What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Hussar]

Influential (from the post you replied to) and inspirational (in your reply) seem like two very different things?

I completely agree with keeping him off an inspirational reading list (the title of which makes me think folks should be inspired by them). It feels like he would go on an influential one (which influenced the game).

There is no influential list in the 5e phb.

 

[Hussar]

If people did exercise their brains a bit more and did not make frivolously inappropriate comparisons between people they disagree with over one point or another, and people who commit crimes or outright atrocities, it might go some way to create a less polarized society.

I dunno. I get rather uptight when people say my children should be killed.

 

[Hussar]

Just a note: influential /= inspirational. All kinds of awful people are influential.

Again. There is no list of influential authors in the 5e phb. It is a list of inspirational authors.

I was very, very specific for exactly this reason.

 

[Cadence]

There is no influential list in the 5e phb.

Which I think is a good thing. And so they should take a strong hand curating it.

I missed that you were going just about 5e. (In which case the one you were responding to about influential lists was either about another book or confused?)

 

[Kaodi]

I cannot state with certitude that no act of racial violence could include an early exposure to HPL as a contributing factor. Can you?

This seems to fall within the impossibility of proving a negative territory. It is also impossible to prove no act of racial violence has ever included early exposure to Gandhi as a contributing factor. Though as a side note I think it extremely unlikely the author of the Protocols forgery did not intend to cause deaths.

 

[Minion X]

I dunno. I get rather uptight when people say my children should be killed.

I can't say that I am convinced that miscenegation is the central theme of Shadow over Innsmouth. It seems to fit the recurring theme of personal body horror that you see in stories like Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family, The Rats in the Walls and Pickman's Model, which I have the impression reflect on Lovecraft's feelings towards his parents, who both died in mental institutions, and how his mother is reported to have call him grotesque or malformed on occasion (possibly due to her fragile mental state). For example, I've never heard that Lovecraft was anxious that he might secretly have, say, African or Jewish ancestry. I can see how the story can be interpreted that way, or both ways, but when holding it up to the aforementioned stories, two of which also feature the destruction of the people involved through suicide or murder of the people involved, but otherwise cannot be said to have any bearing on miscenegation in the US, I think this might be a case where ancient evil fish people are by and by ancient evil fish people, and not a stand in for migrants or the descendants of former slaves.

 

[Minion X]

I doubt the Teutonic Knights considered their pagan foes as nonhuman. Ditto the casteless or burakumin (or hinin-despite the literal translation). In contrast, blacks were considered by some to be non-human beings- literally soulless, and thus, animals that looked like human, but were not.

I think it is very easy for people to completely dehumanize those they disagree with, oppress or otherwise persecute, regardless of time and place and what the perceived differences are based on. The NPC meme from 4chan springs to mind as an example of how people in a modern, enlightened society can find a way to cast ideological opponents as literally soulless extras in a world where they presumably are the real players.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I can't say that I am convinced that miscenegation is the central theme of Shadow over Innsmouth. It seems to fit the recurring theme of personal body horror that you see in stories like Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family, The Rats in the Walls and Pickman's Model, which I have the impression reflect on Lovecraft's feelings towards his parents, who both died in mental institutions, and how his mother is reported to have call him grotesque or malformed on occasion (possibly due to her fragile mental state). For example, I've never heard that Lovecraft was anxious that he might secretly have, say, African or Jewish ancestry. I can see how the story can be interpreted that way, or both ways, but when holding it up to the aforementioned stories, two of which also feature the destruction of the people involved through suicide or murder of the people involved, but otherwise cannot be said to have any bearing on miscenegation in the US, I think this might be a case where ancient evil fish people are by and by ancient evil fish people, and not a stand in for migrants or the descendants of former slaves.

I read it again not so long ago and I think the miscegenation interpretation isn’t as conclusive as it’s become one the internet. I can see it as one interpretation but there are many other viable ones (I already wrote about here before but I think fest (EDIT: Fear) of inherited illness is more prominent especially in key moments of the story).

 

[Minion X]

I dunno. I get rather uptight when people say my children should be killed.

PS: I went back and read your post again and realized I jumped to conclusions when I saw Lovecraft's name in the same sentence, more or less, as Bill Cosby and Jimmy Saville. It was obviously not a direct comparison, like saying "XXX is worse than Hitler!", but examples of people from two separate categories. For what it's worth, I doff my virtual cap and offer an internet apology.

 

[Umbran]

I can't say that I am convinced that miscenegation is the central theme of Shadow over Innsmouth.

I read it again not so long ago and I think the miscegenation interpretation isn’t as conclusive as it’s become one the internet.

One can always find a second, third, and fourth interpretation, if you really want to.

Put in the context of other elements of the man's life and other writings (like, say, the name of his cat, and the racial diatribes in his journalism and personal letters) the pattern becomes rather harder to reasonably deny. Searching for other ways to interpret the work starts like looking like apologia, which can become problematic.

This thread isn't primarily about the one author, so how about we not argue too much over him, hey what?