World Fantasy Awards may drop H.P. Lovecraft's likeness from award statuette due to author's racism.

[Plunkies]

Why exactly do we need to judge people of the past by current-day sensibilities?

Because if you believe racism is wrong, then you don't get to weasel out of it by saying, "It's okay because it was older," or, "It's okay because he's a good writer." Either you believe racism is wrong or you don't.

...I'm only tackling the defense of moral relativism, which is one I have no patience for; I think it tries to falsely ennoble a lack of conviction.

I think you should watch this and see if it changes your opinion on that issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwz6B8BFkb4

It seems very easy to judge the people of that past based on the morals of the present. Would you be at the vanguard of moral evolution during these times? Or somewhere in the middle? And if you were at the forefront, would we still not be able to judge you just as harshly today? Maybe the people 100 years from now will judge you immoral for your lack of empathy in this case, or a murderer because you ate a cow, or evil because you purchased a product made in a sweatshop. Who knows?

 

[JimB]

Edited out a bit that was based on me misreading the word "these" as "those." My apologies for my error.

I think you should watch this and see if it changes your opinion on that issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwz6B8BFkb4

It seems very easy to judge the people of that past based on the morals of the present. Would you be at the vanguard of moral evolution during these times? And if you were at the forefront, would we still not be able to judge you just as harshly today? Maybe the people 100 years from now will judge you immoral for your lack of empathy in this case, or a murderer because you ate a cow, or evil because you purchased a product made in a sweatshop. Who knows?

I don't, nor do I care (common theme with me tonight, I know). People who are harmful and wrong in their beliefs deserve to be criticized for them, and asking me to put myself in his shoes doesn't change that. Nor does asking me to guess what people who haven't been born yet might think one day. My sense of right and wrong is not dependent on group consensus; it is dependent on my own conscience, which is the only judge I have to answer to.

Incidentally, I'm annoyed at you for not answering the questions I put to you in your thread about how feminists are all stooges being manipulated by shadow-puppeteers but coming to this thread to tell me I owe it to a dead man to be nice to him about him thinking black people are half-animals created of sin. Just saying that while I have the opportunity.

Is it okay to lynch someone and burn crosses on someone's lawn as long as you are not racist?

Do you intend to answer my question and help me understand your position? If not, then I will thank you to please stop addressing me with nonsense questions of your own; it comes off as a dishonest attempt to imply I said something I never said.

 

[Fox12]

Yeah, Lovecraft was a pretty awful person. Racist, sexist, anti-semetic, hateful... the list goes on. By all means, read his work, but he makes Harlan Ellison look like mother teresa. At least Harlan is the lovable kind of curmudgeony. Assuming he's not suing you.

I don't think they should have anyone's likeness on there, myself. I wouldn't want Lovecrafts face staring at me at night.

 

[waj9876]

Yeah, Lovecraft was a pretty awful person. Racist, sexist, anti-semetic, hateful... the list goes on. By all means, read his work, but he makes Harlan Ellison look like mother teresa. At least Harlan is the lovable kind of curmudgeony. Assuming he's not suing you.

I don't think they should have anyone's likeness on there, myself. I wouldn't want Lovecrafts face staring at me at night.

Didn't Lovecraft pretty much hate anything and everything to do with humanity, though? Or am I wrong on this?

 

[UmberHulk]

I don't see what the problem is. If enough people don't like the design of the award than they are entitled to petition for a new design. Would it be different if they didn't want the bust because they thought H.P. was a hack or just not that nice to look at? I't not like their calling for his books to be burned or anything.

 

[Fox12]

Yeah, Lovecraft was a pretty awful person. Racist, sexist, anti-semetic, hateful... the list goes on. By all means, read his work, but he makes Harlan Ellison look like mother teresa. At least Harlan is the lovable kind of curmudgeony. Assuming he's not suing you.

I don't think they should have anyone's likeness on there, myself. I wouldn't want Lovecrafts face staring at me at night.

Didn't Lovecraft pretty much hate anything and everything to do with humanity, though? Or am I wrong on this?

Yeah, pretty much. He's basically the quintessential straw man atheist image that people have been trying to get rid of foe some time. I try not to judge a work by its author, though, if his biases didn't poison his work. I didn't boycott Enders Game because of Cards homophobia, so I probably won't boycott lovecraft. I'm not sure why they would want to put his face on a statue, though.

 

[Plunkies]

I think you should watch this and see if it changes your opinion on that issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwz6B8BFkb4

It seems very easy to judge the people of that past based on the morals of the present. Would you be at the vanguard of moral evolution during these times?

I do not care about hypothetical, impossible situations. If you're trying to get me to confess that if I was different, then I wouldn't be the same, then fine, I will totally grant that implied tautology. Otherwise, I have no interest in pretending that I am someone other than myself who believes things other than what I believe.

I'm only trying to get you to think about someone other than yourself from a perspective other than your own. Judging from your last sentence it seems like that is not something you'll entertain.

This seems odd. How am I on this side of the debate arguing for empathy and open-mindedness and you're on that side taking the moral high-ground and arguing the opposite? Not only is the moral zeitgeist constantly shifting, sometimes it turns upside down.

Incidentally, I'm annoyed at you for not answering the questions I put to you in your thread...

I got bored. Having to clarify fairly basic statements three or four times for some people begins to feel like a chore. Realized no one was going to make it any fun and punched out.

 

[R Man]

Yeah, Lovecraft was a pretty awful person. Racist, sexist, anti-semetic, hateful... the list goes on. By all means, read his work, but he makes Harlan Ellison look like mother teresa. At least Harlan is the lovable kind of curmudgeony. Assuming he's not suing you.

I don't think they should have anyone's likeness on there, myself. I wouldn't want Lovecrafts face staring at me at night.

Errr... the only thing true about this is that Lovecraft was a racist. Everything else is wrong. Lovecraft was certainly not sexist, and he actually went out of his way to help young aspiring authors like R.H. Barlow. He refused to drop any of his contacts because he did not want to let anyone down, often going without food so he could afford to send letters. He was also quite polite and sociable.

Most of what people know about Lovecraft is essentially nonsense.

 

[JimB]

My position is think.

That is an extremely insulting position to take.

Are you tolerant enough to tolerate the intolerant?

No, but I hope that won't be a surprise, since I never said anything about tolerating anyone or anything.

Should a man suffer for what he is or what he does?

Misleading question, since dead people do not suffer according to all information I have.

Should a man suffer for what he suffers from?

Morally? Maybe, and maybe not. For a cause and effect standpoint? Yes.

I got bored.

Then please forgive me if I do not choose to engage you and build an expectation of open and sincere dialogue when you might just wander off out of boredom again.

 

[Irick]

Why exactly do we need to judge people of the past by current-day sensibilities?

Because if you believe racism is wrong, then you don't get to weasel out of it by saying, "It's okay because it was older," or, "It's okay because he's a good writer." Either you believe racism is wrong or you don't.

If this award group I've never heard of wants to focus on his racism or ignore it, either of those outcomes are basically fine by me (though I'd lean slightly toward preferring that his likeness be removed from the medal as to avoid potentially alienating writers of color, whose voices are underrepresented in the genre). How much his racism ought to affect a person's enjoyment of his work is an inherently subjective question I have no interest in debating, because no matter what anyone feels about it, that person's feelings are right. I'm only tackling the defense of moral relativism, which is one I have no patience for; I think it tries to falsely ennoble a lack of conviction.

I'm a moral nihilist, so, actually I do get to 'weasel out of it'.
It's a bit presumptuous of you to assume I believe in the truth-aptness of moral statements.

Every action must be taken in context. His good characteristics don't justify his bad, but we're not celebrating his bad characteristics. The textual influence of H.P. lovecraft is literally inescapable in modern horror. He is a prolific writer and his achievements in literature are vast. This is an award for Fantasy which recognised that influence in its design. The removal, while it reflects modern sensibilities also diminishes the importance of the very subject mater it celebrates.

Why should I care if H.P. lovecraft was racist? He's not a contemporary author. I can't pretend to understand his mindset, what I can do is interpret his work as I will. The Author Is Dead. There is only the Text, and one only needs to look as far as Nightvale to see just how expanded that Text has become. Removing H.P. lovecraft because he fails a modern sniff test is frankly laughable. Criticize his views all you want, his contribution and influence is still far beyond any of his contemporaries. In an award that recognizes the best in Fantasy, why should we replace such a prolific name with an obscure one? The "Howard" is the "Howard" because H.P. Lovecraft is a household name to a fan of fiction.

This is of course not to take away from the accomplishments of Miss Butler, but if H.P. Lovecraft is to be replaced as the face of the Howard, it better be because someone is a better author than him. Not just because he was racist.

 

[the December King]

I'm really torn on this. On the one hand, I've known about the man's racism for decades and understand that it might be very insulting to people that he held these beliefs, culturally reinforced or not. It becomes easy to dismiss someone if they have also said things that you strongly disagree with or that are insulting or prejudiced, and rightly so.

On the other hand, his work and name is a sub-genre of horror. T.E.D.Klein, a Jewish author/Editor, put it best when he wrote of Howard's accomplishments, saying his triumph was complete when his name became an adjective. His impact on fantasy and horror writing is undeniable.

As a huge fan of his work, and most derivatives thereafter, I am often saddened by the extreme views he held.

 

[Johnny Impact]

I like having a straight, well-maintained road between my home and work, though I know statistically some of the men who built it were thieves, liars, and scumbags. Similarly, I can enjoy Lovecraft's stories without liking the man (though there is a bit of a twinge when he portrays blacks as degenerate baby-eating savages....) I understand the reaction, and it's fine if they want to change things, but they'll never find a person who never had bad thoughts about someone or something.

 

[crypticracer]

There's a difference between being unknowingly racist and the kind of hate that wafts off some of Lovecraft's work.

We can, and should celebrate his writing, but that doesn't mean we should celebrate him. The statue does not need to be shaped like him. Why couldn't it be Cthulhu or Mary Shelly.

 

[mecegirl]

While I can't speak for what Mr. Okorafor actually meant, to me it didn't read like he was ok with Lovecraft's anti-semitism, but got outraged at the poem about Black people, he even mentions in the quote you linked that he realized that Lovecraft was racist. Even a casual reading of his popular (and less racial) works reveals Lovecraft had a very low opinion of Black people.

The author in the article seems to have changed his opinion because he didn't realize just HOW racist Lovecraft was. Mr. Okarafor seemed to be operating on the assumption that Lovecraft was racist and and an anti-semite in the way that was normal for his society but not accepted in today's society. The surprise and outrage in the article seems to have surfaced when he realized that Lovecraft's poetry, which was much MUCH more racist and anti-semitical than his writings, was revealed to him, and he realized that Lovecraft was outside of the norm for even the early 1900's.

As someone who has read and enjoyed quite a bit of Lovecraft, this is how I read the article, because Lovecraft's popular books and short stories are, while racist and xenophobic, nothing like his poetry, which reveals a level of racism and xenophobia that even a number of Lovecraft's devoted fans are often unaware exists until someone shows it to them.

There's a reason that his more popular stories are widespread, whilst his poetry and correspondence are much harder to find, even people around his era realized that some of Lovecraft's works would not be well-received, even with the excuse of being a product of his era.

While you might be correct, it still rings false to me. You can not be aware of Lovecraft's anti-semitism and not be aware of how he spoke about them. We're not talking "Jews are bad", we're talking complete repulsion. There is no mention of Lovecraft's antisemitism where it was quoted to be 'milder than the average person at the time'. He quoted science with a deep seeded hatred.

I fail to see how anyone can be aware of his Antisemitism and not understand how deeply rooted in hatred it was.

From my encounters with other Lovecraft fans, it actually seems to be fairly common, whilst Lovecraft was very anti-Semitic, his racism and xenophobia appear far more often in his writings, and the full brunt of his paranoia and antisemitism only becomes clear if you look into the poetry or correspondence of the man himself, which actually isn't nearly as easy to find as his popular writings, because even when he became popular posthumously people realized that his personal correspondence and anti-Semitic diatribes wouldn't go over well.

Hell, his poetry was really really damn hard to find before the advent of the internet I remember being completely unable to find any assembled works on it before they started appearing online. Even some of the staunchest Lovecraft fans I've met, who have read all his stories, don't realize the extent of his racism and anti-Judaism until the last 6 years or so when his obscure stuff and personal writings started appearing on the web with regularity.

The issue seems to come up so often because just reading his popular works doesn't really reveal the extent of his anti-Semitic beliefs, his popular works come off as more generically xenophobic and racist than they do against Judaism specifically. You really have to look into his obscure writings or biography to really reveal the extent of his beliefs.

I have to agree with Eternally Bored. Yeah we know that Lovecraft is a people hater, but his more extreme works are not that mainstream, so it make sense that Ms. Okorafor(Nnedi Okorafor is a woman btw) didn't know about them until she looked things up. And really, what is wrong with changing your mind about something once you have more information? Like others have said, most writers from his time period have bigoted views because those views were acceptable at the time. I think we often just take the knowledge of that for granted and never really think to deeply. And then cases like Lovecraft show up that are more extreme,for lack of a better word.

 

[Ambient_Malice]

People often allow their personal feelings to cloud their judgement.

Imagine if someone was trying to get a statue of Philip K. Dick removed because they were super offended by Dick's anti-abortion views, which he even wrote a short story to illustrate. Sure, racism is a different kettle of fish, but I think some people behave immaturely when confronted with beliefs they consider "unacceptable". Lovecraft was racist. This can be considered a character flaw. But it in no way changes the fact he is a man who created great things, and stands as an example to others.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Really? This is The Escapist, where the only thing you're allowed to be offended by is people being offended. There are people here who literally believe one's right to be an asshole for absolutely no reason trumps everything, including what people do with their privately owned websites. Lovecraft a racist who raved about ******s coming out of the walls? SO WHAT? He's not the problem! Everyone was a racist! YOU are the problem, you and your mamby pamby liberal sensibilities! You're ruining America! Or...England! Or wherever! And now everything is censored! Everything! Every last thing!

Really though, it's their award, they can do whatever the fuck they want with it.

 

[BarbaricGoose]

I think Lovecraft himself would have been the first to admit that he was racist. And quite strongly so even for his time. Here's the poem he wrote which I mentioned in the original post.

On the Creation of Niggers (1912)
by H. P. Lovecraft

When, long ago, the gods created Earth
In Jove?s fair image Man was shaped at birth.
The beasts for lesser parts were next designed;
Yet were they too remote from humankind.
To fill the gap, and join the rest to Man,
Th?Olympian host conceiv?d a clever plan.
A beast they wrought, in semi-human figure,
Filled it with vice, and called the thing a ******.

Jeeeeeesus christ. I just spent 20 minutes reading Youtube comments, and that poem is very nearly the most racist thing I've read in the last... 20 minutes.

They should absolutely change it. Admittedly, I've not read much of his work, but I don't see a reason not to change it. Change it to Isaac Asimov. He was a great man. Held a lot of beliefs that were before his time.

 

[BarbaricGoose]

Really? This is The Escapist, where the only thing you're allowed to be offended by is people being offended. There are people here who literally believe one's right to be an asshole for absolutely no reason trumps everything, including what people do with their privately owned websites. Lovecraft a racist who raved about ******s coming out of the walls? SO WHAT? He's not the problem! Everyone was a racist! YOU are the problem, you and your mamby pamby liberal sensibilities! You're ruining America! Or...England! Or wherever! And now everything is censored! Everything! Every last thing!

Really though, it's their award, they can do whatever the fuck they want with it.

I hate to double post, but I'm gonna use this double post to say how much I fucking love this post. Bravo, sir. You deserve this double post. I'd +1 it, like it, and thumb it up the post hole if I could.