[lbo-talk] Lovecraftian fascism, was: Re: Lovecraft's fears

Chris Doss lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com
Fri Jun 22 06:14:13 PDT 2007


This thread on HPL is a couple of months old, but I just reread The Shadow Out of Time for probably the 50th time in my life, and I noticed that Lovecraft specifically says that the Great Race -- the closest thing to a benevolent alien race one can find in HPL, and which he obviously holds in great esteem, are somewhat fascist. Behold the passage:

"The Great Race seemed to form a single loosely knit nation or leaguem with major institutions in common, though there were four definite divisions. The political and economic system of each unit was a sort of fascistic socialism, with major resources rationally distributed, and power delegated to a small governing board elected by the votes of all able to pass certain educational and psychological tests. Family organization was not overstressed, though ties among persons of common descent were recognized, and the young were generally reared by their parents."

There's also a quote in the endnotes from his correspondence about Negroes and Australian indigenes being incapable of civilization.

--- "B." <docile_body at yahoo.com> wrote:


>
> That is, instead of getting more racist and
> conservative, he became less so as he grew older.
> Folks often point out he married an openly, proudly
> Jewish woman, despite personal anti-Semitic
> correspondence earlier on. And though when younger
> he
> had eccentric ideas that the US should have never
> revolted against England, that there should be a
> monarchy in power with aristocrats like himself in
> attendance (as he lived in poverty on cans of beans
> per day), etc., by the time of his death he was a
> devout supporter of FDR's New Deal, the National
> Recovery Act, the Works Project Administration, and,
> de Camp predicts, was gravitating more & more
> towards
> socialism.
>
> Although his fairly early-ish death (at the age of
> 44
> or so, right?) cut it all off.
>
> About the fear of all of the stuff in his works
> (fish,
> architecture, etc.) -- well, horror writers make the
> ordinary into fearful, terrible things, right? It's
> horror, after all.
>
> -B.
> ___________________________________
>
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