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Read the novels and forget everything else

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Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#111

Post by fluoridation »

the_af wrote: post #103
fluoridation wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't really stand Lovecraft's style, but I'm with you. I'd read it like I read an ironic racist comment on 4chan and chuckle to myself.

I get what you're saying. The problem is that I cannot stand ironic (or otherwise) racists comments on 4chan, so reading it like that wouldn't be a saving grace for Lovecraft. I actually find 4chan more grating. I appreciate Lovecraft, especially for the influence it had on other writers, on comics, tabletop and video games; and some of this stories are pretty good (e.g. The Color Out of Space, The Outsider). But it'…

I guess you have to have the right outlook for it. An ironic comment is (supposed to be) funny because it makes you think "haha, what if someone actually said that?" In Lovecraft's case there's no irony to it, so I think it helps to try to empathize with him. Why is he like this? He's not just some monster that hates/fears people for no reason. There must be a reason, and it's probably either his upbringing or his lifestyle. At that point, at least for me, it can no longer evoke disgust, and it just causes either pity or laughter, like listening to a flat-earther.

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#112

Post by teddyh »

Nursie wrote: post #110
teddyh wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think boycotts are effectively useless. If you disagree, can you name a few, or even one, consumer-level boycott in, say, the last 50 years, which actually accomplished its goal? Accomplished by the actual boycott alone, I mean. Boycotts are, as I understand it, only a way for you to feel that you still are morally pure. But the counterargument is that it is impossible to be actually morally pure. When you last nee…

Who says that avoiding Chinese tomato paste doesn’t accomplish anything? It funnels money to other brands and keeps them going rather than rewarding forced labour and driving other forms of production out of the market. That in itself is an actual, practical effect in a capitalist system. And doing so certainly wouldn’t make me less likely to vote for a party promising to address the issue. And I mean, isn’t this jus…

> Who says that avoiding Chinese tomato paste doesn’t accomplish anything? It funnels money to other brands and keeps them going rather than rewarding forced labour and driving other forms of production out of the market. That in itself is an actual, practical effect in a capitalist system.

Your individual boycott accomplishes absolutely nothing. Even the total number of people participating in this boycott will not change a single thing.

> The Bud Light Boycott of 2023 springs to mind. Not that I agree with the people doing the boycotting, but it certainly made the company backpedal.

Unlikely, since, from what I hear, the brand everyone switched to was owned by the same company. The most a boycott can accomplish is a public statement, no actual change. Also, this statement was a result of the publicity, not the boycott itself. The company fought publicity with publicity by making a public statement of their own.

> you certainly don’t understand my posts higher up if you think I’m demanding moral purity of myself or anyone else.

You did say that those not participating in boycotts should be held “accountable for ones choices and their effect on the world”.

> To me, this all just sounds like a justification for your own lack of conscientiousness.

No personal attacks, please.

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#113

Post by idontwantthis »

jimnotgym wrote: post #70
idontwantthis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also recognized Jack’s incredible management skills! He knows exactly how to get the best work out of people and especially how to correct them without making them feel inferior or resentful.

This element of Jack very much comes from his admiration of Nelson. If you are interested in management at all, Nelson's style of leadership was ground-breaking. Whereas Jack's feats trials and tribulations very much come from Cochrane. Almost verbatim. Nelson and Cochrane were true heroes, the finest. Ant yet both had very visible flaws of character. I personally admire their achievements more than we criticise thei…

Can you recommend anything to read about Nelson that touches on his management?

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#114

Post by jay_kyburz »

GJim wrote: post #99
jay_kyburz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always enjoyed H P Lovecraft and was disappointed to learn about his racism and xenophobia. AI tells me its was way beyond what was normal at the time.

> AI tells me You are using AI to form personal opinions?

The AI provided me links and a summary to Wikipedia and Blogs and Reddit posts. No different than any other google search would reveal.

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#115

Post by CocaKoala »

fenomas wrote: post #98
vvbull wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, for me, it recontextualizes a lot of his writing knowing his racism. Who he thought "the other" was and how they appeared in his work is colored by who he thought the other was in real life.

Related, I read Lovecraft for the first time a while back and the xenophobia was so overt it was almost humorous. The story was basically a police detective uncovering ritual cult activity by immigrants (from some unspecified place) in a NY slum. And the narrator (the detective) goes on and on about these strange foreigners and their dark skin, weird languages, heathen religions, etc. But it only occurred to me after…

You may be interested in the novella "The Ballad of Black Tom", which is a re-telling of "The Horror at Red Hook" from the perspective of the immigrants in the New York slum, and why they decide that maybe dealing with eldritch horrors is a better alternative than trying to reason with this detective that keeps on hassling them for no reason.

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#116

Post by mkehrt »

saimiam wrote: post #72
edflsafoiewq wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Porcupine" confused with "concubine".

I honestly thought concubine would fit in here to make the joke but without other clues, dismissed the idea. I wonder why the writer picked this as an example of the author’s supposed humor skills. It seems rather contrived. Even charitably, we’d have to be super familiar with everything the author has written to understand than Heaven could mistake porcupine for concubine.

Jack regularly mixes up words to humorous effect, so knowing that may help with the joke. But yeah, I agree the joke doesn't really work here.

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#117

Post by tecoholic »

soco wrote: post #80
tecoholic wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone pointed it out to me that, if a person does something bad and faces the consequences by law, then that should be the end of it. Applying a personal punishment individually like avoiding anything they have involved in, is pointless or even unfair. It can’t apply to all scenarios. But that struck me as an important thing to consider. Sometimes people get out of the consequences by using the riches they accumula…

Why are we even thinking about "fairness" in this context? It's not like we read every book in the world, in order to be fair to all authors. Or all genres, all qualities, all equally. You have to make some choices and actually make every second a choice, to pick a book, to pick it up, to continue it after page 100...

I don’t think it’s that fairness. It’s about - what’s a fair amount of punishment? Since society has created the laws and laid down mechanisms to punish wrongs, each person then individually deciding to punish the person is unfair in a civilised society.

P.S: I was writing it as a response to the my parent comment. I haven’t read C&G books and don’t know this author.

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#118

Post by jimnotgym »

idontwantthis wrote: post #113
jimnotgym wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This element of Jack very much comes from his admiration of Nelson. If you are interested in management at all, Nelson's style of leadership was ground-breaking. Whereas Jack's feats trials and tribulations very much come from Cochrane. Almost verbatim. Nelson and Cochrane were true heroes, the finest. Ant yet both had very visible flaws of character. I personally admire their achievements more than we criticise thei…

Can you recommend anything to read about Nelson that touches on his management?

It is difficult, a lot of it was very subtle, and I don't know a book that deals with it specifically. You would have to read one of the biographies, but to see how different it was to the normal conduct of an admiral would require you to read a little more widely.

I feel like I should write an article now.

Aspects that impressed me, off the top of my head.

1) constantly explaining his general strategy, so that one the fog of war decended Captains could act without orders

2) Giving Captains confidence to employ ingenuity. At the Nile a Captain saw an opportunity to break through the French line and attack from both sides. Many other Admirals demanded strict obedience

3) Praising all Captains rather than just his favourites in despatches. Being praised could make an officers career, conversley not being mentioned could really hurt.

4) Looked after his men. Sending constant orders on things like quality food. He was very soft on flogging. The men loved him. He was known for talking with his lower deck crew on familiar terms, which was unheard of in his day.

5) Took on risk himself. By the time of Trafalgar he had lost an eye and an arm. He led from the front.

6) Was supremely good at his craft. This engendered respect. Sailing a ship was incredibly technical.

I hope that gives you a flavour. The country loved him, and had amazing faith in him. When he left for Trafalgar the army had to be called out to try and contain the crowds!

One of his last words (there were quite a few) were 'thank god I did my duty'. Imagine that being in your mind when you know you are dying. That tells you a lot about his dedication.

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#119

Post by Nursie »

teddyh wrote: post #112
Nursie wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who says that avoiding Chinese tomato paste doesn’t accomplish anything? It funnels money to other brands and keeps them going rather than rewarding forced labour and driving other forms of production out of the market. That in itself is an actual, practical effect in a capitalist system. And doing so certainly wouldn’t make me less likely to vote for a party promising to address the issue. And I mean, isn’t this jus…

> Who says that avoiding Chinese tomato paste doesn’t accomplish anything? It funnels money to other brands and keeps them going rather than rewarding forced labour and driving other forms of production out of the market. That in itself is an actual, practical effect in a capitalist system. Your individual boycott accomplishes absolutely nothing. Even the total number of people participating in this boycott will not…

> Your individual boycott accomplishes absolutely nothing.

Incorrect. I've already explained why. The simple act of making choices in capitalism has an effect on the markets you participate in.

> Unlikely

But a factually true and well documented answer to your demand, which itself was little to do with my arguments, but I produced one anyway like some sort of performing seal.

> You did say that those not participating in boycotts should be held “accountable for ones choices and their effect on the world”.

Nope, certainly did not. And you're the one obsessed with boycotts, purity, "condemned" people and other such hyperbolic statements.

> No personal attacks, please.

You first eh?

At this point I'm done with this conversation and your persistent misrepresentation of what I'm saying. Have a nice life.

Re: Read the novels and forget everything else

#120

Post by Nursie »

fluoridation wrote: post #111
the_af wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get what you're saying. The problem is that I cannot stand ironic (or otherwise) racists comments on 4chan, so reading it like that wouldn't be a saving grace for Lovecraft. I actually find 4chan more grating. I appreciate Lovecraft, especially for the influence it had on other writers, on comics, tabletop and video games; and some of this stories are pretty good (e.g. The Color Out of Space, The Outsider). But it'…

I guess you have to have the right outlook for it. An ironic comment is (supposed to be) funny because it makes you think "haha, what if someone actually said that?" In Lovecraft's case there's no irony to it, so I think it helps to try to empathize with him. Why is he like this? He's not just some monster that hates/fears people for no reason. There must be a reason, and it's probably either his upbringing or his li…

The problem with "ironic" racism in places like 4chan is that it gives cover to, and breeds, very real open racism.

"What if someone actually said that?" very quickly turns into people actually saying that. Arguably they already did.

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