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H.P. Lovecraft and racism
Nov. 12th, 2013 03:47 amSo a week or so back, I saw on Tumblr a post about H.P. Lovecraft having been a racist, and an unusually vocal one for his time. I may have even reblogged it, I dunno.
I was thinking about that post again today, and remembering how it was calling for a boycott of Lovecraft’s works because of it.
Um… my basic thought to this is what would be the point of that? I mean, it’s not like the guy is still alive and making money off his works. He’s dead! He’s been dead so long that his writings are all in the public domain! And as far as I know of, his estate is not making any money off sales of his books and even if they were, his estate is not promoting or funding racism in any way. Also, from what I read on Wikipedia, he only ever expressed his racist views in essays and letters, and how many people read that kind of shit? It’s his short stories and books that are still being read by everyone, and there’s nothing that says his views ever made it to his stories. So how is his racism even relevant? And what purpose would be served by boycotting him? HE’S DEAD. LONG dead.
If it was someone like Orson Scott Card who is actively and vocally a raging homophobic shit stain on the cum-rag of the planet, someone profiting and using their fame and profit as a soapbox for their bullshit, I could understand it; I will not give that motherfucker any money nor read his shitty books. But how many people knew Lovecraft was racist before reading that Tumblr post? And how many people read his essays? I sure as hell didn’t know until that Tumblr post.
Besides which, if people boycotted every author that ever had an opinion that was offensive, there would be fuck all left to read. Me, I hate extremist Christians, but if I boycotted all Christian authors, I’d have very little to read. I also hate extremist atheists, too, like Richard “Dickhead” Dawkins, but I’d be stupid to boycott all atheist authors. And I am opposed to the Sex Offender Registry because it does more harm than good and because why should we have an SRO if we don’t have a registry for murderers? I mean, murder is a far worse crime than rape! Rape you can survive, murder - by definition - you cannot. But should I boycott everyone who disagrees with me? Of course not.
But yeah, some may shout about false equivalence there, but seriously, all those things I mentioned above are actively hurting people just as much as racism is: the SRO is filled mostly with people who have done nothing more harmful than drunken pissing in bushes, and often far less. Extremism of all forms alienates a lot of people and actively hurts others when the extremists start acting (often violently) on their extremist views. So yeah, I don’t think it’s a mistake to say those things go in the same kind of “harmful” category as racism.
Oh, and like I said, if it was someone alive and actively using their fame to spread their fucked-up ideas (like Orson Scott Card, Dick Dawkins, or John Boehner), I would understand it. I would also understand boycotting someone whose fame was caused by their racism (like Adolf Hitler), and/or whose writing were nothing but racist/homophobic/sexist garbage (also like Hitler). Or if someone is famous for something that they actually sucked big-time at, like how Carl Sagan is this famous scientist but he kept stepping out of his particular scientific speciality like he was Mr. Omniscient Science Man but in reality got most of his so-called “facts” terribly, horribly wrong, and was a fucking extremist skeptic to boot, then yeah, boycotting is good.
But someone long dead whose only racist comments are in obscure essays and letters? Someone whose racism does not seem to have informed his fiction writing, or at least not marred the beauty of his works? My basic comment to that is this: if you’re going to stroke your rage boner over something so ancient and irrelevant, please do it in private.
I was thinking about that post again today, and remembering how it was calling for a boycott of Lovecraft’s works because of it.
Um… my basic thought to this is what would be the point of that? I mean, it’s not like the guy is still alive and making money off his works. He’s dead! He’s been dead so long that his writings are all in the public domain! And as far as I know of, his estate is not making any money off sales of his books and even if they were, his estate is not promoting or funding racism in any way. Also, from what I read on Wikipedia, he only ever expressed his racist views in essays and letters, and how many people read that kind of shit? It’s his short stories and books that are still being read by everyone, and there’s nothing that says his views ever made it to his stories. So how is his racism even relevant? And what purpose would be served by boycotting him? HE’S DEAD. LONG dead.
If it was someone like Orson Scott Card who is actively and vocally a raging homophobic shit stain on the cum-rag of the planet, someone profiting and using their fame and profit as a soapbox for their bullshit, I could understand it; I will not give that motherfucker any money nor read his shitty books. But how many people knew Lovecraft was racist before reading that Tumblr post? And how many people read his essays? I sure as hell didn’t know until that Tumblr post.
Besides which, if people boycotted every author that ever had an opinion that was offensive, there would be fuck all left to read. Me, I hate extremist Christians, but if I boycotted all Christian authors, I’d have very little to read. I also hate extremist atheists, too, like Richard “Dickhead” Dawkins, but I’d be stupid to boycott all atheist authors. And I am opposed to the Sex Offender Registry because it does more harm than good and because why should we have an SRO if we don’t have a registry for murderers? I mean, murder is a far worse crime than rape! Rape you can survive, murder - by definition - you cannot. But should I boycott everyone who disagrees with me? Of course not.
But yeah, some may shout about false equivalence there, but seriously, all those things I mentioned above are actively hurting people just as much as racism is: the SRO is filled mostly with people who have done nothing more harmful than drunken pissing in bushes, and often far less. Extremism of all forms alienates a lot of people and actively hurts others when the extremists start acting (often violently) on their extremist views. So yeah, I don’t think it’s a mistake to say those things go in the same kind of “harmful” category as racism.
Oh, and like I said, if it was someone alive and actively using their fame to spread their fucked-up ideas (like Orson Scott Card, Dick Dawkins, or John Boehner), I would understand it. I would also understand boycotting someone whose fame was caused by their racism (like Adolf Hitler), and/or whose writing were nothing but racist/homophobic/sexist garbage (also like Hitler). Or if someone is famous for something that they actually sucked big-time at, like how Carl Sagan is this famous scientist but he kept stepping out of his particular scientific speciality like he was Mr. Omniscient Science Man but in reality got most of his so-called “facts” terribly, horribly wrong, and was a fucking extremist skeptic to boot, then yeah, boycotting is good.
But someone long dead whose only racist comments are in obscure essays and letters? Someone whose racism does not seem to have informed his fiction writing, or at least not marred the beauty of his works? My basic comment to that is this: if you’re going to stroke your rage boner over something so ancient and irrelevant, please do it in private.
