As S...Thanks for your polite comment, Mr Anonymous. As Samantha rightly points out, Lovecraft was considered extreme even by the people he knew. His views about black people were not just uneducated and old-fashioned - they were genuinely pretty unhinged. <br /><br />Historical people should not be judged by the whims of the present, but that doesn't preclude judging them by their own context. The 1920s isn't that long ago, and it's fairly easy to see that Lovecraft's views about people of other races were weird and deranged for somebody living even in that era, let alone ours. It's also very unfair to other people living in that era who weren't like him (i.e. the vast majority probably) to suggest that everybody was like that in those days.noismshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09933436762608669966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-35247520260855176572015-11-18T13:51:57.121+08:002015-11-18T13:51:57.121+08:00Actually, Lovecraft's contemporaries thought h...Actually, Lovecraft's contemporaries thought he was a bigot. Samanthahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17379521595218377639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-27757847280044086382015-11-18T12:38:05.237+08:002015-11-18T12:38:05.237+08:00>>The man himself was a bigot and an appalli...>>The man himself was a bigot and an appalling one.<br /><br />[i]Fuck you.[/i]<br /><br />Monty python does blackface. Are they shitlisted too?<br /><br />Judging historical people by the whims of the present is absurd. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-12073156837973658852015-11-18T10:31:37.714+08:002015-11-18T10:31:37.714+08:00I sure hope we are as morally superior as we think...I sure hope we are as morally superior as we think we are, or that future generations will be far more forgiving and understanding toward us than we are of those who came before. But really, the funny thing about this is that it is driven by those who once would have laughed at the old religious types for wanting to ban D&D or shut down racy talk on television. Orwell, it seems, was onto something about pigs who eventually dine with humans no matter what they once may have promised. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-87653329646251665642015-11-16T23:47:17.413+08:002015-11-16T23:47:17.413+08:00I agree with you. This has always been the case. I...I agree with you. This has always been the case. It's just on a larger scale because of the speed of communication these days, as a general thing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-512635322103399242015-11-16T21:54:27.734+08:002015-11-16T21:54:27.734+08:00It all depends on how the World Fantasy Associatio...It all depends on how the World Fantasy Association carries itself. Their decision was lauded by the mainstream press in the Atlantic Monthly. The same article also mentioned that the WFA was founded in 1976 or so, by a bunch of hard-core HP Lovecraft aficionados, and that nothing has changed at WFA since then. The big question, which I hadn't bothered looking up, is what kind of a job the WFA did honoring Lovecraft previously versus what kind of job honoring Lovecraft they will be doing now.<br /><br />Also, it would be a mistake, conflating Multi-Culturalism in the US with Cultural Marxism. Don't forget, that the American pop culture tends to be more isolationist than the former Soviet Union. In 1960's and 1970's, USSR imported more films from the West and played it to a far wider mainstream audience than did US, in which there is tradition of Hollywood of re-making the American versions of European blockbusters under the pretense that the European cinema wouldn't sell well in the US, that American audiences wouldn't get it, unless Hollywood remade it, etc. So, given the previous history of cultural isolationism and racial segregation in the US, a little multi-culturalism might not be a bad thing, especially if the WFA does the right thing, respects the sensitivities of their multi-cultural audience, and keeps honoring Lovecraft, where honor and recognition is due. The two are not mutually exclusive.Brooser Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487438364129415650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-89438151964022764122015-11-16T18:16:27.704+08:002015-11-16T18:16:27.704+08:00If we 'cleanse' literature of anyone who h...If we 'cleanse' literature of anyone who held views that wouldn't fit in a modern PC worldview, we'll have very little of our literary culture left. <br /><br />I don't want to be one of those kooks who see Cultural Marxism behind every development, but I find it hard to find any other explanation...<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-28371118097996527952015-11-16T12:18:01.268+08:002015-11-16T12:18:01.268+08:00But that has always been the case, going back to t...But that has always been the case, going back to the Ancient Greeks. Democracy did NOT mean free speech. It meant majority rule. If the majority did not want to hear the minority view, it was not heard. There were laws on the books to collect fines, to flog, and to physically shut up those who insisted on speaking after the majority told them to shut up. <br /><br />The Roman Republic meant more of the free speech, but not the free speech. Only Roman citizens had the right to free speech, a shrinking minority as the time went on. The Roman State derived its power by guaranteeing the freedom of speech of the dissenting minority. When matters were decided by vote in a forum, EVERY one with a point of view had the RIGHT to speak as long as they wanted to, and no vote was cast until everyone said their piece. If anyone tried to shut them up by shouting or by throwing rotten tomatoes at them, they got the full wrath of the Praetorian Guard beating them down with the hilts of their swords. Literally. Roman Legions stayed in power by guaranteeing the rights of the political minorities and their unpopular point of view.<br /><br />Based on history, Free Speech is an ideal, and it can be optimized only by regulating it, without which it falls under the dominance by majority rule, the loudest rule, the moneyed rule, etc. Brooser Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487438364129415650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-53333074132898227272015-11-16T09:39:23.144+08:002015-11-16T09:39:23.144+08:00My point was that the internet has become the meet...My point was that the internet has become the meeting place for people who use their free speech to try to deny free speech to others. The louder they are, the less dissenting opinions are tolerated. I'm not saying the internet doesn't allow opposing viewpoints, only that it empowers those who use it. The "ironic twist" is that some people use that power to silence others.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-34011498189604702572015-11-16T04:57:31.194+08:002015-11-16T04:57:31.194+08:00It remains to be seen as to whom they will put on ...It remains to be seen as to whom they will put on the new trophy and how they will go about doing it. In another example, famously, AD&D Second Edition, got rid of the demons and devils, any references to historic occult, in order to placate a bunch of conservative parents.Brooser Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487438364129415650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-85017774970553827672015-11-16T01:36:16.513+08:002015-11-16T01:36:16.513+08:00Get rid of HP Lovecraft, replace with Octavia Butl...Get rid of HP Lovecraft, replace with Octavia Butler, this contributes to the cultural war which will ultimately change everything for the best. That's ultimately what it's all about - to some people this kind of thing has actual societal significance. It actually <i>affects things</i>. Blame Gramsci and the 1960s student Marxists. noismshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09933436762608669966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-33589507527859127922015-11-16T01:22:42.314+08:002015-11-16T01:22:42.314+08:00How so? In this case internet promotes the free di...How so? In this case internet promotes the free discussion. <br /><br />What you have with this trophy, is a single person, who is circulating petition to replace HP Lovecraft with Octavia Butler. I have nothing against Octavia Butler, but I did some digging on the guy, and he is a fantasy author, who just got published in the mainstream in 2015. This dude just made the scene and he is already trying to change it! <br /><br />What gives?Brooser Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08487438364129415650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-2389080761644157382015-11-16T00:37:53.741+08:002015-11-16T00:37:53.741+08:00*sigh* I'm sick and tired of this shit. The in...*sigh* I'm sick and tired of this shit. The internet is, in an ironic twist, probably the largest detriment to free speech that has ever existed.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2513019539869706574.post-5922735691971499042015-11-15T05:38:12.677+08:002015-11-15T05:38:12.677+08:00I totally get the World Fantasy Awards wanting to ...I totally get the World Fantasy Awards wanting to use a less divisive figure. I don't think that desire is automatically reflective of an attempt to sanitize history or imply that Lovecraft was not influential. Maybe it's time for the trophy to be modeled on a less controversial writer, at least for a time.<br /><br />Perhaps of note: I have seen several writers remark the Lovecraft recanted his racism. A quick search has not yielded a more substantial source, but if the man reversed his views later in life he could probably be more hopeful than anything else. What could be more symbolic of tolerance than an outspoken racist reversing his toxic world view? I'd certainly accept a trophy with an ex-racist's face on it.Pity Crithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07888455956188882829noreply@blogger.com