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Regression to the mean
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Showing posts with label Lovecraft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lovecraft. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Conan the Barbarian! And some Lovecraft stuff...
Today I came across a trailer for a new Conan the Barbarian movie! I hadn't realized this was in the works. It's been a while since I've seen the old ones (well, the first one - didn't like the second all that much).
It's worth noting for those that aren't aware that the creator of Conan, Robert Howard, was a good friend of H.P. Lovecraft, and they exchanged many letters in the 1930s. Howard is one of a couple of Lovecraft's correspondents with whom he would discuss economic issues of the day. Speaking of Lovecraftian things - for those that haven't heard the film version of At the Mountains of Madness is put on hold for the time being. Guillermo del Toro rightly insisted that it not be made PG-13, so that he could be faithful to the story, the box office be damned. Some firms demand more of a profit margin than others, and he is currently hoping that it will be taken up by someone else. I sure hope so.
Also - I was reading Lovecraft's letters recently and found a reference to an FDR speech in Providence, Rhode Island that he attended on October 21st, 1936. This is that speech.
It's worth noting for those that aren't aware that the creator of Conan, Robert Howard, was a good friend of H.P. Lovecraft, and they exchanged many letters in the 1930s. Howard is one of a couple of Lovecraft's correspondents with whom he would discuss economic issues of the day. Speaking of Lovecraftian things - for those that haven't heard the film version of At the Mountains of Madness is put on hold for the time being. Guillermo del Toro rightly insisted that it not be made PG-13, so that he could be faithful to the story, the box office be damned. Some firms demand more of a profit margin than others, and he is currently hoping that it will be taken up by someone else. I sure hope so.
Also - I was reading Lovecraft's letters recently and found a reference to an FDR speech in Providence, Rhode Island that he attended on October 21st, 1936. This is that speech.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Two points on reason
First, I was thinking about Hume on the experience of "miracles" the other day and how his point ought to be generalizable. This is the crux of his criticism in Of Miracles:
"The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), “That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish: And even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior.” When any one tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion."
It seems to me that this has applications beyond experiential evidence to logical evidence as well. Often logical evidence is put on a pedestal - particularly in some of the circles that I engage with on this blog. Frequently it is assumed that the critic must find a flaw in the argument - that the burden of proof is on them. To make matters more challenging "the argument" is usually nothing more than a premise, a conclusion, and a citation of Mises, which doesn't give the critic of the conclusion much to work with. I would never deny the burden of proof placed on the critic (usually I'm simply not interested in crafting a disproof), I just wonder to what extent it is uniquely borne by the critic. This is where Hume comes in. Hume's critique of those who have claimed to see the miraculous is that they should ask themselves "is it more likely that what I see is correct, or is it more likely that I am deceiving myself?". I think this sort of self-interrogation should be done more, particularly by heterodox rationalists who derive conclusions that are apparently lost on lots of other intelligent people. I am no logician and I have never read Mises and I am not motivated to disprove Mises because I'm not all that swayed by the imperatives of a purely a prioristic science in the first place. In other words, my criticism is not a very good test to put your ideas to if you do take the imperatives of a purely a prioristic science seriously. But in the absence of a disproof, I think those who are tempted to take Mises and others as indisputable should take Hume to heart - what is more likely, that the failure to see a disproof implies the absence of a disproof, or that there is a disproof and your own logical faculties simply fail you? In other words - knowledge is not innocent until proven guilty. Knowledge is always probabilistic. And the content of the knowledge itself is not the only factor in play - your ability to scrutinize and digest that content is also a factor.
Chris Perridas - an H.P. Lovecraft blogger - points us to a piece about Lovecraft by Erik Davis that I think has some interesting things to say about Lovecraft and reason. One of the things that is often noted as being unique in Lovecraft is that his horrors and monsters are not supernatural at all. In that sense, Lovecraft was not a part of the Romantic tradition. Indeed he identified himself with the Critical Realists of the early twentieth century. What's different about Lovecraft's monsters is that they are not presented as a suspension of reality or a flight into fantasy - they are presented as a reality we simply weren't aware of. Davis writes:
"For Lovecraft, it is not the sleep of reason that breeds monsters, but reason with its eyes agog. By fusing cutting-edge science with archaic material, Lovecraft creates a twisted materialism in which scientific “progress” returns us to the atavistic abyss, and hard-nosed research revives the factual basis of forgotten and discarded myths."
Insanity is a potent theme in Lovecraft, but the insanity comes as a result of the reality of the monsters. Monsters aren't a function of insanity; insanity is a function of the monsters.
"The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), “That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish: And even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior.” When any one tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion."
It seems to me that this has applications beyond experiential evidence to logical evidence as well. Often logical evidence is put on a pedestal - particularly in some of the circles that I engage with on this blog. Frequently it is assumed that the critic must find a flaw in the argument - that the burden of proof is on them. To make matters more challenging "the argument" is usually nothing more than a premise, a conclusion, and a citation of Mises, which doesn't give the critic of the conclusion much to work with. I would never deny the burden of proof placed on the critic (usually I'm simply not interested in crafting a disproof), I just wonder to what extent it is uniquely borne by the critic. This is where Hume comes in. Hume's critique of those who have claimed to see the miraculous is that they should ask themselves "is it more likely that what I see is correct, or is it more likely that I am deceiving myself?". I think this sort of self-interrogation should be done more, particularly by heterodox rationalists who derive conclusions that are apparently lost on lots of other intelligent people. I am no logician and I have never read Mises and I am not motivated to disprove Mises because I'm not all that swayed by the imperatives of a purely a prioristic science in the first place. In other words, my criticism is not a very good test to put your ideas to if you do take the imperatives of a purely a prioristic science seriously. But in the absence of a disproof, I think those who are tempted to take Mises and others as indisputable should take Hume to heart - what is more likely, that the failure to see a disproof implies the absence of a disproof, or that there is a disproof and your own logical faculties simply fail you? In other words - knowledge is not innocent until proven guilty. Knowledge is always probabilistic. And the content of the knowledge itself is not the only factor in play - your ability to scrutinize and digest that content is also a factor.
*****
Chris Perridas - an H.P. Lovecraft blogger - points us to a piece about Lovecraft by Erik Davis that I think has some interesting things to say about Lovecraft and reason. One of the things that is often noted as being unique in Lovecraft is that his horrors and monsters are not supernatural at all. In that sense, Lovecraft was not a part of the Romantic tradition. Indeed he identified himself with the Critical Realists of the early twentieth century. What's different about Lovecraft's monsters is that they are not presented as a suspension of reality or a flight into fantasy - they are presented as a reality we simply weren't aware of. Davis writes:
"For Lovecraft, it is not the sleep of reason that breeds monsters, but reason with its eyes agog. By fusing cutting-edge science with archaic material, Lovecraft creates a twisted materialism in which scientific “progress” returns us to the atavistic abyss, and hard-nosed research revives the factual basis of forgotten and discarded myths."
Insanity is a potent theme in Lovecraft, but the insanity comes as a result of the reality of the monsters. Monsters aren't a function of insanity; insanity is a function of the monsters.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Lovecraft Grave Pictures from Gary Gunnels
Gary Gunnels shared these pictures with me yesterday, and said I could repost here. The first is the grave of Lovecraft himself. The next three appear to be of a family marker (you can see Lovecraft's grave - and I'm assuming his mother and father - right behind it).
The bottom line of Lovecraft's grave says "I Am Providence". Several online sources simply say that that line comes from one of his letters, but I could have sworn he got it from antiquity - I want to say Cicero for some reason. Does anyone know/remember? I can't put my finger on where I heard that.
The bottom line of Lovecraft's grave says "I Am Providence". Several online sources simply say that that line comes from one of his letters, but I could have sworn he got it from antiquity - I want to say Cicero for some reason. Does anyone know/remember? I can't put my finger on where I heard that.
Monday, January 24, 2011
(;,;)
HT - Xenophon, who made my day (the title is a Cthulhu smiley face emoticon, in case you weren't aware).
Also this:
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Russkies inviting apocalypse...
First the Cuban Missile Crisis and now this. My Lovecraft fans will be disturbed to know that the Russians are about ready to pierce through to a sub-terranean lake in Antarctica. If they wake up a shoggoth I will not be a happy camper.
Of course, there are huge astrobiological benefits to this mission as well.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
More 2010 Favorites
Regular commenter Prateek Sanjay notes that he's also enjoyed all my Lovecraft posts this year. These posts have definitely added some diversity to F&OST readers and commenters. You can find all of them (at least the ones I bothered to tag - which should be most of them) here.Prateek specifically writes: "If Lovecraft actually met Hayek, he'd find they both had much in common with each of their versions of "limitations of knowledge"!"
Clearly both saw limitations to human knowledge, although they were obviously of much different scope. One theme I've thought of writing on (and maybe submitting to one of a couple literary journals that often feature articles on Lovecraft) is comparing Lovecraft's views on "the unknown" during his fertile period in the early 1920s to the views of Keynes and Frank Knight, who both published important books on how humans grapple with "the unknown" in 1921.
I think there's a fundamental asymmetry between the way Lovecraft talks about fear of the unknown in his essay Supernatural Horror In Literature, and the way he talks about it in his tales. His tales seem to me to actually invert the argument he makes in the essay (although I haven't surveyed them widely - I've mostly thought about the contrast between what Lovecraft writes in Supernatural Horror in Literature and what Lovecraft writes in Call of Cthulu). Thoughts on any of this are much appreciated.
Prateek might be interested in this particular Lovecraft post... Lovecraft was certainly aware of the existence of F.A. Hayek, and wrote about him in at least one of his letters.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Assault of Thoughts - Lovecraft would love this stuff edition - 12/21/2010
"Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking" - JMK
- A group of astronomers announce the prospect that Pluto may have an ocean beneath its surface. Of course Lovecraft alluded to the presence of liquids on Pluto too. In The Whisperer in Darkness he wrote "The black rivers of pitch that flow under those mysterious cyclopean bridges—things built by some elder race extinct and forgotten before the beings came to Yuggoth [Pluto] from the ultimate voids—ought to be enough to make any man a Dante or Poe if he can keep sane long enough to tell what he has seen." Granted Lovecraft is refering to liquid on the surface, which is a different matter entirely. Nevertheless, Alan Stern at the Southwest Research Institute is hoping that a NASA flyby scheduled for 2015 (launched back in 2005) might show evidence of geysers and volcanic activity.
- This is an incredible illustration of how big the universe is (HT Don Boudreaux), that would thoroughly impress so great an expounder of cosmic insignificance as Lovecraft. A couple things are striking to me. First, if you scroll out to where a lot of the inner planets are, you see that Pluto is about as wide as the United States. That's kind of interesting to think about for anyone that's ever been on a substantial road trip. It's still a hike, clearly, but if you theoretically had the oxygen, atmospheric pressure, and gravitational pull that means it's not outlandish to think about circumnavigating a (former) planet in a car. Weird thought, huh? Its also striking to compare the size of Mars to the United States. OK, now scroll out a little more to where they show the scale of a light year, and the distance to the nearest star (which is 4.3 light years away). That's the single nearest star - the closest family of worlds that we aren't immediately familiar with by looking up at the planets we can see with the naked eye in the night sky. That closest family of alien worlds would take thousands upon thousands of years to travel to with current technology, to say nothing of surviving the trip. If we can't cut that travel time there's obviously a very high likelihood we'd end up dying in the black emptiness of space. It just drives home the fact that our ability to experience alien worlds is contingent on either (1.) them coming here because they have more advanced technology than we do, (2.) them already being here in the solar system - which human beings could certainly travel to the edge of in my lifetime, or (3.) humans making a technological breakthrough that allows us to travel that far in that amount of time - wormholes or something like that. I think the best chance in my lifetime is #2. Again - in my lifetime the second best chance is #1, but I'm ultimately a do-it-yourselfer, so I'd prefer #3 if at all possible. I'm not so sure its in the cards - but then again, scientific breakthroughs are highly unpredictable. Finally - scroll out one more time to the very end. Maybe readers already realize this, but this has always boggled my mind: first, that there is an edge to the universe. I can't even really understand what that means for there to be an edge of the universe. But second - that that edge is so far away that we can't see it. Not because our eyes have given out or because our telescopes aren't strong enough, but because the universe has not existed long enough for light to travel across its full expanse. How incredible is that?
- And finally, how to summon a Shoggoth:
- A group of astronomers announce the prospect that Pluto may have an ocean beneath its surface. Of course Lovecraft alluded to the presence of liquids on Pluto too. In The Whisperer in Darkness he wrote "The black rivers of pitch that flow under those mysterious cyclopean bridges—things built by some elder race extinct and forgotten before the beings came to Yuggoth [Pluto] from the ultimate voids—ought to be enough to make any man a Dante or Poe if he can keep sane long enough to tell what he has seen." Granted Lovecraft is refering to liquid on the surface, which is a different matter entirely. Nevertheless, Alan Stern at the Southwest Research Institute is hoping that a NASA flyby scheduled for 2015 (launched back in 2005) might show evidence of geysers and volcanic activity.
- This is an incredible illustration of how big the universe is (HT Don Boudreaux), that would thoroughly impress so great an expounder of cosmic insignificance as Lovecraft. A couple things are striking to me. First, if you scroll out to where a lot of the inner planets are, you see that Pluto is about as wide as the United States. That's kind of interesting to think about for anyone that's ever been on a substantial road trip. It's still a hike, clearly, but if you theoretically had the oxygen, atmospheric pressure, and gravitational pull that means it's not outlandish to think about circumnavigating a (former) planet in a car. Weird thought, huh? Its also striking to compare the size of Mars to the United States. OK, now scroll out a little more to where they show the scale of a light year, and the distance to the nearest star (which is 4.3 light years away). That's the single nearest star - the closest family of worlds that we aren't immediately familiar with by looking up at the planets we can see with the naked eye in the night sky. That closest family of alien worlds would take thousands upon thousands of years to travel to with current technology, to say nothing of surviving the trip. If we can't cut that travel time there's obviously a very high likelihood we'd end up dying in the black emptiness of space. It just drives home the fact that our ability to experience alien worlds is contingent on either (1.) them coming here because they have more advanced technology than we do, (2.) them already being here in the solar system - which human beings could certainly travel to the edge of in my lifetime, or (3.) humans making a technological breakthrough that allows us to travel that far in that amount of time - wormholes or something like that. I think the best chance in my lifetime is #2. Again - in my lifetime the second best chance is #1, but I'm ultimately a do-it-yourselfer, so I'd prefer #3 if at all possible. I'm not so sure its in the cards - but then again, scientific breakthroughs are highly unpredictable. Finally - scroll out one more time to the very end. Maybe readers already realize this, but this has always boggled my mind: first, that there is an edge to the universe. I can't even really understand what that means for there to be an edge of the universe. But second - that that edge is so far away that we can't see it. Not because our eyes have given out or because our telescopes aren't strong enough, but because the universe has not existed long enough for light to travel across its full expanse. How incredible is that?
- And finally, how to summon a Shoggoth:
Monday, November 15, 2010
Worst Sequel Contest
Robert Johnson, in the comment section for this post writes: "If we assume that scientists and artists somehow will have the basic necessities, then, yeah, the quote [which argued that pecuniary motives can't inspire great art and science] makes a whole lot of sense. High quality creative effort probably does come from something other than the promise of wealth. Maybe that's why movie sequels are usually so bad, because they are motivated primarily by earning, not by inspiration."
You can see my response after this comment of his, describing my thoughts on the conditions for a good sequel (which I think fit quite well with the quote). That got me thinking - what do you all think is the worst sequel to a movie ever?
My vote is Predator 2, with Danny Glover and Gary Busey. What a horrible movie after the first one was so badass. Let's face it, anything where Gary Busey goes apeshit in the end is at least marginally entertaining, but that little bit didn't really compensate for how bad the rest of it was. I did think Alien vs. Predator was good from an interesting story line and special effects perspective, and Predators looks good in the same way that the original was (lots of great characters with good one-liners fighting a big monster).
What's your worst sequel? I'm warning you - I may exercise my blog administrator priveleges if anyone says Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. I happened to like that a lot, even if I'm in the minority. So think twice before you waste your vote on that.
By the way, the quote was from Bertrand Russell's "Science and Art Under Socialism", in his Proposed Roads to Freedom (1918) (I read it in my copy of Essential Works of Socialism, which is a really fantastic and wide-ranging resource that's usually pretty easy to find in used bookstores). Lovecraft has a lot to say about the prospects of the artist under socialism, it's one of his most bedrock critiques of the Soviets, and it's one of his biggest hesitations about socialism in general (although he thinks it is feasible). I know Lovecraft turns to Russell for insights on a lot of different things, so when I thumbed through the book and saw this title I was curious. I just read selections of it briefly - but what I read seems to be consistent with Lovecraft's view: aware of the danger, optimistic about prospects.
You can see my response after this comment of his, describing my thoughts on the conditions for a good sequel (which I think fit quite well with the quote). That got me thinking - what do you all think is the worst sequel to a movie ever?
My vote is Predator 2, with Danny Glover and Gary Busey. What a horrible movie after the first one was so badass. Let's face it, anything where Gary Busey goes apeshit in the end is at least marginally entertaining, but that little bit didn't really compensate for how bad the rest of it was. I did think Alien vs. Predator was good from an interesting story line and special effects perspective, and Predators looks good in the same way that the original was (lots of great characters with good one-liners fighting a big monster).
What's your worst sequel? I'm warning you - I may exercise my blog administrator priveleges if anyone says Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. I happened to like that a lot, even if I'm in the minority. So think twice before you waste your vote on that.
*****
By the way, the quote was from Bertrand Russell's "Science and Art Under Socialism", in his Proposed Roads to Freedom (1918) (I read it in my copy of Essential Works of Socialism, which is a really fantastic and wide-ranging resource that's usually pretty easy to find in used bookstores). Lovecraft has a lot to say about the prospects of the artist under socialism, it's one of his most bedrock critiques of the Soviets, and it's one of his biggest hesitations about socialism in general (although he thinks it is feasible). I know Lovecraft turns to Russell for insights on a lot of different things, so when I thumbed through the book and saw this title I was curious. I just read selections of it briefly - but what I read seems to be consistent with Lovecraft's view: aware of the danger, optimistic about prospects.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Underworld Economics, Cleaned up and Formalized
Peter Dorman has a great post up explaining why market economies have tendency towards underconsumptionism, a position which Keynes called "underworld" economics, but which he identified as being closely related to his own thinking.
Dorman talks specifically about the problems with Walrasian price setting, and suggests that in the real world firms set quantities and compete for customers on price. He loosense utility maximization assumptions about consumers as well and suggests that if consumers have loyalty to firms that satisfy their quality requirements, firms will invest in more production as way to maintain customers. Dorman writes "This fits with the literature in marketing, which stresses that a sale should always be seen as the opening to future sales and therefore worth a much greater investment than it would justify from a myopic perspective."
One of the most interesting points that Dorman makes is connecting this argument to the work of Janos Kornai. I first encountered Kornai in the way that I think most people did - as a critic of planned economies in a discussion of comparative economic systems. What a lot of people forget is exactly what Kornai's criticism of planned economies was - the idea was actually not that central planners regularly make disastrous "market process" calculation mistakes (to borrow an Austrian phrase) - it was that planners deliberately underpriced their goods. Central planners, Kornai argued, are price-setters whereas market economy firms are almost always quantity setters and price takers. The result was the socialist "shortage economy" - and the flip side is that the market economy is a "surplus economy". That's not that bad of a problem to have, of course! In all my concerns about demand deficiency, you never see me saying "man - we'd all just be better off under central planning", after all. But it does shed light on the economic problems we do face, which is overproductionism/underconsumptionism to put it crudely - and employment as a function of effective demand to put it a little more respectably.
Dorman talks specifically about the problems with Walrasian price setting, and suggests that in the real world firms set quantities and compete for customers on price. He loosense utility maximization assumptions about consumers as well and suggests that if consumers have loyalty to firms that satisfy their quality requirements, firms will invest in more production as way to maintain customers. Dorman writes "This fits with the literature in marketing, which stresses that a sale should always be seen as the opening to future sales and therefore worth a much greater investment than it would justify from a myopic perspective."
One of the most interesting points that Dorman makes is connecting this argument to the work of Janos Kornai. I first encountered Kornai in the way that I think most people did - as a critic of planned economies in a discussion of comparative economic systems. What a lot of people forget is exactly what Kornai's criticism of planned economies was - the idea was actually not that central planners regularly make disastrous "market process" calculation mistakes (to borrow an Austrian phrase) - it was that planners deliberately underpriced their goods. Central planners, Kornai argued, are price-setters whereas market economy firms are almost always quantity setters and price takers. The result was the socialist "shortage economy" - and the flip side is that the market economy is a "surplus economy". That's not that bad of a problem to have, of course! In all my concerns about demand deficiency, you never see me saying "man - we'd all just be better off under central planning", after all. But it does shed light on the economic problems we do face, which is overproductionism/underconsumptionism to put it crudely - and employment as a function of effective demand to put it a little more respectably.And it is an interesting point that Kornai makes about central planners, isn't it? I don't even know if I would have been that radical before reading this post. If, as Hayek or Mises contends, the primary problem is a socialist calculation problem, then wouldn't we expect to see chronic oversupply - full warehouses and overflowing shelves - as often as chronic shortages in socialist economies? If it's just a miscalculation issue, why the observed bias towards shortages? The traditional SCD logic (in which I side with Mises and Hayek, don't get me wrong) doesn't seem to be able to explain this feature. Kornai can explain that, and can also explain the struggles of market economies.
A little while back, Jonathan Catalan blogged on overproductionism here.
Also, I suppose worth noting, H.P. Lovecraft and Bertrand Russell were fervent adherents to the idea of overproductionism - and I've found at least one letter of Lovecraft's and an essay of Russell's that specifically identifies underconsumptionism as a problem (usually you find that the overproductionist variant dominates in the lay literature - underconsumptionism is largely restricted to economists, I've found). I've gotten the impression that overproductionist concerns were very, very common in the early part of the twentieth century (Albert Einstein made the point at one time as well) - which is interesting because you really don't hear the idea voiced among non-economists these days at all.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Cthulu + Cartman = BFF
So last week at the very end of South Park, BP unleashed Cthulu from the Gulf of Mexico. A nice little homage there. Tonight's episode was full-blown Lovecraft. Unfortunately, no video is available just yet. Cthulu is on a rampage, lots of South Park residents are in the cult of Cthulu, and Cartman is trying to endear himself to the Great Old One to help seek revenge on his friends, who kicked him out of their super hero club.But it gets better than that - more characters than just Cthulu and his cultists made an appearance. There were very distinct Mi-Go floating around. None of everyone's favorite other-worldly socialists (the Yithians) as far as I could tell. It all went down in New Orleans, which is of course a well-known hot-bed of Cthulu cultism.
Most important of all, a long-running plot theme of South Park appears to be a fundamentally Lovecraftian device! Kenny, who is normally a forgettable side-character, takes center stage in this episode as he pieces together the mystery of his own apparent immortality after being regularly killed off. The chant of the cultists takes on an eerie significance for him:
"That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange aeons even death may die."
Is it just me or is there a critical mass of Lovecraft going on? I know devotion has ebbed and flowed, and I'm certainly a relative newcomer, but it seems to be all over the place. And once At The Mountains of Madness hits theaters there will be no turning back.
I really need to ride this wave and write something up on Lovecraft's economic thought... empirical tests of ABCT, gross job flows in the late nineteenth century, and job creation tax credits can all wait, right?
Oh ya... we're in a depression... I should probably look into those things a little too.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Happy Halloween!
Here's a classic:
This Halloween should be fun - we moved this summer and are in an apartment complex with lots more kids than in the last one - so we should have trick-or-treaters. I plan on watching Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, which I've always loved for the atmosphere.
- My supervisor from GWU shares this link explaining taxes to children using Halloween. Pretty funny - even covers lock-box myths and Social Security taxes.
- This also reminds me of another sign I saw at the rally: "Burn Witches, not Korans"
- David Henderson reflects on the over-sensitivity to safety and Halloween. Of course I agree with him on this, but I have to say - part of the fun of Halloween was flaunting parental safety measures - staying out later than we were supposed to, wandering much farther than we were supposed to. Not that that's a reason for being absurd about the night's festivities, but from a kid's perspective the "rules were meant to be broken" attitude enhanced things.
- Here are some old links of mine: Poe on economics and Lovecraft on the nature of human fear.
And speaking of Poe, here's one of my favorite renditions of The Raven (by Christopher Walken):
This Halloween should be fun - we moved this summer and are in an apartment complex with lots more kids than in the last one - so we should have trick-or-treaters. I plan on watching Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, which I've always loved for the atmosphere.
- My supervisor from GWU shares this link explaining taxes to children using Halloween. Pretty funny - even covers lock-box myths and Social Security taxes.
- This also reminds me of another sign I saw at the rally: "Burn Witches, not Korans"
- David Henderson reflects on the over-sensitivity to safety and Halloween. Of course I agree with him on this, but I have to say - part of the fun of Halloween was flaunting parental safety measures - staying out later than we were supposed to, wandering much farther than we were supposed to. Not that that's a reason for being absurd about the night's festivities, but from a kid's perspective the "rules were meant to be broken" attitude enhanced things.
- Here are some old links of mine: Poe on economics and Lovecraft on the nature of human fear.
And speaking of Poe, here's one of my favorite renditions of The Raven (by Christopher Walken):
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Lovecraft on Autumn
What you say of the fascination of autumn is very true - and I have always felt it despite the menace of physical discomfort it brings. I love an abnormally hot October, when I can wander around through the prismatic landscape and imbibe the spell of the ancient harvest season without shivering. There is malancholy in it, but the accompanying beauty and sense of adventurous expectancy are so great as to make that quality forgivable. It is a season of almost weird retrospective, when one seizes on the unchanged objects and processes of nature - or of anciently ordered life - and half-imagines that the past which they typify is still present. The woods, the fields, the hillside orchards laden with fruit, the fields of sheaved corn, the old stone walls overgrown with flaming vine, the farmyards heaped with brilliant pumpkins and other garnerings of the year, the acrid odour of smoke, the distant notes of horn and hound across the stubbled fields and dying meadows - all these things have a potent magic for one who has known the old days and the simple folkways of an immemorial culture not yet urbanised.
H.P. Lovecraft, Sept. 2, 1931, letter to August Derleth
H.P. Lovecraft, Sept. 2, 1931, letter to August Derleth
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Some alien updates
1. Retired airmen recently discussed UFO sightings at nuclear facilities around the country, going back decades. Testimony of trained professionals like this is always interesting because they know much better what they could be looking at than the average person. Then again, seeing this stuff near military bases (and high-security ones at that) always makes things difficult. On the one hand, it makes sense - that's exactly where you'd expect aliens to hover. On the other hand, it's exactly where you'd expect new military technology to be. We've reached an impasse and all we can really do is speculate. I found it interesting that (1.) there was malfunctioning of the nuclear systems themselves, (2.) this apparently happened to the Soviets too, and (3.) UFOs were seen decades ago doing things we still can't do now... even if this was secret new military technology, you'd think that something we saw a long time ago would be used and known about now.
2. The UN apparently appointed an official ambassador to alien visitors. The only problem is, the appointed ambassador appeared to be out of the loop on the decision, and SETI has some bruised egos over it.
All of this is great stuff because right now I'm reading Lovecraft's The Whisperer in the Darkness (1931) - which is a part of his transition from supernatural horror stories to science fiction and explicit extraterrestrial stories. In The Whisperer in the Darkness, we're faced with the fungi from Yuggoth (also the subject of an earlier poem by Lovecraft). Yuggoth is intended to be Pluto (identified in the book as the undiscovered planet beyond Neptune) which was discovered in February 1930, the very month Lovecraft began writing the story. I'm really enjoying it - it's shaping up to be one of my favorite stories from him yet - better even than The Shadow Out of Time, which I enjoyed a lot.
2. The UN apparently appointed an official ambassador to alien visitors. The only problem is, the appointed ambassador appeared to be out of the loop on the decision, and SETI has some bruised egos over it.
All of this is great stuff because right now I'm reading Lovecraft's The Whisperer in the Darkness (1931) - which is a part of his transition from supernatural horror stories to science fiction and explicit extraterrestrial stories. In The Whisperer in the Darkness, we're faced with the fungi from Yuggoth (also the subject of an earlier poem by Lovecraft). Yuggoth is intended to be Pluto (identified in the book as the undiscovered planet beyond Neptune) which was discovered in February 1930, the very month Lovecraft began writing the story. I'm really enjoying it - it's shaping up to be one of my favorite stories from him yet - better even than The Shadow Out of Time, which I enjoyed a lot.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Lovecraft on Hayek and Robbins
I've mostly been studying for the GRE this weekend, but I took a break from that last night to read some more of Lovecraft's letters. Still no reference to Keynes, although he cites an awful lot of British figures that were deeply influenced by Keynes. Lovecraft is nothing if not well-read and well-informed (even though he puts a fairly eccentric spin on a lot of things).
I thought readers of this blog would be interested in a brief reference to Hayek and Robbins:
"But the real joke of course is, that all this isn't a matter of choice anyhow! Capitalism is dying from internal as well as external causes, and its own leaders and beneficiaries are less and less able to kid themselves. I'm no economist, but from recent reading I've been able to form a rough picture of the dilemma - the need to restrict consumers' goods and to pile up a needless plethora of producing equipment in order to maintain the irrational surplus called profit - which has caused orthodox economists like Hayek and Robbins to admit that only starvation wages and artificial scarcity could stabilize the profit system in future and avert increasing cyclical depressions of utterly destructive scope. Laissez-faire capitalism is dead - make no mistake about that. The only avenue of survival for plutocracy is a military and emotional fascism whereby millions of persons will be withdrawn from the industrial arena and placed on a dole or in concentration camps with high sounding patriotic names. That or socialism - take your choice. In the long run it won't be the New Deal but the mere facts of existence which will be recognized as the real and inevitable slayer of Hooverism. Nobody is going to "destroy the system" - for it has been destroying itself ever since it evolved out of the old agrarian-handicraft economy a century and a half ago." [letter to Catherine L. Moore, Feb. 7, 1937]
As he says - certainly a "rough picture" - but I was somewhat impressed that he identified the LSE position with respect to consumption and investment. Consider this passage from a 1932 letter to the editor by Hayek and Robbins recently posted by Mario Rizzo:
"On the question whether to spend or whether to invest our position is different from the signatories of the letter which appeared in your column on Monday [by Pigou, Keynes, and various other Cambridge economists]. They appear to hold that it is a matter of indifference as regards the prospects of revival whether money is spent on consumption or on real investment. We, on the contrary, believe that one of the main difficulties of the world today is a deficiency of investment - a depression of the industries make for capital extensions etc, rather than of the industries making directly for consumption. Hence we regard a revival of investment as particularly desirable."
I extended the selection from the Lovecraft letter beyond the mention of Hayek to highlight Lovecraft's position on fascism. It's been very encouraging to read his later letters where he has unequivocally turned against fascism and the Nazis (and for that matter, he doesn't talk about racial inferiority as much either - although I'm guessing he still maintained those views). In the early thirties he treated the Nazis as fascinating curiosity. He never liked them per se. He always talked about how crude and ultimately dangerous Hitler was. But he would regularly allude to the fact that they were on to something because society could not undergo a Communist revolution but it had to be more forcefully commanded. By '35, '36, and '37 that seems to have faded away completely. In the early thirties he would use "Marxist" and "Communist" as an epithet for leftists who he thought dangerous. Now, in '36 and '37 he uses "fascist" and "Nazi" as an epithet for right-wingers. He makes references to "Wall Street Nazis", for example. The early romance with fascism has faded, and I have to say I'm relieved. Lovecraft has grown on me. I know he died eighty years ago, so even if he had a soft spot for Hitler until the end it's not like that should really affect me, and it's not like that would change how fascinating and brilliant he was. But it is nice to know the brief infatuation did seem to come to an end.
I thought readers of this blog would be interested in a brief reference to Hayek and Robbins:
"But the real joke of course is, that all this isn't a matter of choice anyhow! Capitalism is dying from internal as well as external causes, and its own leaders and beneficiaries are less and less able to kid themselves. I'm no economist, but from recent reading I've been able to form a rough picture of the dilemma - the need to restrict consumers' goods and to pile up a needless plethora of producing equipment in order to maintain the irrational surplus called profit - which has caused orthodox economists like Hayek and Robbins to admit that only starvation wages and artificial scarcity could stabilize the profit system in future and avert increasing cyclical depressions of utterly destructive scope. Laissez-faire capitalism is dead - make no mistake about that. The only avenue of survival for plutocracy is a military and emotional fascism whereby millions of persons will be withdrawn from the industrial arena and placed on a dole or in concentration camps with high sounding patriotic names. That or socialism - take your choice. In the long run it won't be the New Deal but the mere facts of existence which will be recognized as the real and inevitable slayer of Hooverism. Nobody is going to "destroy the system" - for it has been destroying itself ever since it evolved out of the old agrarian-handicraft economy a century and a half ago." [letter to Catherine L. Moore, Feb. 7, 1937]
As he says - certainly a "rough picture" - but I was somewhat impressed that he identified the LSE position with respect to consumption and investment. Consider this passage from a 1932 letter to the editor by Hayek and Robbins recently posted by Mario Rizzo:
"On the question whether to spend or whether to invest our position is different from the signatories of the letter which appeared in your column on Monday [by Pigou, Keynes, and various other Cambridge economists]. They appear to hold that it is a matter of indifference as regards the prospects of revival whether money is spent on consumption or on real investment. We, on the contrary, believe that one of the main difficulties of the world today is a deficiency of investment - a depression of the industries make for capital extensions etc, rather than of the industries making directly for consumption. Hence we regard a revival of investment as particularly desirable."
I extended the selection from the Lovecraft letter beyond the mention of Hayek to highlight Lovecraft's position on fascism. It's been very encouraging to read his later letters where he has unequivocally turned against fascism and the Nazis (and for that matter, he doesn't talk about racial inferiority as much either - although I'm guessing he still maintained those views). In the early thirties he treated the Nazis as fascinating curiosity. He never liked them per se. He always talked about how crude and ultimately dangerous Hitler was. But he would regularly allude to the fact that they were on to something because society could not undergo a Communist revolution but it had to be more forcefully commanded. By '35, '36, and '37 that seems to have faded away completely. In the early thirties he would use "Marxist" and "Communist" as an epithet for leftists who he thought dangerous. Now, in '36 and '37 he uses "fascist" and "Nazi" as an epithet for right-wingers. He makes references to "Wall Street Nazis", for example. The early romance with fascism has faded, and I have to say I'm relieved. Lovecraft has grown on me. I know he died eighty years ago, so even if he had a soft spot for Hitler until the end it's not like that should really affect me, and it's not like that would change how fascinating and brilliant he was. But it is nice to know the brief infatuation did seem to come to an end.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Lovecraft Links and one Tolkein Quote
Recently I started following Bob Higgs at the Liberty and Power blog, to get a better sense of the regime uncertainty argument. I'm sure I'll share thoughts on those posts as I go through them.
One poster there, Amy Sturgis, seems to work at the intersection of literature and libertarianism (at least here - her own blog seems more specifically dedicated to literature). She had an interesting post up this morning on J.R.R. Tolkien - an old, old favorite of mine - commemorating the anniversary of the publication of The Hobbit. She has this Tolkien quote:
"My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning the abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) — or to ‘unconstitutional’ Monarchy. I would arrest anybody who uses the word State (in any sense other than the inaminate real of England and its inhabitants, a thing that has neither power, rights nor mind); and after a chance of recantation, execute them if they remained obstinate! If we could go back to personal names, it would do a lot of good. Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so to refer to people.… Anyway the proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity." (Tolkien, 1943)
So an interesting piece here: anarchy or monarchy; execution for poor word usage; and the fiction of the state. The immediate reaction is of course "Tolkien is a libertarian", and there's previously been statements on Mises.org to that effect. I think he's trying to make a somewhat deeper point than that - the first is sort of a public choice or political economy argument not to anthropomorphize the state. That seems to me the argument that comes out clearest. As for "the most improper job of any man... is bossing other men" is that libertarian or simply liberal or is it simply sentiment? I don't know - I can only study the political and economic philosophy of one literary figure at a time! And I know from studying that one that you have to be careful about assigning too much technical meaning to potentially uninformed sentiment.
Which brings me to a few other things: in addition to an interest in Tolkien, Sturgis also apparently has an interest in Lovecraft! Her own blog is actually called Redecorating Middle Earth in Early Lovecraft (and I thought "Facts and Other Stubborn Things" was clunky!). I'm following it now and will, of course, share interesting updates. Here are a few Lovecraft items to start with from Sturgis:
- First, this is the list of all her posts with a "Lovecraft" tag.
- This is an article she wrote in 2005 called "The New Shoggoth Chic: Why Lovecraft Now?"
- She links to this article in July's Publisher's Weekly on "the enduring popularity of Lovecraft"
I haven't read any of these posts or articles yet personally.
One poster there, Amy Sturgis, seems to work at the intersection of literature and libertarianism (at least here - her own blog seems more specifically dedicated to literature). She had an interesting post up this morning on J.R.R. Tolkien - an old, old favorite of mine - commemorating the anniversary of the publication of The Hobbit. She has this Tolkien quote:
"My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning the abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) — or to ‘unconstitutional’ Monarchy. I would arrest anybody who uses the word State (in any sense other than the inaminate real of England and its inhabitants, a thing that has neither power, rights nor mind); and after a chance of recantation, execute them if they remained obstinate! If we could go back to personal names, it would do a lot of good. Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so to refer to people.… Anyway the proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity." (Tolkien, 1943)
So an interesting piece here: anarchy or monarchy; execution for poor word usage; and the fiction of the state. The immediate reaction is of course "Tolkien is a libertarian", and there's previously been statements on Mises.org to that effect. I think he's trying to make a somewhat deeper point than that - the first is sort of a public choice or political economy argument not to anthropomorphize the state. That seems to me the argument that comes out clearest. As for "the most improper job of any man... is bossing other men" is that libertarian or simply liberal or is it simply sentiment? I don't know - I can only study the political and economic philosophy of one literary figure at a time! And I know from studying that one that you have to be careful about assigning too much technical meaning to potentially uninformed sentiment.
Which brings me to a few other things: in addition to an interest in Tolkien, Sturgis also apparently has an interest in Lovecraft! Her own blog is actually called Redecorating Middle Earth in Early Lovecraft (and I thought "Facts and Other Stubborn Things" was clunky!). I'm following it now and will, of course, share interesting updates. Here are a few Lovecraft items to start with from Sturgis:
- First, this is the list of all her posts with a "Lovecraft" tag.
- This is an article she wrote in 2005 called "The New Shoggoth Chic: Why Lovecraft Now?"
- She links to this article in July's Publisher's Weekly on "the enduring popularity of Lovecraft"
I haven't read any of these posts or articles yet personally.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
A new book and predictions of the future from Keynes and Lovecraft
It was a beautiful fall day yesterday in Northern Virginia, and I was couped up all morning at my mother-in-laws scraping and painting, so in the afternoon we decided to take a walk to the bookstore.I got this book, which I've had my eye on for a while but is now out in paperback. Revisiting Keynes is a collection of essays reflecting on Keynes's 1930 essay "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren". Keynes makes a variety of predictions on what the world would look like in 100 years (so, 2030). Some of them are right, but many are way off. And where Keynes is right (on economic growth prospects) he actually low-balls it. The accuracy on this point is actually quite commendable - the opening essay details how, in 1930, not many people had very high hopes for secular economic growth. The U.S. was just entering a depression but Britain had been stagnant for years. Keynes was actually making a counter-intuitive case for optimism in continued growth.
His other predictions went awry, though - perhaps most famously his view that demand would be satiated, work hours would be reduced considerably, and we would spend more time on leisure and the arts. I've only read the first essay, but it looks like several contributors are going to address this point. One of the most interesting explanations is that a lot of the capital accumulation that ended up being important in the 2oth century in a way that early writers didn't forsee was the importance of human capital. Physical capital you can put to work while you enjoy a life of leisure, but you can't enjoy the gains from human capital unless you go to work yourself. I think this is probably the most convincing reason for why Keynes was wrong on this point. But there are also discussions of multiple equilibria depending on preferences (Europe has seen a greater reduction in work hours), reward in work itself (this is brought up by Phelps - and this is actually a point that Keynes himself stresses in The General Theory, that it's wrong to simply think of work as a disutility and that work can be enjoyable), that consumption isn't as easily satiated as one might have thought, etc.
To make things even more fascinating, I was also reading more Lovecraft letters last night, and I read a 1931 letter where he also takes it upon himself to make predictions of what the world will look like 100 years in the future. What's amazing is that he cites many of the points that Keynes makes: (1.) mechanization will increase growth substantially and reduce work hours considerably (2.) cultural and moral development will be emphasized once people have all that leisure time - they'll create art and have their own Bloomsbury Group (Keynes's literary circle) or Kalem Club (Lovecraft's literary circle). I've seen Lovecraft make overproductionist arguments before, but here he also makes the underconsumptionist arguments that would become characteristic of Keynesianism. That was a very exciting find for me. In classic Lovecraft form, he calls his synopsis of underconsumptionism "a fine piece of grim cosmic irony".
The Keynes book looks good - I'll update as interesting points come up.
Contributors include William Baumol, Gary Becker, Richard Freeman (which reminds me, I need to work on that NBER chapter he's editing!), Axel Leijonhufvud, Lee Ohanian, Ed Phelps, Robert Solow, and Joe Stiglitz, among others.
*****
By the way - it's another beautiful day today, and for anyone near Arlington, Crystal City is having it's annual wine festival. Please come if that sounds interesting to you.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
"No one has ever seen monsters like this"
...those are exactly the words you want to hear from the guy making the creatures for Guillermo del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness (HT - Chris Perridas).
Friday, September 10, 2010
New commenter with some great blogs
Ahtzib, a new commenter, has great detailed thoughts on the second post on Lovecraft and race, and the post on alien skepticism that are worth going back to look at.
He also has two great blogs on these topics. First, Miskatonic Museum has interesting thoughts on the Lovecraft universe. Recent posts include a discussion of the sources that Lovecraft used to learn about cannibalism, the geography of Lovecraft (i.e. - where exactly is R'lyeh?), and artifacts that look an awful lot like Cthulu. The second blog is Spooky Paradigm, which is dedicated to UFOs and cryptozoology - it seems like a skeptical, speculative, interesting approach he takes to it all (which I think is precisely the right balance to strike).
Both of these blogs are on my blogroll now, and if anything interesting comes up I'll repost it here.
He also has two great blogs on these topics. First, Miskatonic Museum has interesting thoughts on the Lovecraft universe. Recent posts include a discussion of the sources that Lovecraft used to learn about cannibalism, the geography of Lovecraft (i.e. - where exactly is R'lyeh?), and artifacts that look an awful lot like Cthulu. The second blog is Spooky Paradigm, which is dedicated to UFOs and cryptozoology - it seems like a skeptical, speculative, interesting approach he takes to it all (which I think is precisely the right balance to strike).
Both of these blogs are on my blogroll now, and if anything interesting comes up I'll repost it here.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Lovecraft on Race and Religion: Part 2
In an October 17th, 1933 letter to Miss Helen Sully, Lovecraft writes:
"Yes - I read George Moore in youth, and have always thought the Catholic system weak in its relation to individual character. Ironically, it is the least personally strengthening because it is the most purely religious. Theoretically - and as a matter of universal acceptance in pre-Reformation times - the function of religion is primarily to exalt and serve some mystical and intangible entity or group of entities outside mankind. 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, whilst conduct (based on reason) remained the province of the non-religious philosopher. Christianity - or rather, the Judaism on which it was based - was the first religion to take a primary interest in ethics and assume a responsibility for conduct and character. That was the unique contribution of the Semitic temperament to western civilization - a very doubtful gift, since it removed ethics so completely from the aesthetic and logical field, transferring it to the jurisdiction of a mythical belief, that order and good taste threaten to vanish upon the ultimate and inevitable decline of the mythology. It would have been far better if we had kept our classical conception of ethics as a matter of beauty, good sense, and taste - the province of the non-supernatural philosopher - for its survival would not then have been so imperilled by the decline of religion. As Aryans, lacking the almost savage ethical sense of the desert-bred Semite, we are vastly better adapted to the conception of character as related to beauty, reason, and pride, than to the notion of divine moral law. Meanwhile our dominant religion has always been torn between two tendancies - one to return to the Aryan concept and become a system of mystical adoration letting morals more or less slide or putting them on a bargaining and excusing basis, and the other to live up to the specifically Christian ideal and mould better and more harmonious characters in the immediate world around us. The first tendency breeds the Catholic psychology, and the second the Protestant. As a result, Catholics are more purely religious - since Protestants, being after all Aryans to whome the feverish Semitic religio-moralism is impossible save for brief periods (such as that of intensive and literal Puritanism in England and New England), tend to lay more and more stress on human character and good deeds as opposed to mystical adoration, and therefore exercise the functions of the classically conceived philosopher rather than the classically conceived priest."
The line of thought is reminiscent of a piece he wrote in a circular letter in April, 1921:
"Modern civilisation is the direct heir of Hellenic culture - all that we have is Greek. Since the transient Semitic importation of ascetic idealism has run its course, can we not recapture a trace of the old pagan lightheartedness that once sparked that Aegean? Surely we can think of life as having something of beauty, and only a glutton wants eternity".
I think these selections provide interesting background for Lovecraft's underlying and somewhat obscure anti-semitism. He doesn't see Jews as being biologically inferior - that idea he makes clear in the 1930s, mocks Hitler for, and demonstrates his commitment to when he marries a Jew (the marriage ended, but not because of anything having to do with his wife's Judaism). He mentions the cultural dominance of Jews and the way these cultural arbiters alter American tradition, but as I outlined in the last post he never seems to pull out anything as indulgent as a "Hitler in art school" move, blaming Jews for any failures of his own publications - this despite the fact that his stories were rejected by the very publishing house Lovecraft had at another time suggested was overrun by Jews. So while he certainly doesn't stop talking about this stuff, concrete objections on his part are quite illusive.
In this passage, though, he puts a finer point on the influence of Judaism which I think might underly some of his other concerns. Judaism, for Lovecraft, made the misstep of fusing morality and religion. What was once the realm of philosophers and ethicists merged in Judaism with the mysticism and erraticism of the priest-class. Mysticism for Lovecraft the atheist is actually quite acceptable - his fiction is nothing if not mystical. Mysticism serves an important purpose for the human species. But that purpose is not to provide moral guidance - morality should be governed by rational thought.
All of this can be taken in different ways. Lovecraft was not the only one to revel in the prospect of a pagan revival in the interwar period - it was an important feature of Nazism too. It could go that way. Of course, the decoupling of faith and morality has also been important for modern liberal secularists who constantly have to respond to the fairly odd, question begging inquiry of "but how would we know right from wrong without God?".
Elsewhere - I can't find the citation right now - Lovecraft remarked that "Christianity did not civilize Europe - Europe civilized Christianity". I'm of course just getting into this material, and I'm not even primarily interested in his views on race and religion - but I am getting the impression that this whole line of thought is an important driver of all that Lovecraft has to say in these fields. If Lovecraft uttered a word about the "inferiority" of the Jews I might think twice (he does of course attach this word to others), but he seems more often to be inverting the traditional anti-semitic formulation - it seems like the biggest thing he faults Judaism for is giving birth to Christianity (rather than killing Christ).
Of course all of this is tentative and based on a work in progress, let me know. He may turn out to be less nuanced than he first appears. The man is still a racist and an anti-semite, there's no doubt about that. And no veneer of sophistication excuses that. But I do think (1.) you need to engage what he thought about race and religion if you engage his social theory - even though the social theory isn't primarily based on his thoughts on race and religion, (2.) if you're going to do that you can't just throw him into one big monolithic "racist" pile, and (3.) as you read this stuff you do find interesting thought processes - for example, the sources of morality and the "classical philosopher" vs. "classical priest" point is interesting and worthy of exploration for anyone, regardless of these questions of racism or anti-semitism that it motivates in Lovecraft's particular case.
"Yes - I read George Moore in youth, and have always thought the Catholic system weak in its relation to individual character. Ironically, it is the least personally strengthening because it is the most purely religious. Theoretically - and as a matter of universal acceptance in pre-Reformation times - the function of religion is primarily to exalt and serve some mystical and intangible entity or group of entities outside mankind. 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, whilst conduct (based on reason) remained the province of the non-religious philosopher. Christianity - or rather, the Judaism on which it was based - was the first religion to take a primary interest in ethics and assume a responsibility for conduct and character. That was the unique contribution of the Semitic temperament to western civilization - a very doubtful gift, since it removed ethics so completely from the aesthetic and logical field, transferring it to the jurisdiction of a mythical belief, that order and good taste threaten to vanish upon the ultimate and inevitable decline of the mythology. It would have been far better if we had kept our classical conception of ethics as a matter of beauty, good sense, and taste - the province of the non-supernatural philosopher - for its survival would not then have been so imperilled by the decline of religion. As Aryans, lacking the almost savage ethical sense of the desert-bred Semite, we are vastly better adapted to the conception of character as related to beauty, reason, and pride, than to the notion of divine moral law. Meanwhile our dominant religion has always been torn between two tendancies - one to return to the Aryan concept and become a system of mystical adoration letting morals more or less slide or putting them on a bargaining and excusing basis, and the other to live up to the specifically Christian ideal and mould better and more harmonious characters in the immediate world around us. The first tendency breeds the Catholic psychology, and the second the Protestant. As a result, Catholics are more purely religious - since Protestants, being after all Aryans to whome the feverish Semitic religio-moralism is impossible save for brief periods (such as that of intensive and literal Puritanism in England and New England), tend to lay more and more stress on human character and good deeds as opposed to mystical adoration, and therefore exercise the functions of the classically conceived philosopher rather than the classically conceived priest."
The line of thought is reminiscent of a piece he wrote in a circular letter in April, 1921:
"Modern civilisation is the direct heir of Hellenic culture - all that we have is Greek. Since the transient Semitic importation of ascetic idealism has run its course, can we not recapture a trace of the old pagan lightheartedness that once sparked that Aegean? Surely we can think of life as having something of beauty, and only a glutton wants eternity".
I think these selections provide interesting background for Lovecraft's underlying and somewhat obscure anti-semitism. He doesn't see Jews as being biologically inferior - that idea he makes clear in the 1930s, mocks Hitler for, and demonstrates his commitment to when he marries a Jew (the marriage ended, but not because of anything having to do with his wife's Judaism). He mentions the cultural dominance of Jews and the way these cultural arbiters alter American tradition, but as I outlined in the last post he never seems to pull out anything as indulgent as a "Hitler in art school" move, blaming Jews for any failures of his own publications - this despite the fact that his stories were rejected by the very publishing house Lovecraft had at another time suggested was overrun by Jews. So while he certainly doesn't stop talking about this stuff, concrete objections on his part are quite illusive.
In this passage, though, he puts a finer point on the influence of Judaism which I think might underly some of his other concerns. Judaism, for Lovecraft, made the misstep of fusing morality and religion. What was once the realm of philosophers and ethicists merged in Judaism with the mysticism and erraticism of the priest-class. Mysticism for Lovecraft the atheist is actually quite acceptable - his fiction is nothing if not mystical. Mysticism serves an important purpose for the human species. But that purpose is not to provide moral guidance - morality should be governed by rational thought.
All of this can be taken in different ways. Lovecraft was not the only one to revel in the prospect of a pagan revival in the interwar period - it was an important feature of Nazism too. It could go that way. Of course, the decoupling of faith and morality has also been important for modern liberal secularists who constantly have to respond to the fairly odd, question begging inquiry of "but how would we know right from wrong without God?".
Elsewhere - I can't find the citation right now - Lovecraft remarked that "Christianity did not civilize Europe - Europe civilized Christianity". I'm of course just getting into this material, and I'm not even primarily interested in his views on race and religion - but I am getting the impression that this whole line of thought is an important driver of all that Lovecraft has to say in these fields. If Lovecraft uttered a word about the "inferiority" of the Jews I might think twice (he does of course attach this word to others), but he seems more often to be inverting the traditional anti-semitic formulation - it seems like the biggest thing he faults Judaism for is giving birth to Christianity (rather than killing Christ).
Of course all of this is tentative and based on a work in progress, let me know. He may turn out to be less nuanced than he first appears. The man is still a racist and an anti-semite, there's no doubt about that. And no veneer of sophistication excuses that. But I do think (1.) you need to engage what he thought about race and religion if you engage his social theory - even though the social theory isn't primarily based on his thoughts on race and religion, (2.) if you're going to do that you can't just throw him into one big monolithic "racist" pile, and (3.) as you read this stuff you do find interesting thought processes - for example, the sources of morality and the "classical philosopher" vs. "classical priest" point is interesting and worthy of exploration for anyone, regardless of these questions of racism or anti-semitism that it motivates in Lovecraft's particular case.
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