Maoist Pussy posted:

It is a mistake tie fascism to Mussolini, just as it is a mistake to tie collectivism to Stalin.

Fascism and collectivism and liberalism behave like the archaic humoral system of medicine- elements are present in every polity, and disease results from an excess or deficit of any one of them. In the West, we currently suffer from an excess of liberalism.

The Vosgian Beast posted:

I dunno, what pathology causes you to believe that Lovecraft gods are real, and instead of them being scary tentacle monsters or metaphors for the cold indifference of the cosmos, they represent social trends or forces that don't benefit you, personally?

Other than the study of thetansmemetics

1337JiveTurkey posted:

Reading a bit too much into the 'psychology' in the thread title here but maybe there's a link between beliefs like Dark Enlightenment and some sorts of personality disorders. People toss around terms like narcissist or sociopath to describe them but they act quite differently in the formal sense than those sorts of people.

Schizoids and schizotypal people come to mind because they've got a lot in common with the stereotypical DE nerd. Extremely introverted, no close friends, never in a relationship, sometimes lost in an internal fantasy world, have some strange and/or idiosyncratic beliefs, don't fit societal expectations, very aloof, often mistaken for Asperger's , don't react much to other peoples' emotions, don't show many emotions themselves, perceive themselves as "different", tend towards anxiety disorders and depression, and so forth.

Everyone is going to fit a few of those at times but the people who fit all of them even when it's disruptive to their lives are the ones with serious problems. And they're devilishly hard to cure since the person with the disorder doesn't perceive anything wrong with those thoughts and behaviors even if they recognize that their lives are a loving train wreck. So these political beliefs sort of give a way to explain and understand those problems. It doesn't fix anything but it at least gives a sense that they've got a grip on the problem and that there's a solution.

So it may not start with the racism, sexism and so forth but people end up more receptive to such ideas in order to feel less desperately unhappy.

quote:

There՚s a certain quality that unites libertarianism, rationalism, and neoreaction, and helps to explain my somewhat conflicted attitude towards all of them. They are all in their own way antipolitical, and for roughly the same underlying reason. To put it crudely, nerds don՚t like politics, perhaps because they are generally no good at it. These ideologies are all, in different ways, trying to replace politics with something more tractable to the nerdish brain – something with neat well-defined rules. These formal systems are obviously better than the messy and violent reality of actual politics in every respect but the most important one – they don՚t engage with the actuality of power

I՚m going to just assume that nerdism is something like lightweight Asperger՚s, which means that some of the normal mental circuitry that deals with modelling and interacting with other people just doesn՚t work as well as it should. As a consequence, aspie-nerds tend to be awkward socializers but often with compensating skills at formal reasoning. They can grasp formally complicated structures so they often excel at computer engineering and similar pursuits. They tend to like board games.

The similarity I see in the three ideologies is that they are all efforts of the nerdish to try to apply their board-game thinking to the real world. In some sense these are laudable efforts – what could be more important than trying to come up with better models for understanding and influencing the real world? The three ideologies all have powerful models they are organized around, and that model is a powerful enough tool that it suggests to some people that it is foundational, that the model is somehow sufficient for everything. There՚s a point where a system of useful ideas becomes an ideology, a fetish, and a cult.

The Vosgian Beast posted:

I dunno, what pathology causes you to believe that Lovecraft gods are real, and instead of them being scary tentacle monsters or metaphors for the cold indifference of the cosmos, they represent social trends or forces that don't benefit you, personally?

Other than the study of thetansmemetics

Maoist Pussy posted:

It is a mistake tie fascism to Mussolini, just as it is a mistake to tie collectivism to Stalin.

Fascism and collectivism and liberalism behave like the archaic humoral system of medicine- elements are present in every polity, and disease results from an excess or deficit of any one of them. In the West, we currently suffer from an excess of liberalism.

1337JiveTurkey posted:

Darth Walrus posted:

I ask again, where the gently caress are you getting this from? Cite your sources, dude.

rudatron posted:

You've got to be really, really careful when using psychological disorders if you're not actually a trained psychiatrist, there's nothing more embarrassing than someone self-diagnosing, or diagnosing others, like you're talking about their star sign or blood type or whatever.

The Vosgian Beast posted:

I dunno, what pathology causes you to believe that Lovecraft gods are real, and instead of them being scary tentacle monsters or metaphors for the cold indifference of the cosmos, they represent social trends or forces that don't benefit you, personally?

Other than the study of thetansmemetics

Woolie Wool posted:

But Lovecraft's writings were at least partially about his irrational horror of black people so I guess it fits.

Guavanaut posted:

What were his principal arguments against it? All the later opponents of race mixing managed to make it seem like a good thing.

BaurusJA posted:

Calmate chico.
Given we are all spraying ideological poo poo everywhere, I think that asking for sources as if this is an academic journal might be a bit much. Asking him to explain his rational for this conception might be prudent, but as someone working on a thesis right now, I'm not going to dig through my books or through academic databases on my free time. He might feel similarly. Dunno just my take.

The thoughts themselves which he expresses are interesting enough to debate on their own premises without devolving into academic formalism.

But if you insist and are really interested, I sincerely offerr to go and look up secondary sources on ideological genealogies and galen's humoral theory and fully interrogate this line of thought.

:seriouspost:

OwlFancier posted:

Going by his writing that I've read, that mixed race persons will summon the elder gods from their slumber and hasten the inevitable destruction of mankind at the hands of the cold and indifferent cosmos.

I have no idea why he didn't like it but he really, really didn't.

He was born into a somewhat wealthy family that had a few financial troubles, but I believe he lived most of his life pretty well off. I don't think he ever worked, he seems to be a lot like his characters.

Guavanaut posted:

I thought you had to make an actual effort for that to happen, like race mixing with fish.

OwlFancier posted:

Going by his writing that I've read, that mixed race persons will summon the elder gods from their slumber and hasten the inevitable destruction of mankind at the hands of the cold and indifferent cosmos.

I have no idea why he didn't like it but he really, really didn't.

He was born into a somewhat wealthy family that had a few financial troubles, but I believe he lived most of his life pretty well off. I don't think he ever worked, he seemed to be a lot like his characters, and he really hated foreigners. I get the distinct impression he was very classist as well, very attached to polite society of the twenties, so it might be an extension of that.

Nessus posted:

While I can't speculate too much on the inside of his head, it was probably a mixture of "Ray's Choice" of:

* Sheltered upbringing
* Parent dying of what was probably tertiary syphilis when he was a child
* General gooniness of the third degree
* Generally higher level of ambient racism at the time
* Dude just really did hate black people and was not terribly thrilled about Southern Europeans either

He was attached to a bunch of antiquarian bullshit more than popular high society of the time, and he was actually pretty loving poor -- much of which was because he was a goon who couldn't find a drat job. Unlike his shuddering hatred of black people, he did actually examine his class prejudices and was at least kind of a socialist at the end.

There should clearly be a :lovecraftsay: smiley.

e: What is interesting in a way is that his specific horror is willing miscegenation. He has almost no rape themes (at least overtly).

OwlFancier posted:

It's a recurring theme in his stories that the cultists are always either mixed race fish/lobster/outer god-men or actual normal humans who are mixed race, the bad guys are always a cult full of swarthy foreigners/mixed race people or the bad guy always has servants who are swarthy foreigners/mixed race.

OwlFancier posted:

Ok so yeah he literally is writing about himself at the beginning of Charles Dexter Ward

I guess the modern day equivalent would really be something like DE goonlords with a dose of weeaboo fetishism. Obsession with some largely imagined glory of the honourable past when things were just better and a hatred of anything that smacks of progressiveness.

Hmm, the idea of a Lovecraft who had the opportunity to read Tolkien is rather terrifying.

Guavanaut posted:

It's interesting to compare that against Aleister Crowley, who was also racist/classist as hell even for his era, but was obsessed with trying to tap into cosmic forces for personal and cultist benefit rather that fictionally accusing others.

They could do a 'who is better' deathmatch of Crowley's pale Anglos against Lovecraft's swarthy lobstermen at summoning the forbidden forces.

I have a sneaking suspicion that a sizable percentage of the NRx set would be into the whole Ćon of Horus thing if they were born a few decades earlier.

Nessus posted:

I'll give the old bigot this, most of his stories are about the horror of the inevitable fall and defeat of the stuff he fetishized, at least in some way. He had a sense of humor about it, and I'm pretty sure most of these dudes don't.

OwlFancier posted:

It's a recurring theme in his stories that the cultists are always either mixed race fish/lobster/outer god-men or actual normal humans who are mixed race, the bad guys are always a cult full of swarthy foreigners/mixed race people or the bad guy always has servants who are swarthy foreigners/mixed race.

Like you might not notice it but seriously almost the entirety of lovecraft's horror stories can be summed up as "holy poo poo I am terrified of miscegenation!"

Barring maybe Mountains of Madness. Which is probably one of his stronger books.

But yeah otherwise, call of Cthulhu has the cultists as nonwhites, charles dexter ward has the guys collecting nonwhite servants as they become evil. Innsmouth is all about fish loving, dunwich horror features it as the central plot point, the one at martense mansion features both inbred hicks as cannon fodder and a race of CHUDs. And most of the stories have some bit where he laments the passing of high society and social mores to the endless march of modernity and foreign ideas.

Basically Charles Dexter Ward is probably somewhat autobiographical in its early stages I think.

OwlFancier posted:

It's a recurring theme in his stories that the cultists are always either mixed race fish/lobster/outer god-men or actual normal humans who are mixed race, the bad guys are always a cult full of swarthy foreigners/mixed race people or the bad guy always has servants who are swarthy foreigners/mixed race.

Like you might not notice it but seriously almost the entirety of lovecraft's horror stories can be summed up as "holy poo poo I am terrified of miscegenation!"

Barring maybe Mountains of Madness. Which is probably one of his stronger books.

But yeah otherwise, call of Cthulhu has the cultists as nonwhites, charles dexter ward has the guys collecting nonwhite servants as they become evil. Innsmouth is all about fish loving, dunwich horror features it as the central plot point, the one at martense mansion features both inbred hicks as cannon fodder and a race of CHUDs. And most of the stories have some bit where he laments the passing of high society and social mores to the endless march of modernity and foreign ideas.

Basically Charles Dexter Ward is probably somewhat autobiographical in its early stages I think.

Dapper_Swindler posted:

honestly my favorite story of his was Herbert West–Reanimator. which is basically just creepy Frankenstein

Count Chocula posted:

Mountains of Madness is hilarious 'cause you're like 'oh cool, no racism in this one, finally' and then the protagonist spends 30 minutes staring at alien friezes and deciding that some of them were 'degenerate artwork' as opposed to the 'civilized' art in this series of scene from an utterly alien civilization

OwlFancier posted:

True, I'm probably being a little harsh on him in that sense. I genuinely do think he writes some really good fiction and if you take the death of the author into account you can read them as some just genuinely gorgeous pieces of horror. He is obviously really invested in his literature and his essay about supernatural horror is a good if rather lexically difficult thing to read (if you think Lovecraft is bad in fiction he is nigh incomprehensible when he gets going, it's amazing) and for the most part he keeps a lot of his overt bigotry out of his stories, they aren't just pages of ranting about the drat blacks being what's wrong with the world. But if you know his position beforehand it's real easy to see how it informs his writing, and you can just as easily read it as a massive allegory for Why Race Mixing Will Destroy Humanity.

But yeah he has a weird fatalist streak to him which I guess would be consistent with his fondness for antiquarianism.

E: though actually I think I just remembered that he didn't work but his wife did and he sat at home all day trying to get his pulp horror published.

Dude's the original goon.

Dapper_Swindler posted:

this. The guy is definatly a bigot but his bigotry always struck me as being born of genuine xenophobia(as in actual fear fear) , his weird sadbrain, and his isolation being a blue blood living almost all of his life in Providence, Rhode Island. Not defending his bigotry at all of course. He is pretty much a goon and would probaly be on the spectrum today.

Count Chocula posted:

I'm not a fan of Tolkien but he wasn't racist or anti-Semetic. I'm pretty nihilist and anti-natalist, and I'm planning on reading Nick Land's old books before he founded NRX. But what that gives me is a sense that nothing matters and a despair because of that, mixed with the sense that I'm/humanity is free to do anything and a seeking for answers in bullshit science. I don't see where the racism comes in, or the social views that resemble a parody of Republicans. Unless it's an attempt to displace that massive fear of death onto an Other - but then I hold with Ernest Becker that the fear of death is at the root of everything.

OwlFancier posted:

I admit the whole "fading glory" type of worldview is really weird to me because I associate it most strongly with Tolkien who did an absolutely peerless job with it. I dunno if Tolkien was particularly racist or not, it's easy to read it into his books, but at the same time there's so much other depth to the work that it isn't a focal point really. Also I think he does a much better job of saying "yes everything is always going to poo poo but it's still important to do what you can" which is something I can't help but feel a lot of the turbonerds who buy into this DE nonesense seem to be missing.

OwlFancier posted:

I was more thinking in the rather simple sense that the world is very clearly divided into different races and most of the people except the humans are broadly defined by their race. And also the bad guys are the Inscrutible Easterners who live in the desert. Also the elves are magical perfect pretty white guys.

If you're looking for it it's easily read but as I say I never really got the impression that Tolkien was racist, just that his books can be read somewhat that way if you want them to. Again as you point out though, there's a lot more to them than that which is the other thing that would make me think that they're a more serious exploration of small c conservative idealism than anything else.

mcclay posted:

I used to almost be one of these fucks. Dipped my toes into watching both Internet Aristocrat and Sargon of Akkad. Ironically I moved away from IA to Sargon because Sargon was less lovely to gay and trans people. When I watched him he was pretty ok for a DE nerd, even called the right in the UK out on all its dumb de-socialization bullshit. I'm still subscribed too him but haven't watched any of his stuff in years, don't really think I want to.

Motto posted:

Doesn't excuse a lifetime of work informed by it, but I've often heard that he'd begun to reexamine his racism late in life, largely on account of it being very intense even for his time.

Count Chocula posted:

...and I'm planning on reading Nick Land's old books before he founded NRX...

ToxicSlurpee posted:

Tolkien wasn't a racist. I mean we're all a little bit racist but he wasn't a person writing from the standpoint of "white people good, everybody else bad" and using that to influence his works. He was, however, a traditionalist and a very devout Catholic. He wasn't a jerk but he was definitely not a fan of progress. More of a stodgy old man that had to be pulled into the future grudgingly.

quote:

“The most that can be said for the dwarves is this: they intended to pay Bilbo really handsomely for his services; they had brought him to do a nasty job for them, and they did not mind the poor little fellow doing it if he would; but they would all have done their best to get him out of trouble, if he got into it. . . . There it is: dwarves are not heroes, but calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money; some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots; some are not, but are decent enough people like Thorin and Company, if you don’t expect too much.”

quote:

Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject - which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.