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

[mecegirl]

How can people be expected to separate the artist from their work when the artist puts their biases into their work?

 

[CaptainChip]

How can people be expected to separate the artist from their work when the artist puts their biases into their work?

Because the morality of a person has no bearing on the actual quality of their works.

It's extremely close-minded to think otherwise.

 

[mecegirl]

How can people be expected to separate the artist from their work when the artist puts their biases into their work?

Because the morality of a person has no bearing on the actual quality of their works.

It's extremely close-minded to think otherwise.

If its closed minded then oh well. This isn't like Ender's Game. Card didn't slip a homophobic rant into his novels. Lovecraft has poems dedicated to "niggers" and how horrible they are. Expecting someone to give a shit about the "quality" is a bit stupid if you ask me. I mean, some people are actually Black, why should they ignore their natural instinct to protect their mental well being? Why should they celebrate someone who wrote about how they are the scum of the earth?

 

[JimB]

Actually there are objective standards for better authors. Pacing, consistency in story, details, the ability for the writing to flow well and such and such.

What do you think the word "objectively" means, Frission? Because the things you describe seem to me to be the very definition of subjective quality. For instance, what is the instrumentation one uses to chart pacing? What is the unit of measurement one uses to rate flow? I'll agree that most people can probably reach a consensus on what makes a good book (or story or whatever), but that does mean the experience is any less subjective from reader to reader.

You are allowed to say you don't like the rampant racism that was exhibited in some of Lovecraft's work (I didn't from time to time), but that poem (as bad as it was) wasn't the only thing he has ever written.

Uh...I don't remember saying it was. I just used it as the most blatant example I can think of, meant to be representative of his problematic attitudes toward race as expressed through his writing.

Can anyone give one legitimate reason for why his likeness shouldn't be used other than "cuz he wuz racist"?

Because the body that presents the award doesn't want to, and they have every goddamned right in the world not to.

Because someone finally complained about it, indicating that his racism is not considered acceptable among the public to whom the award is aimed.

Alfred Nobel probably wasn't a perfect human being without prejudice, so should we then stop calling it the Nobel prize?

Has anyone expressed offense at Nobel's effigy being given as a prize? Because if not, I really don't see the parallel here.

Please. Detaching from pathos to consider a decision as an academic isn't approving. It's being academic. This isn't a defense of racism, it's an assertion that racism doesn't have a bearing on the quality of fiction.

Then I think you (the specific you) are missing the point somewhat, as no one I am aware of has said his work isn't influential. The complaint I am aware of seems to be that a statue of the guy who wrote "On the Creation of Niggers" to black writers, or Jewish writers, or Asian writers, is kind of fucked up; that the general appreciation for his body of work doesn't change the amount of hatespeech it contains, and that handing out awards named after him seems like an endorsement of that. If the award is only meant to honor his "contributions," whatever that even means (the word is so vague I'm suspicious of it, as it seems to be a stand-in for "good things I like that are magically divorced from any bad things and are thus above criticism"), then how would you (the specific you) recommend the awarding body distance itself from the racism? Ought there perhaps to be a disclaimer carved on the base of each statuette? Should they issue a statement? Wouldn't either of those results generate just as much internet outrage ("internet" in this instance used to describe not outrage expressed over the internet, but outrage over hollow issues of supposed principle blown up out of proportion by echo chambers of people who feel oppressed that an award they'll never win has been changed)?

However, why exactly does it matter to The Case of Charles Dexter Ward that Lovecraft is racist? Does it make it any less of a novel? Does it somehow magically diminish its cultural impact?

Doesn't the reverse also apply, though? Does the Case of Charles Dexter Ward make any of his racist works less racist?

Moreover, as we are talking about morally charged situations, why ought I care?

You ought to care for practical reasons, because they are a large part of the conversation you (the specific you) have chosen to involve yourself (the specific you) in. If you (the specific you) don't care about the contents of the discussion being had, then it seems dishonest and disrespectful to be in it at all.

 

[JimB]

Why should they celebrate someone who wrote about how they are the scum of the earth?

becuz he wrote a rilly cool story about a space squid that got hit in the face by a boat and went to sleep and that's more importent then racism

...Okay, that was a little unfair of me. My apologies to anyone who feels I was attempting to characterize their argument. I'm just making jokes because this topic is kind of pissing me off, and jokes are how I deal with that sometimes.

 

[ForumSafari]

Yeah, Lovecraft was a pretty awful person. Racist, sexist, anti-semetic, hateful... the list goes on.

Lovecraft wasn't racist because he was an asshole, he was racist because he was mentally unwell. His racism was was a symptom of his tortured mind. I no more blame him for hating black people than I blame rape victims for being scared of men, both are irrational, both are from a selfish perspective insulting but neither is an attempt to force an ideology or a rational reaction.

Mental illness doesn't stop being mental illness just because the symptoms are socially frowned on. If people aren't assholes for unmoderated masturbation when they're unwell they're not assholes for being racist.

Well, there's a pretty big difference between respecting someone's work, and respecting the person. For example, there's a number of extreme metal bands I listen to from Eastern Europe whose members have.. questionable ideologies. Now, I can respect and enjoy their music and praise their records, but I'd no sooner honour the individual musicians on their personal merits than fly to the moon, nor would I offer a statue of their likeness to a Jewish person.

So as far as I'm concerned, this awards place is well in their rights doing this.

Otherwise known as the difference between liking Burzum and liking Varg.

 

[JimB]

Mental illness doesn't stop being mental illness just because the symptoms are socially frowned on.

The word "******" doesn't stop being the word "******" because a sick person said it.

Incidentally, people keep mentioning that his racism is caused by mental illness. What illness did he suffer? What is his specific diagnosis, and how is that disease's pathology linked to racism?

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Eh, everyone was racist back then, but honestly, it's their choise if they want to use him or not, don't really see how it matters to anyone, honestly.

It's actually pretty hard to even find nuanced views on non-white people from back then, so I'll wonder which classic author they'll go to next.

Nope. Lovecraft was especially racist. Like, to the point where even his family members thought he was unhinged in how much he hated everyone who wasn't white.

OP:I'd wish they would do something similar with F. Scott Fitzgerald. I thought that the book Tom was talking about in the first few chapters was a joke, but it was actually F's actual political views

That dude was also surprisingly racist, but then again, he did have an immense wanting to be Souther-born. Still doesn't excuse it though.

 

[Irick]

If its closed minded then oh well. This isn't like Ender's Game. Card didn't slip a homophobic rant into his novels. Lovecraft has poems dedicated to "niggers" and how horrible they are. Expecting someone to give a shit about the "quality" is a bit stupid if you ask me. I mean, some people are actually Black, why should they ignore their natural instinct to protect their mental well being? Why should they celebrate someone who wrote about how they are the scum of the earth?

Card actually did publish at least one essay that was a homophobic rant[footnote]http://www.nauvoo.com/library/card-hypocrites.html[/footnote]. It's not in the novels, but neither are Lovecraft's racist rants. So... I mean, If you understand removing the author from the context of the work as it relates to Card and Ender's game, yeah...

It is like Ender's Game. Can we celebrate Ender's game, or even just Card's contributions to science fiction without celebrating his homophobia? I think that the answer is yes... and I honestly think it's belittling of literature to really push that we can't.

In my previous post I mentioned The Death of the Author. It is one of the formative books for my personal literary theory and it's rather widely cited. By us forcing the tyranny of a specific interpretation on a work we unnecessarily limit it. Think, for a moment, how bad it would be if instead of being able to sit down and discuss Ender's Game as an exploration of the relationship dynamics between adults and children. Imagine not being able to discuss Bean's development as a character as anything but a criticism of homosexuality, of people telling you that because card has these views that that's all that there can be and that's what you are celebrating by acknowledging those works.

Those collective additions to the sific canon, dismissed because of a single interpretation. It's ludicrous to me.

Ender?s Game is a story about gifted children.  It is also the story about soldiers.  Captain John F. Schmidt, the author of the Marine Corp?s Warfighting, the most brilliant concise book of military strategy ever written by an American, found Ender?s Game to be a useful enough story about the nature of leadership to use it in course he taught at the Marine University in Quantico. Watauga College, the interdisciplinary studies program at Appalachian State University?as unmilitary a community as you could ever hope to find!?uses Ender?s Game for completely different purposes?to talk about problem-solving and the self-creation of the individual.  A graduate student in Toronto explored the political ideas in Ender?s Game.  A writer and critic at Pepperdine has seen Ender?s Game as, in some ways, religious fiction.

All these uses are valid; all these readings of the book are ?correct.?  For all these readers have placed themselves inside this story, not as spectators, but as participants, and so have looked at the world of Ender?s Game, not with my eyes only, but also with their own.

This is the essence of the transaction between storyteller and audience.  The ?true? story is not the one that exists in my mind; it is certainly not the written words on the bound paper that you hold in your hands.  The story in my mind is nothing but a hope; the text of the story is the tool I created in order to try to make that hope a reality.   The story itself, the true story, is the one that the audience members create in their minds, guided and shaped by the text, but then transformed, elucidated, expanded, edited, and clarified by their own experience, their own desires, their own hopes and fears.

The story of Ender?s Game is not this book, though it has that title emblazoned on it.  The story is one that you and I will construct together in your memory.  If the story means anything to you at all, then when you remember it afterward, think of it, not as something I created, but rather something that we made together.

So, here I agree with card.

 

[mecegirl]

Why should they celebrate someone who wrote about how they are the scum of the earth?

becuz he wrote a rilly cool story about a space squid that got hit in the face by a boat and went to sleep and that's more importent then racism

...Okay, that was a little unfair of me. My apologies to anyone who feels I was attempting to characterize their argument. I'm just making jokes because this topic is kind of pissing me off, and jokes are how I deal with that sometimes.

I laughed?

But really, this is part of what it boils down to for me.
Hitler painted this.

If you showed this to someone who didn't know they might think its pretty good. Once you tell them that Hitler did it their opinion of it might change, it might become more negative. At that point I think the separating the artist from the art argument can be made. It might not convince someone, but in this case there is a clear distinction between the art and the artist.

Now, 'everyone' wasn't racist back then. 'Everyone' includes the people bearing the brunt of the racist actions. A lot of White people were, but not even all of them were racist. Either way it is true that racism was common so I'm arguing semantics. But how often does it invade an artists work outside of some stereotypical portrayals? (not that that's a good thing but I digress) That poem posted earlier in this thread, you aren't likely to see it in a published book of Lovecraft's works. You couldn't give that poem to someone without them immediately thinking that some extreamly racist person wrote it. Unlike Hitler's paintings, you can draw some clues about the mindset of the person behind the pen. Unless you find out that its supposed to be some form of satire there would be no separating the artist from the art.

 

[mecegirl]

snip

Would an essay count as an artistic work in the same way that a poem would?

 

[ForumSafari]

The word "******" doesn't stop being the word "******" because a sick person said it.

It's also not fair to blame someone for the symptoms of their illness because you find the symptoms annoying. Realistically I am not a huge fan of sharing close proximity with the mentally retarded, their shrieking and flailing is extremely annoying but I don't blame them for it, they're not doing it because they're of a right mind and think it's a great idea.

Incidentally, people keep mentioning that his racism is caused by mental illness. What illness did he suffer? What is his specific diagnosis, and how is that disease's pathology linked to racism?

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1188

They didn't really classify mental illness as thoroughly back then but yeah, most of his family ended up in the local mental institution and he suffered nervous breakdowns and episodes throughout his life. Why do you think most of his tales end in someone going mad?

His symptoms weren't well documented because stuff back then wasn't generally, however realistically there's no difference between Lovecraft and Solanas except:

1. Lovecraft said ****** oh no.
2. Solanas actually acted on her psychosis.

 

[Irick]

Then I think you (the specific you) are missing the point somewhat, as no one I am aware of has said his work isn't influential. The complaint I am aware of seems to be that a statue of the guy who wrote "On the Creation of Niggers" to black writers, or Jewish writers, or Asian writers, is kind of fucked up; that the general appreciation for his body of work doesn't change the amount of hatespeech it contains, and that handing out awards named after him seems like an endorsement of that. If the award is only meant to honor his "contributions," whatever that even means (the word is so vague I'm suspicious of it, as it seems to be a stand-in for "good things I like that are magically divorced from any bad things and are thus above criticism"), then how would you (the specific you) recommend the awarding body distance itself from the racism? Ought there perhaps to be a disclaimer carved on the base of each statuette? Should they issue a statement? Wouldn't either of those results generate just as much internet outrage ("internet" in this instance used to describe not outrage expressed over the internet, but outrage over hollow issues of supposed principle blown up out of proportion by echo chambers of people who feel oppressed that an award they'll never win has been changed)?

No, I get the point.
The point is "Boo Racism" (this isn't dispergent, this is literally what moral statements boil down to.)
And that's fine, you can not like racism. I don't like racism. Doesn't matter in this context though unless you make it matter by insisting that H.P. Lovecraft must be talked about in a context of racism. I'm not arguing that he wasn't racist. I'm arguing that it doesn't matter in the context of his speculative fiction.

Voltaire was racist as sin, does it mean we shouldn't honor him as a great philosopher?

What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.

It is a serious question among them whether the Africans are descended from monkeys or whether the monkeys come from them. Our wise men have said that man was created in the image of God. Now here is a lovely image of the Divine Maker: a flat and black nose with little or hardly any intelligence. A time will doubtless come when these animals will know how to cultivate the land well, beautify their houses and gardens, and know the paths of the stars: one needs time for everything.

Yes. One of the fathering influences of Egalitarianism was racist. Shocker right?
Historical figures do not have the benefit of hindsight. Understand their handicap and take what is good from them. This is how society moves forward rather than stays focused on the past.

Doesn't the reverse also apply, though? Does the Case of Charles Dexter Ward make any of his racist works less racist?

Of course it applies. I didn't say you were wrong to criticize his racist works. Contrarily, you are claiming it is wrong to honor his literary achievements.

Moreover, as we are talking about morally charged situations, why ought I care?

You ought to care for practical reasons, because they are a large part of the conversation you (the specific you) have chosen to involve yourself (the specific you) in. If you (the specific you) don't care about the contents of the discussion being had, then it seems dishonest and disrespectful to be in it at all.

What practical reason?
There is no practical reason for being offended. Being offended is about as impractical as any action it is possible to take. Doubly so when there is no amount of complaining in the world that can change the words of a dead man.

It's stilly to look for offense where none need be. Criticism is fine, knee-jerk reactionary censorship and revisionism... not so much.

 

[lordmardok]

This is a problematic subject because Lovecraft was just a product of his time. Even Tolkien had hugely racist elements in his beloved series, or did everyone miss the fact that every good guy was white while every bad guy was everything but, including the fantastically racist Southrons if you ever read up on them.

Which is funny because Tolkien was actually pretty liberal for the time, he supported civil rights of all kinds. Lovecraft on the other hand was really just an early-1900's version of a conservative. He was a nationalistic anglophile. But then, Orson Scott Card is a homophobic asshole and everyone loves his books.

I personally don't think that Lovecraft's likeness should be removed. After all, between him and Poe an entirely new genre of fiction was defined. Before them we really didn't have 'Horror Stories'. We had folklore and stuff that was really weird as often as it was dark and gruesome, but the fiction up to that point didn't have what you would call a Horror section. I don't think that blaming a guy who died alone, obscure, and in poverty because no one appreciated his books, for beliefs that were completely common at the time he was born and raised is fair. After all, on the flip side Lovecraft gave us literally every story/video game/movie that every featured a Elder God archetype ever.

 

[Irick]

snip

Would an essay count as an artistic work in the same way that a poem would?

Short answer, yes.
Long answer: The philosophy of Aesthetics has an ancient and noble tradition of never making up it's damn mind.

 

[neoontime]

If its closed minded then oh well. This isn't like Ender's Game. Card didn't slip a homophobic rant into his novels. Lovecraft has poems dedicated to "niggers" and how horrible they are. Expecting someone to give a shit about the "quality" is a bit stupid if you ask me. I mean, some people are actually Black, why should they ignore their natural instinct to protect their mental well being? Why should they celebrate someone who wrote about how they are the scum of the earth?

Card actually did publish at least one essay that was a homophobic rant[footnote]http://www.nauvoo.com/library/card-hypocrites.html[/footnote]. It's not in the novels, but neither are Lovecraft's racist rants. So... I mean, If you understand removing the author from the context of the work as it relates to Card and Ender's game, yeah...

It is like Ender's Game. Can we celebrate Ender's game, or even just Card's contributions to science fiction without celebrating his homophobia? I think that the answer is yes... and I honestly think it's belittling of literature to really push that we can't.

In my previous post I mentioned The Death of the Author. It is one of the formative books for my personal literary theory and it's rather widely cited. By us forcing the tyranny of a specific interpretation on a work we unnecessarily limit it. Think, for a moment, how bad it would be if instead of being able to sit down and discuss Ender's Game as an exploration of the relationship dynamics between adults and children. Imagine not being able to discuss Bean's development as a character as anything but a criticism of homosexuality, of people telling you that because card has these views that that's all that there can be and that's what you are celebrating by acknowledging those works.

Those collective additions to the sific canon, dismissed because of a single interpretation. It's ludicrous to me.

Ender?s Game is a story about gifted children.  It is also the story about soldiers.  Captain John F. Schmidt, the author of the Marine Corp?s Warfighting, the most brilliant concise book of military strategy ever written by an American, found Ender?s Game to be a useful enough story about the nature of leadership to use it in course he taught at the Marine University in Quantico. Watauga College, the interdisciplinary studies program at Appalachian State University?as unmilitary a community as you could ever hope to find!?uses Ender?s Game for completely different purposes?to talk about problem-solving and the self-creation of the individual.  A graduate student in Toronto explored the political ideas in Ender?s Game.  A writer and critic at Pepperdine has seen Ender?s Game as, in some ways, religious fiction.

All these uses are valid; all these readings of the book are ?correct.?  For all these readers have placed themselves inside this story, not as spectators, but as participants, and so have looked at the world of Ender?s Game, not with my eyes only, but also with their own.

This is the essence of the transaction between storyteller and audience.  The ?true? story is not the one that exists in my mind; it is certainly not the written words on the bound paper that you hold in your hands.  The story in my mind is nothing but a hope; the text of the story is the tool I created in order to try to make that hope a reality.   The story itself, the true story, is the one that the audience members create in their minds, guided and shaped by the text, but then transformed, elucidated, expanded, edited, and clarified by their own experience, their own desires, their own hopes and fears.

The story of Ender?s Game is not this book, though it has that title emblazoned on it.  The story is one that you and I will construct together in your memory.  If the story means anything to you at all, then when you remember it afterward, think of it, not as something I created, but rather something that we made together.

So, here I agree with card.

Imagine not being able to discuss Bean's development as a character as anything but a criticism of homosexuality
I do imagine this as gender and sexuality are schools of critique that people use all the time to view a writing. Of course you imply critiquing this man somehow gets to the extreme notion that we cannot separate the success of his writing from his character. Critique is something rational that dives into a deep understanding and your implying homophobia would be something so blatant that it's something people rationally couldn't get past. That thought leaps some logic in my opinion. Cards homophobia and Lovecraft's racism are not in the same context, and you can see the argument in the original blog in the OP. This is someone who wrote an essay on their with the line
"In Songmaster (and also in the third Homecoming novel, The Ships of Earth, the only other place where I have dealt with homosexuality in my fiction) I attempt to create real and living characters. I find it nearly impossible to create a character that I do not end up understanding and sympathizing with to some degree. Thus it should surprise no one that I treat homosexuals in my fiction with understanding and sympathy"
-and someone who on several occasions purposely wrote a group of people as depicted scum. People are shocked by how prevalent his racism was even to his day.

*In regards to the Card comment, I completely disagree. Not on the grounds of any "social justice" thought but its tiring to say how writer use this to step away from critique. To me any open-endedness in writing is often lazy or cowardly. I have to say that not every writer does this purposely and its important to set intentional meaning or end but if theirs anything that saves an author from having a badly written story, its by being intentionally vague as it justifies anything written badly as something you just interpreted wrong. I mean card says any interpretation of his writing is correct but to me that seems like the biggest cop-out to any criticism for how is written. (*obvious rant I had built up that's not related to the OT.)

 

[Fox12]

Yeah, Lovecraft was a pretty awful person. Racist, sexist, anti-semetic, hateful... the list goes on.

Lovecraft wasn't racist because he was an asshole, he was racist because he was mentally unwell. His racism was was a symptom of his tortured mind. I no more blame him for hating black people than I blame rape victims for being scared of men, both are irrational, both are from a selfish perspective insulting but neither is an attempt to force an ideology or a rational reaction.

Mental illness doesn't stop being mental illness just because the symptoms are socially frowned on. If people aren't assholes for unmoderated masturbation when they're unwell they're not assholes for being racist.

Well, there's a pretty big difference between respecting someone's work, and respecting the person. For example, there's a number of extreme metal bands I listen to from Eastern Europe whose members have.. questionable ideologies. Now, I can respect and enjoy their music and praise their records, but I'd no sooner honour the individual musicians on their personal merits than fly to the moon, nor would I offer a statue of their likeness to a Jewish person.

So as far as I'm concerned, this awards place is well in their rights doing this.

Otherwise known as the difference between liking Burzum and liking Varg.

In what way was he mentally unwell? I know his dad had issues, but I was under the impression that he was healthy. Maybe reclusive and depressed, but these wouldn't explain racism. A rape victim would have a reason for her fear, so I don't think that's applicable. What could have happened, other then societal racism, that would make him racist?

 

[ForumSafari]

In what way was he mentally unwell? I know his dad had issues, but I was under the impression that he was healthy. Maybe reclusive and depressed, but these wouldn't explain racism. A rape victim would have a reason for her fear, so I don't think that's applicable. What could have happened, other then societal racism, that would make him racist?

It wasn't just his father, it was most of his family and he himself suffered from nervous breakdowns. His entire short life was blighted by tragedy. As for why racism, well why not? If your entire life is constantly crumbling around you it's no wonder you'd find those different from you threatening, he was paranoid generally.

 

[neoontime]

I'm impressed how you led us to considering racial undertones in a work are as bad and perpetuating of racism, but I'll get to the main point.

Consider the following two syllogisms:

Racist people are bad
H.P. Lovecraft was Racist
Therefore H.P. Lovecraft is bad

Art influenced by racism is bad
H.P. Lovecraft's art was influenced by racism.
Therefore, H.P. Lovecraft's art is bad.

So, lets look at the premises.

First off, Are racist people bad? I don't think so. Racist people are people. They could be not racist, that would make them not bad right? Universally, we can not say that Racist people are bad, we can just say they are racist.

We can, however, probably agree that Racism is bad.

Lets revise Syllogism 1.

Racism is bad.
H.P. Lovecraft was Racist
Therefore H.P. lovecraft was bad.

Now wait, this doesn't follow.

Racism != Racist.

A is B
C was D
Therefore C is B

This can not be said to be a logically consistent stance.

Now, the astute will probably not that none of the Syllogisms so far have been valid.

That is the exact premise you use to lead on yet no one has even held that stance, so its deemed as invalid. You're implying people deeming all Lovecraft's works as bad when only the ones considered are overly racist that are getting the attention. People understand that his thoughts influenced all his art but no one is saying his main works are bad.

Also I break down your other point.
First off, Are X people bad? I don't think so. X people are people. They could be not X, that would make them not bad right? Universally, we can not say that X people are bad, we can just say they are X.
So your basically saying any people represented by thoughts and harm are very vitriolic cannot be deemed as bad due to still being humans. Unless you're saying people will accept the premise with ANY group of humans that can be substituted for X, this logic isn't that valid.