In Defense of the Genius of HPL

James over at Grognardia reminded me that I missed HPL’s birthday, so I was inspired to go to our local library to borrow the recently published (2014, 2019) annotated volumes of his short stories. Edited by Leslie S. Klinger, the first has an introduction by the comic book legend Alan Moore. Unfortunately, Moore’s contribution to the project was more that a little disappointing.

While acknowledging HPL’s undeniable cultural influence, Moore found himself surprised at the “sheer unlikelihood of his ascent into the ranks of the respected U.S. literary canon.” This is, in part, due to the fact that HPL was only published in the “sensational and stigmatized pulp magazines,” although I would argue that we should look to these publications to find the Great American Writer because there is nothing more American than those same pulp magazines of the early twentieth century.

Then we get to the real reason Moore is so surprised by HPL’s ascent:

“acceptance of his output as substantial literature has undeniably been hindered by his problematic stance on most contemporary issues, with his racism, alleged misogyny, class prejudice, dislike of homosexuality, and anti-Semitism”

As a reminder, when HPL published his first story in 1916, Woodrow Wilson was in the White House. For those unaware, the 28th President of the U.S. not only screened The Rise of a Nation in the White House, but re-segragated it. I think it safe to forgive HPL for many of his unsavory views simply due to context. Indeed, if we were able to look at our own time through the lens of our progeny some hundred years from now, we might find ourselves unfairly judged for various -isms that we take for granted that they will see as vital as we see the various -isms we accuse HPL of.

Unfortunately, Alan Moore can’t bring himself to be so forgiving. Instead he tries to justify HPL’s ascent:

…it is possible to perceive Howard Lovecraft as an almost unbearably sensitive barometer of American Dread. Far from outlandish eccentricities, the fears that generated Lovecraft’s stories and opinions were precisely those of the white, middle-class, heterosexual, Protestant descended males who were most threatened by the shifting power relationships and values of the modern world.

In Moore’s desperate attempt to separate himself from the various -isms associated with the environment HPL grew up in, he exposes his own small minded-ness and bigotry. In doing so, he not only misunderstands Lovecraft's appeal, but exposes just how nasty and severely limited a world-view dominated by the -isms we find so important actually is.

Given the presuppositions that fuel philosophies like intersectionalism and CRT, the color of one’s skin is determinative of just about everything in our life. If Moore’s assessment of HPL is correct, the only people who can really enjoy Lovecraft are those that share his fears as “white, middle-class, heterosexual, Protestant descended males who [are] … threatened by the shifting power relationships” and the very institutions that are now lifting HPL’s canon into the heights of the American literary canon are a bunch of -ists of various flavors.

What I find so disappointing about this vicious bile is not only that Moore’s canon largely exists within the direct descendent of the pulp magazine —the comic book — but that he comes so tantalizingly close to hitting upon the real reason HPL deserves to be among the literary greats of the American canon. Moore notes;

…advances in humanity’s expanding comprehension of the universe with its immeasurable distances and its indifferent random processes had redefined, dramatically, mankind’s position in the cosmos. Far from being the whole point and purpose of creation, human life became a motiveless and accidental outbreak on a vanishingly tiny fleck of matter situated in the furthest corner of a stupefying swarm of stars, itself one of many such swarms strewn in incoherent disarray across black vastness inconceivable.

While I vehemently disagree with this understanding of creation and of humanity, it accurately describes the harsh reality of the atheist position — and HPL was an atheist. It is in this that we can begin to appreciate Lovecraft’s appeal and his genius.

Despite the materialism that undergirds the atheism of the modern era, elves, dwarves, faeries, and dragons are very real things. Not in a material sort of way, of course. Rather, they are the imaginative and symbolic manifestations of our fears. These creatures represent the Other and the Outside and the fears that surround these things in the narrative way that we, as human beings, experience the world. Except that, in HPL’s lifetime, dragons were beginning to lose their narrative power. Dinosaur fossils were being found all over the world. Scientists appeared to be able to explain a materialist origin for creatures who very much looked like the dragons of our imagination. The universal fear of the Other and the Outside, however, never wanes.

The genius of HPL is that in the vastness of the meaningless cosmos that his atheism demanded, he found a new way to manifest the dragon. In the various elder gods, aliens, and malformed creatures that drive his characters to and over the edge of the madness that haunted his own family, he found a new way to narratively manifest the fears that always accompany humanity as we navigate the realities of our own existence. The reason HPL’s imagination has resonated as much as it has is due largely to the fact that, as hard as we try, the reality of his literary dragons cannot be so easily explained away as the ones that occupied the faerie tales of our childhood. This is made all the more true by the fact that his fears were prescient.

HPL died before the horrors of communism and fascism were widely known. These monstrous children of the materialist world-view truly drove humanity mad. These fevered fantasies and utopian nightmares driven by what could be called a Call of Cthulhu, killed tens if not hundreds of millions. The realities of Hitler’s concentration camps, Stalin’s gulags, Mao’s cultural revolution, and so many other crazed and vain attempts at altering reality creep at the back of our imagination. Like the dragons that fill the narrative fears of our forebears, HPL’s monsters fill ours. The horrors that Lovecraft describes in his stories are all hauntingly real. Lovecraft’s genius is that the monsters of his imagination are indeed cosmic and we are not likely to be able to explain them away anytime soon.

Thus, Alan Moore not only does a disservice to himself and his art, but to the genius of HPL.

As a final aside, I realize that it might seem strange that someone like myself would pen such an adamant defense of someone I so vigorously disagree with. In his own way, HPL is an honest atheist. The horrors that he describe are indeed very real. That kind of honesty is something to not only admire, but treasure. Additionally, that honesty was, in part, one of the reasons I was able to step away from the madness of atheism and its utopian nightmares and be able to see how very real Christ actually is.

On Vitriol: This Zak Smith Thing

Almost four years ago, Zak Smith and wundergeek had a very public fight about gender politics. At the time, I had been away from blogging due to the health of my child, but decided to use the situation as a launching point for a meditation On Vitriol in the digital age.

Ironically, at the end of this past December, right before Christmas, my youngest again had a surgery and has been in and out of the hospital since. Having walked away from blogging again to deal with this situation, Zak Smith is again at the middle of a storm within the OSR due to accusations launched at him by his girlfriend, Mandy Morbid. Again, I feel compelled to say something about this whole Zak Smith thing.

Let me be blunt. I do not like Zak. I find him to be an abrasive personality that I would not wish on anyone. I experienced this first hand when he leaped onto the comment section of my first meditation On Vitriol. While actively ignoring and dismissing the message of the post, he attacked the means in which I delivered that message and kinda proved the point I was trying to make in that post. While something I would be willing to do again, I cannot say that it was a pleasant experience.

Let me be even more blunt: I don’t even like his gaming material. I bought Vornheim way back when, didn’t find it particularly useful or inspiring and have never been much interested in anything he’s authored since. Thus, I wouldn’t miss much if he disappeared from the gaming community altogether and the world never saw another RPG-related publication by Zak.

Having said all that, I am still troubled by the reaction many have had to Mandy’s accusations. Cutting Zak completely off is not an answer I can endorse. Let me explain:

When I read the Facebook Post that started the purge of Zak Smith from all things gaming, I saw a bunch of broken people. Zak, Mandy and everybody else involved in this mess are broken. They were broken long before Zak ever did a thing to Mandy. It was this brokenness that led to Zak behaving in such a reprehensible way towards others. It was this brokenness that led to Mandy going along with the abuse as long as she did. This brokenness has also led to this community cutting Zak off. As James Raggi said in his announcement that LotFP won’t be publishing Zak’s stuff anymore:

[Everyone I talked to] was bummed out. They recognized this was a tragedy from top to bottom. Even the people who agreed with my course of action here, hell, even someone that thought I wasn't going far enough, recognized what we were losing, even while they said we needed to lose it. 

I recognize the brokenness for what it is because of my Christian world-view. We are all sinners. I also believe that everyone deserves an opportunity to repent and to allow God (who went to the Cross to give all of us a second chance) to transform the sinner into a saint. I still hold out hope for Zak that he can use this disaster as an opportunity to turn around his life and become a person we can all enjoy at the gaming table.

I say this, of course, as a Christian; however, we no longer live in a Christian society. As an openly practicing Christian who brings Christ to the gaming table I am acutely aware that I am in an extreme minority both within the OSR’s corner of the internet and gaming at large.

So, I have a serious question, not only for those who have cut off Zak, but for anyone who embraces secularism/atheism: How is it that abusive behavior (especially against women and children) is universally condemned?

As a Christian, I can answer this very easily. As the source of all good things in the world, God provides us with a standard that is eternal and universal. For secularism and atheism, answering this question is a much harder task.

Without the existence of God, there is no such thing as an eternal, universal standard, because all standards are generated by humans. Since humans are finite and mutable, any standard that we make is also finite and mutable. Considering that we have around 7 billion possible standards in the world (one for each person who lives on the planet), to expect any one of those standards to stand the test of time and continue to endure generation after generation is, well, folly.

Indeed, if we insist on the relativism of “my truth,” Zak’s opinion that breasts of a certain size have no value is perfectly valid. My truth may disagree with Zak’s truth, but since the source of these truths in both cases are human beings (the only real source of truth in a world without God), each is just as legitimate as the other.

Further, if we insist on organizing a society around one version of “my truth” over and against other versions of “my truth,” there is only one avenue for ensuring that one supersedes the others: force. As such, Zak’s abusive behavior is completely justified. He was imposing his version of “my truth” on everyone around him in hopes that his version would prevail.

Instead, we are all condemning Zak’s abusive behavior in the same way that humans have condemned abuse (especially against women and children) generation after generation after generation. Even if we refuse to acknowledge His existence, we are all using God’s eternal and universal standards to judge Zak’s behavior.

Due to the fact that this standard is actually God’s and not our own, I would invite everyone to consider the reality that this very same God knew who Zak would be when he went to the Cross. Despite all the vitriol and all the abuse, Christ still got up on that Cross for Zak.

For my part, I refuse to condone Zak’s lifestyle or to tolerate Zak’s abuse; however, if he ever needs someone that will listen in an attempt to turn his life around, he is always welcome.

Saintly Saturday: St. Cyril of Alexandria Revisited

Today is the feast of St. Cyril of Alexandria. I have been writing this blog long enough that I am having to go back and check if I have already written stuff about various saints. And I have written about St. Cyril before. To quote myself:

Today is the feast of St. Cyril of Alexandria. Born into a Christian family of means, he grew up studying science, philosophy and Holy Scripture. In his youth, he became a monk and was later chosen to be Patriarch of Alexandria in A.D. 412.

St. Cyril looms large in the politics and Christological controversies of the 5th century. For anyone who is interested in history, this is a fascinating chapter in life of the Church. Heresy (most notably Nestorianism), political rivalries, rivalries between bishops, Ecumenical Councils, the Robber Council, violence and exile all swirl around the life of St. Cyril. He was the primary advocate of the orthodox position against Nestorius at the Third Ecumenical Council and though he died in A.D. 444, his theology played a large role at the Fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon in A.D. 451. Ironically, both those who accepted and rejected the Council of Chalcedon hold up St. Cyril as their champion.

There is a very rich history here, both historically and theologically that can be mined for all kinds of things; however, I want to return to St. Cyril because of something that is happening outside our hobby.

I take great interest in apologetics and one of the more interesting Christian apologists on Youtube is a fellow named David Wood. I initially took interest in him because, like me, he comes to Christianity from an atheist background; however, his main interest is Islam. His best friend and roommate in college was Muslim and the two (both being on the debate team) took great interest in trying to convince the other that their religion is incorrect. In the end, David’s friend became a Christian.

Currently, there is a series of videos being released on Wood’s channel called Islamize Me. The series is inspired by the movie Super Size Me where a documentarian decided to see what would happen to his health after eating only fast-food for a month. Wood and some of his friends pretend to become Muslim to see what the effects would be after a month. Given all of the various oddities one can find in Islamic sources, this series comes across as comedy with a sizable dose of biting satire.

Other Christian apologists have been questioning and even condemning Wood’s approach, claiming that Christians just don’t do that sort of thing. To which I respond with this quote from St. Cyril of Alexandria:

This is nothing but foolishness and stupidity, the frenzy of a crazed mind. – On the Unity of Christ

When one bothers to read the apologetic works of the Church Fathers, one will frequently find insults like this one. It is all part of the rhetorical style of their era, when debate was as much entertainment as it was serious and purposeful.

I mention this because for so long we Christians have been told that we have no place in this hobby from both fellow Christians and people within the hobby. One of the main reasons I started this blog was to thumb my nose at this notion, inspired by the likes of St. Cyril.

If a saint can defend the nature of Christ and the Gospel by declaring that the ideas of his theological opponent are the foolish frenzy of a crazed mind, surely I can play RPGs from a Christian point of view and create gaming material that speaks to that world view.

Not surprisingly, I have had a lot of fun along the way, produced more stuff than I ever thought possible and have been able to meet a plethora of good folks out there in the hobby who I’d gladly spend an evening rolling some dice with.

In the end, it goes to show that God gave us everything we have and that with Him is it possible to give Him glory using everything that He gave us, including RPGs, humor, satire and even the odd insult.

On Vitriol Revisited

A few years ago, I blogged about a conflict that arose in our little corner of the internet. I called it On Vitriol and those posts can be found here. Fair warning: I don’t know how successful those posts were. While they did provoke some thought, they also offended people.

Recently, there has been another conflict in our space that folks are concerned enough about that they’ve publicly blogged about conflict resolution and how to get through this most resent clash with as little damage as possible. Therefore, I thought it might be useful to revisit some of the ideas that I tried to communicate with my posts On Vitriol.

Before I go further, I need to make this clear: I have no real skin in this game. I am not active on G+ (where, evidently this conflict has had the most impact) and besides a couple of posts on blogs I frequent, I would have lived life without being aware of this conflict and it would likely have had (or even have) little effect on my gaming life (such as it is). Therefore, I am not particularly interested in the personalities involved and I don’t intend to impugn or defend anyone.

This post is intended to be about ideas, not the specific people directly involved in the current conflict (although, ultimately, this is about people in general). I will be linking to some posts where these ideas happen to appear, but this is to give folks an opportunity to see these ideas in context not an endorsement or condemnation of the people who posted these ideas.

Having said that, I want to pull three quotes that I find particularly interesting:

Those seeking justice often have to organize allies in order to force contact and conversation, negotiation. Trying to create communication is almost always the uphill struggle of the falsely blamed. And entire movements are structured around the goal of forcing one party to face the reality of the other, and thereby face themselves. — Sarah Schulman (link here)

What we need now, in our political leaders, in our communities, in our lives is humility. Have the humility to know that you don't have all the answers. Have the humility to know when to stop obsessing about something. — Greg C. (Link here)

The content objectives followed one rule: don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Post what you're working on already, not something designed specifically for posting, and don't worry about whether it's perfect. — Matt Finch (Link here)

Assuming that these three ideas exist in a post-Christian/secular/ atheist context, the only one that has any legs is Sarah’s. Notice that her’s is the only one that deals with power structures and the force necessary to move power. In the face of power and force, humility and the concept of good have no real use or value.

This exposes one of the great weaknesses of a post-Christian/ secular/atheist society: it is very vulnerable to authoritarian and totalitarian impulses. While Sarah couches her argument in justice, the defense of those who are falsely accused and those who are outside of power structures, this model ignores the possibility of those in power framing themselves as the falsely accused and framing those outside of power as the ones making the false accusations and the injustice of it all. This strategy has been used multiple times throughout history to solidify extant power structures. For example: Stalin and the bourgeoisie, Mao and Western cultural influences, Pol Pot and the intelligentsia and Hitler and the Jews.

Within the space that we occupy in communities on the internet, power is not primarily derived from physical force as it is in the (admittedly) extreme examples I mentioned above. Rather, we deal in reputation and influence. One has power based on the number of followers/readers/clicks they have and the number of ups/retweets/shares they get. Thus, when there is conflict it targets these power structures. As a consequence, it can get very nasty indeed. The most effective means of reducing someone’s power on the internet is to destroy their reputation and/or destroy their influence.

Internet fights usually involve exposing nasty details of an opponent’s personality to ruin reputations and bullying and harassing to reduce the amount of time and energy the opponent actually spends on-line. I don’t think anyone can disagree that this is the world we live in. Indeed, I would argue that we got Trump because the folks who had put so much value in humility and in the concept of good realized that these had no value in our post-Christian/secular/atheist world and so turned to someone who knows how to wield power in the Twitter-verse. As a consequence, our society is in process of shedding any vestige of civility.

If we are interested in placing value on humility, goodness or anything other than power then we need to start acknowledging the value of a Christian culture. Please note: I am not advocating for people to become Christians (although that would be nice), just that they acknowledge that having the idea of a Christian God is important, even vital, to a free and functioning society. I am also aware that Christians are just as capable as anyone else of abusing power; however, even just having the notion that the Christian God is a good idea helps place value on things like humility and goodness.

The Trinitarian God of Christianity is a relational being (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) who loves human beings to such an extent that, in the person of the Son, He willingly became a human being in order to be tortured and killed so that He could share Himself with us. Since this same God created us according to His image and likeness, there is intrinsic value (goodness) in imitating Him in order to become like Him and fulfill the potential of that image and likeness. Thus, even in the face of power, standards like humility and goodness still have value because these things not only come from God, but are demonstrated by God Himself in the person of Jesus Christ.

However, within the context of our own online community, the most important implication of the Trinitarian image and likeness is that of relationship. If God is a relational being and we are made according to His image and likeness, than we are also meant to be relational beings. This also goes beyond merely being friends with those with whom we agree. God is a radical other. His being is so different from ours that we cannot hope to be able to ever comprehend it. Yet, He took on our humanity to Himself in the person of Jesus Christ.

Thus, if we are to strive to fulfill God’s image and likeness in ourselves, we must strive to be in fruitful relationships with those who are radically different than us: not only those who look and act differently than we do, but those with whom we disagree.

In this context, power becomes largely meaningless and values like humility and goodness not only become important but manifest in us.

Thus, I humbly ask, that we allow God back in, even if only as an idea.

On Vitriol Part 2

One of the reasons that human secularism has become normative is the belief that such a system is rational and logical. Indeed, I argued many times in my life that both atheism and human secularism are more rational and logical than any form of theism. I am confident that today many atheists and human secularists would agree.

This shouldn’t be very surprising given that we are so dependent upon science and technology; however, I would point out the fact that reason and logic only make up part of the human mind. Although the Greek word nous is translated into English as mind, it does not refer to rational thought, reason or logic. The best way that the concept of the nous can be exemplified is with the idea of beauty.

No one can deny that human beings find beauty in the world. Indeed, we manage to find it in the most remarkable places. Beauty, however, is not rational. There is no hypothesis of beauty that can be tested in a repeatable fashion. There is no rational reason why I prefer German opera and my wife prefers Italian opera. There is no logical explanation why we, as human beings, experience beauty when we encounter it. Yet we do.

The part of the human mind wherein beauty happens is the nous. To dismiss or minimize this aspect of the human mind is to dismiss art, culture and and a huge chunk of human experience. Yet, that is exactly what we do when we insist that every aspect of our lives be ruled by reason and logic.

As the saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. No amount of evidence or rational thought or argument or logic is going to change the fact that I like this cover of T1: The Village of Hommlet:

better than this one:

Sure, I could rationalize it by pointing out my first exposure to the module was the later printing with Jeff Dee’s illustration, or that I really want to play the halfling fighter as a PC one day. At the end of the day, however, I just find it beautiful. It just is.

This reality can be expanded to the entire hobby. Some gamers prefer the style of play offered by 3.5 and Pathfinder. That game is beautiful to them. I prefer the simplicity of B/X and Labyrinth Lord. They are beautiful to me. Sure, a lot of virtual ink has been spilled justifying and rationalizing that beauty; however, there is no rational or logical explanation as to why we find the games we play to be so beautiful, so fun, and so endlessly entertaining.

While I could expend a tremendous amount of time and energy explaining why all of those people who find beauty in 3.5 and Pathfinder are wrong, pointing out all of the rationalizations and justifications that prove how much I am right to find beauty in B/X and LL (and you can probably find posts on this blog that do exactly that), the reality is that I can no more prove that someone who enjoys Pathfinder doesn’t enjoy it than I can prove that red is really green.

That’s because the reasons we play these games really has little to do with rational mind, but everything to do with the nous.

On Vitriol Part 1

So, while I was away from active blogging, I got to miss a whole lot of vitriol about gender politics in gaming, a fact which I am actually kind of relieved about. Unfortunately, it is a subject that will not go away. Last week both wundergeek and Zak S. launched salvos at each other, both in the name of defending themselves from the other.

While gender politics are a hot button issue that repeatedly finds people from all sides being attacked, this situation is by no means unique because attacks against various people and groups are a regular feature on the internet.

I highlight wundergeek and Zak S. because this situation was/is rather high profile in our corner of the internet and because I don’t particularly agree with either of them. I may very well be wrong, but neither seems to think much of Christianity and I have the distinct impression that if push came to shove they would each probably describe themselves as human secularists or even atheists. I say this not as an attack on either of them, but rather out of personal experience.

I sympathize with both of them tremendously. I believe that ideas are important. I hold that human reason has been, is and will be capable of wondrous and amazing things.

They both look and sound like I did when I could proudly claim that I was an atheist and a human secularist.

Therefore, in order to really speak on the situation (and all of the various attacks that so many of us who inhabit the internet have to deal with in some way fashion or form), I need to discuss why I am no longer an atheist and human secularist and why that is so important.

This story begins in Eastern Europe.

Back when Yugoslavia still existed and was embroiled in a civil war, I lived within a stone’s throw away from the border. Thus, I was a peripheral witness to what was going on there. I heard gunshots. I felt shockwaves as bombs were dropped. I saw MiGs violate airspace. I was actively propagandized by the Croatians. I met and befriended Serbian refugees. I saw things I wouldn’t wish on anyone — things that I cannot un-see.

This experience broke me. I found myself reexamining my entire life. Rather than breaking down the logic of theism (as I had spent so many years of my life doing), I look a good, long look at atheism and human secularism. To my horror, I found it lacking.

If there is no God, what is good, ethical, moral or truth? Rather, what is the source of what is good, ethical, moral or truth? While laws, constitutions and/or societal norms might help us define these things, they are not the source. Laws, constitutions and societal norms all come from us — human beings. Therefore, sans God, we are the measure of what is good, ethical, moral and truth. Given this, what makes what I believe to be good, ethical, moral or truth any better than someone else’s? By what justification can I say that Hitler was wrong?

One might be tempted to point to logic, reason and/or science. These are things that Western society has, for some time, agreed are beneficial to help us come to a consensus as to what is good, ethical, moral or truth; however, in a world sans God, logic, reason and science had nothing to do with Hitler being wrong. Although we may try to convince ourselves otherwise, the real reason that Hitler was wrong in a world without God is that the allies were able to marshall enough military strength to force and coerce the Germans into their version of what is good, ethical, moral and truth. Had Hilter won, his version would be the norm.

Without God and with human beings as the source of what is good, ethical, moral and truth, the only criteria that matters when it come to who is correct or not is force. He or she who is the most willing to coerce with force their version of what is good, ethical, moral and truth wins. There is no external, eternal measure by which to justify how Might Makes Right isn’t correct.

Thus, as our society becomes more and more convinced that God is passe, and that human secularism is accepted as normative we can expect the kind of vitriol that has wundergeek and Zak S. at each other’s virtual throats. While wundergeek and Zak S. have diligently defended themselves by pointing to a variety of examples of what they actually have said and actually believe, it doesn’t matter in a world dominated by human secularism. What does matter in a world without God is that whoever is going to win this fight is the one who is willing to use any and all means of coercion in order to force their world view on the rest of us.

In other words, in a world without God, goodness, ethics, morality and truth mean nothing.