Talk:H. P. Lovecraft

	This Books related article has not received a brainstar for quality. Please consider expanding the article appropriately. See RationalWiki:Article rating for more information.

Archives for this talk page:

<1>

, (new)

Not a word about his atheism and scepticism?

C'mon, there is the whole book of his letters on this subject http://www.amazon.com/Against-Religion-Atheist-Writings-Lovecraft/dp/0578052482 As for scepticism, he and Houdini planned to write together woo-debunking book (The Cancer of Superstition), but it didn't work out because of Houdini's death. The "Cthulhu Myths are real" coockoo crowd also deserves a mention. ^{— Unsigned, by: 95.153.197.80 / talk / contribs (signed by bot)} 19:17, 08 April 2015 (UTC)

Why are you surprised...

That Lovecraft would be a racist and support the New Deal? Many early progressives weaved together what they considered to be rationally minded scientific racism and a left of center economic agenda. The thoroughgoing racist President Wilson (perhaps our most racist president) would be a prime example. I seem to remember hearing somewhere that Lovecraft supported him too. Burkean (talk) 22:41, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

This is just a nitpick, but I'd say Wilson was only the second most racist president, the first being Andrew Jackson.^{— Unsigned, by: 24.61.154.51 / talk / contribs}

In fairness to Lovecraft he wasn't particularly racist at that point in his life. His support for the New Deal heralded in a change of altitude for Lovecraft and a sense of shame for his nonsense in the past. He denounced the fascists as Nazis as ignorant reactionaries, citing himself as a smugly ignorant reactionary in the past:

"I can the better understand the inert blindness & defiant ignorance of the reactionaries from having been one of them. I know how smugly ignorant I was". - H. P. Lovecraft.

I actually think it is a little dad that people forget his interesting "redemption arch". - Anax Andron ^{— Unsigned, by: Anax Andron / talk / contribs}

Sexism?

While I'm no die-hard Lovecraft fan, I do own an anthology of his work and have read several of his stories. I've seen plenty of evidence of his racism, both in his works and while looking for digital copies of his personal letters on-line, but one thing I haven't seen is any of his supposed "misogyny". Now don't get me wrong, considering Lovecraft's racism, it wouldn't surprise me if he was sexist. The problem is, I can't find a single trace of evidence in his books that would suggest that he was a misogynist. Not one. All I've seen when looking it up is people claiming that he was a raging racist and sexist, almost to the point where you'd think that all of his stories have the protagonist tell women to "know their place" at least once. I've even found some sites that blatantly state that he WASN'T a misogynist, or at least wasn't hateful towards women like he was towards different ethnicities. Here's one place I've found: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/cienciareal/cienciareal_lovecraft01.htm

And no, I'm not a Lovecraft apologist, I'm not doing this to try and claim that he wasn't as bad as some people think. While I won't hold his different values agianst him, or at the least won't let them ruin my enjoyment of his stories, I won't really care if he turns out to be worse that I've read or better than what you've wrote. I just want some clarification.

Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown

An interesting view into Lovecraft and his life and work. I highly recommend it. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 17:54, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Lovecraft in modern day

Modern day interpretations are mixed. Some people call this guy a Nazi, contrary to evidence, and other people are whitewashing how racist the guy is.—チーズバーガー • めん  (talk • stalk) 04:05, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

"Race mixing"

What I am a bit surprised is that the article doesn't talk much about his true issue being what he saw as "mixing races". In contrast: black characters in his works tend to be a bit slow but usually well-meaning, a comparatively tame version of racism, while the henchmen of the evil guys tend to be of mixed heritage. Even stronger reflected in the concept of hybrids of humans and deep ones, or children of some eldtrich deity like Wilbur Whateley, son of Yog-Sothoth. The concept of mixing races is an old trope in racism, and for instance also the core of nazi race ideology, who saw jews as being wild mixtures of all kinds of races (in contrast to for example arabs). ^{— Unsigned, by: 2001:1A81:74D2:FF00:705D:622C:9E7F:AB0F / talk / contribs}