Lovecraft, Racism, & The "Man of His Time" Defense

[Gray House]

Quote Originally Posted by Joel

Of course Lovecraft's non-fiction shouldn't be ignored in principle – but we shouldn't be surprised when it proves limited. If a writer can't speak with dignity and responsibility of his own social environment, don't trust him when he tries to tell you about the universe.

I fail to see the connection. Doubtless there are innumerable intellects that are worth a lot in one area but are worthless in others.

Quote Originally Posted by Joel

Lovecraft's core argument is that the conservative tenets of religious culture – the social order is God's will and our society's traditions are sacred – are false, but in order to preserve order and meaning we need to behave as if they were true. I don't find that particularly helpful in negotiating the challenges of modernity.

I'm not sure what his core argument is, if he had one, but in any case, the "we" that "need to behave as if they were true" in Lovecraft's view were the nonintellectual masses which he didn't include himself among, or the literary sorts of people he corresponded with (I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with that view, just trying to clarify his perspective). Your criteria for judging the worth of his nonfiction seem to be entirely sociopolitical. Lovecraft certainly wrote about such issues, but he was relatively disinterested in fleeting human dramas and his primary focus was on a larger scale than what would be "helpful in negotiating the challenges of modernity".

[sleepybutawake]

I agree, Gray House. Lovecraft wasn't about making any sort of arguement. While he was certainly a sharp guy, he was much more driven by emotional currents that he then rationalized. And, again, I think the overiding emotion was fear, and that his racism wasn't as much about hate, but as his fears about humanity and, ultimately, himself.

We tend to compartmentalize data when processing it, and studies have shown over and over again that we provide more positive regard to that which shares commonality with ourselves. Someone as isolated as Lovecraft would have felt antagonized by nearly everyone, but he could easily attach the resulting anxiety to people who didn't share his skin color or cultural heritage. When we don't focus on his early writings and correspondences (because who isn't an idiot in their twenties?), we see an evolution of concepts that led to his regretting his early attitudes.

I hope I don't have to spend the rest of my life paying for mistakes I made when I was short on experience. Just saying.

[mark_samuels]

The United States of the 1920s and 1930s enforced governmental policies of racial segregation and a strict quota on non-European immigration. It sanctioned eugenic control of the disadvantaged. Lynching of blacks was still carried out in the south. There was scarcely any racial mixing and intermarriage between blacks and whites was either frowned upon or else outlawed. Most blacks were in menial jobs and were regarded as inferior citizens by the majority of the white population.

This was accepted as the status quo and part of the “natural order”.

Why so? Well, the U.S. government, as did Lovecraft, simply swallowed whole the scientific consensus of the time and adopted a policy of biological determinism. This abomination was regarded as a wholly objective and rational stance simply because it was considered a “science” and beyond mere political considerations. The vast majority of (white!) biologists served to bolster the prejudice that blacks (amongst others) were of an inferior race.

Joshi has contended that Lovecraft, when it came to his racialist views, simply stopped being open to any new evidence on the subject presented after the 1920s. But, in fact, such examples of a scientific anti-racist perspective are scarce indeed, (Joshi cites only one example in his HPL biography to support this contention: the work of anthropologist and equality activist, Franz Boas).

It seems to me that Lovecraft would have had to actively seek out such new evidence, which, even if found intellectually challenging by him, would still have been insufficient to alter his deeply-ingrained stance—given the prevailing scientific orthodoxy—which then solidly supported his racist views.

Had he lived into the 1950s or 1960s, of course, Lovecraft would have been incapable of ignoring the new conclusions resulting from the (paradigm) shift in scientific consensus as well as having to seriously consider the role “biological determinism” played in the endgame horrors of the Third Reich.

However, the tough question is this: do we allow the prevailing view of scientific orthodoxy in any given historical period to determine our modes of ethical behaviour or not? If we defer to the relativistic notion of “intellectual sins” (a nonsensical term) then the likes of eugenicism (as much favoured in the past by the doyens of the left as the right) become acceptable “solutions” furthering the cause of so-called progress.

Mark S.

[Gray House]

Science is not related to morality except in a very indirect way: it's difficult to determine how to act upon your moral beliefs without having some sense of external reality. Historically I certainly don't see religious people tending to be less racist than people with scientific outlooks.

[Joel]

Much of the secondary literature about Lovecraft does not consider him a person of average intelligence, insight and imagination. He is more often spoken of as a genius, a man of great originality, a man ahead of his time. And then when his politics are discussed suddenly that goes out the window and we ask how he could possibly not have had views that were quite normal in his time. Surely being a unique genius and visionary goes with not having views that are normal in your time?

Also, when Lovecraft first became friendly with Sonia Greene he remarked to her that he had "a reputation" for anti-Semitism in the amateur press. How can you have a reputation for something if your views are normal and average?

John Steinbeck managed not to have racist and reactionary views. So did Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway and many other American writers of the twenties. If they were not bound by the 'normal' attitudes of their time and place, how did Lovecraft – that supposed supreme original thinker and visionary genius – come to be merely average in his political and social views? If he really was too elevated in his mind to be bothered with petty human issues, surely we would expect some Olympian serenity in his view of the world. Instead we see a man who was shockingly crude, vicious and infantile in his assessment of most of the human race. To say it doesn't matter because he was above such petty concerns as humanity strikes me as rather a disturbing stance.

[Joel]

It's worth reiterating, however, that the thematic scope of Lovecraft's fiction is considerable and there is much going on apart from racism and conservatism. Nor does one need to see Lovecraft as a 'cosmic' visionary unconcerned with mere humanity in order to appreciate his work. Alienation, grief, loneliness and a certain bleak compassion are fundamental to Lovecraft's most important stories – more so than racism. It's only when people start making unfeasible claims for Lovecraft's value as a social theorist that it becomes necessary to point out that he was a bigot.

[Gray House]

Not that it excuses his racism, but it might be worth mentioning that Lovecraft's assessment of the entirety of the human race, including all human races, was vicious, which for me is not a deterring factor when he doesn't single out specific human races. I also enjoy Ambrose Bierce's and Mark Twain's scathing assessments of the human race.

I think some of Lovecraft's nonfiction on atheism is very good, as is some of his nonfiction on literature and writing. Other subjects are more hit and miss, with misses by a long ways.

[Joel]

I'd agree with all of that, Gray House. 'Supernatural Horror in Literature' is certainly an important critical work. It's consciously subjective – he is talking primarily about what the stories make him feel – but that gives his analysis a freshness and directness that much genre commentary lacks. At its heart is a desire not to place weird fiction in the context of wider literature, but to identify and celebrate what is unique and powerful about weird fiction. It's rooted in fandom (through Lovecraft's deep involvement in the amateur press) rather than in academia.

[Dr. Valzer]

Joel,

Can you explain what you mean by this "certain bleak compassion" you perceive in Lovecraft's work?

[Joel]

By 'bleak compassion' I mean the understated and stoical grief expressed most clearly in 'The Colour out of Space', but also a strong element in 'The Whisperer in Darkness', 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward', 'At the Mountains of Madness' and elsewhere – the sadness is for individuals, but the context makes their grim fate symbolic of the human condition. For Lovecraft, humanity is something to be mourned – rather as, for Robert E. Howard, it is something to be avenged.