tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post1758017142467995784..comments2024-03-27T03:00:27.024-04:00Comments on Facts & other stubborn things: Lovecraft on Race and Religion: Part 2Evanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12259004160963531720noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-10043457083573666082010-09-09T15:55:40.343-04:002010-09-09T15:55:40.343-04:00Thanks so much for the insights, ahtzib - and welc...Thanks so much for the insights, ahtzib - and welcome to the blog.<br /><br />Try to make an effort to check back in in the next couple days. I just got the '29-31 volume and the '34-37 volume a day or two ago and I might repost these thoughts and some of my (very preliminary) reactions to that, and I'd be interested in your take on it.<br /><br />If you missed my earlier post, I'm especially interested in collecting his economic thought - if you know of any letters/exchanges that are integral to this that are missing from the Arkham House collection I'd be really interested in knowing what I should look into.dkuehnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10136690886858186981noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-54317708238973842452010-09-09T15:52:32.982-04:002010-09-09T15:52:32.982-04:00I've either read or skimmed most of Arkham Hou...I've either read or skimmed most of Arkham House's published Selected Letters at this point (particularly any on society, science, history, etc.). There is still plenty of material out there, but your note that he never saw himself being persecuted by imagined conspirators or racial others, as he would tell it, is accurate as far as I can tell. And by the mid-1930s in the last years of his life, the race discussion did not disappear, but it seems to be lesser and sometimes (though not always softer). In particular, there is no more discussion of Hitler as there was in the earlier 1930s, and in at least one case he seems to have been quite appalled by the stories of violence coming out of Germany.<br /><br />As for his views of pre-Christian European Classical religion and paganism, he was unlikely to be cutting edge, and when he was, it was an edge that turned out to be dull. He saw himself as a Roman, and this identity formed very early in his life in the 1890s and 1900s. He continued to read, listen to lectures, and learn about the topic, but I suspect that since it was so important to him, he wasn't going to change much of his emotional connection. He read about new discoveries on Roman Britain in the 1930s, and did indeed change his views (happy that there was a more pronounced occupation, and one with a far more potent cultural impact, less happy but not denying that the Roman citizens and soldiers that contributed to what becomes Britain included Africans and Middle Easterners), but I suspect only so much.<br /><br />On European paganism, though, he was completely in trouble and didn't even know it. He saw Margaret Murray's Witch-Cult idea, the basis of the modern myth of an ages old pagan religion that Christians persecute as witches, as cutting edge anthropology. He also completely bought into the idea that this was the religion of racially-distinct pre-Indo-Europeans who came to be remembered as fairies. It directly inspired his idea of the Cthulhu Cult, pleasing him because it was so similar to Arthur Machen's fiction. He wrote long letters "educating" friends and others on the topic. Murray's ideas were not terribly well accepted at the time, though the Encyclopedia Britannica had her write the Witchcraft article, only removed in 1969 I believe. But they eventually became the fertile ground for Gerald Gardiner, and ultimately she has been called the Godmother of Wicca as a result.<br /><br />For this and other reasons, Lovecraft's ideas regarding the anthropology and sociology of religion were basically stuck in the Golden Bough era, and did not benefit from the developments in ethnographic research and related ethnology.ahtzibhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03577845276318742985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-87028015875296945812010-09-07T14:58:02.054-04:002010-09-07T14:58:02.054-04:00Then he and Ayn Rand have something in common.Then he and Ayn Rand have something in common.Xenophonhttp://myob.myob.myob.myob.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-6421067258997410322010-09-07T14:57:21.148-04:002010-09-07T14:57:21.148-04:00Well, religion in antiquity used to be viewed as &...Well, religion in antiquity used to be viewed as "contractual" in nature, not as a source of ethics or even of intellect. Then the story was that Judaism/Christianity came along and changed all that. In other words, religion was an institution by which one bargained with the capricious Gods for favors. However, though one honored them, etc., one did not look to them for a moral compass. <br /><br />While some scholars still view this as accurate, it is IMHO incorrect. One need only look at the middle kingdom coffin texts or at the Goddess Ma'at to see how wrong this appraisal is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maat<br /><br />You find similar currents throughout Etruscan, Roman, Hellenistic, etc. religion.Xenophonhttp://myob.myob.myob.myob.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-83441712297144924492010-09-07T14:14:55.795-04:002010-09-07T14:14:55.795-04:00Yes - he was a Nietzsche fan.
I'm not knowled...Yes - he was a Nietzsche fan.<br /><br />I'm not knowledgeable about or much interested in the history of religion. How do you see the history of the relationship between ethics and religion, and how that relationship has changed over time?Danielhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17192667997950934790noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-38321876447485708592010-09-07T13:22:37.070-04:002010-09-07T13:22:37.070-04:00"It has relatively little to do with human co..."It has relatively little to do with human conduct and character - hence in classical and pre-classical antiquity we find religion largely ritualistic and orgiastic..."<br /><br />A fairly old fashioned and incorrect notion of religion in antiquity. <br /><br />Anyway, most of his thinking seems to be pulled straight out of Nietzsche.Xenophonhttp://myob.myob.myob.myob.comnoreply@blogger.com