H P Love craft was a horrible human being, but

[Buzz cook]

He had a way with words.

“As for the Republicans—how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical ‘American heritage’…) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.” H P Lovecraft

Pretty sure he was just as complimentary of democrats, but can't find that one.

[soothsayer]

1. Wow! And I had no idea he was horrible. I hope I can still like Cthulhu

[Docreed2003]

3. He was very antisemetic

I assume that what the poster is referring to

[soothsayer]

4. Ah, thank you. He totally nailed the republicans

[Turin_C3PO]

6. Racist too.

Supposedly he became more tolerant as his life progressed, stopped supporting Hitler when he heard that Jews were getting beat up in the streets.

[Aristus]

7. Yeah, and almost cartoonishly racist.

Everyone who wasn't white, Lovecraft described in terms of ugliness, monstrosity, degeneracy, you name it.

He had a cat he named N****rman.

[sweetloukillbot]

10. He was very anti-everyone who isn't northern European

The man was a horrible racist, even for his time. I still enjoy his work despite his racism, but the racism is painfully obvious once you know it's there. And I think any discussion or analysis of his work needs to include discussions about his bigotry.

[cemaphonic]

31. Really, anyone that wasn't WASP

He had a bit of an existential crisis on learning that he had some Welsh ancestry.

[still_one]

13. He was both antisemetic and racist

https://lithub.com/we-cant-ignore-h-p-lovecrafts-white-supremacy/

[ShazzieB]

16. He was horrible all right.

He was a major bigot and white supremacist, antisemitic, and xenophobic. Here's just one article about that side of him: https://lithub.com/we-cant-ignore-h-p-lovecrafts-white-supremacy/

In spite of all that, you have my permission to continue liking Cthulu. As awful as Lovecraft was, his artistry as a writer is still undeniable. And Cthulu is awesome.

[soothsayer]

18. Phew! Thank you

[Buzz cook]

17. Like Cthulhu, play the game

https://www.chaosium.com/call-of-cthulhu-rpg/

Heck read the comic.
http://www.hello-cthulhu.com/?date=2003-11-30

[soothsayer]

20. I think I scored a Kickstarter acknowledgment in The Very Hungry Cthulhupillar

https://www.amazon.com/Very-Hungry-Cthulhupillar/dp/0989410714

And of course there’s this

[Act_of_Reparation]

21. The game is fantastic.

Chaosium did a good job addressing Lovecraft as a person with the latest edition.

[Amishman]

22. He was a product of his era

It is unfair to hold a man to modern standards when he's been dead for almost a century.

Read his works and enjoy their originality. When you stumble across a part that is particularly insensitive and offensive, just let it be a reminder of what we once were as a society and how far we've come overall.

[sweetloukillbot]

32. He was worse than his time

And his work wouldn't have existed with out his racism - his fear and hatred of everyone not white/English is the cornerstone of the Cthulhu mythos.
It's been taken wonderful places since then, but Lovecraft is quite a bit more than "Grandpa said the N-word again."

[cemaphonic]

33. He was pretty extreme by the standards of his peers and social group

which were mostly urban, educated New Englanders, and the other writers he corresponded with.

OTOH, his career overlapped with the resurgence of the KKK, and some of the worst atrocities of the Jim Crow era, so I always question the idea that he was unusually racist by overall American standards of the time.

[niyad]

2. Very nice find. Bookmarking.

[nuxvomica]

5. Do you have a citation for this?

I want to use it in an LTTE.

[Buzz cook]

12. Sorry no citation.

Found it on the net several years ago. Saved it and forgot about it. Just refound it this morning.

On edit, googled and its pretty common.

[nuxvomica]

14. No problem. Found it at Wikiquote

It's from a letter to C.L. Moore (August 1936), quoted in "H.P. Lovecraft, a Life" by S.T. Joshi, p. 574
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft

[John Ludi]

8. He definitely was

a product of his times...and not always in a good way.

I love his work though...I started reading him as a pretty young kid. Unfortunately...and I say this as a rock musician whose been around a LOT...great art can often come from some pretty messed up people...in fact, that's almost the norm.

[GoneOffShore]

9. Bookmarking and stealing!

[exboyfil]

11. After the Stock Market Crash

Lovecraft was an advocate of socialism.

Just not for blacks or other "foreigners".

I think Lovecraft was very influential to horror literature which is currently my favorite genre. I like his stories, but his racial attitudes were retrograde.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

15. Fuck that racist.

[panader0]

19. I never read Lovecraft, but I used to have this album:

[Midnight Writer]

23. Puts the lie to the canard that Trump took over the GOP. He is the culmination of their philosophy..

Trump is their ultimate goal, the apex of Republican fantasies..

[MisterNiceKitty]

24. Correct me if I'm wrong

But Lovecraft lived during the pre-Southern strategy era when Democrats were more likely the party of segregation not Republicans.
This isn't to say I know his party affiliation.

[Turin_C3PO]

25. Republicans were already

the party of greedy businessmen.

[MisterNiceKitty]

26. Nevertheless the Democrats were very much the party of the KKK during his era

It wasn't the like the modern party at all.

[Turin_C3PO]

27. The Democratic party

was an uneasy alliance between left wing progressives, union-type workers, and segregationist Southerners.

[MisterNiceKitty]

29. yes and the majority of black Americans voted Republican during Lovecraft's lifetime

That transition to the modern party system occurred from the New Deal era to the Great Society era (1930s-1970s) with the Civil Rights era in the mix.

Right or wrong the Republican Party was still seen as the Party of Lincoln, again during this era.

[Turin_C3PO]

30. Yes, of course.

I believe the majority of African-Americans voted Republican until the Sixties.

[andym]

28. He was from a Republican background, so his statements about the GOP are damning

It's thought he even might have voted for Hoover. In the end his views shifted toward favoring socialism, but hating communism, and liked FDR. So his comments about Republicans are particularly damning.

His nativist leanings live to this day in the Trump GOP. His antisemitism was tempered by the fact he married a Jewish woman, but his racist views apparently remained to his end.