Question Lovecraft

Anyone else see this?

bookriot.com/2015/11/16/shelving-hp-lovecrafts-image/

Don't agree with it.
Yeah he was a jerk, but from his being married to a Jewish woman and talking to people who knew him well, it seems a fair bit of his racism was a show. That doesn't make it right but he was a big contributor to horror, and pushing him aside instead of discussing how he was wrong is simply hiding from the issue.

How much history will be redacted before we don't have any history at all? I'm not a fan of horror by ANY stretch, but Lovecraft and Cthulhu are as deep a part of it as hobbits and dragons are to fantasy. Trying to censor that is wrong headed and foolish, no matter how distasteful we find his views now. How I long for the day so eloquently spoken of by Nichelle Nichol's Lt. Uhura when she commented to Abraham Lincoln, "But why should I object to that term, sir? You see, in our century we've learned not to fear words."

Today too many people fear any words that don't validate everything that they say. They don't realize that censoring history, words and ideas does not make them successful but turns them into fearful little children who can't stand up for what they believe in.
I really can't wait for these precious snowflakes to face real challenges when mommy, daddy, and administrators aren't there to protect them.

I don't see this as an act of censorship or history redaction. Is Tolkien censored by not appearing on the World Fantasy Award trophy? Hardly.


Having a person's bust as the World Fantasy Award makes that person a face of speculative fiction. Presenting the award to someone is therefore saying, "We consider you to be like this man." So if a large enough part of the community do not want to be considered to be like Lovecraft, it therefore is logical to change the award.

Now, you could argue about whether the statement intended is "We consider you to be like this man," or "We consider your writing to be like this man's." But the statement intended is not always the statement that is made, and having Lovecraft as the bust (rather than say, an image of Cthulhu) indicates to many people a connection to him personally as well as to his writing.

I actually have a problem with using anybody's image as an award, because no one person (even Tolkien or Lovecraft) defines the whole of the genres. I would have chosen a more generic fantasy image like the Hugos and Nebulas use.

Arcanist, you do realize that the Hugos are named after a real person , don't you? So that might not be the best example... the Nebula, though, I can agree that supports your statement. But then, what about the very-explicitly-named John W. Campbell awards? The Fields Medal? The Abel Prize? The Victoria Cross?

(I leave out the Nobel Prize because, well, it's named that way because it comes from the Nobel estate, the name was not chosen to pay homage to the man. Well, except for the Economics prize, but that was just a jumping-on-the-bandwagon thing)

Many, many awards are named after someone. Having the actual face of the person on the award is comparatively minor compared to that -- how many people know what the award actually looks like, compared to how many know its name?

Going back to the Lovecraft polemic... people are a product of their times. I know very little about H.P. Lovecraft, but I'm not surprised at all to find that he had a racist side. Why? Because back then, just about everybody did. Just like Thomas Jefferson had slaves -- it was a normal thing back then, it didn't make him an evil man, just a product of his times.

I don't think that having racist views (which were normal at the time) is enough grounds to remove his likeness of the award. But then, it's not the "H.P. Lovecraft Award." Many awards change form, some of them for each edition. Maybe they could sidestepped the political issue by announcing that "going forward, they would pay homage to a different classical writer at each edition of the award" or something. That would make the change not about the racism, but about him having taken the spotlight for too long.

Hm. I'm not sure why named prizes don't bother me as much as prizes with a face. If I had to guess, it would be that a named award is declaring that first and foremost it is honoring this person, and it is doing so by commemorating significant achievements in their field. On the other hand, a generically named award is celebrating that field, and then narrowing down their representation of that field to one person. (Also, I may just be opposed to busts. I think that I'd find a medal with a face on it more acceptable than a bust. I have no idea why this is.)



The "normal at the time" argument is important, but also problematic. First off, using Jefferson as an example of "normal back then" paints the mid-18th century and the turn of the 20th century with the same brush more-so, I think, than you intended. Secondly, why is it that only a few people are defended using this argument? Why doesn't anyone defend Edgar Allan Poe's racism by saying that it's fair for it's day? What about Lewis Carroll? The fact that this argument only appears around a few individuals is very telling. In Jefferson's case, it's because the author of the Declaration of Independence is held to a higher standard then the other founding fathers (also because he had children with one of his slaves, which makes the conversation much juicier than with any other founding father). In Lovecraft's case, it's because, yes, he was unusually racist. As Wikipedia says, "While Lovecraft's racial attitude has been seen as directly influenced by the time, a reflection of the New England society he grew up in, his racism appeared stronger than the popular viewpoints held at that time. Some researchers also note that his views failed to change in the face of increased social change of that time." While Lovecraft's racism can be understood, it should not be excused.


Lovecraft deserves his place at the head of the table. All the same, I wouldn't want to sit next to him.

The way I see it, an award is essentially a compliment; it is meant to please the recipient. If it does not, then it has failed to perform its job. If a significant number of people are not being pleased properly by an award and you can't convince them to stop not being pleased, then the award should be changed. This is true even if the reason they aren't being pleased is stupid; if you want to please them with the award, then you need it to be an award that will please them, plain and simple. The only way out is to decide that they are sufficiently stupid that you no longer care about successfully pleasing them. If you're trying to give them an award in the first place, however, you're unlikely to reach that conclusion unless they really make an ass of themselves.

Lovecraft's contributions to the horror genre do deserve to be celebrated, but when giving somebody an award, they take precedence. They are the one being awarded, not Lovecraft. His works can be celebrated in other ways, ways that don't interfere with celebrations of others.