Like, Robert E. Howard was also a racist who grew up in the deep south, and he actually ended up reconsidering his views and easing up on them because he saw how Lovecraft sounded and didn't want to sound like that.
"Overrated" is legitimately my least favorite criticism
Literally all it means is "everyone but me is wrong."
not exactly?
it just means "i dont think that everyone is quite right"
like, i think that Star Wars is a solid movie, well thought out, well executed. But it lacks the things that I think make for a truly great film. Many other people have different criteria, criteria which i can respect but do not agree with, which lead them to the conclusion that it is truly great.
ergo in my estimation Star Wars is overrated
My issue is that it always carries that implication regardless of intent.
My Big Thing is that I really don't care for dismissiveness and it's a very dismissive term. It's also rather vague on top of that, barely less vague than saying "it's bad/mediocre/whatever"
For me "overrated" mostly means "the established public opinion on this Thing is more positive than my own feelings toward it", which I suppose is similar to how Naney describes it.
Like, I say that the Call of Duty series is overrated because my own experiences with it haven't been nearly enough to justify the amount of praise the games have received from elsewhere (i.e. family members, the gaming press, fellow PlayStation users). If anything, I'm more wrong than the general gaming public is for this, but still, it's a conflict I've grown to realize I probably won't ever be able to come to terms with, which is fine.
I want to clarify that I'm not saying that reading Lovecraft makes you a bad person or anything, I'm just saying that if you want to be moralistic about people who like Ender's Game, you should probably be moralistic about people who like Lovecraft too.
Also mental illness doesn't really excuse being that kind of an asshole.
Anyway, Lovecraft is at the point where he is more a force of cultural influence than anything else. I don't think I've ever read an actual Lovecraft book in my entire life.
I want to clarify that I'm not saying that reading Lovecraft makes you a bad person or anything, I'm just saying that if you want to be moralistic about people who like Ender's Game, you should probably be moralistic about people who like Lovecraft too.
Honestly i find OSC much more reprehensible than Lovecraft because OSC strikes me as a cruel, petty, cowardly sadist, whereas Lovecraft strikes me as an effete, deeply neurotic misanthrope who likes offending people.
neither of those sorts of people are much fun to be with in person by and large, but they seem to me to be in very different ballparks in terms of badness.
Insight wankers don't believe that people, or nations exist, but they do believe Cthulhu exists and believe he is controlling SJWs to destroy ethics in game journalism and ruin video games.
I want to clarify that I'm not saying that reading Lovecraft makes you a bad person or anything, I'm just saying that if you want to be moralistic about people who like Ender's Game, you should probably be moralistic about people who like Lovecraft too.
Honestly i find OSC much more reprehensible than Lovecraft because OSC strikes me as a cruel, petty, cowardly sadist, whereas Lovecraft strikes me as an effete, deeply neurotic misanthrope who likes offending people.
neither of those sorts of people are much fun to be with in person by and large, but they seem to me to be in very different ballparks in terms of badness.
plus generally speaking neurotic misanthropes write fun things
Some people are good at writing and happen to be neurotic misanthropes, most neurotic misanthropes aren't good at writing, because most people aren't good at writing.
plus generally speaking neurotic misanthropes write fun things
Some people are good at writing and happen to be neurotic misanthropes, most neurotic misanthropes aren't good at writing, because most people aren't good at writing.
I meant to imply a "within the group of people who can write effectively" there, my bad
plus generally speaking neurotic misanthropes write fun things
Some people are good at writing and happen to be neurotic misanthropes, most neurotic misanthropes aren't good at writing, because most people aren't good at writing.
I meant to imply a "within the group of people who can write effectively" there, my bad
The hate for Ender's Game just has this moralistic patronizing hectoring tone that I dislike, even though I can totally get behind either not liking it, or not wanting to support it because OSC is terrible.
to be fair, humanity does make itself rather loathable
If we are to hold humanity collectively responsible for the crimes of every individual human and group of humans than we must also hold humanity collectively responsible for the triumphs of every individual human and group of humans.
I feel like it's very, very silly to focus only on things like war and oppression when we as a species have a 5,000-year history that spans thousands and thousands of different things, any of which you could spend a lifetime studying.
i was going to write out a quote from that song here but i cant think of a line in that song that does not have the n word and i dont think im allowed to type that
to be fair, humanity does make itself rather loathable
If we are to hold humanity collectively responsible for the crimes of every individual human and group of humans than we must also hold humanity collectively responsible for the triumphs of every individual human and group of humans.
I feel like it's very, very silly to focus only on things like war and oppression when we as a species have a 5,000-year history that spans thousands and thousands of different things, any of which you could spend a lifetime studying.
Humanism in this sense appears, for instance, in Cocteau’s story Round the World in 80 Hours, in which one of the characters declares, because he is flying over mountains in an airplane, “Man is magnificent!” This signifies that although I personally have not built aeroplanes, I have the benefit of those particular inventions and that I personally, being a man, can consider myself responsible for, and honoured by, achievements that are peculiar to some men. It is to assume that we can ascribe value to man according to the most distinguished deeds of certain men. That kind of humanism is absurd, for only the dog or the horse would be in a position to pronounce a general judgment upon man and declare that he is magnificent, which they have never been such fools as to do – at least, not as far as I know. But neither is it admissible that a man should pronounce judgment upon Man
i was going to write out a quote from that song here but i cant think of a line in that song that does not have the n word and i dont think im allowed to type that
DMX is pretty guilty of using profanity to pad his raps.
i was going to write out a quote from that song here but i cant think of a line in that song that does not have the n word and i dont think im allowed to type that
to be fair, humanity does make itself rather loathable
If we are to hold humanity collectively responsible for the crimes of every individual human and group of humans than we must also hold humanity collectively responsible for the triumphs of every individual human and group of humans.
I feel like it's very, very silly to focus only on things like war and oppression when we as a species have a 5,000-year history that spans thousands and thousands of different things, any of which you could spend a lifetime studying.
Humanism in this sense appears, for instance, in Cocteau’s story Round the World in 80 Hours, in which one of the characters declares, because he is flying over mountains in an airplane, “Man is magnificent!” This signifies that although I personally have not built aeroplanes, I have the benefit of those particular inventions and that I personally, being a man, can consider myself responsible for, and honoured by, achievements that are peculiar to some men. It is to assume that we can ascribe value to man according to the most distinguished deeds of certain men. That kind of humanism is absurd, for only the dog or the horse would be in a position to pronounce a general judgment upon man and declare that he is magnificent, which they have never been such fools as to do – at least, not as far as I know. But neither is it admissible that a man should pronounce judgment upon Man
If you have something to say to respond to what I said, you should say it yourself.
i was going to write out a quote from that song here but i cant think of a line in that song that does not have the n word and i dont think im allowed to type that
You should always just replace it with brother or fucker, depending on context.
Comments
Fuck them both, but especially HPL. I'd renounce his existence entirely were Cthulhu anything less than Cthulhu.
My Big Thing is that I really don't care for dismissiveness and it's a very dismissive term. It's also rather vague on top of that, barely less vague than saying "it's bad/mediocre/whatever"
I wonder if it's just that Lovecraft isn't alive today, or if there's something else to it.
Like, I say that the Call of Duty series is overrated because my own experiences with it haven't been nearly enough to justify the amount of praise the games have received from elsewhere (i.e. family members, the gaming press, fellow PlayStation users). If anything, I'm more wrong than the general gaming public is for this, but still, it's a conflict I've grown to realize I probably won't ever be able to come to terms with, which is fine.
Same deal with "underrated".
He puts it behind him, and turns it around, so that he can make sure he's writing behind Lovecraft's back.
neither of those sorts of people are much fun to be with in person by and large, but they seem to me to be in very different ballparks in terms of badness.
ender's game is kind of creepy/bad but it's not obviously apparent generally, but then he writes weird shit like Empire or whatever it is
If you have something to say to respond to what I said, you should say it yourself.