The Heroic Nerd (HPL)
Dan Clore
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19454
The New York Review of Books
Volume 53, Number 16 · October 19, 2006
Review
The Heroic Nerd
By Luc Sante
Tales by H.P. Lovecraft, edited by Peter Straub
Library of America, 838 pp., $35.00
H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life
by Michel Houellebecq, translated from the French by Dorna
Khazeni, with an introduction by Stephen King
Believer Books, 245 pp., $18.00 (paper)
That the work of H.P. Lovecraft has been selected for the
Library of America would have surprised Edmund Wilson, whose
idea the Library was. In a 1945 review he dismissed
Lovecraft's stories as "hackwork," with a sneer at the
magazines for which they were written, Weird Tales and
Amazing Stories, "where . . . they ought to have been
left."[1] Lovecraft had been dead for eight years by then,
and although his memory was kept alive by a cult -- there is
no other word -- that established a publishing house for the
express purpose of collecting his work, his reputation was
strictly marginal and did not seem likely to expand.
Since then, though, for a writer who depended entirely on
the meager sustenance of the pulps and whose brief career
brought him sometimes to the brink of actual starvation,
whose work did not appear in book form during his lifetime
(apart from two slender volumes, each of a single story,
published by fans) and did not attract the attention of
serious critics before his death in 1937, Lovecraft has had
quite an afterlife. His influence has been far-reaching and,
in the last thirty or forty years, continually on the
increase, if often in extraliterary ways. Board games,
computer games, and role-playing games have been inspired by
his work; the archive at hplovecraft.com includes an
apparently endless list of pop songs -- not all of them
death metal -- that quote or refer to his tales; and there
have been around fifty film and television adaptations,
although hardly any of these have been more than
superficially related to their sources.
There is a reason for that superficiality. Lovecraft's work
is essentially unfilmable, not because his special effects
are too gaudy or too expensive to translate to the screen,
but because they are purely literary. Lovecraft was bookish
in an extreme, almost parodistic way. He may not have worn a
fez or been able to afford a wing chair, but he assumed the
archetype of the nineteenth-century man of letters (Wilson
calls him "a literary man manqué") with his circle of
disciples, the roughly 100,000 letters he wrote to them (and
he was only forty-seven when he died), the preciously
archaic language in which he expressed himself (almost
always using "shew" in preference to "show," for instance),
the humid cultivation of in-jokes that migrated from the
correspondence to the stories and were perpetuated in
stories by the disciples, and the carefully tended aura, if
quite self-aware, of "forbidden knowledge."
In other words, he was a nerd. He was a nerd on a grand
scale, though -- a heroic nerd, a pallid, translucent,
Mallarméan nerd, a nerd who suffered for his art. His art
consisted exclusively of conveying horror, and in this his
range was encyclopedic. As a setting for his horror he built
a whole world -- a whole universe, with a time-span measured
in eons -- which others could happily continue furnishing
indefinitely. His horrors themselves are, with a few unhappy
exceptions, described loosely and suggestively enough that
in effect they present a blank screen on which the reader
can project whatever visual imagery is most personally
unsettling. This explains the seeming paradox of an
exceedingly bookish writer enjoying a legacy that is to a
very large degree extraliterary. As a supplier of
instruments for the cultivation of horror he was
custom-tailored for the suggestible fourteen-year-old boy,
and the number of fourteen-year-old boys -- some of them
chronologically rather older, a few of them even female --
is continually on the increase.
Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born in Providence, Rhode
Island, in 1890, the neglected, lonely child of a father who
died of tertiary syphilis after years of institutional
confinement and a mother who was by all accounts confused
and immature. Growing up in his maternal grandfather's
house, Lovecraft was left to his own devices. The
foundations of his imaginative world were laid very early;
he suffered the first of many emotional crises (a
"near-breakdown") at age eight. His formal schooling was
sporadic thereafter, but he voraciously engaged in
self-teaching, particularly in astronomy. He published
several hectographed journals of astronomy in his early
teens, and in his later teens and twenties wrote an
astronomy column for a number of Rhode Island newspapers. He
began writing stories and poems in his late twenties,
publishing them initially in amateur showcases.
One of the advantages of Peter Straub's fine selection for
the Library of America volume -- which represents a bit over
half of Lovecraft's fiction -- is that when read in sequence
it allows the reader to watch him maturing as a writer. The
main thing I remembered from reading Lovecraft when I was
fourteen was his prodigal expenditure of a certain kind of
deckle-edged Gothic vocabulary: noisome, ichor, eldritch,
miasmal, necrophagous, eidolon. It turns out that this sort
of usage drops off significantly after the first few stories
(although he could never quite shake blasphemous,
unhallowed, or Cyclopean). The early stories are flagrant
pulp, which is to say that they are crudely executed
goulashes of literary effects from all across the nineteenth
century. That was the era when more was more, and it gave
him license to unleash sentences that cannot now be read
aloud straight-faced: "Shall I say that the voice was deep;
hollow; gelatinous; remote; unearthly; inhuman;
disembodied?" Or: "In that shrieking the inmost soul of
human fear and agony clawed hopelessly and insanely at the
ebony gates of oblivion." Sometimes it is impossible not to
imagine an accompanying illustration by Edward Gorey:
"Wretched is he who looks back upon lone hours in vast and
dismal chambers with brown hangings and maddening rows of
antique books, or upon awed watches in twilight groves of
grotesque, gigantic, and vine-encumbered trees that silently
wave twisted branches far aloft."
Lovecraft was an authority on the tradition of horror
fiction; even Edmund Wilson concedes that his long essay
"Supernatural Horror in Literature" (1927) is "a really able
piece of work." Besides Poe, to whom he was permanently in
debt, he admired above all Arthur Machen and Lord Dunsany,
who have steadily become less read and less readable since
their heyday in the early twentieth century, and it may be
from them that he absorbed various Symbolist and Decadent
tendencies (he mentions Baudelaire a couple of times in ways
that leave doubt whether he had actually read him). He also
drew upon the Puritans, with emphasis on their more
sensational effusions (between his extraordinary last name
and his long, bony, thin-lipped face it isn't hard to
imagine Lovecraft himself as a witch-trial judge), and had
clearly delved deep into certain strains of Americana.
He marshaled this equipment in the service of a single goal:
horror. He was apparently not much interested in anything
else. He could summon up considerable book learning when it
would serve to buttress a story, but did not waste time on
fripperies such as characterization, the business of daily
life, or any emotions other than fear.[2] The complete
absence of even suggested sexuality in his work was much
debated by fans in the Freud-shadowed mid-twentieth century;
the proposition, rather missing the point, that he might
have been homosexual sparked ferocious arguments. Although
he was married briefly, and many years later his former wife
was moved to state, peculiarly, that he was an "adequately
excellent lover," it is clear from all available evidence
that sexuality, procreation, and the human body itself were
among the things that scared him the most.
He was also frightened of invertebrates, marine life in
general, temperatures below freezing, fat people, people of
other races, race-mixing, slums, percussion instruments,
caves, cellars, old age, great expanses of time, monumental
architecture, non-Euclidean geometry, deserts, oceans, rats,
dogs, the New England countryside, New York City, fungi and
molds, viscous substances, medical experiments, dreams,
brittle textures, gelatinous textures, the color gray, plant
life of diverse sorts, memory lapses, old books, heredity,
mists, gases, whistling, whispering -- the things that did
not frighten him would probably make a shorter list. He
evidently took pleasure in his fears, at least those on the
creepy-crawly end of the spectrum, and although he really
did suffer from his fear of cold, for example, this did not
prevent him from exploiting that fear in a couple of
stories, one of them ("At the Mountains of Madness") his best.
The things that did not scare him are generally absent from
his work. Often his stories take place in a continuous
landscape of fear, in which every detail contributes
oppressively. In "The Lurking Fear," for example, all of
nature is malevolent: "I hated the mocking moon, the
hypocritical plain, the festering mountain. . . . Everything
seemed to me tainted with a loathsome contagion, and
inspired by a noxious alliance with distorted hidden
powers." The story concerns a Dutch family in the Hudson
River Valley that, determined to resist the encroachment of
the English in the late seventeenth century, shuts itself
away from the world; 250 years later inbreeding has caused
the stock to degenerate to a species of anthropophagous
subterranean ape. Although this seems excessively silly, it
arises from authentic American folk panic -- the fear of
isolated backwoods tribes with strange customs and perhaps
genetic deformities -- which in Lovecraft's day was accorded
a certain respectability by the pseudoscience of eugenics.
Lovecraft lived in Brooklyn for two years in his
mid-thirties, during his marriage. While he was initially
awestruck by New York City, his attitude changed radically,
at least in part because of the personal unhappiness that
resulted from his inability to find work. Like many others
unnerved by the chasm between the grandeur of their genetic
inheritance and the squalor of their prospects, he blamed
the immigrants. New York City, once a wonder of "incredible
peaks and pyramids rising flower-like and delicate from
pools of violet mist to play with the flaming golden clouds
and the first stars of evening," became a "tangle of
material and spiritual putrescence [from which] the
blasphemies of an hundred dialects assail the sky." What
those "swarthy, sin-pitted faces" were up to he addressed
directly in "The Horror at Red Hook": the immigrants (many
of them, apparently, Kurds) are devil worshipers who, led by
the degenerate scion of an old Dutch family, engage in
ritual murder and child sacrifice in addition to the usual
menu of rum-running and alien-smuggling.[3] It did not
really take unemployment in the Big Onion to awaken
Lovecraft's fear of the other, though. Some years earlier,
in "Herbert West -- Reanimator," he had given a description
of a Negro boxer, the least offensive part of which concerns
his face, which "conjured up thoughts of unspeakable Congo
secrets and tom-tom poundings under an eerie moon."
Lovecraft's racial and eugenic preoccupations, which were
hardly unusual for his time, formed a constituent element of
his landscape of horror since, as he wrote in 1930 to his
friend Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian,
"The basis of all true cosmic horror is always violation of
the order of nature." But Lovecraft was already looking
beyond the mere caprices of earthly existence, seeking
vaster, more awesome horrors. In "Supernatural Horror in
Literature" he had written:
The one test of the really weird is simply this -- whether
or not there be excited in the reader a profound sense of
dread, and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a
subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of
black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities
on the known universe's utmost rim.[4]
In 1926, at the same time that he was drafting his essay, he
wrote "The Call of Cthulhu," which was to be the first
installment of his life's work, the Cthulhu Mythos, a sort
of unified-field theory of horror.
In the story, the figure of Cthulhu -- an otherworldly being
so terrible that it can never be seen directly, but is
manifested by various attributes -- first appears in a dream
experienced by several people simultaneously, during a minor
earth tremor. There are suggestions of Cyclopean
architecture, indecipherable hieroglyphics, and "a voice
that was not a voice" intoning something that can only be
transcribed as "Cthulhu fhtagn." Soon it develops that
police in Louisiana, investigating reports of a voodoo cult
in the swamps, had come upon an "indescribable horde of
human abnormality" conducting a bizarre ritual around an
eight-foot granite monolith. In custody, the worshipers, "of
a very low, mixed-blooded, and mentally aberrant type," were
nevertheless able to give an account of their creed, which
centered on the Great Old Ones, who had come to earth from
the stars long before the appearance of humans. Cthulhu was
a high priest who lived in suspended animation in the great
city of R'lyeh, somewhere under the ocean, waiting for the
chance to rise again.
After this, the Mythos began to figure in nearly every story
that Lovecraft wrote, and it developed ramifications in
every direction. In "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward," a
long, complex tale reaching back to seventeenth-century
Providence, it appears that the cult of Cthulhu is what
actually underlies such heterogeneous matters as witchcraft,
alchemy, and vampirism. Playing a prominent part is the
Necronomicon, an ancient book, invented by Lovecraft in
1922, supposedly the work of one Abdul Alhazred (a name
Lovecraft had devised for himself at age five, under the
spell of the Arabian Nights), a sage whose career ended when
he was devoured by an invisible demon in broad daylight in
the marketplace in Damascus. The Necronomicon is ritually
invoked in nearly every story thereafter as the key to the
commerce between the Great Old Ones and the human race, and
it is soon joined by a shelf of other apocryphal titles,
such as the "pre-human" Pnakotic Manuscripts.
Many of the stories take place in or around the ancient city
of Arkham, Massachusetts -- Lovecraft's version of Salem --
and its Miskatonic University, one of the four or five
places on earth where a copy of the "forbidden" Necronomicon
is kept, under lock and key. The Cthulhu Mythos, which would
be extended by others after Lovecraft's death, in
ever-widening rings of diminishing returns (even the
Necronomicon eventually achieved material form in the 1970s,
more a heavy-metal fashion accessory than a book intended to
be read), represented a way for Lovecraft to order his
fears, to unify the realm of pure otherness, the source of
every inexplicable human terror.
Lovecraft is at his most effective when he evokes this
inhuman realm, just as he is at his best when he suggests,
rather than attempting to describe. He does himself no
favors by revealing, for example, that the beings of the
Great Race are cone-shaped, of a "scaly, rugose, iridescent
bulk . . . ten feet tall and ten feet wide at the base"; the
sight may cause Lovecraft's narrator to scream hellishly,
but the reader is more likely to picture some kind of
Cyclopean jelly candy. The more spectral and unimaginable
his subject, the more Lovecraft is at home. Where he fails
utterly is in conveying lived experience, the material
counterweight to his phantoms. His monsters, when exposed to
the light, exhibit the pathos of creatures in poverty-row
horror movies; his depictions of human life on earth in his
own day are the least credible elements in his work. The
stories "He" and "The Horror at Red Hook" make it sound as
though he had never set foot in New York City, while "The
Shadow Over Innsmouth" suggests that he never visited the
New England coast and "The Dunwich Horror" and "The
Whisperer in Darkness" that he never so much as glanced out
a train window at a rural landscape. It is not that his
settings are unreal -- it is that they are made entirely of
words. They do not provide any suggestions to the inner eye,
only adjectives, mostly hyperbolic.
It is of course unfair to expect a thistle to bring forth
figs. Lovecraft only barely managed to exist on the material
plane himself, and it certainly was not his subject. His
strengths, meanwhile, were unusual and idiosyncratic. He had
a flair for names, for instance. The monikers he hangs on
his otherworldly manifestations -- Nyarlathotep,
Yog-Sothoth, Tsathoggua -- are evocatively miscegenated
constructions in which can be seen bits of ancient Egyptian,
Arabic, Hebrew, Old Norse. The terror of Cthulhu is most
vivid on the purely linguistic level: "Iä! Shub-Niggurath!
The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!" The New
England he fashions is so tangibly haunted in its
nomenclature -- Arkham, the Miskatonic River, Devil's Hop
Yard, Nooseneck Hill -- that he would have been wise to stop
there and not attempt further description. He savors the
dark texture of seventeenth-century Puritan names: Obed,
Peleg, Deliverance, Elkanah, Dutee. He frequently engaged
his schoolboy correspondents to send him lists of regional
names from their local phone books. Names, real and
imagined, accomplish nearly everything his strangled fustian
tries and fails to do: suggesting vast stretches of time,
experience far outside the modern frame of reference, the
subterranean course of genetic inheritance, the repression
of dismal ancestral proclivities.
It is possible to view Lovecraft's work as an expression of
the mingled fascination and revulsion he felt for his
Puritan heritage. Like the Bible, the Necronomicon is an
ancient work, steeped in mystery and filled with horrors,
that describes the compact imposed upon human beings by
enormously powerful otherworldly beings, a compact that may
not be in humanity's best interests. The earthly votaries of
Cthulhu, hoping for favors and dispensation, have over the
centuries engaged in secret rites, ritual murder, and
nameless abominations to appease their masters. All the
while, the Great Old Ones sleep in their undersea stone
city, R'lyeh, awaiting their Second Coming. That event,
while inevitable, is to be anticipated with dread, since it
portends the annihilation of all living things. The Great
Old Ones, implacably hostile to the feeble human race, are
themselves beyond life and death. A "much-discussed" couplet
in the Necronomicon runs: "That is not dead which can
eternal lie, / And with strange aeons even death may die."
It is all less reminiscent of Poe or Mary Shelley than of
Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards.
The novelist Michel Houellebecq, who devoted his first book
(1991) to Lovecraft, misses this aspect of his work, but
coming from a Catholic culture he nevertheless can spot the
grotesque parody of Christianity in "The Dunwich Horror," in
which an illiterate peasant woman who has known no men gives
birth to a monstrous creature endowed with superhuman
powers. This inverted incarnation ends with a repugnant
parody of the Passion where the creature, sacrificed at the
summit of a mountain that overlooks Dunwich, cries out
desperately, "Father! Father! YOG-SOTHOTH!" in a faithful
echo of "Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani."
Interestingly, Houellebecq cites this as an illustration of
Lovecraft's racism, since "it is not one particular race
that represents true horror, but the notion of the
half-breed." By that measure, the Christian myth of the
Immaculate Conception would also be a "violation of the
order of nature," which is certainly a bracing idea.
Houellebecq doesn't pursue it, though. His view of Lovecraft
is presumably an idealized self-portrait: a poète maudit who
radiates negative energy; who answers the imperative of life
with a resounding "no"; who demonstrates superior breeding
through sheer unworldliness, which he further elevates into
otherworldliness; whose racism, while perhaps deplorable, is
merely a byproduct of his attempt to face down evil -- those
other races, you see, are mentally and morally weak enough
to be the servants of the Old Ones. But racism is slightly
beside the point, anyway. All of humanity, all of life, is
repellent:
To touch other beings, other living entities, is an impious,
repugnant experience. Their skin bloated with blisters that
ooze putrid pus. Their sucking tentacles, their clutching
and chewing appendages, all constitute a constant menace.
Beings and their hideous corporeal vigor. A simmering,
stinking Nemesis of semi-aborted chimeras, amorphous and
nauseating: a sacrilege.
Living creatures are disgusting, and their omnipotent undead
adversaries are also disgusting: the universe is one
gigantic swirling vortex of vomit. The only remedy,
transient and puny though it may be, is to give voice to
your principled stand in the face of it all. Houellebecq,
who according to the detailed account of his translator,
Dorna Khazeni, inserted interpolations ranging from a few
words to entire paragraphs into his citations from Lovecraft
(for reasons that are not always clear), found in the older
writer a perfect vehicle for creative misreading, an elected
ancestor who was at once ambitious, marginal, conventionally
accomplished, and pathologically unstable. It is fortunate
that Houellebecq, like Lovecraft, has restricted his
ambitions to literature.
Notes
[1] Classics and Commercials (Farrar, Straus and Co., 1950),
p. 288.
[2] A somewhat different Lovecraft emerges from his
correspondence. In the five-volume Selected Letters (Arkham
House, 1965–1976) and in Willis Conover's moving Lovecraft
at Last (Cooper Square, 2002; a record of the epistolary
friendship between the teenaged Conover and the much older
Lovecraft, halted by his sudden death), Lovecraft appears
unfailingly generous, painstaking, and tactful, as well as
emotionally mature, severe in his judgment of pulp
mediocrity, wide-ranging in his interests, and possessing a
sense of humor that appears nowhere in his fiction.
[3] In "He," another story from the same period, he gives,
in the guise of a vision of New York's future, his idea of a
jazz club: "I saw the yellow, squint-eyed people of that
city, robed horribly in orange and red, and dancing insanely
to the pounding of fevered kettle-drums, and the clatter of
obscene crotala, and the maniacal moaning of muted horns
whose ceaseless dirges rose and fell undulantly like the
waves of an unhallowed ocean of bitumen."
[4] Dagon and Other Macabre Tales(Arkham House, 1965), p. 350.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://amazon.com/o/ASIN/1587154838/ref=nosim/thedanclorenecro
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/clorebeast/
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
Don Phillipson
"Dan Clore" <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote in message
news:4524F26A...@columbia-center.org...
>
> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19454
> . . .
> That the work of H.P. Lovecraft has been selected for the
> Library of America would have surprised Edmund Wilson, whose
> idea the Library was. In a 1945 review he dismissed
> Lovecraft's stories as "hackwork,"
American criticism seems never to have
generated the British midcentury class of
"good bad books," viz. pulp fiction that (for
whatever reasons) is read with pleasure a
century after its author's market has vanished.
Instead, American critics tended to deal only
with such genres as "horror" (inc. Lovecraft)
"hard-boiled detective," "Western" etc. The
British genre of Good Bad Books seems to
explain why people still read (for example),
Foxe's Book of Martyrs, The Death of Roger
Ackroyd, W.E.B. Griffin's US army saga, etc.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
icarp...@aol.com
similarly erudite posts.
Matt
Joe Bednorz
"Good Bad Books", an Essay by George Orwell from 1945
"A type of book which we hardly seem to produce in these days, but which
flowered with great richness in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, is what Chesterton called the “good bad book”: that is, the
kind of book that has no literary pretensions but which remains readable
when more serious productions have perished."
--
SF at Project Gutenberg: <http://thethunderchild.com/Books/OutofCopyright.html>
Baen Free Online SciFi: <http://www.baen.com/library/>
Baen Free SciFi CDs <http://files.plebian.net/baencd/>
SciFi.com classic/original: <http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/archive.html>
Free SF samples from Baen and Tor: <http://www.webscription.net/catalog.asp>
More: <http://www.mindspring.com/~jbednorz/Free_Books_Online.htm>
All the best, Joe Bednorz
*Anarcissie*
Certainly a lot of Science Fiction has consisted of interesting books
which rigorously avoided literary pretensions. Skating on thin ice, I
once lectured a professor of English at a dinner party about how
Science Fiction was "a literature of ideas" whereas mainstream lit
had become "an effete comedy of manners and techniques". He
didn't shoot me down, partly because I was drunk and too easy a
target, but also because, I think, my lecture was giving him ideas
for his next scholarly project. That was a long time ago, before you
all knew.
Marko Amnell
> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19454
> The New York Review of Books
> Volume 53, Number 16 · October 19, 2006
> Review
> The Heroic Nerd
> By Luc Sante
> Tales by H.P. Lovecraft, edited by Peter Straub
> Library of America, 838 pp., $35.00
> H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life
> by Michel Houellebecq, translated from the French by Dorna
> Khazeni, with an introduction by Stephen King
> Believer Books, 245 pp., $18.00 (paper)
[...]
Luc Sante is honest about Lovecraft's racism, but one of
the books under review, _H.P. Lovecraft: contre le monde,
contre la vie_ by Michel Houellebecq, is even more brutally
direct about what can only be called Lovecraft's race hatred.
Here are some quotes:
"L'autre grande source d'étonnement, c'est son racisme
obsessionel; jamais, en lisant ses descriptions de créatures
de cauchemar, je n'aurais supposé qu'elles puissent
trouver leur source dans les êtres humains _réels_. L'analyse
du racisme en littérature se focalise depuis un demi-siècle
sur Celine; le cas de Lovecraft, pourtant, est plus intérressant
et plus typique. Chez lui les constructions intellectuels, les
analyses sur la décadence ne jouent qu'un rôle très secondaire.
Auteur fantastique (et un des plus grands), il remène
brutalement le racisme à sa source essentielle, sa source
la plus profonde: _la peur_."
"Et c'est à New York que ses _opinions_ racistes se
transformeront en une authentique névrose raciale. Étant
pauvre, il devra vivre dans les mêmes quartiers que ces
immigrants 'obscènes, repoussants et cauchemardesques'.
Il les côtoiera dans la rue, il les côtoiera dans les jardins
publics. Il sera bousculé dans le métro par des 'mulâtres
graisseux et ricanants', par des 'nègres hideux semblables
à des chimpanzés gigantesques'. Il les retrouvera encore
dans les files d'attente pour chercher un emploi, et
constatera avec horruer que son maintien aristocratique
et son éducation raffiné, teintée d'un 'consersatisme
équilibré', ne lui apportent aucun avantage. De telles
valeurs n'ont par cours dans Babylone; c'est le règne de
la ruse et de la force brutale, des 'juif à face de rat' et
des 'métis monstrueux qui sautillent en se dandinant
absurdement'. Il ne s'agit plus alors du racisme bien
élevé des W.A.S.P.; c'est la haine, brutale, de
l'animal pris au piège, contraint de partager sa cage
avec des animaux d'une espèce différente, et redoutable."
The second quote is from the chapter "Haine raciale".
Houellebecq argues that racist fear and race hatred
was a major inspiration for Lovecraft's writings.
johan....@comcast.net
Marko Amnell wrote:
> Luc Sante is honest about Lovecraft's racism, but one of
> the books under review, _H.P. Lovecraft: contre le monde,
> contre la vie_ by Michel Houellebecq, is even more brutally
> direct about what can only be called Lovecraft's race hatred.
> Here are some quotes:
[quotes in French snipped]
I think it's astonishing that a long-dead pulp author who wrote
exclusively in English is being critiqued in a book published in
French. It seems strange that his reputation has spread so far. I would
have expected him to be completely unknown outside of American/English
horror circles.
Johan Larson
Nancy Lebovitz
Joe Bednorz <inv...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
><http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/ShootingElephant/goodbadbooks.htmlhttp://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/ShootingElephant/goodbadbooks.html>
>
>"A type of book which we hardly seem to produce in these days, but which
>flowered with great richness in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
>centuries, is what Chesterton called the “good bad book”: that is, the
>kind of book that has no literary pretensions but which remains readable
>when more serious productions have perished."
>
--
Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com
http://nancylebov.livejournal.com
My two favorite colors are "Oooooh" and "SHINY!".
@hotmail.com.invalid Eric D. Berge
<icarp...@aol.com> wrote:
>Brilliant as usual Dan. Thank you for these and all your other
>similarly erudite posts.
Is that sarcasm? 'cause the whole thing was a cut-and-paste from an
article by Luc Sante in the New York Review of Books -
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19454
I don't think there was a single word in there outside the sig that
was by Dan Clore.
Marko Amnell
Well, there are several issues involved here. When Houellebecq
started to write his book in 1988, Lovecraft was not at all
well known in France, and was dismissed, perhaps rightly, as
just a pulp fiction writer. This was his first book, by the way
(he even calls it his first novel, but with just one character,
Lovecraft). So, Houellebecq's interest in Lovecraft was not
typically French at all, but arose due to personal factors.
But, interestingly, in the preface to the new 1998 edition,
Houellebecq describes how Lovecraft has become much better
known in France recently. Today, young French people come up
to him and ask him to sign a copy of his Lovecraft book. They say
that they found out about Lovecraft from role-playing games and
video games, and admit that they have no intention of ever
actually reading Lovecraft's stories.
William George Ferguson
You are absolutely right. The genre of "Good Bad Books" can indeed be used
to explain why other people like books that you don't.
--
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
(Bene Gesserit)
Gene Ward Smith
johan....@comcast.net wrote:
> I think it's astonishing that a long-dead pulp author who wrote
> exclusively in English is being critiqued in a book published in
> French. It seems strange that his reputation has spread so far. I would
> have expected him to be completely unknown outside of American/English
> horror circles.
Why? Poe was widely read in Europe, and was hugely influential in
France. Then, of course, there's always Jerry Lewis...
Comm
"Dan Clore" <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote in message
news:4524F26A...@columbia-center.org...
>
> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19454
"The
> Shadow Over Innsmouth" suggests that he never visited the New England
> coast
I'd have to disagree. By following the directions in the story itself, and
doing quite a bit of research about what used to be there, we did find
Innsmouth:
http://www.geocities.com/trip_to_innsmouth/index.html
His layout of Innsmoth doesn't fit any coastal city in NE, but it does fit
NJ. This is explained. Scroll a few down past the ad - and read. There
are also photographs, lots of them.
and "The Dunwich Horror" and "The
> Whisperer in Darkness" that he never so much as glanced out a train window
> at a rural landscape.
Again, I'd have to disagree. In our trip to Wilbraham, Mass, we were able
to navitage using the story. Unfortunately, the pictures we took for that
don't really show much. They were never scanned and put online. Crispin
Burham also saw these in the mid 70s.
"When a traveler in N. C. Mass takes the wrong fork at the junction of the
Aylesbury Pike...." The only pike going thru NC Mass is Route 21. This Rte
21 makes a right angle turn by Church and Booth Streets. If you take the
wrong fork, i.e., make the turn just before this correct turn, you will wind
up in "Dunwich" that is, turn left onto Miller st, right angle turn just
before the correct turn. "The ground gets higher" on Miller St as it turns
South off the "Aylesbury Pike" (rte21). The brier bordered stone walls
press closer and closer, the trees of the gfrequent forest belts seem too
large (pictures of all of this, not scanned. The sparsely scattered houses
wear a surprisingly uniform aspect of age, squalor and dilapidation - more
pictures. There is much much more, we followed the story and took photos.
One of these days, maybe - it's a lot of work to do all that, retype it into
etext, scan all those photos. A lot of work.
I also photographed the Beebe House, where HPL did stay.
Comm
"Marko Amnell" <marko_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1160067382.4...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
> Luc Sante is honest about Lovecraft's racism, but one of
Would you like to translate all that, please?
How could anyone see race fear/hate as the inspiration for ATMOM? Or SoT?
Or even most of his tales. I don't see any kind of "overt" race fear or
hate there. Newsflash: the hero of SoI goes WITH his D. O. relatives - in
wonder and glory. Not in hatred or shame.
I think since the advent of the tyranny called "politically correctness"
that people have gone way overboard with this crap. The writer of that
article apparently missed that crucial ending in SoI - one blatant example
there.
This part is not addressed to you as a poster, but to anyone and/or the
writer of that article you quoted from. Please do NOT take it personally.
ok...
As a minority myself - and considered a minority at the time I read the Red
Hook story, I surely noticed him sort of trashing my "race" (certain
adjectives... also, we are the originators of all black magic, HPL said -
well, hmm, from the western religion point of view, I guess we are!... but
not from out own point of view. - yeah but, what if we are living IN the
west? Heh! You bet people saw us as that, even the BLACKS here thought
that.)... he said that and other things in the Red Hook story, and I never
really did quite understand what the hell was happening in the end part.
HatRH is not a mythos story, btw. But wait, what the hey - weren't some of
us really doing stuff like smuggling and "mafia like" stuff and getting
people in here illegally sometimes? - Well, YES, some of my people surely
were doing that - and they also did honor killings if a wrong was done to
one of us, too. So what? So were the Italians doing the same things on a
bigger scale (more of them were here...) :-D. My cousin definitely noticed
race bias in the Red Hook story - but he read it well into politically
correct days in the 1990s. I didn't. To that effect, based on his
interpretation, I wrote a parody (that is, I put it into good English and it
got published). It really does come off as funny.
So. Then. Oh, is there something to get offended by? By all means, LET US
ALL get offended. Sniff, sniff, OH, LOOK, another victim! ha ha. No,
rather how about give due to people having opinions, strong opinions, even
very very strong opinions.
Everyone is in high gear to find something to get offended by. The Pope
quotes another Pope who simply is telling the truth about a situation - and
the Moslems get OFFENDED so much that to prove the Pope is wrong, they kill
a bunch of Nuns who didn't say anything. And the Pope apologizes? HA!! The
Pope should have said: "YOU have just proven that the former Pope told the
truth, and that you have not changed at all." I think the people who count
would have had a lot of respect for the Pope if he showed his fangs.
It's like the situation today - it's the same bullshit. How dare anyone
bring "race" up with the illegal alien problem we have here? It has nothing
to do with race - and the two border patrol guys that SHOT an illegal alien,
drug smuggling bum in self defense, no less, were also Hispanics (oh, thank
god, we'd never hear the end of it if they were Irish guys). It's got
nothing to do with race.
But the race card gets brought up - and it keeps getting brought up until
the meaning is no longer relevant - not even TO ME - and I'm a racial
minority of a type here. Sort of, these days. Hmm, maybe not anymore. Who
knows. Point being, I obviously don't care enough to even ASK if I'm still
listed as non-white on any gov lists like they used to keep track of.
That's how much I care. (I'm Central Asian - Tatar - Lamaist religion.
Clue: we do not look Chinese. We kinda look like a type of Hispanic.) I'd
guess that the French writer of that is another deranged ultra leftist.
HPL had as-given feelings about race or ethnicity - there was absolutely
nothing unusual about his feelings. The oddballs were the ones that were
demanding that everyone mix. Today, people STILL make jokes about southern
backwood or hillbilly people marrying brother and sister together - STILL.
That's an OK joke. They are usually talking about white people doing that,
so it's OK. OH, don't dare suggest blacks are doing it. Nope. No can do.
Wasn't the Beverly Hillbillies a huge whopping JOKE at the expense of white
hill people? Sure it was.
It's no mystery to me that HPL didn't like people of other ethnic group
coming in and making a mess of the neighborhood. Some ethnic groups did
that and still do it. Others do not. That's a fact of life. Truth can
offend - so be it. Too bad.
Marko Amnell
Sorry, no. Just buy the English translation of the book.
It's a really good read. Houellebecq is not a politically
correct or leftist critic of Lovecraft. You might even call him
a Lovecraft fan, as he has been reading him since age 16.
The book is broadly sympathetic of Lovecraft, but Houellebecq
wants to write a warts and all biography. There's a lot more
to the book than an analysis of HPL's racism, although that
is a striking aspect of it that may be new to some fans.
delc...@mail.ab.edu
Lovecraft?
The bottom of the barrel must be visible.
J. Del Col
johan....@comcast.net
Marko Amnell wrote:
> Sorry, no. Just buy the English translation of the book.
> It's a really good read. Houellebecq is not a politically
> correct or leftist critic of Lovecraft. You might even call him
> a Lovecraft fan, as he has been reading him since age 16.
> The book is broadly sympathetic of Lovecraft, but Houellebecq
> wants to write a warts and all biography. There's a lot more
> to the book than an analysis of HPL's racism, although that
> is a striking aspect of it that may be new to some fans.
New to some fans? With respect, Marko, it can hardly be missed in
stories like "The Call of Cthulhu" with its degenerate Eskimos,
nautical-looking Negroes and mixed-blood voodoo cultists. And it is
front and center in "The Horror at Red Hook." Is there really something
insightful to be said about Lovecraft's xenophobia?
Johan Larson
Marko Amnell
Well, the full extent of his racism seemed to be new to Comm,
who seems to be a fan. Houellebecq doesn't just document
Lovecraft's racism. He offers a theory about how Lovecraft's
work as a whole is *inspired* by race hatred. Look, I'm not
going to recount the contents of the book here. Read it if
you are interested.
And by the way, I'm not a fan of Lovecraft. I find him to be an
interesting case. I've only read a few stories from one collection.
His writing has many flaws, such as the poor characterization.
I was interested in the book in question also because of the
author. Michel Houellebecq is perhaps the most famous, and
certainly the best paid, novelist in France today (there was a
big brouhaha about the huge sum his new publisher paid him
to transfer over from his old one -- a bit like the similar brouhaha
over Martin Amis's huge advance for_The Information_).
Again, I'm not a fan of Houellebecq, but find him to be
an interesting case.
Comm
<johan....@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1160159533....@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>
> Marko Amnell wrote:
>> Sorry, no. Just buy the English translation of the book.
>> It's a really good read. Houellebecq is not a politically
>> correct or leftist critic of Lovecraft. You might even call him
>> a Lovecraft fan, as he has been reading him since age 16.
>> The book is broadly sympathetic of Lovecraft, but Houellebecq
>> wants to write a warts and all biography. There's a lot more
>> to the book than an analysis of HPL's racism, although that
>> is a striking aspect of it that may be new to some fans.
>
> New to some fans? With respect, Marko, it can hardly be missed in
> stories like "The Call of Cthulhu" with its degenerate Eskimos,
No, maybe those particular Eskomos were degenerate. Not racist at all.
> nautical-looking Negroes
What's wrong with that?
> and mixed-blood voodoo cultists. And it is
Again, what's wrong with that?
> front and center in "The Horror at Red Hook." Is there really something
> insightful to be said about Lovecraft's xenophobia?
Yah, that one for sure.
>
> Johan Larson
>
Comm
> johan....@comcast.net wrote:
>> Marko Amnell wrote:
>> > Sorry, no. Just buy the English translation of the book.
>> > It's a really good read. Houellebecq is not a politically
>> > correct or leftist critic of Lovecraft. You might even call him
>> > a Lovecraft fan, as he has been reading him since age 16.
>> > The book is broadly sympathetic of Lovecraft, but Houellebecq
>> > wants to write a warts and all biography. There's a lot more
>> > to the book than an analysis of HPL's racism, although that
>> > is a striking aspect of it that may be new to some fans.
>>
>> New to some fans? With respect, Marko, it can hardly be missed in
>> stories like "The Call of Cthulhu" with its degenerate Eskimos,
>> nautical-looking Negroes and mixed-blood voodoo cultists. And it is
>> front and center in "The Horror at Red Hook." Is there really something
>> insightful to be said about Lovecraft's xenophobia?
>
> Well, the full extent of his racism seemed to be new to Comm,
> who seems to be a fan.
COUGH! I've read HPL since around 1969 or 1970. I'm not "offended" or
bothered by such words in stories - and they only really jump out in
something like Red Hook. Then again, the story is told from the POV of "a
narrator" not HPL. That is how HPL has to be read - from the POV of this or
that narrator. by the time I read Red Hook, I was familiar with the way he
wrote stories.
Bob Price told me (over phone) of an Italian who CHOSE to be so offended by
the Red Hook story that he'd not read anything else by HPL. Well! Gasp!
He is free to deprive himself of some great sci fi. He is free to feel
offended. I am not offended by someone that refers to me as a gook - though
that has not happened in a LONG time. I could care less. My cousin, most
of all, in speaking (I actually had to write it up) his version of what
happened in Red Hook took it out on Malone and the other guy, forgot his
name, the Dutch guy. He did not take it out on HPL. He liked Call of
Cthulhu - (and also thought it referred to Khadullu!).
What I'm telling you, what I'm trying to say is that about 99% of the crap
out there being labelled or branded with the R word - imo, is not racist at
all. It is certainly NOT racist to prefer your own ethnic group over others
for whatever reasons - maybe you feel more comfortable with them, share food
in common, share music tastes in common, etc. Since when is freedom of
choice the same as racism? Only in the minds of draconian tyrants is that
racism. HPL, imo, was not a racist. He even did something highly unusual
for his time - he married outside his culture/religion. Sonya Greene was
Jewish. That right there was unusual for his time. He had opinions that
were considered quite normal for his time - OR - he put those opinions in
the mouths of specific narrators. If someone wrote a novel where the
narrator was a KKK member, they'd have to write up really racist (real
meaning of racism) words. Does that make the author a racist? NO, it does
not.
Houellebecq doesn't just document
> Lovecraft's racism. He offers a theory about how Lovecraft's
> work as a whole is *inspired* by race hatred.
I think he's seeing all of HPL's works through the eyes of political
correctness. HPL's work was inspired by his desire, as he explained, to
REALLY SCARE people, and imo, make them say WOAH and stop and think about
something cosmically alien - not just some big spider or spook or vampire.
Look, I'm not
> going to recount the contents of the book here. Read it if
> you are interested.
I probably won't. I disagree up front with the entire premise. And I'm
seriously sick to death of the "racism" word. Sick of it. It's no longer
got meaning anymore for many people. Bring it up and people just "turn you
off."
Dan Clore
I think this would fall under the heading of "camp", an idea
that's been accepted for decades. In addition, the English
profs have generally jettisoned the idea that something
needs to be good in order to be a worthy object of study,
and often focus on "popular culture", so that the academics
can now write about whatever trash they happen to like
instead of focusing on the "great" books. Hence critical
anthologies about stuff like Batman, Madonna ("Metatextual
Girl", yikes), etc.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://amazon.com/o/ASIN/1587154838/ref=nosim/thedanclorenecro
Lord We˙rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
Sean O'Hara
johan....@comcast.net declared:
>
> New to some fans? With respect, Marko, it can hardly be missed in
> stories like "The Call of Cthulhu" with its degenerate Eskimos,
>
That's "Esquimaux".
--
Sean O'Hara | http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com
Bender: Hey sexy mama, wanna kill all humans?
-Futurama
Marko Amnell
> "Marko Amnell" <marko_...@hotmail.com> wrote
> > Houellebecq doesn't just document
> > Lovecraft's racism. He offers a theory about how Lovecraft's
> > work as a whole is *inspired* by race hatred.
>
> I think he's seeing all of HPL's works through the eyes of political
> correctness.
No. I already told you that Houellebecq most emphatically is
NOT someone who sees the world through the eyes of politcal
correctness. There are passages in his own novels which are
highly derogatory of Islam, and he's been in court over that.
Some people speculate that he hates Islam because his
own mother ran away with a Muslim man. Here is just one
story (if you want to read more, do a search on Google with,
say, "Houellebecq Islam"):
Writer defends right to call Islam 'stupid'
By Philip Delves Broughton in Paris
(Filed: 18/09/2002)
France's most controversial writer, Michel Houellebecq, appeared
in court in Paris yesterday to defend his right to call Islam a
"stupid" religion.
During a raucous hearing, marked by a protest inside the courtroom
by free speech activists and the shouts of demonstrators outside,
Mr Houellebecq refused to apologise to the Islamic groups who have
accused him of inciting religious hatred.
Dalil Boubakeur, of the Paris mosque, said: "Words have a price.
One can kill with a word. Freedom of expression stops at the point
at which it does damage and the Muslim community feels insulted."
Under French law Houellebecq could be imprisoned for up to a year
and fined if found guilty.
Mr Houellebecq told the court: "I have never shown the slightest
contempt for Muslims but I have always held Islam in contempt."
Though lionised as a writer, Mr Houellebecq, 44, is not a popular
figure on the French literary scene.
While others might have had the entire French literary establishment
cheering them on to defend free speech, Mr Houellebecq has won
the backing only of diehard free speech activists and a handful of
fellow writers.
In an interview with the Parisian literary magazine Lire last year,
Mr Houellebecq was described as hating Arabs and Muslims and
failing to distinguish between the two.
He was quoted as saying: "I had a kind of revelation in the Sinai
desert, where Moses received the Ten Commandments. Suddenly,
I experienced a total rejection of monotheism.
"In this very rocky, inspiring land, I said to myself that the idea of
believing in only one God was cretinous. I could not think of another
word. And the stupidest religion of all is Islam.
"When one reads the Koran, one is devastated, devastated. At least
the Bible is very beautiful because the Jews have a sacred literary
talent which can excuse a lot of things. As a result, I have a residual
sympathy for Catholicism, because of its polytheistic aspect. And
then there are all those churches, windows, paintings and sculptures."
Yesterday he was asked whether or not he still thought Muslims
were stupid. "I didn't say that," he said. "I said they practise a
stupid religion." Asked if he was racist against Islam, he
answered: "You can't be racist against Islam."
Talking about religious works he had read, he said: "In reality, the
monotheist texts preach neither peace, nor love nor tolerance. They
are texts of hate."
He said in the interview last year that the best tool against religion
was irony and that he hoped Islam would suffer the same fate as
Catholicism - "remain vaguely official for a while and then decline
gently".
Immediately after the interview was published last September,
Mr Houellebecq issued a statement saying it was a crude abbreviation
and distortion of his meaning and that he was not a racist.
The interview, he said, had lasted six hours and only a tiny
portion of it had been printed.
The scandal may have boosted sales for his book Plateforme,
which came out that month.
The book tells of a disillusioned young bachelor, Michel, who finds
sexual and personal fulfilment in the fleshpots of Bangkok. Finally,
he meets a woman with whom he sets up a hedonistic sex resort
for tourists which is a roaring success until attacked by Islamic
activists.
The book was widely praised for laying bare the hollowness and
absurdities of global society.
The case against him comes at a time when the French publishing
industry is feeling the heat from all manner of groups. Earlier this
month, anti-paedophile groups succeeded in having a novel about
a paedophile rapist removed from bookshops.
In an essay in Le Monde last week, the heads of three of France's
biggest publishers wrote: "Literature's calling is not to appease but
rather to worry and to offend. It is there to provoke. Otherwise, what
is the point? Nothing human, or inhuman for that matter, is off
limits to literature."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2002%2F09%2F18%2Fwislam18.xml
mgca...@hughes.net
> Here is just one story (if you want to read more, do a search on
> Google with, say, "Houellebecq Islam"):
>
> Writer defends ht to call Islam 'stupid'
> By Philip Delves Broughton in Paris
> (Filed: 18/09/2002)
My favorite part of this article -- all of which I found most
absorbing, so thanks for sharing it -- is the concluding paragraph:
> In an essay in Le Monde last week, the heads of three of France's
> biggest publishers wrote: "Literature's calling is not to appease but
> rather to worry and to offend. It is there to provoke. Otherwise, what
> is the point? Nothing human, or inhuman for that matter, is off
> limits to literature."
Vive la France! What I wouldn't give to see all the publishers of the
world adopt the above-quoted words as their credo.
Best regards,
Matt Cardin
- - - - -
Blog: http://theteemingbrain.wordpress.com
Band: http://www.myspace.com/daemonyx
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/mattcardin
johan....@comcast.net
mgca...@hughes.net wrote:
> My favorite part of this article -- all of which I found most
> absorbing, so thanks for sharing it -- is the concluding paragraph:
>
> > In an essay in Le Monde last week, the heads of three of France's
> > biggest publishers wrote: "Literature's calling is not to appease but
> > rather to worry and to offend. It is there to provoke. Otherwise, what
> > is the point? Nothing human, or inhuman for that matter, is off
> > limits to literature."
>
> Vive la France! What I wouldn't give to see all the publishers of the
> world adopt the above-quoted words as their credo.
If I were a shareholder in any of the France's three biggest publishers
I would be calling for the immediate dismissal of those three men, the
reason being that they clearly fail to understand the business they are
in. People read to be entertained -- if reading fiction -- or informed
-- if reading non-fiction. Hardly anyone reads to be worried, offended
or provoked. These three clueless bozos seem to think they are on a
mission of artistic social reform, when their actual goals should be to
serve their customers and enrich their shareholders.
Johan Larson
Comm
strike against free speech.
"Marko Amnell" <marko_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1160201786.2...@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
norrin
johan....@comcast.net wrote:
> mgca...@hughes.net wrote:
> > Vive la France! What I wouldn't give to see all the publishers of the
> > world adopt the above-quoted words as their credo.
>
> If I were a shareholder in any of the France's three biggest publishers
> I would be calling for the immediate dismissal of those three men, the
> reason being that they clearly fail to understand the business they are
> in. People read to be entertained -- if reading fiction -- or informed
> -- if reading non-fiction. Hardly anyone reads to be worried, offended
> or provoked. These three clueless bozos seem to think they are on a
> mission of artistic social reform, when their actual goals should be to
> serve their customers and enrich their shareholders.
Does your post entertain or inform others? If not, why do you want
people to read it?
Robin Low
johan....@comcast.net writes
>People read to be entertained -- if reading fiction -- or informed
>-- if reading non-fiction. Hardly anyone reads to be worried, offended
>or provoked.
Sometimes, some of us also read to have our preconceptions and personal
prejudices challenged. Sometimes that will result in worry, offence and
provocation. I see no problem with that if, in the process, we are also
encouraged to think.
Regards
Robin
--
Robin Low
mgca...@hughes.net
> mgca...@hughes.net wrote:
> > My favorite part of this article -- all of which I found most
> > absorbing, so thanks for sharing it -- is the concluding paragraph:
> >
> > > In an essay in Le Monde last week, the heads of three of France's
> > > biggest publishers wrote: "Literature's calling is not to appease but
> > > rather to worry and to offend. It is there to provoke. Otherwise, what
> > > is the point? Nothing human, or inhuman for that matter, is off
> > > limits to literature."
> >
> > Vive la France! What I wouldn't give to see all the publishers of the
> > world adopt the above-quoted words as their credo.
>
> If I were a shareholder in any of the France's three biggest publishers
> I would be calling for the immediate dismissal of those three men, the
> reason being that they clearly fail to understand the business they are
> in. People read to be entertained -- if reading fiction -- or informed
> -- if reading non-fiction. Hardly anyone reads to be worried, offended
> or provoked. These three clueless bozos seem to think they are on a
> mission of artistc social reform, when their actual goals should be to
> serve their customers and enrich their shareholders.
Personally, I think entertaining and informing only account for finite
-- but necessary -- portion of what literature can and should do. If
defined broadly enough, perhaps they could be all-inclusive. But the
general tenor of your comment indicates to me that your assumed
definitions of these terms aren't that broad.
What's wrong with publishers pursuing a philosophical agenda with their
literary offerings? What's wrong with publishers seeking to elevate
and educate (as they see it) the tastes of their readers? The readers
will let it be known if they don't like it.
-Matt Cardin
Jordan
IMO, Lovecraft was one of the most influential authors of the 20th
century. Reading or watching any horror today, you may observe how
much of it is informed by at least some of his premises -- often taken
at second or third hand.
- Jordan
Jordan
imprisonment for simply calling a religion "stupid." Will the French
ever regain their freedom of speech?
- Jordan
Jordan
Comm wrote:
>
> His layout of Innsmoth doesn't fit any coastal city in NE, but it does fit
> NJ. This is explained. Scroll a few down past the ad - and read. There
> are also photographs, lots of them.
Have you ever been to modern Atlantic City? Not just the downtown and
casino strip, but the whole city?
The place is utterly bizarre from a demographic POV. An ultra-glitzy
shore strip within a block or two along the Boardwalk, done up like
some gaudy fantasy land; a decaying downtown with many signs of a
greater past prosperity; and then if you go more than a quarter-mile
from the shore you are in slums so bad that they look like something
out of rural Alabama -- in places the streets aren't even paved.
I worked in Atlantic City for half a year and I was _strongly_ reminded
of Innsmouth. The fact that the city is in the middle of a vast salt
marsh makes the analogy even stronger. And the extent of its municipal
corruption is incredible -- one could easily see the gangsters feeding
their rivals to monsters from the deep.
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan
Del Rio
<johan....@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>If I were a shareholder in any of the France's three biggest publishers
>I would be calling for the immediate dismissal of those three men, the
>reason being that they clearly fail to understand the business they are
>in. People read to be entertained -- if reading fiction -- or informed
>-- if reading non-fiction. Hardly anyone reads to be worried, offended
>or provoked. These three clueless bozos seem to think they are on a
>mission of artistic social reform, when their actual goals should be to
>serve their customers and enrich their shareholders.
I can't remember, is it "Left hand for sarcasm, right for irony...?"
--
"I know I promised, Lord, never again. But I also know
that YOU know what a weak-willed person I am."
Nancy Lebovitz
Jordan <JSBass...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>IMO, Lovecraft was one of the most influential authors of the 20th
>century. Reading or watching any horror today, you may observe how
>much of it is informed by at least some of his premises -- often taken
>at second or third hand.
Would you care to expand on that? I think of Lovecraft's contribution
(aside from the specifics of his mythos) to be that the whole universe
is inimical and people go insane when they learn that.
Most horror is about much more localized threats.
--
Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com
http://nancylebov.livejournal.com
My two favorite colors are "Oooooh" and "SHINY!".
Nancy Lebovitz
Comm <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>
>What I'm telling you, what I'm trying to say is that about 99% of the crap
>out there being labelled or branded with the R word - imo, is not racist at
>all. It is certainly NOT racist to prefer your own ethnic group over others
>for whatever reasons - maybe you feel more comfortable with them, share food
It isn't especially racist to prefer your own group, though I can think of
some edge cases there--frex, applying high pressure to your kids to marry
inside the group.
However, presenting people of other groups as deeply defective *is*
racist, and HPL was invoking fear and disgust at outsiders to get
part of his effects.
>in common, share music tastes in common, etc. Since when is freedom of
>choice the same as racism? Only in the minds of draconian tyrants is that
>racism. HPL, imo, was not a racist. He even did something highly unusual
>for his time - he married outside his culture/religion. Sonya Greene was
>Jewish. That right there was unusual for his time. He had opinions that
>were considered quite normal for his time - OR - he put those opinions in
>the mouths of specific narrators. If someone wrote a novel where the
>narrator was a KKK member, they'd have to write up really racist (real
>meaning of racism) words. Does that make the author a racist? NO, it does
>not.
>
Nancy Lebovitz
>I would be calling for the immediate dismissal of those three men, the
>reason being that they clearly fail to understand the business they are
>in. People read to be entertained -- if reading fiction -- or informed
>-- if reading non-fiction. Hardly anyone reads to be worried, offended
>or provoked. These three clueless bozos seem to think they are on a
>mission of artistic social reform, when their actual goals should be to
>serve their customers and enrich their shareholders.
People rarely read to be offended, but they frequently read things that
they think will be offensive to people they don't like.
Jordan
Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
> In article <1160417084....@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
> Jordan <JSBass...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >IMO, Lovecraft was one of the most influential authors of the 20th
> >century. Reading or watching any horror today, you may observe how
> >much of it is informed by at least some of his premises -- often taken
> >at second or third hand.
>
> Would you care to expand on that? I think of Lovecraft's contribution
> (aside from the specifics of his mythos) to be that the whole universe
> is inimical and people go insane when they learn that.
Lovecraft liberated horror from its JudeoChristian straitjacket and
showed everyone how to do atheistic and scientific horror. It's not
that the Lovecraftian Universe is _inimical_ to Man. It's that it
doesn't care one way or another, and that the subset of reality that we
think of as "normal" is a very small eddy of calm in a vast sea of
Chaos. Lovecraft's "demons" are really alien beings, but their
alienness is so extreme as to be both wondrous and horrific.
Lovecraft's stories are set amidst vast gulfs of space and time, within
which Man's world is a very little thing indeed. Does that make it
clearer?
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan
Nancy Lebovitz
Jordan <JSBass...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>Nancy Lebovitz wrote:
>> In article <1160417084....@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
>> Jordan <JSBass...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >IMO, Lovecraft was one of the most influential authors of the 20th
>> >century. Reading or watching any horror today, you may observe how
>
>Jordan
>
>> >much of it is informed by at least some of his premises -- often taken
>> >at second or third hand.
>>
>> Would you care to expand on that? I think of Lovecraft's contribution
>> (aside from the specifics of his mythos) to be that the whole universe
>> is inimical and people go insane when they learn that.
>
>Lovecraft liberated horror from its JudeoChristian straitjacket and
>showed everyone how to do atheistic and scientific horror. It's not
>that the Lovecraftian Universe is _inimical_ to Man. It's that it
>doesn't care one way or another, and that the subset of reality that we
>think of as "normal" is a very small eddy of calm in a vast sea of
>Chaos. Lovecraft's "demons" are really alien beings, but their
>alienness is so extreme as to be both wondrous and horrific.
>Lovecraft's stories are set amidst vast gulfs of space and time, within
>which Man's world is a very little thing indeed. Does that make it
>clearer?
I can see that HPL being the first (or at least first major writer--I don't
know if there were any others at all) to write atheist horror is significant.
I don't think think there's much modern horror which has the horror/
problem for humans so deeply woven into the structure of the universe.
Gene Wirchenko
>In article <RRzVg.5882$Y24....@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
>Comm <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>>
>>What I'm telling you, what I'm trying to say is that about 99% of the crap
>>out there being labelled or branded with the R word - imo, is not racist at
>>all. It is certainly NOT racist to prefer your own ethnic group over others
>>for whatever reasons - maybe you feel more comfortable with them, share food
>
>It isn't especially racist to prefer your own group, though I can think of
>some edge cases there--frex, applying high pressure to your kids to marry
>inside the group.
>
>However, presenting people of other groups as deeply defective *is*
>racist, and HPL was invoking fear and disgust at outsiders to get
>part of his effects.
Where is the line between authorial technique and racism?
[snip]
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:
I have preferences.
You have biases.
He/She has prejudices.
Nancy Lebovitz
Gene Wirchenko <ge...@ocis.net.NOTTHIS> wrote:
>nan...@panix.com (Nancy Lebovitz) wrote:
>
>>In article <RRzVg.5882$Y24....@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
>>Comm <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>What I'm telling you, what I'm trying to say is that about 99% of the crap
>>>out there being labelled or branded with the R word - imo, is not racist at
>>>all. It is certainly NOT racist to prefer your own ethnic group over others
>>>for whatever reasons - maybe you feel more comfortable with them, share food
>>
>>It isn't especially racist to prefer your own group, though I can think of
>>some edge cases there--frex, applying high pressure to your kids to marry
>>inside the group.
>>
>>However, presenting people of other groups as deeply defective *is*
>>racist, and HPL was invoking fear and disgust at outsiders to get
>>part of his effects.
>
> Where is the line between authorial technique and racism?
>
in for "poor relatively normal white person, overwhelmed by a scary
universe and its off-colored human allies". That's rather more racist
than either having an assorted bunch of people (or even, heaven forfend,
the occasional non-white relatively normal protagonist) overwhelmed by
a scary universe or having a white person realize that they're just
as scary as anyone else.
Tentatively, I'd rather believe that Lovecraft was spooked by people
of color himself than that he just did his bit to amplify racism he
didn't feel in order to make his stories more frightening.
Robin Low
<nan...@panix.com> writes
>> Where is the line between authorial technique and racism?
>>
>I'd say it's in how generalized the effect is. IIRC, Lovecraft went
>in for "poor relatively normal white person, overwhelmed by a scary
>universe and its off-colored human allies". That's rather more racist
>than either having an assorted bunch of people (or even, heaven forfend,
>the occasional non-white relatively normal protagonist) overwhelmed by
>a scary universe or having a white person realize that they're just
>as scary as anyone else.
>
>Tentatively, I'd rather believe that Lovecraft was spooked by people
>of color himself than that he just did his bit to amplify racism he
>didn't feel in order to make his stories more frightening.
>
I think the inhabitants of Innsmouth and the Waites were white folk. So
was Jospeh Curwen. And the Whateleys. Dr. Herbert West was white, I
believe. Keziah Mason, too.
HPL was ignorant and bigoted to varying degrees. He expressed opinions
that range from the unpalatable to the unacceptable. However, in his
stories, I think you'll find that corrupted humans serving monstrous
gods are just as likely to white as black, perhaps more so. I'd suggest
his main failing here is that he failed to make blacks into proper
characters (there may be the odd exception - it's years since I read the
stories).
Sean O'Hara
>
> I think the inhabitants of Innsmouth and the Waites were white folk.
No, they were half-breeds whose white ancestors had intermarried
with outsiders.
> So
> was Jospeh Curwen. And the Whateleys.
Ditto with the Whatleys, at least the youngest ones.
--
Sean O'Hara | http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com
Firefighter: This is Canada. We only have one road.
-South Park
Marko Amnell
Robin Low wrote:
> In message <eghcis$ep$1...@reader1.panix.com>, Nancy Lebovitz
> <nan...@panix.com> writes
>
> >> Where is the line between authorial technique and racism?
> >>
> >I'd say it's in how generalized the effect is. IIRC, Lovecraft went
> >in for "poor relatively normal white person, overwhelmed by a scary
> >universe and its off-colored human allies". That's rather more racist
> >than either having an assorted bunch of people (or even, heaven forfend,
> >the occasional non-white relatively normal protagonist) overwhelmed by
> >a scary universe or having a white person realize that they're just
> >as scary as anyone else.
> >
> >Tentatively, I'd rather believe that Lovecraft was spooked by people
> >of color himself than that he just did his bit to amplify racism he
> >didn't feel in order to make his stories more frightening.
> >
> I think the inhabitants of Innsmouth and the Waites were white folk.
The Innsmouth residents are mixed with Deep Ones.
Apparently what Lovecraft was especially afraid of
was racial mixing -- the half man-half fish "Innsmouth
look". The story can be read as an allegory.
Robin Low
Marko Amnell <marko_...@hotmail.com> writes
>
>Robin Low wrote:
>> I think the inhabitants of Innsmouth and the Waites were white folk.
>
>The Innsmouth residents are mixed with Deep Ones.
>Apparently what Lovecraft was especially afraid of
>was racial mixing -- the half man-half fish "Innsmouth
>look". The story can be read as an allegory.
>
It can be, I agree, but I'm not sure that's what HPL was aiming to
write. It's clear by the end of the story SPOILER...................
that the narrator shares the Deep One heritage, and I'd suggest that the
narrator is very much like HPL himself. In that respect, you could argue
that the story is actually about being an outsider, as HPL apparently
claimed he felt himself to be.
Al Smith
>
>
> The Innsmouth residents are mixed with Deep Ones.
> Apparently what Lovecraft was especially afraid of
> was racial mixing -- the half man-half fish "Innsmouth
> look". The story can be read as an allegory.
>
Hey, that's true. The fishy folk move in and the town goes to
hell. You don't want to live in the neighborhood near the wharf.
Dangerous at night. And their houses smell of herring.
Except, didn't the whole town enter into a kind of covenant with
Captain Marsh and the Deep Ones? It wasn't as if the Deep Ones
just started trying to live in white neighborhoods. They were
welcomed.
Comm
"Robin Low" <ro...@celephais.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:AmJ2kYBx...@celephais.demon.co.uk...
> In message <eghcis$ep$1...@reader1.panix.com>, Nancy Lebovitz
> <nan...@panix.com> writes
>
>>> Where is the line between authorial technique and racism?
>>>
>>I'd say it's in how generalized the effect is. IIRC, Lovecraft went
>>in for "poor relatively normal white person, overwhelmed by a scary
>>universe and its off-colored human allies". That's rather more racist
>>than either having an assorted bunch of people (or even, heaven forfend,
>>the occasional non-white relatively normal protagonist) overwhelmed by
>>a scary universe or having a white person realize that they're just
>>as scary as anyone else.
>>
>>Tentatively, I'd rather believe that Lovecraft was spooked by people
>>of color himself than that he just did his bit to amplify racism he
>>didn't feel in order to make his stories more frightening.
>>
> I think the inhabitants of Innsmouth and the Waites were white folk. So
> was Jospeh Curwen. And the Whateleys. Dr. Herbert West was white, I
> believe. Keziah Mason, too.
Touche - I just saw the response to my post today - and said as much (just
posted it).
>
> HPL was ignorant and bigoted to varying degrees. He expressed opinions
> that range from the unpalatable to the unacceptable.
To whom?
However, in his
> stories, I think you'll find that corrupted humans serving monstrous gods
> are just as likely to be white as black, perhaps more so. I'd suggest his
> main failing here is that he failed to make blacks into proper characters
> (there may be the odd exception - it's years since I read the stories).
Why should he make blacks into proper characters? Why shouldn't he make
characters out of people he could at least relate to?
Imo, political correctness is tyranny.
Comm
"Nancy Lebovitz" <nan...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:egg995$f1a$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> In article <RRzVg.5882$Y24....@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net>,
> Comm <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>>
>>What I'm telling you, what I'm trying to say is that about 99% of the crap
>>out there being labelled or branded with the R word - imo, is not racist
>>at
>>all. It is certainly NOT racist to prefer your own ethnic group over
>>others
>>for whatever reasons - maybe you feel more comfortable with them, share
>>food
>
> It isn't especially racist to prefer your own group, though I can think of
> some edge cases there--frex, applying high pressure to your kids to marry
> inside the group.
Odd thing, most ethnics do just that with their kids - kids being the first
generation Americans.
>
> However, presenting people of other groups as deeply defective *is*
> racist, and HPL was invoking fear and disgust at outsiders to get
> part of his effects.
Well, Joe Sargent was of the same racial stock as HPL. So was Obed Marsh.
They were "not so nice" in the story. Seems to me that HPL had people of
many stocks in his stories, either could be written about favorably or not.
Comm
Or maybe not. He also hated fish and oceanic life. He was terrified of
that stuff. I'm sure he knew typical mythology about fishmen (he did not
invent that stuff).
Comm
"Jordan" <JSBass...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1160418278.8...@k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> Comm wrote:
>>
>> His layout of Innsmoth doesn't fit any coastal city in NE, but it does
>> fit
>> NJ. This is explained. Scroll a few down past the ad - and read. There
>> are also photographs, lots of them.
>
> Have you ever been to modern Atlantic City? Not just the downtown and
> casino strip, but the whole city?
Yes, but a very long time ago and only two times. I was more familiar with
Asbury Park and Long Branch.
>
> The place is utterly bizarre from a demographic POV. An ultra-glitzy
> shore strip within a block or two along the Boardwalk, done up like
> some gaudy fantasy land; a decaying downtown with many signs of a
> greater past prosperity; and then if you go more than a quarter-mile
> from the shore you are in slums so bad that they look like something
> out of rural Alabama -- in places the streets aren't even paved.
You must have been there long after I was there :)
>
> I worked in Atlantic City for half a year and I was _strongly_ reminded
> of Innsmouth. The fact that the city is in the middle of a vast salt
> marsh makes the analogy even stronger. And the extent of its municipal
> corruption is incredible -- one could easily see the gangsters feeding
> their rivals to monsters from the deep.
LOL.
>
> Sincerely Yours,
> Jordan
>
Robin Low
Comm <n...@spam.com> writes
>
>"Robin Low" <ro...@celephais.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:AmJ2kYBx...@celephais.demon.co.uk...
>> HPL was ignorant and bigoted to varying degrees. He expressed opinions
>> that range from the unpalatable to the unacceptable.
>
>To whom?
To whom did he express those opinions or to whom were they unpalatable
or unacceptable? In either case, I'll have to leave it to other folks to
provide the quotes from his letters, articles, correspondents and
biographers.
>
>However, in his
>> stories, I think you'll find that corrupted humans serving monstrous gods
>> are just as likely to be white as black, perhaps more so. I'd suggest his
>> main failing here is that he failed to make blacks into proper characters
>> (there may be the odd exception - it's years since I read the stories).
>
>Why should he make blacks into proper characters? Why shouldn't he make
>characters out of people he could at least relate to?
No reason at all, beyond demonstrating his own desire to write
convincingly about characters he chose to include, perhaps. Convincingly
describing characters who are hard relate to seems a reasonable goal for
any writer of fiction.
>
>Imo, political correctness is tyranny.
(Consider the following a more general comment separate to the previous
discussion...)
Depends on your definition of political correctness. My understanding of
the term was that it referred to a deliberate movement in certain
American universities to find alternative terms for inherently negative
language. For example, the word 'cripple' has come to mean utterly
useless or incapable. As such, it gives a wholly negative image of a
person it is applied to. Of course, someone who uses a wheelchair is
*not* wholly useless, and so calling them a cripple gives an unfairly
negative impression. I remain to be convinced that 'differently abled'
has any value or credibility, but recognition that the words we use
affects the image of those they are applied to seems important to me.
Comm
> In message <ejTXg.11127$o71....@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net>, Comm
> <n...@spam.com> writes
>>
>>"Robin Low" <ro...@celephais.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>>news:AmJ2kYBx...@celephais.demon.co.uk...
>
>>> HPL was ignorant and bigoted to varying degrees. He expressed opinions
>>> that range from the unpalatable to the unacceptable.
>>
>>To whom?
>
> To whom did he express those opinions or to whom were they unpalatable or
> unacceptable? In either case, I'll have to leave it to other folks to
> provide the quotes from his letters, articles, correspondents and
> biographers.
I meant "to whom were they unpalatable or unacceptable?" Evidently, those
he wrote these things to would have chided him for it or stopped
corresponding if they found it so bad. People tend to forget that HPL wrote
these as personal letters to personal friends. People in real life say MANY
things behind closed doors to family and friends that they'd never say to
strangers or even mere acquaintances of many years. This is due to the new
era of "everyone learning to lie" due to the tyranny of political
correctness. It's really bad when people are afraid to speak from their
hearts. That right there is the end of free speech.
>>
>>However, in his
>>> stories, I think you'll find that corrupted humans serving monstrous
>>> gods
>>> are just as likely to be white as black, perhaps more so. I'd suggest
>>> his
>>> main failing here is that he failed to make blacks into proper
>>> characters
>>> (there may be the odd exception - it's years since I read the stories).
>>
>>Why should he make blacks into proper characters? Why shouldn't he make
>>characters out of people he could at least relate to?
>
> No reason at all, beyond demonstrating his own desire to write
> convincingly about characters he chose to include, perhaps. Convincingly
> describing characters who are hard to relate to seems a reasonable goal
> for any writer of fiction.
HPL didn't do anything much in the way of characterization anyway.
>
>>
>>Imo, political correctness is tyranny.
>
> (Consider the following a more general comment separate to the previous
> discussion...)
>
> Depends on your definition of political correctness. My understanding of
> the term was that it referred to a deliberate movement in certain American
> universities to find alternative terms for inherently negative language.
> For example, the word 'cripple' has come to mean utterly useless or
> incapable. As such, it gives a wholly negative image of a person it is
> applied to. Of course, someone who uses a wheelchair is *not* wholly
> useless, and so calling them a cripple gives an unfairly negative
> impression.
Tell that to a friend I worked with in a wheel chair that got really angry
if anyone did NOT say "crippled." He hated PC speech. Crippled doesn't
mean utterly useless. Anyone that has ever known a crippled person knows
this. The whole thing smacks of 1984speech.
I remain to be convinced that 'differently abled'
> has any value or credibility, but recognition that the words we use
> affects the image of those they are applied to seems important to me.
People learned that being lilly livered pays off. That's all it is. Anyone
that listens to rap music is going to get many earfuls of the "n" word - as
if one group of people can use that speech, but no one else can. Of course,
they can also say the G word and the H word and the K word - and they do.
That's not freedom of speech if no one else can use it. And when listening
to rap music, OR hanging out with people that use the "N" word - people do
tend to pick up lingo. UH OH. Solution: DO NOT hang with or even
associate briefly with anyone that uses it.
I have no problem admitting that I'm blind as a freaking bat - even tho I'm
not literally blind and bats are not blind. I'm not lilly livered. But I'm
also in the real world and I know what I can see and can not see. I can't
read unless the print if super big - or read books in bright light at the
beach or outside. I know this. This is not an insult. If someone tells me
this about myself, it's not an insult - it's the truth. I've never
subscribed to the "culture of victimhood." People that subscribe to it
eventually really DO become victims. Keep telling yourself that you are no
good. Do it constantly. See what results.
I recently saw a guy home from Iraq. He had no legs anymore. He was at the
beach with another person helping him along as if he was a cork. Compare
him to my anti PC wheelchaired friend - speedy Gonzalez on wheels. No
comparison.
Comm
> In article <1160417084....@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
> Jordan <JSBass...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>IMO, Lovecraft was one of the most influential authors of the 20th
>>century. Reading or watching any horror today, you may observe how
>>much of it is informed by at least some of his premises -- often taken
>>at second or third hand.
>
> Would you care to expand on that? I think of Lovecraft's contribution
> (aside from the specifics of his mythos) to be that the whole universe
> is inimical and people go insane when they learn that.
>
> Most horror is about much more localized threats.
The Star Gate shows. Threshold. Nothing about those are localized.
Comm
Extremely well put. Touche!
>
> Sincerely Yours,
> Jordan
>
mgca...@hughes.net
> "Jordan" <JSBass...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> > Lovecraft liberated horror from its JudeoChristian straitjacket and
> > showed everyone how to do atheistic and scientific horror. It's not
> > that the Lovecraftian Universe is _inimical_ to Man. It's that it
> > doesn't care one way or another, and that the subset of reality that we
> > think of as "normal" is a very small eddy of calm in a vast sea of
> > Chaos. Lovecraft's "demons" are really alien beings, but their
> > alienness is so extreme as to be both wondrous and horrific.
> > Lovecraft's stories are set amidst vast gulfs of space and time, within
> > which Man's world is a very little thing indeed. Does that make it
> > clearer?
>
> Extremely well put. Touche!
Jordan's paragraph made me laugh when I read it, not because it's
laughable -- quite the opposite, I think it's very well stated and
pertinent -- but because it brought sharply to mind a passage from
Brian McNaughton's unpublished introduction, written in 2001, to my
fiction collection DIVINATIONS OF THE DEEP. Brian referenced the same
general point about Lovecraft and religion, but then said the
effectiveness -- as he perceived it; not everyone may agree -- of my
own religion-oriented cosmic horror stories indicates that Lovecraft
may have been too hasty in his rejection of the horrific potential of
traditional religious elements. To wit:
"Lovecraft didn't take religion seriously, but he recognized its
enormous power in the very area -- cosmic horror -- that he wanted to
stake out as his own. So he invented a pandemonium of evil entities
who evoked the sort of horror that Satan could no longer evoke for
people of Lovecraft's mind-set. We don't know what's going on, he
implied, but there are Things Out There that do; and the last thing we
want to do is attract their notice. He even referred to the Bible of
his invented religion, the NECRONOMICON, and we all know what a
powerful grip this fictitious book has held on generations of readers.
"Matt Cardin, like most of us, was floored by Lovecraft as a youngster
and made an intensive study of his work. It shows -- not through
imitation, not by lifting a few names or symbols, but by his thorough
appreciation of what cosmic horror is all about. As the product of an
evangelical upbringing who has made a serious study of religion,
presently working on a master's degree in religious studies, and who
has been involved in evangelical settings throughout his life, he knows
that the Bible staked out the territory long before Lovecraft came on
the scene. You might even say that he saw where Lovecraft went off the
tracks by dismissing the power of the pre-existing symbols. In these
masterly tales, he has steered the train back onto the mainline of
Western religion."
Personally, I see both sides of the issue. Lovecraft's
atheistic-materialistic vision of cosmic horror moves me ever so
deeply, but so does the recognition that all sorts of dreadfully
twisted cosmic-level horrors can be elicited from creative rereadings
of traditional Judeo-Christian theological doctrines, and from the
doctrines of most other religions as well. On the one hand, we have
the horror that's revealed when all human notions of value, meaning,
and cosmic context are stripped away, leaving only the starry void with
its inscrutable forces and sheer awe-someness of scope. On the other
hand, we have the horror that's revealed when a closer reading of those
very contextual underpinnings that generate and support human notions
of value, meaning, and cosmic context brings to light a formerly
unrecognized world of horrific truths, so that the supposedly
comforting collective dream generated by the "sacred canopy," as
sociologist Peter Berger has called it -- i.e., the view of the world
that's generated by our slapping an anthropocentric interpretive grid
over the raw fact of nature -- proves to be a hideous nightmare
instead.
Not incidentally, an emotional appreciation of both of these viewpoints
can generate a kind of rock-and-a-hard-place experience of existential
panic. Think of a slightly altered version of Pascal. What if Pascal
had contemplated the echoing infinity of the cosmos and been terrified
at the prospect of his own dwarfish meaninglessness in the face of its
uncaring immensity -- as indeed he did -- but then, when he turned back
to his pietist brand of Christianity, instead of finding cosmic solace
had found instead a nightmare that was at least as bad as the horror of
the cosmic void, and maybe even worse?
Also not incidentally, I've found in my rereading of Lovecraft over the
past several years that I can't help thinking he encompassed both sides
of this coin in his nature, regardless of his primary association with,
and focus upon, the materialist-atheistic side of it. Especially in
some of his earlier stories, such as "The Music of Erich Zann," I see
him grappling emotionally with a horror that displays elements of both
cosmic meaninglessness and ontological nightmarishness. The latter,
while he certainly didn't frame it in religious terms, differs
distinctly from the former and seems to share a family resemblance with
the horror of religion (as distinguished from the horror of anti- or
a-religion).
By the way, if anybody wants to read the full introduction Brian
McNaugton wrote for my collection, I'll probably be posting it at my
blog soon. What with Brian sadly no longer being among us, I figure
there's no reason his words should lie moldering in obscurity,
especially since he worked so very hard on them (he devoted a
considerable amount of time and effort to that intro).
Best regards,
Comm
<mgca...@hughes.net> wrote in message
news:1162126987.6...@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
> Comm wrote:
>
>> "Jordan" <JSBass...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>>
>> > Lovecraft liberated horror from its JudeoChristian straitjacket and
>> > showed everyone how to do atheistic and scientific horror. It's not
>> > that the Lovecraftian Universe is _inimical_ to Man. It's that it
>> > doesn't care one way or another, and that the subset of reality that we
>> > think of as "normal" is a very small eddy of calm in a vast sea of
>> > Chaos.
Let me be specific, then. YES, very well put and hits on target, as I
said. No one ever said these things were evil - and I can't really deal
with people that read these tales and think "oh, that's evil." It's no
different from people that think the Star Gate Wraith are evil. NO they
aren't. They are another species of alien - VERY inimical to humans cuz we
are their food. So what's evil about that? I just can't deal with midieval
mind-sets on these subjets. It's no different from claiming that the
Taliban are evil. Are they? They think WE are evil. Are we? Heh, we are
each other's enemies. Period. (Now if someone would just DO the damned war
as a real war and get this crap over with and stop tippy toeing around it?)
Are Humans evil in the Cow Religion - or do cows think we are evil? Want
some rare steak :) We steal chicken babies and eat them, surely chickens
know we do it, they can see us doing it. We eat chicken. Do chickens think
man is evil? That's where I think HPL was going with a lot of this. We
might be to some outre aliens the same as ants or chickens are to us. We
don't eat ants, but if they are the pest types, we do try to exterminate
them to keep them off our land. Aliens might exterminate us to keep us off
this planet. Nothing evil about it. The concepts of good/evil just do not
apply to such things. HPL saw that. It's not hard to see at all.
In the past, what I think Jordan means by "straightjacket," all fiction
always had that good/evil plot to it. It followed that kind of formula.
HPL is very different when he writes mythos sci fi. My novel (Other
Nations) dispenses with pro/antagonists too, even if some of them think in
terms of good/evil - and it's VERY different - the intention is to make YOU
forget you are human as you read it - lots of my aliens are kinda likeable.
Sort of. Maybe. Uh, hmm. Depends on how you read. And of course, right
here at home, there are Green Peace people that think all H. sapiens are
evil - a cancer on the planet earth (sic).
Lovecraft's "demons" are really alien beings, but their
>> > alienness is so extreme as to be both wondrous and horrific.
Note that Jordan put "demons" in quote marks. They aren't demons. But they
might be seen as that by some readers, seen as evil. I have to say WHY?
Why?: Because some humans can't think anything out without evoking the
good/evil paradigm. They can't even think about simple war without doing
that (Axis of Evil?). It's midieval minded stuff. Primitive. Not all
humans do that - some of us never do it. Is Dracula evil? That's
supernatural fiction, but Dracula is under a curse. He's a victim. Sure, he
makes other victims. Don't a lot of victims do that? Abused kids become
adult abusers?
>> > Lovecraft's stories are set amidst vast gulfs of space and time, within
>> > which Man's world is a very little thing indeed. Does that make it
>> > clearer?
>>
>> Extremely well put. Touche!
>
> Jordan's paragraph made me laugh when I read it, not because it's
> laughable -- quite the opposite, I think it's very well stated and
> pertinent -- but because it brought sharply to mind a passage from
> Brian McNaughton's unpublished introduction, written in 2001, to my
> fiction collection DIVINATIONS OF THE DEEP. Brian referenced the same
> general point about Lovecraft and religion,
And I just contradicted Brian's words about HPL. I think he's dead wrong.
Maybe it just never occurs to anyone that some folks just do not ever think
in religious paradigms of any kind. Maybe people who do think in religious
paradigms can't fathom NOT doing that. I think that's due to their not
knowing too much about nature in general, but I might be wrong. Look hard
at nature and you will see HPL's universe - it's definitely not a religious
one. What am I to the fire ants whose nests I destroy? Am I a natural
catastrophe that they can't fathom? A monster? Maybe some people think in
religious paradigms because it's the only kind of thinking they CAN do. In
which case, they are NOT going to understand the mythos hard core sci fi HPL
tales - no matter how hard they try to understand them.
but then said the
> effectiveness -- as he perceived it; not everyone may agree -- of my
> own religion-oriented cosmic horror stories indicates that Lovecraft
> may have been too hasty in his rejection of the horrific potential of
> traditional religious elements. To wit:
>
> "Lovecraft didn't take religion seriously, but he recognized its
> enormous power in the very area -- cosmic horror -- that he wanted to
> stake out as his own. So he invented a pandemonium of evil entities
> who evoked the sort of horror that Satan could no longer evoke for
> people of Lovecraft's mind-set.
Disagree again. What evil entities? ALIEN entities, possibly, not
necessarily inimical to humans. Nothing evil about it. I'll say it again,
as far as some folks go America IS Satan, evil, horribly evil. I guess if
religious minded people were in their shoes, they might think the same.
9/11 - more evil? No, nothing EVIL about it. It was a declaration of
freaking war - and they had their reasons for doing it. I wonder if HPL's
so-called horror has horror-effect for people who have been totally
conquerered and experienced brutal warfare. I doubt it! I'm one of those
that finds NO horror in HPL. I like his tales because I love SCI FI - but I
never ever found anything, not even one thing, "horrifying" about them. I
found them fascinating! I like HPL for the same reason that I loved Star
Trek (which I saw prior to reading HPL - back then, were Klingons and
Romulans evil? NO, they were our enemies.) - and all the later Treks, Star
Gates (both shows) and so forth. That is why I love HPL's mythos sci fi
stuff. It's why I love Delta Green (DG is more Other Nations :)
I'd have to disagree with that assessment right there again, on another
point - and I think that's what Jordan means (Jordan, correct if I'm wrong).
Consider what was out there to read back in HPL's day. Vampires, werewolves
and ghosts, demons of course and sure, Satan or Lucifer. BOO. What HPL
wrote was not spiritual horror (eg vampire) type stuff at all - tho fancy
that - vampires became SEXY to people reading that stuff! - Did Stoker
intend that? :o Did Stoker ever imagine Anne Rice?
The POINT is that HPL's stuff wasn't demonic at all, not even a little. It
wasn't even evil. Are the Goa'uld evil? Are the Ori evil? Are the Ascended
Ancients on Star Gate evil? How about the Wraith? I don't think ANY of them
are evil. They are enemies - well, most of the time they are :) HPL wrote
hard core SCI FI with his mythos tales. That's the point I think Jordan
makes. It's the point I see of it. When I first picked up HPL, as I said,
I had no idea what kind of writer he was or what kind of story CoC was
"supposed to be." I read it and thought it was a MYSTERY, like a "Perry
Mason gotta solve this one" mystery! Only after reading ATMOM did I realize
that this was more like Outer Limits or Star Trek. I liked SCI FI, and
after reading ATMOM I realized then that CoC was a sci fi tale too, a sci fi
mystery for the characters in it - and hard core SCI FI for me who read both
tales and intertexted them. Shadow out of Time also got intertexted. There
was NOTHING religious in there at all. It was about very alien aliens.
Far out stuff. Imo, wonderful stuff.
But here it is then - do these very alien aliens have religion? Do ants or
bees or rats have religion? Those two questions are the same question, btw,
in case you don't think they are. I completely disagree with the person
writing that paragraph, because for me (just one example of a foreigner),
"Satan" had NO meaning. I had no idea what it was except from horror
movies, if a vampire mentioned it. "The Devil" - oh, the Boogeyman - stuff
that really stupid kids think is under the bed or down in the cellar. IE:
Bullshit! Meanwhile, real rats, a real danger, WERE in the cellars. I did
wonder why those certain kids didn't know about RATS. Werewolves, as a kid
it didn't take me long to realize that someone got bit by a rabid wolf or
dog and it started up the legends. No adult had to tell me that - but an
adult DID explain rabis and watching out for wild dogs. But - ALIENS? Now,
that's a whole different thing. Aliens are NOT from earth! Totally
different kind of thing.
Did you ever see some of the sci fi and horror (melodramas) shows out there
in the 50s and 60s? I watched them all. The sci fi shows were all markedly
different from "melodramas" (what they called horror movies). Horror
movies were stupid. Sci fi shows were GOOD. Nowadays, vampire shows are
more like sci fi with them getting all virological about what makes a
vampire. The genres sort of are more blended now. HPL, the mythos stories,
were pure sci fi. NOT horror. Big difference.
Star Gate's Gou'ald are an excellent example that mythos fans might use to
understand what IMO, HPL was trying to do. Due to the Goa'uld's advanced
technology, technology that they actually reengineered from a former race of
Alterans - they appeared to be gods to the humans they kidnapped off the
earth thousands of years ago. For thousands of years, they were seen as
gods by these humans they ruled. What they did to humans under their rule
was about as bad as anything Cthulhu might do. But did the Goa'uld see
themselves as Gods? Oh hell no. And when the Goa'uld are up against a
technology even more superior than their own (like the Asgard), do they
think they are up against gods? Hell no. They try to steal the technology
of beings they realize are more advanced :) There you have it. Religion is
really not necessary. Goa'uld use religion to keep morons subjugated. The
enlightenment comes from the earth travelers who show these other humans
that the Goa'uld aren't gods. Still, they are HARD TO BEAT - and they are
MEAN - as far as humans are concerned.
Here: What do you fear? You are in the ocean, in deep water swimming
alone. Do you wonder if Satan might show up? Or do you wonder if a shark
might show up? How about a little sting ray? I got stung by one once. GOD
DAMN it hurt and I had to be carried out due to being disoriented by the
fast acting poison. I'm a damned good swimmer - but that didn't matter
squat. Lots of people get stung - but most of them panic like morons, which
only makes it worse. (feels like electrified bobbed wire hit you when you
get stung). But knowing these dangers are in the ocean, it doesn't keep me
out of the ocean - nor does it keep anyone else out. Everyone knows what's
out there when they swim out there. It's not the devil. And sure 'nuff,
heh, where you see little fish, there be bigger fish - and where you see
bigger fish, there be even BIGGER fish, and where you see BIGGER fish, there
be sharks. Now let us say you are in the ocean and a shoggoth comes after
you. Hey, would you even be able to tell what it was? And what's the
difference if it's a shoggoth OR a big shark, like a Bull Shark (they DO eat
and go after humans)? There is no difference, imo. Oh, you can kill a Bull
shark. You might not be able to kill a shoggoth. Either way, you'd be
dead, torn to pieces. But for damned sure, NO ONE is afraid of the devil
in the ocean. No one. (insane people not included). And the beach and
ocean is frequented by millions of people, despite the fact that something
that can rip them to pieces is definitely out there. Not in myth, but for
real. Absolutely. Guaranteed. So - just how "scary" is that? Heh. In
case anyone wants to say that humans like taking risks: more people die in
car accidents than in the ocean. Therefore, the "taking risks" theory is
busted.
We don't know what's going on, he
> implied, but there are Things Out There that do; and the last thing we
> want to do is attract their notice. He even referred to the Bible of
> his invented religion, the NECRONOMICON, and we all know what a
> powerful grip this fictitious book has held on generations of readers.
Nope, disagree again. Sure, who would want to attract the notice of hostile
aliens? Heh, that's why the idiots put our DNA code and directions to get
to earth in probes they sent out there - LMAO. Considering human on human
experience - that was a stupid thing to do! The Necronomicon was just a
book written by another midieval mystic that obviously mixed up real aliens
with spooks. HPL makes sure to repeatedly tell us that the man was a mad
Arab that lived a long time ago. The writer is not a NASA scientist - or
any kind of scientist. I think that was HPL's attempt to show HOW such
aliens might be written of in the past, by ignorant mystics. It's like how
the humans think the Goa'uld are gods when they obviously are just more
advanced. And for thousands of years, even working really close with these
Goa'uld, they still thought they were gods. Message: most humans are DUMB.
>
> "Matt Cardin, like most of us, was floored by Lovecraft as a youngster
> and made an intensive study of his work. It shows -- not through
> imitation, not by lifting a few names or symbols, but by his thorough
> appreciation of what cosmic horror is all about. As the product of an
> evangelical upbringing who has made a serious study of religion,
> presently working on a master's degree in religious studies, and who
> has been involved in evangelical settings throughout his life, he knows
> that the Bible staked out the territory long before Lovecraft came on
> the scene.
Well, for one, I'd say that other cultures with their many gods staked
things out long before the Hebrews copied some of it for their Bible. But:
Please explain how? Perhaps by viewing Jehova as an alien being? Or the
way Sitchen does it (I'm vaguely familiar with that.)? Why just the Bible?
Why not the Olympian Gods? Were they aliens that visited earth? Or just
bigger than life stories of real people, Pelasgians, that were in Greece
long prior? (Yes).
You might even say that he saw where Lovecraft went off the
> tracks by dismissing the power of the pre-existing symbols. In these
> masterly tales, he has steered the train back onto the mainline of
> Western religion."
HPL didn't go off the tracks. HPL wrote about aliens. They may or may not
be hostile to man - and they may not be all that predictable (i.e., hostile
to Joe, but friendly to John). EG, are ALL Tchotcho as bad as Delta Green
makes them out to be? Well now - DG wouldn't be after Leave it to Beaver
Tchotchos that begged out of their own primitive culture. They would ONLY
be after criminals. Sure, the Tchotcho have commerce with aliens - and the
Tchotcho MIGHT think these aliens are gods, but who knows or cares. WE, the
intelligent readers, know they are aliens and they are obviously friendly to
Tchotcho. But wait. Asian gangs in general are "bad guys." Right? This
could go on. Why are these gangs "bad?" Cuz they deal in drugs, arms and
human slavery and kill people? Uh.... HA!... see where that can go?
Well, we know that real Asian gangs have no commerce with aliens :) You can
beat them, fight them (heh, sure! doh de doh...). Tchotcho gangs, with
alien help - are not that easy to beat or fight. So?
HPL wrote OUTSIDE the entire JC paradigm, he wrote OUTSIDE the entire
dualist paradigm. He wrote about aliens. OK, take a look at UFOlogy
stuff - the groups - they just love those Grays and think they are SO
friendly. Heh, anyone that kidnapped me and hurt me would not be looked
upon as friendly - especially if they messed with my head and tried to make
me forget it. What they are said to do is the stuff of war, it's the stuff
a mortal enemy would do. Yet real humans believe these Grays are real, even
believe that they themselves were kidnapped (er, Taken....). Go figure when
it comes to their attitude. Some of them have made a religion out of this:
"Grays are good." Whatever. It doesn't matter if it's fringe group stuff
or fiction. "Grays" are neither good nor evil - they are ALIENS. I like
what Delta Green did with all of that, btw. Excellent! (FTR, I wrote Other
Nations (by T&P Marsh). I had no part in writing anything for Delta Green).
>
> Personally, I see both sides of the issue. Lovecraft's
> atheistic-materialistic vision of cosmic horror moves me ever so
> deeply, but so does the recognition that all sorts of dreadfully
> twisted cosmic-level horrors can be elicited from creative rereadings
> of traditional Judeo-Christian theological doctrines, and from the
> doctrines of most other religions as well.
HPL's sci fi mythos stories are not so much "atheist and materialistic" -
they are just stories that are OUTSIDE the entire realm of religion. Why is
this so hard to understand? How can you make cosmic level horrors out of JC
theology? By making the deities into aliens? I read Catholic angeology and
demonology in kinda that way as a teen - more or less to see what it said
and then I wondered WHAT would make reasonable people write this and believe
it? How come my people never believed anything like that? GOOD QUESTION!!!
No one can answer it, so far... The angels do come off as sci fi (some can
move faster than light - sic). The demon stuff comes off as human
terrorism against tyranny. That's how it came off to me.
On the one hand, we have
> the horror that's revealed when all human notions of value, meaning,
> and cosmic context are stripped away, leaving only the starry void with
> its inscrutable forces and sheer awe-someness of scope.
Heh, like what the Frankfurt School did? Yup. Where "good family
relationships and loyalty to family - and everything you can think of in the
old Leave it to Beaver as-given norm of the day" became "fascist tendencies,
narcissistic personality disorder, needing treatment with psycho drugs?"
Where "Columbus the brave discoverer and voyager" became "the genocidal
maniac?" Yup. The right wing evangelical movement IS the backlash to all
of that which happened since the mid-60s. What you said above. All humans
have their own group notions of value - but not all of us share in what any
of it means (if anything at all), not all of us even bother to question what
it means, except that it's good for us to do this and not good for us to do
this other thing. And some of us know all too well that what's good or not
good seems to change all the time. In other words, nomadic type people are
adaptable, nothing is rigid. Not all of us try to link "what we do or what
we are" to the entire cosmos. Some humans know that something as
non-cosmic, but HUGE as a cyclone of snow can wipe out a tribe in one day.
Such is life! It's not good. It's not evil. It simply IS. It doesn't
happen cuz the tribe was bad, either. Some folks just never managed to make
that illogical conclusion. When the Chinese were brutally conquered and
then ruled by the Tatars - they didn't make illogical conclusions either;
they did NOT get religious over any of it. So you see, these ideas are NOT
shared at all.
On the other
> hand, we have the horror that's revealed when a closer reading of those
> very contextual underpinnings that generate and support human notions
> of value, meaning, and cosmic context brings to light a formerly
> unrecognized world of horrific truths,
But what contextual underpinnings? Which human values? That sounds more
like the deconstruction of western christian regular values, life's values,
not necessarily religious ones. That already happened, as I said. The
world of truths (which truths? please explain!), some might find it
horrific, some might not - really have nothing to do with human values, eg
family values or survival of the group. I never understood what people were
so afraid of, regarding science, eg.
Personally, I can't relate to the Bible, hell, I can't even read it due to
the language and my complete unfamiliarity with the people in it. I just
don't "feel" anything about that particular group of Semites that wandered
in the middle of big and really great civilizations (Egypt, Greece, etc). I
know how they adjusted their concepts - it's shown on theology shows all the
time, even on history channel. I just shake my head and wonder how such
smart people could possibly have been THAT stupid to make conclusions like
that. I can't see it any other way. I'm not interested in it, I don't have
a "FEEL" for it at all. I can tell you that my people, who also come in
tribes to this day, went thru a hell of a lot of bad days and good days and
we never manged to make religion out of it or see it as religious-caused.
eg, when the Babylonians conquered and enslaved the Jews, the Jews thought
they did something wrong, God punished them. PHEW that is SO stupid! When
Lenin did what he did to my people, we never thought anything as stupid as
that. We thought the man had freaking power and we either do what he's
saying or we fight - and die. Some thought Lenin had good ideas and went
along with it - i.e., "It's time to change - again." We never in a million
years WOULD have brought God up regarding any of it. I can't relate to
people that DO that. It is wrong to assume that all humans see everything
thru a dualistic paradigm of good/evil or that all humans attribute
everything that happens to them to some divinity. It's just NOT the way it
is.
so that the supposedly
> comforting collective dream generated by the "sacred canopy," as
> sociologist Peter Berger has called it -- i.e., the view of the world
> that's generated by our slapping an anthropocentric interpretive grid
> over the raw fact of nature -- proves to be a hideous nightmare
> instead.
Ok, hold on. Who is "we?" What collective dream? What sacred canopy? I
don't know what this person is talking about that you quote. WHOSE
collective dream? Chinas? Frances? Whose collective dream? I'm not
understanding what Berger is saying at all. Obviously, he's not talking to
me because I'm clueless. I don't tend to anthropomorphise anything - and a
lot of people DO NOT do that. So who is he talking to? Or talking about?
Explain.
Sure, I understand that if aliens visited earth and introduced themselves,
the only people to suffer the worst would be the religious ones, expecially
the rigid monotheists. So what? That's their problem. The DOD sure the
freak would NOT see such a visit as having religious import at all. Heh.
The world view of people at NASA or people like me would not be shaken at
all. I could care less about people with spaghetti thin world views. I
can't even relate to them. I may as well be an alien, as far as their
concerned.
>
> Not incidentally, an emotional appreciation of both of these viewpoints
> can generate a kind of rock-and-a-hard-place experience of existential
> panic.
Ah, the existentialists. I can't relate to them either though I'll admit
that none of them ever stuck around long enough to elaborate on their
misery. They seem to me like people that have conflicts inside their own
beings over some past shit in their lives, or some neurochemical imbalance.
They seem to be in some kind of pain - but what kind of pain? I don't know.
They do NOT speak for me - at all. Who, in their right mind, would imagine
that the COSMOS cares about them? Do they wonder if Mars cares about them?
Or the grass? I see them as people who can't even relax and have a good day
even when conditions are 100% beautiful and perfect. They seem blind to the
nature around them and the nature within them which seem to me to be twisted
and ruined. And do they think everyone is just like them? Maybe they have
to imagine that lie to keep from offing themselves. Like wills to like.
They meet others like themselves. They never run into the ordinary people
like me - or if they do, they don't stick around too long. There is nothing
that clicks.
Think of a slightly altered version of Pascal. What if Pascal
> had contemplated the echoing infinity of the cosmos and been terrified
> at the prospect of his own dwarfish meaninglessness in the face of its
> uncaring immensity -- as indeed he did -- but then, when he turned back
> to his pietist brand of Christianity, instead of finding cosmic solace
> had found instead a nightmare that was at least as bad as the horror of
> the cosmic void, and maybe even worse?
Explain. I know nothing about Pascal. In my cultural religion - everything
is REALLY an illusion, including ourselves. The only reality is The Void.
But we also live in the illusion, are part of it. The idea that Something
out there cares about us is non existent. Life is also very very simple -
unless there are other people around making it NOT so simple (like the folks
who write property tax bills....). Very concrete. Very down to earth. My
property tax bill: pure HORROR. ATMOM: pure joy. My idea of a pietist
Christian is a person that is terrified of anything that might make him
smile, terrified of having fun. Terrified of his own flesh. I.e., a pretty
sick dude and worst of all, a control freak. I know what horrified St.
Augustine. His own sexuality. So then, what WAS that sexuality that it so
horrified him? Obviously, not the usual sex. I can imagine a serial killer
would be horrified of HIS sexuality, for sure. These people, lots of them,
that got into that "piety" crap used to torture themselves, too. Bah. Pure
S&M. I don't see that as religious. It's CURSING their own creation and by
default, cursing their creator as they believe in one. Those people are
damned, religiously speaking - and in common sense terms, "they are their
OWN hell on earth." Right, I can't relate to them. It's easy to relate to
a person in a wheelchair, or a blind person. Just sit in one for a week,
blindfold yourself for a week. But these other people? What is horrifying
to me is that they don't just kill themselves. They CRAVE power and when
they get it, they make life into hell for everyone they control. You want a
look at evil? Heh, there it is.
>
> Also not incidentally, I've found in my rereading of Lovecraft over the
> past several years that I can't help thinking he encompassed both sides
> of this coin in his nature, regardless of his primary association with,
> and focus upon, the materialist-atheistic side of it. Especially in
> some of his earlier stories, such as "The Music of Erich Zann," I see
> him grappling emotionally with a horror that displays elements of both
> cosmic meaninglessness and ontological nightmarishness. The latter,
> while he certainly didn't frame it in religious terms, differs
> distinctly from the former and seems to share a family resemblance with
> the horror of religion (as distinguished from the horror of anti- or
> a-religion).
That is not a mythos story, imo. HPL wrote regular horror stories, per
format. Then he changed and wrote hard core sci fi. I think it's wrong to
see all of these stories as "the same thing" even if the same author wrote
them. They aren't the same thing at all. I'm only interested in his hard
core sci fi. I didn't even understand the Erich Zann story, btw - and of
course, didn't like it.
David Johnston
>Let me be more specific, please see in. Uh, this kinda got long.
>
><mgca...@hughes.net> wrote in message
>news:1162126987.6...@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
>> Comm wrote:
>>
>>> "Jordan" <JSBass...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>>>
>>> > Lovecraft liberated horror from its JudeoChristian straitjacket and
>>> > showed everyone how to do atheistic and scientific horror. It's not
>>> > that the Lovecraftian Universe is _inimical_ to Man. It's that it
>>> > doesn't care one way or another, and that the subset of reality that we
>>> > think of as "normal" is a very small eddy of calm in a vast sea of
>>> > Chaos.
>
>Let me be specific, then. YES, very well put and hits on target, as I
>said. No one ever said these things were evil - and I can't really deal
>with people that read these tales and think "oh, that's evil." It's no
>different from people that think the Star Gate Wraith are evil. NO they
>aren't. They are another species of alien - VERY inimical to humans cuz we
>are their food. So what's evil about that?
I don't believe humans are the only things they can feed on. After
all, humans aren't that much different from other mammals on the
biological level. Humans may taste better and it may take fewer
humans to satisfy a Wraith's appetite in a given time frame, but they
could feed on things that aren't people if they wanted to. They just
don't want to.
>Are Humans evil in the Cow Religion - or do cows think we are evil?
Of course not. Cows have no such concept.
>The POINT is that HPL's stuff wasn't demonic at all, not even a little.
HPL had at least one story I can recall which had a totally
traditional evil witch complete with rat familiar. That her powers
had a pseudoscience justification involving mathematics and
Yog-Sothoth as an extradimensional sponsor didn't change it being more
than a little demonic. His Dark Man may have been named Nyarlathotep
instead of Lucifer, but for all that he was still the demonic figure
who offered power in exchange for service to beings who will likely
destroy us all.
It
>wasn't even evil. Are the Goa'uld evil?
Yup.
Comm
"David Johnston" <rgo...@block.net> wrote in message
news:m3pck2pn34a27hho9...@4ax.com...
We don't know much about Wraith - but we now know that they can give back
years, not just "eat" and take years from a person. Wraith might eat other
things. We have to wait and see.
>
>
>>Are Humans evil in the Cow Religion - or do cows think we are evil?
>
> Of course not. Cows have no such concept.
We can't know what concepts cows have or not.
>
>>The POINT is that HPL's stuff wasn't demonic at all, not even a little.
>
> HPL had at least one story I can recall which had a totally
> traditional evil witch complete with rat familiar. That her powers
> had a pseudoscience justification involving mathematics and
> Yog-Sothoth as an extradimensional sponsor didn't change it being more
> than a little demonic. His Dark Man may have been named Nyarlathotep
> instead of Lucifer, but for all that he was still the demonic figure
> who offered power in exchange for service to beings who will likely
> destroy us all.
All that means is that Kezia Mason was a witch and she stumbled on this OO
stuff and thought of it like magic. Yes, she was a witch. But it still
doesn't make the technology she used magical or demonic.
>
>
> It
>>wasn't even evil. Are the Goa'uld evil?
>
> Yup.
No, they aren't. They're just another species of alien doing THEIR own
thing. There is absolutely no reason to believe that alien species would
not do anything and everything to advance themselves - at the expense of a
lot of other things. Humans do it every day. Sure, I'd expect aliens to do
it too. All living things do it.
David Johnston
>>>Are Humans evil in the Cow Religion - or do cows think we are evil?
>>
>> Of course not. Cows have no such concept.
>
>We can't know what concepts cows have or not.
Oh please. We invented evil. It's ours. So's religion.
>>
>>>The POINT is that HPL's stuff wasn't demonic at all, not even a little.
>>
>> HPL had at least one story I can recall which had a totally
>> traditional evil witch complete with rat familiar. That her powers
>> had a pseudoscience justification involving mathematics and
>> Yog-Sothoth as an extradimensional sponsor didn't change it being more
>> than a little demonic. His Dark Man may have been named Nyarlathotep
>> instead of Lucifer, but for all that he was still the demonic figure
>> who offered power in exchange for service to beings who will likely
>> destroy us all.
>
>All that means is that Kezia Mason was a witch and she stumbled on this OO
>stuff and thought of it like magic. Yes, she was a witch. But it still
>doesn't make the technology she used magical or demonic.
Magical no. Demonic, more than a little. As far as Lovecraft's
stories were concerned, Nyarlathotep was the reality behind our
stories of the devil and he had all the qualities activities ascribed
to that entity, except being a rebel against a benevolent god. What
he served wasn't benevolent, and while it may or may be classed as
malevolent, Nyalathotep certainly was malevolent.
>>
>>
>> It
>>>wasn't even evil. Are the Goa'uld evil?
>>
>> Yup.
>
>No, they aren't. They're just another species of alien doing THEIR own
>thing.
And their own thing happens to be enslaving or destroying all others.
Except when it isn't. See: Tok'ra
There is absolutely no reason to believe that alien species would
>not do anything and everything to advance themselves - at the expense of a
>lot of other things. Humans do it every day.
As usual "nobody's evil" equates to "everybody's evil".
David Johnston
wrote:
>I think the horrible part about this is that, in France, you can risk
>imprisonment for simply calling a religion "stupid." Will the French
>ever regain their freedom of speech?
>
How can you regain what you never had?
Kater Moggin
> David Johnston <rgo...@block.net>:
> >>Are the Goa'uld evil?
> > Yup.
> No, they aren't. They're just another species of alien doing THEIR own
> thing. There is absolutely no reason to believe that alien species would
> not do anything and everything to advance themselves - at the expense of a
> lot of other things. Humans do it every day. Sure, I'd expect aliens to do
> it too. All living things do it.
The evil of life.
-- Moggin
John Goodrich
> >>Are Humans evil in the Cow Religion - or do cows think we are evil?
> >
> > Of course not. Cows have no such concept.
>
> We can't know what concepts cows have or not.
> >
We can, actually. Animal cognition studies is a fascinating field, and
we are developing ways to determine the self-awareness and cognition in
animals, such as the sense of fairness in chimpanzees, and the ability
of an elephant to recognize itself in a mirror. It's fairly clear that
domestic cows do not have concepts of fairness, on which the concept of
'evil' is built.
John Goodrich
Richard Harter
What is fairly clear is that cows do not act as though they had a
concept of fairness. Whether they "have concepts" gets into quagmires
around what we mean by having a concept.
Don Tuite
>What is fairly clear is that cows do not act as though they had a
>concept of fairness. Whether they "have concepts" gets into quagmires
>around what we mean by having a concept.
>
ObFantasyBookabout CowsandEvil: Wangerin, _The Book of the Dun Cow_,
1978.
John Goodrich
>
> What is fairly clear is that cows do not act as though they had a
> concept of fairness. Whether they "have concepts" gets into quagmires
> around what we mean by having a concept.
Have you ever spent time with a cow?
John Goodrich
Richard Harter
Yes. As it chances I grew up on a ranch. Why do you ask?
tbsa...@att.net
Richard Harter wrote:
> On 3 Nov 2006 10:14:58 -0800, "John Goodrich" <Jo...@qusoor.com> wrote:
>
> >Richard Harter wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> What is fairly clear is that cows do not act as though they had a
> >> concept of fairness. Whether they "have concepts" gets into quagmires
> >> around what we mean by having a concept.
> >
* Yes. As it chances I grew up on a ranch. Why do you ask?
He may have once traded a cow for a handful of magic beans. He misses
his cow, perhaps.
ObBook: THE LONGHORNS by J Frank Dobie
Ted
Howard Brazee
> It's fairly clear that
>domestic cows do not have concepts of fairness, on which the concept of
>'evil' is built.
What has evil got to do with fairness? Is any religion fair?
Lewis Mammel
Cows know nothing of milk.
Richard Harter
<l.ma...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>
>Cows know nothing of milk.
Does milk know anything of cows?
Comm
> On Thu, 02 Nov 2006 18:27:46 GMT, "Comm" <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>
>>>>Are Humans evil in the Cow Religion - or do cows think we are evil?
>>>
>>> Of course not. Cows have no such concept.
>>
>>We can't know what concepts cows have or not.
>
> Oh please. We invented evil. It's ours. So's religion.
heh - no no:
Evil: that which is BAD for me and mine.
Good: that which is GOOD for me and mine.
ALL animals have these concepts - or they'd go extinct.
>
>>>
>>>>The POINT is that HPL's stuff wasn't demonic at all, not even a little.
>>>
>>> HPL had at least one story I can recall which had a totally
>>> traditional evil witch complete with rat familiar. That her powers
>>> had a pseudoscience justification involving mathematics and
>>> Yog-Sothoth as an extradimensional sponsor didn't change it being more
>>> than a little demonic. His Dark Man may have been named Nyarlathotep
>>> instead of Lucifer, but for all that he was still the demonic figure
>>> who offered power in exchange for service to beings who will likely
>>> destroy us all.
>>
>>All that means is that Kezia Mason was a witch and she stumbled on this OO
>>stuff and thought of it like magic. Yes, she was a witch. But it still
>>doesn't make the technology she used magical or demonic.
>
> Magical no. Demonic, more than a little. As far as Lovecraft's
> stories were concerned, Nyarlathotep was the reality behind our
> stories of the devil and he had all the qualities activities ascribed
> to that entity, except being a rebel against a benevolent god.
Agree - for the Witch House story.
What
> he served wasn't benevolent, and while it may or may be classed as
> malevolent, Nyalathotep certainly was malevolent.
Azathoth is not something that can fit into the definition of benevolent or
malevolent, imo. Is a nuclear explosion malevolent? How about black holes?
You see Nyar as malevolent. I guess you'd also see Sri Kala Chakra as
malevolent - many western people have seen it that way. It's not. It
simply "IS."
Comm
"Howard Brazee" <how...@brazee.net> wrote in message
news:hv0ok2p64bn4gsn4t...@4ax.com...
When I say evil (gee, I thought this was in-general understood, hmmmm! guess
it's not.) I mean this:
Evil = that which is BAD for me and mine (eg, poison food, water that causes
sickness, other things or people that are harmful, etc - all very
practical).
Good = that which is GOOD for me and mine. All very practical, also.
If animals of all kinds didn't have such concepts, they'd go extinct very
fast. Why are you bringing up religion? This has nothing to do with
religion.
The problem is this - animal studies attempting to analyze "awareness" or
"concepts" in other species are as flawed as the OLD studies that "proved"
that some other ethnic groups of humans "weren't quite human because they
lacked the........." They are flawed. We can not communicate with these
species. Bottom line.
Even if we could communicate with them - would we be able to understand
THEIR concepts? Need I point out that even when it comes to east and west,
western people have a very hard time undestanding eastern concepts - and 99%
that try get it so wrong that attempts to correct them are just abandoned.
Dogs tend to understand humans (human gestures, the nuances of gesture)
BETTER than any chimps do (as studies showed) - they even learn to behave
and do things by hearing English language words spoken to them. Does even
one human understand a bark? Or a whimper? Or a howl? We have no
conception of what dogs understand in terms of their sense of smell. We
can't know.
I know from dealing with various "total stranger" animals that mammals all
seem to understand similar body language. Opening a door and standing aside
with my arm out, they all know that I invite them to go thru that door.
Reptiles (such as lizards or snakes) do not understand this body language at
all. That's one example. To assume that lizards and snakes have no self
awareness would be a flawed conclusion. To assume they are stupid, would be
a flawed conclusion.
I also know that not all humans have the same kind of concept of "self" at
all. Not even close.
Self awareness - all things have it. Step on an animal's foot and you'll
see how aware it is of it's foot - and of WHO stepped on it.
David Johnston
>
>"David Johnston" <rgo...@block.net> wrote in message
>news:krmkk2tpb6irs04rh...@4ax.com...
>> On Thu, 02 Nov 2006 18:27:46 GMT, "Comm" <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>>Are Humans evil in the Cow Religion - or do cows think we are evil?
>>>>
>>>> Of course not. Cows have no such concept.
>>>
>>>We can't know what concepts cows have or not.
>>
>> Oh please. We invented evil. It's ours. So's religion.
>
>heh - no no:
>Evil: that which is BAD for me and mine.
I certainly don't think that avalanches or influenza are evil, even
when they are bad for me and mine.
Comm
"David Johnston" <rgo...@block.net> wrote in message
news:krmkk2tpb6irs04rh...@4ax.com...
Hmm, so then you define as "evil" anything that "is for the benefit of one
group when it's against many other groups?" Hmm, interesting. I don't
happen to see any of that as evil. That is, if I were a Goa'uld and had
their nature - I'd probably do just what they do. It would be my NATURE to
do it.
The Tokra are different because their nature is different. They obviously
aren't quite the same thing as Goa'uld. Just like Pitt Bulls are not the
same as Collies - or cats.
Evil is that which is bad for you and yours. That's all evil really is -
and no matter how much moral blah blah you put on the concept - it boils
down to just what I said - it's very very practical. It's only confusion
and confused people that muck that simple idea up and make it "more" than it
actually is. They complicate what's really very simple.
That's very interesting that you find any of that evil. Hmm, heh, that makes
YOU evil :) That would mean that you think LIFE is evil in itself! Well -
I don't think life is evil and I don't fancy myself as evil - and I'm a meat
eater and milk products eater/drinker - I love shellfish and fish too. I
call it the food chain. It is only what it is. Fish struggle when you
catch them on a line. That's the way it is. I don't think bin Laden et al
are evil either - but I'd blow them to smitherines in a second if I had my
hands on the weapons. No questions asked, either. No pussy footing around
it. They'd be GONE. They are MY enemies, they wish ME harm - bottom line.
Fire ants are not evil. But I exterminate them when I see them on my lawn.
The Goa'uld were simply the enemies of us (the Tari, earthlings). They were
not the enemies of the Jaffa until we put that idea into their heads :)
HA!! Take a look a insect soceities and what they do - usually to other
insects. There is nothing good or evil about it. It's a strategy for
life - and it's worked for a very very long time. Sure, it's going to be
VERY BAD for the insect on the receiving end. When you see animals run for
their lives from a predator out to eat them - does anyone question that they
are running for their lives and they know damned well what will happen if
they get CAUGHT? I don't question it - it's obvious. That doesn't make
predators bad or evil. They are just bad FOR the prey they eat. There is
nothing absolute about any of it.
Wraith are not evil. They are hungry, yes. (They are also really good
looking, imo).... As we have seen, they can also GIVE back life. They are
as yet a mystery.
Good and evil are just words that really mean something very practical:
good for me - bad for me. That's all. People, imo, that believe that "the
axis of evil" are literally evil in a religious sense are, imo now, STUPID
people. I usually don't talk much with people that "think" that way. I
just can't hack it. I don't want a headache. Headache is bad :)
David Johnston
>
>"Howard Brazee" <how...@brazee.net> wrote in message
>news:hv0ok2p64bn4gsn4t...@4ax.com...
>> On 3 Nov 2006 06:03:16 -0800, "John Goodrich" <Jo...@qusoor.com> wrote:
>>
>>> It's fairly clear that
>>>domestic cows do not have concepts of fairness, on which the concept of
>>>'evil' is built.
>>
>> What has evil got to do with fairness? Is any religion fair?
>
>When I say evil (gee, I thought this was in-general understood, hmmmm! guess
>it's not.) I mean this:
>
>Evil = that which is BAD for me and mine (eg, poison food, water that causes
>sickness, other things or people that are harmful, etc - all very
>practical).
For most other people "evil" consists of cognitive patterns which
encourage you to deliberately hurt other people. In the absence of
cognition, there is no evil. Only unfortunate accidents.
Comm
My definition of evil is simply what I said: BAD for me or mine. I think
that the purely practical definition of this got expanded by people that,
imo, weren't too bright and who were very willing to believe loud rhetoric
:)
Once upon a time, influenza and avalanches would have been seen as evil by
really stupid people. They'd have believed influenza was a curse for some
wrong doing, or a curse some enemy brought down on them (and then set out to
go to war against those that did not succumb to the flu....) - and/or
sacrificed a virgin to the volcano god or something really dumb. You are a
more modern human - therefore, you don't think that way.
But, there is HOPE ha ha! right now, heh heh, in the white house, heh heh,
there is this guy that really believes in an axis of evil. I mean, the dude
BELIEVES this shit. He obviously has no ability to reason. Nor has he the
balls to simply END what's obviously just a damned war that's not going to
be negotiated away with tippy toe moves or talk. Of course, it wouldn't be
Americanismic to do that - or something like that :)
David Johnston
>Sorry, I just saw this part, please see in.
>
>"David Johnston" <rgo...@block.net> wrote in message
>news:krmkk2tpb6irs04rh...@4ax.com...
>> On Thu, 02 Nov 2006 18:27:46 GMT, "Comm" <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>>
>
>> There is absolutely no reason to believe that alien species would
>>>not do anything and everything to advance themselves - at the expense of a
>>>lot of other things. Humans do it every day.
>>
>> As usual "nobody's evil" equates to "everybody's evil".
>
>Hmm, so then you define as "evil" anything that "is for the benefit of one
>group when it's against many other groups?"
Of course not. How is making enemies of everyone around you
beneficial to your group?
Comm
Hmm, I think you just lost me :( Every single person I know - and I know
quite a lot of people offline, agrees with me on what "evil" really means -
it just means BAD or even VERY bad - for whom? Why, heh, for us, for me.
You are wrong about accidents and such. All animals have in their genes
even, their brains, this little thing which makes them remember or react to
"BAD" stimuli stronger than they do for "GOOD" stimuli - they remember the
bad things better, too. That's for survival. Animals thereby learn which
foods to avoid as "bad" foods. We can't know their concepts of "bad" but we
can see what they learn to avoid. They know to run from prey, too - they
learn this.
Cognitive patterns that make you deliberately hurt other people? What did
those other people DO to you? That's the question. If they did nothing to
you, then you are now in the realm of pathological behavior, sick people.
There is absolutely nothing accidental about prey being caught by lion and
torn to pieces and eaten. It's a deliberate act of survival. The prey all
run away to try to avoid being eaten by the predator. This is not some
random thing here. Or accident.
Evil - for me, is nothing but another word for "bad." But the way other
people are using it here - it seems to me they are tipping into spirituality
where it's just not called for. How can anyone say an ALIEN is evil? It
has its own nature and what its nature is, it is. Nothing more. That
people turn such concepts into boogeymen, hell man - my own race were
considered "demons" by the dumb Christians a few hundred years ago. For
some people rightnow, bin Laden is the boogeyman. I think the problem is
that I never had such concepts - these concepts just don't exist in the
entire culture. A bully (a person that hurts you for no reason) is simply
freaking BAD, a bad person. Sure, call it pathological, asocial, whatever.
He's a bad person - period. (So go kick his butt in a real spirit of "do
unto others..." :)
Comm
The Goa'uld - I don't know who they ever allied with - except themselves -
seem to have done that - but they were capable of allying with humans when
they had to (Baal did that). The earth humans also made quite a few enemies
on the StarGate shows (which is what we were talking about). Ask termites
what it's like to be enemies of everythning except other termites. They've
been successful as a species for a LONG time. So have bees. So have most
insects :) They do that, pretty much. How about sharks? They kinda made
enemies with most of everything around them except other sharks, at least
sometimes other sharks yes? Well?
As to your question: imagine if everyone on the planet hated and wanted to
destroy the USA. All countries united and turned against the USA. Well?
We'd have to declare them enemies. And they would be enemies. We'd have no
choice. Of course, the man in the WH would declare the world the axis of
evil - LMAO.
I think you really do need to think this out a little more :)
David Johnston
>
>"David Johnston" <rgo...@block.net> wrote in message
>news:teeqk2h49bnijiis5...@4ax.com...
>> On Sun, 05 Nov 2006 00:56:35 GMT, "Comm" <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>"David Johnston" <rgo...@block.net> wrote in message
>>>news:krmkk2tpb6irs04rh...@4ax.com...
>>>> On Thu, 02 Nov 2006 18:27:46 GMT, "Comm" <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>>>Are Humans evil in the Cow Religion - or do cows think we are evil?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Of course not. Cows have no such concept.
>>>>>
>>>>>We can't know what concepts cows have or not.
>>>>
>>>> Oh please. We invented evil. It's ours. So's religion.
>>>
>>>heh - no no:
>>>Evil: that which is BAD for me and mine.
>>
>> I certainly don't think that avalanches or influenza are evil, even
>> when they are bad for me and mine.
>
>My definition of evil is simply what I said: BAD for me or mine.
Given how cows generally react to humans, they obviously do not regard
humanity as that. There's no fleeing or attacking going on.
I think
>that the purely practical definition of this got expanded by people
Not really. You came in with your definition of evil and expected
other people to accept it and even know what it was automatically.
David Johnston
>> Of course not. How is making enemies of everyone around you
>> beneficial to your group?
>
>The Goa'uld - I don't know who they ever allied with - except themselves -
>seem to have done that - but they were capable of allying with humans when
>they had to (Baal did that). The earth humans also made quite a few enemies
>on the StarGate shows (which is what we were talking about). Ask termites
>what it's like to be enemies of everythning except other termites.
Not only would the termites not understand the question, neither would
their supposed "enemies", who are in reality nothing of the kind.
David Johnston
>
>Cognitive patterns that make you deliberately hurt other people? What did
>those other people DO to you? That's the question. If they did nothing to
>you, then you are now in the realm of pathological behavior, sick people.
What of it?
Howard Brazee
>heh - no no:
>Evil: that which is BAD for me and mine.
>Good: that which is GOOD for me and mine.
>ALL animals have these concepts - or they'd go extinct.
If you include as "mine" - how I'd like the world to look.
For instance, many people define homosexual partnerships as evil -
when all it does is have taxpayers who don't produce children to
compete with ours. At one time we wanted those children to help
defend against barbarians - but now they would just be competition.
Howard Brazee
>When I say evil (gee, I thought this was in-general understood, hmmmm! guess
>it's not.) I mean this:
>
>Evil = that which is BAD for me and mine (eg, poison food, water that causes
>sickness, other things or people that are harmful, etc - all very
>practical).
But that's not what most people who use the word "evil" mean.
>Good = that which is GOOD for me and mine. All very practical, also.
Circular definition.
>If animals of all kinds didn't have such concepts, they'd go extinct very
>fast. Why are you bringing up religion? This has nothing to do with
>religion.
"Evil" is a religious concept. And it is often used to describe
people who will go to Hell for offending our sensibilities instead of
doing real harm.
Nancy Lebovitz
Other people's kids aren't simply competition--your kids need to
live in a functioning society, which means that they need to be
in a reasonably large generation. Arguabley, your kids will be better
off if they have fewer competitors within a year or three of their
age, but you can't make that a matter of public policy.
--
Nancy Lebovitz http://www.nancybuttons.com
http://nancylebov.livejournal.com
My two favorite colors are "Oooooh" and "SHINY!".
Comm
> On Sun, 05 Nov 2006 00:56:35 GMT, "Comm" <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>
>>heh - no no:
>>Evil: that which is BAD for me and mine.
>>Good: that which is GOOD for me and mine.
>>ALL animals have these concepts - or they'd go extinct.
>
> If you include as "mine" - how I'd like the world to look.
I mean in the very very immediate sense. What animals practice - all very
very practical. Evil - meaning something "other than just BAD, KEEP AWAY"
is some kind of ethereal, non-real concept some people have - and since I
can't relate to what they are talking about - I literally DO NOT understand
any of it - well - it's naturally NOT part of my definitio of the practical
evil = bad. Like, do they really believe bin Laden is evil in that ethereal
way? The man is very real, a real threat - he's BAD for the USA. On the
other hand, looking at what what's (NOT) being done about this bad guy and
his thugs - I have to wonder if he's GOOD for the USA. After all, it gives
gov more power to "protect" us by taking rights away. Heh.
>
> For instance, many people define homosexual partnerships as evil -
> when all it does is have taxpayers who don't produce children to
> compete with ours. At one time we wanted those children to help
> defend against barbarians - but now they would just be competition.
Oh, ok, now you are bringing in the loonie fringes out there that believe in
some hare-brained "evil" that's a figment of their imaginations. HOW the
hell are married homos going to harm anyone? Lots of married heterosexuals
also don't have children. I don't understand what you mean by the last
part, the last sentence (you lost me there). These people don't have the
capacity to reason. They imagine that homo's raising kids are going to
raise homos. OK - how come all homos around had hetero parents? What, they
can't reason enough to ask that question? I dismiss people who can't
reason - I dismiss their ideas. I know their ideas can get big, they can
band together, and they can really do harm to others. I'm all in favor of
gays adopting babies if they want to. They'd give those babies a home. I
just don't understand the illogic behind anyone who's against it. On rare
times that I do hear it, I can hear what they say, and they often use the
word evil. But it makes no sense to me. It's like saying: "Four is good and
seven is bad and orange is blue and blue is red." Cognitive dissonance. I
don't understand it.
That is why I can not fathom the concept itself - of "an alien" being evil
...........because it eats humans for food, or the aliens want to conquer
humanity or wipe us out. How is that evil? They are ALIENS. They might
see us the same way I see fire ants on my lawn.
The only way I personally can understand the concept "evil" is the way I
just said. I also SEE that most people practice the same things which would
confirm that their concept of evil is really the same as mine. No matter
WHAT else they say about it! I see what they do. Most of the people I know
offline, do agree with my very practical concept. But for the ones that
claim they think otherwise about it, I don't SEE them DOing things that back
up their words, they don't avoid what they claim is evil - and th ey DO
avoid things they don't think are evil - but which are literally BAD NEWS,
TROUBLE.
Comm
Look, you can judge what any animals thinks is good or bad by simply
watching what the animals do, watch what they avoid or run away from, watch
what they attack or fight with. You are in no position to say what they
THINK about these things. To think they are unthinking, unreasoning, or
unfeeling is the heights of hubris, imo.
Comm
> On Sun, 05 Nov 2006 01:08:29 GMT, "Comm" <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>
>>When I say evil (gee, I thought this was in-general understood, hmmmm!
>>guess
>>it's not.) I mean this:
>>
>>Evil = that which is BAD for me and mine (eg, poison food, water that
>>causes
>>sickness, other things or people that are harmful, etc - all very
>>practical).
>
> But that's not what most people who use the word "evil" mean.
That's what everyone I know offline means, whether they say it outright or
not. What they DO and how they react tells me they do think of it the same
way.
>
>>Good = that which is GOOD for me and mine. All very practical, also.
>
> Circular definition.
No, it's not circular. It's practical. It's down to earth and very very
real. People who say "homos getting married is evil" - as one other poster
pointed out - are nuts. They aren't living in the real world. They are
dismissed.
>
>>If animals of all kinds didn't have such concepts, they'd go extinct very
>>fast. Why are you bringing up religion? This has nothing to do with
>>religion.
>
> "Evil" is a religious concept. And it is often used to describe
> people who will go to Hell for offending our sensibilities instead of
> doing real harm.
Heh, maybe in the circles you hang in it means that. Not in the circles I
hang in. I know a LOT of people, too. Ok, none of them are religious.
They have a religion, laid-back, part of their culture - but none of them
are religious. There is one woman at one of the big clubs I go to that
constantly offends people - she's described as a bitch. Not as evil. No
one would think she was evil. They all DO think she has issues. They
generally ignore it and advise anyone new that runs into it to "let it go."
Now, how did "bad for me, bad for our tribe, stay away from that food,
place, animal, danger there" BECOME a spiritual or religious concept? HOW?
Spirituality existed as long as humans existed - as part of shamanism, a
pre-religious stage, imo. For some reason, my brain never made that leap -
and I'd say this is a cultural thing - considering that my cultural
background is really just shamanism with a few Tibetan words attached to it:
Lamaism. I am unable, cognitivly, to understand "evil" as anything other
than "it's bad for me, bad for us." In fact, even in the Tibetan (Lamaism),
the only evil is attachment to illusion. It's evil to the self to be
attached to illusions. The meaning is clearly "it's not a good thing to do,
it's bad for you."
I am also cognitively unable to grasp WHY anyone would be against stem cell
research. I don't get it. I tried. I failed. I gave up trying to get it.
I could make a logical conclusion? Um, maybe these people WANT to see
crippled people suffer? I don't know. That's probably wrong. So I don't
know. If I don't get something, then I just don't get it - I eventually
give up trying because obviously, my brain is unable to grasp it.
But in the realm of sci fi, I find it really WEIRD when someone goes and
thinks of "aliens that are anathema to humankind" as evil. Imo, that's way
off base and out there. I often find that people that think that way also
CAN NOT extrapolate to examples like "am I EVIL to fire ants cause I
exterminate them?." Let them try to tell me that the ants are not aware of
it - OH PLEASE. I once saw them meticulously taking the poison and removing
it from their nest. They arranged it in a nice circle around the nest, too!
SURE they were aware. Those analogies fall flat on them. OK then, I accept
that this is now a person I'm talking to whose brain THINKS in a kind of
dualistic fashion and the person is unable to see any analogies - maybe is
unable to conceive of the fact that ALL LIFE is aware. I've run into people
that thought gays were evil. Sure, heh, I asked WHY. I can't even remember
what any of them ever said because it made NO sense, it was gibberish - like
a bunch of unrelated confusion came out of their mouths. Therefore, I have
no idea WHY anyone would think that, even if some of them told me. I don't
know. I can guarantee you tho, not one of them ever said anything about
economics. What they said was gobbledegook.
Wayne Throop
:: Circular definition.
: No, it's not circular. It's practical.
Really? Does it work for other things? Is "red = that which is red for me"
(or "to my eye") at all useful or practical in defining what red is?
"As a color, a shade of purple-grey."
--- The Flying Sorcerers
Wayne Throop thr...@sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
Howard Brazee
>The only way I personally can understand the concept "evil" is the way I
>just said.
So you can't understand the word the way it is used. Fine, then
don't use it. But don't make up your own definition of the word.
Howard Brazee
>>>Good = that which is GOOD for me and mine. All very practical, also.
>>
>> Circular definition.
>
>No, it's not circular. It's practical. It's down to earth and very very
>real. People who say "homos getting married is evil" - as one other poster
>pointed out - are nuts. They aren't living in the real world. They are
>dismissed.
Ahh, you're trolling. I thought you were serious.
>Heh, maybe in the circles you hang in it means that. Not in the circles I
>hang in. I know a LOT of people, too. Ok, none of them are religious.
You know a lot of people who use the word "evil", and none of them are
religious?
OK, I may not be the quickest guy on the block, tending to treat
people on the Internet the way I treat real flesh and blood people.
You hooked me. Have your laugh.
P.S. I will still treat people on the Internet the way I treat real
people, despite being hooked by trolls occasionally.
David Johnston
I'm in a position to say they have a brain the size of the grain of a
sand.
David Johnston
>
>"Howard Brazee" <how...@brazee.net> wrote in message
>news:puiqk2p7q5tunkp2t...@4ax.com...
>> On Sun, 05 Nov 2006 01:08:29 GMT, "Comm" <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>>
>>>When I say evil (gee, I thought this was in-general understood, hmmmm!
>>>guess
>>>it's not.) I mean this:
>>>
>>>Evil = that which is BAD for me and mine (eg, poison food, water that
>>>causes
>>>sickness, other things or people that are harmful, etc - all very
>>>practical).
>>
>> But that's not what most people who use the word "evil" mean.
>
>That's what everyone I know offline means, whether they say it outright or
>not.
Really? That's strange. When I hear people talking about things like
tsunamis or earthquakes they never seem to call them evil. They call
terrorists, or dictators, or serial killers or politicians from the
opposing party evil, but not tsunamis and earthquakes. Why do you
suppose that is?
Comm
I'm not making up a defintion. Evil means bad. Evil certainly doesn't mean
good. Therefore, I didn't make anything up. I can't help it if people
believe in boogeymen. I simply broke the word down to the bottom line.
Aside from which, I wasn't using it. I was saying that the Goa'uld and etc
were NOT evil. They are aliens. You tell me then (or tell yourself?) -
what is EVIL (your definition of it)?
Comm
> On Sun, 05 Nov 2006 17:44:17 GMT, "Comm" <n...@spam.com> wrote:
>
>>>>Good = that which is GOOD for me and mine. All very practical, also.
>>>
>>> Circular definition.
>>
>>No, it's not circular. It's practical. It's down to earth and very very
>>real. People who say "homos getting married is evil" - as one other
>>poster
>>pointed out - are nuts. They aren't living in the real world. They are
>>dismissed.
>
> Ahh, you're trolling. I thought you were serious.
What? Trolling what? I'm posting to alt.horror.cthulhu - the discussion
was about aliens in stories, whether or not they are evil just because they
are anti human. Someone brought up gay marriage.
>
>>Heh, maybe in the circles you hang in it means that. Not in the circles I
>>hang in. I know a LOT of people, too. Ok, none of them are religious.
>
> You know a lot of people who use the word "evil", and none of them are
> religious?
No, they don't use the word evil - unless they are joking around "ooo, we
are having EEEEVIL weather today, ha ha."
>
> OK, I may not be the quickest guy on the block, tending to treat
> people on the Internet the way I treat real flesh and blood people.
> You hooked me. Have your laugh.
>
> P.S. I will still treat people on the Internet the way I treat real
> people, despite being hooked by trolls occasionally.
I'm not a troll. No one else on here thinks I'm a troll - and we are having
convos about HPL's stories here - occasionally bringing up other sci fi
shows. Who are you? What stories are YOU talking about? This is
alt.horror.cthulhu
You go ahead then, list what you think is evil. This I gotta see (and bust
out laughing at, probably).
Comm
"Wayne Throop" <thr...@sheol.org> wrote in message
news:11627...@sheol.org...
> ::: Good = that which is GOOD for me and mine.
>
> :: Circular definition.
>
> : No, it's not circular. It's practical.
>
> Really? Does it work for other things? Is "red = that which is red for
> me"
> (or "to my eye") at all useful or practical in defining what red is?
Nope. Are you deliberately being dumb here? Here: don't touch that, it's
radioactive. BAD for me and mine. Get it? Is it perhaps TOO simple? TOO
concrete?
Make a list. Define things that you think are EVIL.
Comm
In comparison to what body weight? Animals that have a neural net all over
their bodies are alien - you can't possibly grasp what they know, think,
feel, etc. Not even what or how they sense things. You can not. Admit it
and be done with it.
Far too many humans have brains of average size compared to body weight -
and they can't think themselves out of a god damned closet because they are
THAT stupid - or their logical facilities are obscured by confused emotions
(that will do it everytime)..... or they have no or damaged somatic markers
to direct their logic - hence they fail at logic everytime.
So I ask you again - tell us what YOU think is "evil." Go ahead! Make a
list!
Comm
Because people that call terrorists, dictators or serial killers or
politicians "evil" are god damned morons with religion and/or fairy tales up
their butts, who are unable to think one single logical thought. They are
definitely unable to GRASP the point of view of the terrorists (WHY 'those
people' resorted to terror), or the dictator (do the people like this
dictator or not?), or grasp the psychosis of the serial killer or whatever
else. Happy now? People I know tend to call serial killers "sick fucks" -
and they tend to call terrorists "those bastards" or "stupid medieval sick
assholes." I know exactly what "kind" of person would call these people
"evil." Idiots with NO ability to reason, NO ability to even understand a
thing. Close minded types, totally satisfied to just be the puppet on the
string of Big Brother. "They are EEEEvil" ok - that's good enough - no
reason to THINK more on the subject. Heh, ask me, if the west didn't
EXPECT these terrorists, then that proves that the west has some mighily
STUPID people in charge. And OH, yeah, so and so is a dictator (gasp) - oh,
but that dictator is a-ok supported, even put into power by the "good guys."
Uh huh. but that there other dictator is no good (even if the people love
him). Uh huh. Brainwashed puppets - non-thinking morons. You happy how?
This IS a flame, btw. You pissed me off.
Why are you bringing up all this shit, gays, gay marriage, all this other
shit?
This is a convo about SCIENCE FICTION CHARACTERS IN STORIES that may or may
not be anti human, but are definitely advanced and dangerous. and NO, they
aren't freaking "evil" because they are ALIENS, for shit's sakes. If you
think they are, then fine. YOU are dismissed as a non-thinker if you
"think" that way. Period.
I'm on alt.horror.cthulhu HPL was not a writer that dealt in the dumb realm
of "good/evil" in any of his stories. He dealt with the idea that TRUTHS
might be "too much" for humanity to handle, and such truths would plunge
mankind into a new dark age. In every mythos story, a character has a "bump
into" somethning extremely old, alien and very very strange - and usually
dangerous. So what the hey are YOU and a few others on here about?
Go ahead then, define what you imagine (pure imagination) is evil. Go
ahead. Amuse us all. What do you think is evil? Serial killers?
bwhahaha. Ok, then "psychotic = evil." Ok. Go for it. <snicker> Did you
believe in boogeymen as a kid, too?
David Johnston
>> I'm in a position to say they have a brain the size of the grain of a
>> sand.
>
>In comparison to what body weight?
Who cares? If their body was entirely made up of brain they'd still
have a brain the size of an insect.
David Johnston
>
>"Wayne Throop" <thr...@sheol.org> wrote in message
>news:11627...@sheol.org...
>> ::: Good = that which is GOOD for me and mine.
>>
>> :: Circular definition.
>>
>> : No, it's not circular. It's practical.
>>
>> Really? Does it work for other things? Is "red = that which is red for
>> me"
>> (or "to my eye") at all useful or practical in defining what red is?
>
>Nope. Are you deliberately being dumb here? Here: don't touch that, it's
>radioactive. BAD for me and mine. Get it? Is it perhaps TOO simple? TOO
>concrete?
>
>Make a list. Define things that you think are EVIL.
Things aren't evil. People are.
David Johnston
Now try to answer the question. Why is it that they call people evil,
but not tsunamis and earthquakes?
They are
>definitely unable to GRASP the point of view of the terrorists (WHY 'those
>people' resorted to terror), or the dictator (do the people like this
>dictator or not?), or grasp the psychosis of the serial killer or whatever
>else. Happy now? People I know tend to call serial killers "sick fucks" -
>and they tend to call terrorists "those bastards" or "stupid medieval sick
>assholes."
So you weren't really being entirely honest when you claimed that
everyone you know offline defines "evil" as "that which is bad for me
and mine". The truth is, you just don't know anyone who has a
definition of "evil".
>
>Why are you bringing up all this shit, gays, gay marriage, all this other
>shit?
I never mentioned a word about any of that.