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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 9604543">Again, I think people should read these things for themselves and make their own determinations. This is probably going to be my last point on this line of discussion as I really don't want to engage in other 20 page debate about whether Howard or Lovecraft were racist. My biggest issue here isn't people observing these things in either Lovecraft or Howard. It is that in order to build up either Lovecraft or Howard as evil men with bad ideas, people often underplay just how racist that time period was in general (again these are men writing in the 20s and 30s, at the height of segregation, lynching, as Nazism is rising in Europe, when many progressive people believed in things like racialist science and eugenics, etc). That doesn't make the ideas any better, and there were of course always exceptions (I am reading about John Murray Spear who was a Boston abolitionist and spiritualist from New England who died 7 years after Lovecraft was born, and their views couldn't be more different). but my feeling on this stuff is when you go back and read old books, you are going to encounter old and outdated ideas. Sometimes those old ideas will be so overwhelming, you might want to just jettison the work (I don't think they are in the case of Conan to be clear but there are old outdated ideas in them for sure). At the end of the day, I am in favor of retaining great works and letting readers wrestle with the morality on their own (I just don't like preaching and don't like being preached to on these topics, but that doesn't mean I don't see issues in texts, even if I think folks sometimes exaggerate them or make them the focus to the point that they are reading it when it isn't even present). Just going bye the stories, especially Conan versus the Mythos, it is much more pronounced in Lovecraft than Howard but still there. I think the Conan stories aren’t as bad as say some of the things you see in his personal letters. He was born in like 1906 in Texas, writing at the height of segregation and in a time when racism was widespread and oppressive in the US. If you read Conan you encounter a lot of outdated language and views on race. Not as much as Lovecraft, but it is there. If you read his letters you will read things that would sound more shocking to a modern reader. When I read older works, I expect to encounter such things (and there are many works from this tone that are far far worse: and Howard does seem to evolve over time). Again, lots have great works have been made by people with views that were not ahead of their time and place. And as much as I would agree that Howard had racist views, when you consider the time and place, there were much worse views on race that had popular traction at that time. And again, the stuff was written in the 20s and 30s, in the US, at a time when this stuff was just a reality of how many people saw the world. I remember seeing that kind of language in Lovecraft when I was in school and reading him for the first time for instance, and being surprised but also understanding the particular flavor of New England racism that was present there (so I wasn't surprised by his attitudes towards groups like Italians and frankly anyone who didn't trace their heritage to the Mayflower). I still loved the stories, and even some of the racism in it that was directed at myself, made me curious and want to understand what one earth made the guy tick. So it isn't like I read these books and see lines people might have in mind and just ignore them. I just think that is the nature of reading things written in the past. You are going to have to wrestle more with ideas you disagree with, views you find repugnant or outdated. And to be clear, I am not saying anyone should agree with my assessment of their works. If you read Lovecraft or Howard and think they are less racist than I do, that is fine by me, it is your reading, not mine. If you read them and find them more racist than I do, that is fine too, again your reading, not mine. What bothers me in these conversations is we can't have those different readings and talk about it, respecting that people can often come away from a text with wildly different views on things like intent, meaning, significance, etc. The conversations feel like they devolve into a courtroom drama where both sides are prosecuting the other, and any nuance usually gets lost in hyperbole and exaggeration.</blockquote>

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