:eek:
I bow in awe before someone who does a better pitting than Nyarlothep would.
Probably. It’s certainly loaded with cultural bias of his time and place. Is there a reason you’re being a wiseass to me? All I’m saying is that it’s probably foolish to use today’s standards of racism, with our knowledge of biology and the lack of genetic differences between races, to judge someone living in a time when the best scientific minds on earth were still struggling with environmental determinism. Like it or not, the idea that all humans are basically the same is an idea that developed over time. It was not an idea that was simply intuitively obvious.
Also, “nigger,” while certainly a loaded term, did not carry anything near the level of onus that it does today. Especially not in Lovecraft’s geographical place, where the hateful implication of the word had not really penetrated the culture.
Wow, what a rant. That’s some use of langauge there, sir. I will never call you child, because I am tough, but not that tough.
Blake, though, talk about a guy who can’t say, “Ooops, I see now I was wrong and you were right. Ignorance fought.” In the cat thread the kept saying that he wanted to learn different if he was mistaken, but after the post that proved he was just flat wrong he ignored the proof and disappeared. The more wrong he is, the louder he gets, he then goads people into exploding so he can call a mod.
I’d like to see the video of the night some cop having a bad day pulls him over. That’s gonna be real theater.
**Colibri. ** I have a hard time believing that he just happened to sign off the boards and his daily posting behavior just happened to change when I Pitted him.
He knows what’s going on.
I posted a link.
In a minute, I’m going to ask someone quote me in the link to get him down here, just in case he has me on his “Ignore” list.
So now his sins are: insulting me, talking down to me, calling me stupid, refusing to concede a point, ignoring me… now avoiding me.
I named him pussy. I named him well.*
*Barring some spectacularly sympathetic RL emergency that required his attention elsewhere that just happened to occur after I Pitted him. We’d all believe that, right?
Ogre, did you actually read the poem? The use of the word ‘nigger’ barely ranks in quantifying its offensiveness.
I would, just because it has almost never happened before, almost.
Was HPL a racist in his own time? Probably as much as anyone else was, at least in his cultural group.
Can he be considered a racist now? Hell yes. And it does matter. I might read his works and keep in mind the time period in which he was writing them, but I’m coming at the stories with MY cultural period in mind–it’s a viewpoint I can’t fully escape. So when I read his works with race in mind, then yes, I am going to pick up on blatant racism.
It doesn’t matter so much if he was normal or insane for his time or not, though it is a factor. What matters is how it’s viewed now, in this time, in this place.
You sure do know how to Pit, Askia.
Askia, you’re a guy?
New rule–No having names that end in ‘a’ if you’re a guy.
Yup. That’s why for the past year in my “Location” on my profile I added ** Sex: Male.** I believe it was tomndebb who suggested that once.
Don’t worry yourself over him. I bet you my bottom dollar that Blake is some guy who hasn’t taken a shower in a two weeks, lives in his mom’s basement, has an odor that is repulsive to everyone, and has no friends except his computer. His only purpose for living is to start fights on the internet and try to win them by daintily tossing out big words like a flower girl throwing daisies out of a basket.
You’re better than that. Right? Right. So just ignore him and move on. I know, it does help to get it out of your system, especially when you’re having a rough day/week. Great rant. But after this I’d say forget about him and be content with the fact that you’re right.
:eek: Third rate??? Awright, you 'n me, pistols at dawn.
And c’mon, people, sometimes an antehuman maleficent alien species is just an antehuman maleficent alien species…
Amazon Floozy Goddess. I haven’t showered in three weeks because the showerhead’s broken. I have no local friends since I moved. I live in my Pop’s basement off the garage. I win fights with dogged persistence and short, angry words and inventive use of the invective.
After my computer troubles, and now car engine troubles AND a turned down student loan, I have to leave shortly for my first evening – as a graveyard shift security guard.
I’m not better than Blake. I’m not worried. I’m bitter.
Let’s take things day by day.
If he posts tonight while I’m at work, I will be soooooooo pissed.
I’m speaking generally here, rather than in direct relationship to Lovecraft, but I don’t agree. It is a skill worth cultivating to be able to separate yourself from your own context…to consider something from an historical viewpoint, as it related to that person.
ummmm…I may have missed it, but where was the original thread?
You’re right. He was a racist (and I hadn’t read the poem until now.) I admitted as much in the very first sentence of my first post. It’s still not very enlightening to read today’s cultural mores into a poem written during a time when the same attitude (and associated attitudes of environmental determinism such as the stereotype of “the hardy, energetic Norse” versus “the lazy, torpid equatorial peoples”) was widely shared and even considered to have basis in scientific fact. Nationalities, races, and subpopulations were routinely demonized and belittled in public and in the press. Consider “the Hun” as a widely-used slur for Germans.
Again, the idea that all humans, whatever their color, are pretty much exactly the same, is one which developed over time. It’s not even universally accepted today, and in the early part of the 20th century, the idea hadn’t even begun making inroads in some quarters…especially in those “intellectual circles” that still followed (and rather twisted) the ideas of Ratzel, Semple, Ritter, and others.
Unfortunatly, it doesn’t help that Lovecraft considered himself to be of a rather scientific bent, and despite his affinity for scinifitic journals and such, he apparently never got the message that the scientific basis for racism was somewhat lacking by the 1930’s.
It was never a closed book, and indeed it was hotly debated, until the discovery of the function and structure of DNA…which I don’t need to tell you, didn’t come along until the '50’s.
Blake is an ALIEN? :eek: