INTRO
I was asked by someone how it was that I was aware the writer HP Lovecraft was a racist but could still like that writer's work. This article will discuss reasons for why I am able, but mostly show reasons why the idea and joint universe of Cthulhu is greater than the artist who created it. But first I have a question to answer.
From the email inbox I received this message:"Since you seem to be separating artist from creation in a number of your recent articles, why do you punish, in particular, Chuck Dixon's comics from Vox Day's Arkhaven Comics? After all, Blue Water * is pushing a Gay and Left wing agenda, aren't they? Isn't Disney pushing a corporate ownership of America? Isn't David Hine who you love a friggin' Leftist? So, why bag on Chuck and say 'but we're still friends'? Also, if you want, my offer to provide the comics Chuck has done at Arkhaven remains. I will send them to you for free."
(* Blue Water is now called Tidal Wave Productions. Secondly, I want to point out, the gay agenda is usually to be treated fairly, to be able to live life without being subjected to hate, and to do things like every one else, love, laugh, raise families. So, I take some immediate issue with that terminology used by the email sender.)
The sender of email is a person who is a mutual friend of Chuck Dixon and myself. I do think that the email sender is a bright person, and I like him, as I like Chuck too (but am pretty sure he sees me as anything but a friend.) The article about Cthulhu presented below is one demonstrating why the Cthulhu universe has merit, however much racism had poisoned the mind of HP Lovecraft. I'd argue that this is a critical distinction, because if you throw away art, ideas or other intellectual creation for the foibles of the creator, eventually, nothing by anyone will ever be allowed.
Genius minds and creative talent do not necessarily intersect with having morality or an interest in conforming to societal moral values. For example, Sigmund Freud likely banged his sister in law, and the academic world didn't toss his psychological theories away out of hand, due to the morality of the writer. The great professor Albert Einstein had a mistress, and eventually married her... but she was a close cousin. The world didn't decide to ban his theories, and cancel the product of his mind. Ezra Pound was so worried over who caused war, the bankers in his mind, that it led him down a path of Anti Semitism and sedition. Pound was held in an asylum for insane prisoners for 10 years. People still admire his poetry, and are moved by his essays about themes of literature and society. He later renounced much of his excess, but he also by then had paid a cost. And honestly, I love Pound's written work, but I've had to do a number of personal in depth studies to make sure I wasn't silently agreeing. I don't.
Ultimately, in every single life you will find flaw and almost certainly, moral flaw, and in most lives, I guarantee more than simple flaw, but epic flaw. I am flawed. Everyone reading this has moral flaws. Some of you might even deny your flaw while suggesting someone else's flaw is enormous. When art is good, it stands on its own. Due to early loss of family, poverty and health I believe that H.P. Lovecraft was wounded by life. He was very kind to those who wrote to him, and he wasn't militant in his hatred for others. He did have racial hatred in his heart and mind, but that isn't really a point worth making, in that, you can take most people from any situation in the past, and investigate their beliefs and find racism and other dark themes. Judging with the perspective of the present upon people who lived in the past leads to that ability.
Beyond race issues and personal issues, I've never said that the comics Chuck Dixon is writing for
Vox Day are anything, good, bad, or otherwise. Chuck is a great
writer, so I assume they are well written, and therefore technically speaking, good.
But they are written in the service of a publisher who is a racist, a publisher who uses
his status in the creative world to insult, diminish and degrade other
people. By not reviewing any of that work, I am refusing to accept the notion that these works deserve to be read. Any
work written by a creative artist is art (however well done or otherwise) but regarding the consideration of and promotion of their work? It isn't my responsibility to
support a racist publisher even if the work is well written, beautiful to look at. Even if the writer himself or the artist have ultra morality and kindness, if they work towards the financial well being of racist people, I am not interested.
Someone I know would encourage me, well no, they'd urge me to mention this: for thirty years I've told people I won't support or say the name of the football team in Washington DC, as it is racist. Someone I love came back from a visit in DC and brought a t-shirt of the team. I threw it away. When I won a signed 8x10 of a random NFL player and it happened to be a very successful player for the team in Washington, I ripped it up and threw it away. It is repugnant to support racist companies, or racist people who are alive and flourishing due to their racist agenda. It is, however not to say that the team or players sucked. Being racist does not prevent expression or art. The motives for expression and creativity can create ideas and art. But each individual has choices to make and I and all of you make your own choices, regardless of what other people do.
THE WORKS
The concept of Cthulhu and overall Lovecraft vision of his world or universe are found in three specific realms that make it unique. Lovecraft's outlook upon the human race was strewn with misanthropic ideas, and with particular regard for cosmology and magic, he was not just skeptical, he said it straight out did not exist. So, his foundation for weird horror, is that these beings are physical, if also alien, and that being of flesh that have abilities that are previously unknown will appear as magical. Any being of great power, would be worshiped by humans, because such beings are so far beyond our understanding, and perceptions, that Godlike beings exist due to the fact that humans, being so small and powerless, would not be able to understand the truth. If it helps, think of the Cargo Cults that arose after the US military used various Pacific Ocean islands for depots of war material during WWII. The natives were mind blown by the material wealth, but also by the amazing technology. When the war was over most of the islands were abandoned by US forces, and some material might have been left behind, but when the Americans didn't return, the natives built altars in the shape of US planes, they worshiped new ideas that worked as myths, of the generous white gods. That is, the difference in the two worlds meant that the natives perceived great material wealth and advanced technology in ways that religious people do God... and how Lovecraft perceived the human perceptions of the aliens. Link to Cargo Cults
An even more dark concept that Lovecraft adopted and adapted for his mythos was something that shows the depth of his thinking, as it was a concept most frightening in its delivery. While the minds of aliens remained unknown, their power would lead one to imagine genius. At this moment in time humans are still the brightest known being in the universe. Lovecraft suggested maybe we are not only not the most powerful, but not the brightest of all species. Even as humans tend to think of the species, as a whole, advancing, or moving in a positive direction, they do so with a certain ignorance. This arrogance combined with ignorance is a mental theme that can be seen in every day life, all the way to highest area of progress in the human species.
Lovecraft's beliefs about race had an impact upon how the alien races upon earth would behave, especially regarding interaction with humans. He saw intellect as not meaning morality. In fact, he saw decay and watering down of the species as a possible result of contact with aliens. In his greatest fear, he saw that aliens and alien hybrids would kidnap women and children, for a breeding purpose. Use of human beings and DNA material would thus be acquired for a very dark reason, breeding. In a way, it is enslavement. The creatures who had come from distant star systems, would gradually take over the earth with hybrid children of both species. And inevitably, there would be horrific consequences of such breeding practices. They'd certainly have built up an army of half breed human aliens, but most of these beings would be horribly mutated.
The highest goal, however, for the leaders and Cthulhu beings, would be to create a human looking hybrid so they could infiltrate human society, and go about their evil plans. The idea then, is that entropy and decay are the rule, and no matter how hard one tries to create the highest achievement of a specific race, it is doomed to fail, because entropy, not order is the rule. Lovecraft believed that if lesser people interacted and bred with white people, the white race would be less pure. While this a vile thought, how it affects the mythos is rather powerful. Whatever the goal, when one can see the devolution of a species, it is frightening, and seems to offer a warning for future choices regarding the health of the human race.
Lastly, again wrapped up in the fears and thoughts in the mind of Lovecraft, engagement with the alien mind led to one going mad. The kind of madness found the realm of Cthulhu is a result of interaction with beings more powerful than one's own mind. Fear of other, especially others with great power, will lead to many things. The reason it works in Lovecraft's world is because what it actually reveals is the motives of one who believes in the fundamental inequality of humans, and therefore it must be a concept that is entirely the same with all intelligent beings. Lovecraft played upon a human fear, that is, while the idea of or concept of a God would be superior to us, and we know (supposedly) that God is moral and good, even if God is also massively more powerful and intelligent enough to rule, that is a limited being, however unlimited their power and mind is. But humans have no limits, outside of power, and intellect, and in the greater universe, humans are very likely, if they discover alien life, to find beings far more advanced, and more intelligent. Humans are superior on earth to all other life forms we've experienced, interacted with, as far as we know. To reach out, explore space, and find other beings, far advanced, and not possessing known morals or ideals, is an idea of pure fear, and one that might someday become reality. No longer being supreme, above all others will lead some to madness, and since the reasons for that madness are truth, it cannot be cured.
One of the reasons Lovecraft's mythos has endured over time is certainly the concept has strength, and it was allowed in Lovecraft's lifetime to be expanded, and written about, from many hands of many different authors. August Derleth and Lin Carter are probably why the concepts of Lovecraft and the ideas bound up in the Cthulhu Mythos endure. August Derleth was a writer of some talent, but it isn't for his writing that Lovecraft is remembered, it was his championing the work of Lovecraft, and making sure it was published continuously. Lin Carter certainly acted in the same way, when the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series began, Carter featured Lovecraft's work, and wrote prefaces and more, in order to introduce the work of Lovecraft to a world less familiar with him, than the works are now.
Derleth also wrote in the mythos. His work has quality in each expression, but the works do change what would be considered the main ethos of Lovecraft's thesis. Derleth introduced a Manichaeistic cosmology that had a light and a dark side in constant struggle for dominance. It could be argued that he made the work easier to comprehend for some, but most of Cthulhu works because it is dark without a redeeming figure to save all of us. Some argue Derleth was wrong, and he might have been, but I'd argue each story, in and of itself, had quality. And without Derleth, I doubt we'd even know the name Lovecraft in our present era.
Writers of great talent have enthusiastically introduced the world to their take upon the mythos. Clark Ashton Smith was a contemporary of Lovecraft, and his work, in poetry more than prose, is magnificent. Brian Lumley writes Cthulhu stories in ways Lovecraft did not, but without fouling the waters. He expanded the world, made it even more accessible to readers of the present. Ramsay Cambell wrote stunning tales in the mythos, but he seems to have less esteem for his own work in the mythos than he does Lovecraft and Lovecraft's circle
END NOTES
I do not plan to not dig any further or any deeper into any creative quality versus popularity, or artistic expression from the flawed human debates. Sometimes you write about a subject, sometimes you are written to about the subject and have to reply.
About Getting Reviews from Me
First off, I can be found on Facebook, Twitter or through email at Alexanderness63@gmail.com.
I accept hard copies, so when you inquire at any of these places, I'll
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have a p.o. box, when I came to realize I was getting so little product
it made no sense to pay for the privilege to not receive mail at both my
home and at the post office. If you send hard copies for review I will
always review them, but if you prefer to send pdf or ebooks to my email,
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you can avoid worry that I'd dispense them for free to others.
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LASTLY
“The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white.
Neither need you do anything but be yourself.”
Lao Tzu
