[Nevyn]

This argument seems to me to mostly be yet more evidence that there are still far too many people out there with too much time on their hands.

All in all, a bust of someone most people would not recognize by appearance let alone know the backstory of ought to be pretty low on the 'offensive' meter.

On the other hand, the only argument not to change it seems to be inertia. We should not change because that is the way it is, and you must argue why its important enough to change. And then the debate becomes about attack those arguments.

Whether or not it should be a big deal, people were offended, so they changed it. No one got censored or got an opinion surpressed. It is not up to the majority to tell the minority what they should or should not be offended by. Thus changing the trophy is a nice thing to do, so absent a compelling reason why wouldn't you change?

But here we go again, and this is becoming another proxy war between political correctness, and people with over the top objections to it. I wonder how many people who initially objected to the change are suddenly looking around at the people on their side and wishing they stayed out of it.

[amphibian]

Is it political correctness or it is displaying greater empathy than we have in the past?

I'm all for removing Lovecraft from award symbology because his virulent and explicit racism makes him a non-inclusive, non-honorable person in association to today's writers.

[LinearPhilosopher]

Nevyn, on 17 November 2015 - 03:40 PM, said:

This argument seems to me to mostly be yet more evidence that there are still far too many people out there with too much time on their hands.

All in all, a bust of someone most people would not recognize by appearance let alone know the backstory of ought to be pretty low on the 'offensive' meter.

On the other hand, the only argument not to change it seems to be inertia. We should not change because that is the way it is, and you must argue why its important enough to change. And then the debate becomes about attack those arguments.

Whether or not it should be a big deal, people were offended, so they changed it. No one got censored or got an opinion surpressed. It is not up to the majority to tell the minority what they should or should not be offended by. Thus changing the trophy is a nice thing to do, so absent a compelling reason why wouldn't you change?

But here we go again, and this is becoming another proxy war between political correctness, and people with over the top objections to it. I wonder how many people who initially objected to the change are suddenly looking around at the people on their side and wishing they stayed out of it.

did you read the link worry posted?

[Abyss]

It's a well thought out and well written essay and i agree with him.

Lovecraft was racist. He was talented and creative and had massive issues and was a product of his times and was racist.

I can value the good and condemn the bad and be perfectly comfortable saying that the bad is a good reason not to put his face on an award for succeeding at the things he was good at.

[Nevyn]

LinearPhilosopher, on 17 November 2015 - 04:17 PM, said:

did you read the link worry posted?

I did (well, I scanned it)

What was it meant to tell me that should have altered any of what I wrote?

This post has been edited by Nevyn: 17 November 2015 - 04:55 PM

[Andorion]

Nevyn, on 17 November 2015 - 03:40 PM, said:

This argument seems to me to mostly be yet more evidence that there are still far too many people out there with too much time on their hands.

All in all, a bust of someone most people would not recognize by appearance let alone know the backstory of ought to be pretty low on the 'offensive' meter.

On the other hand, the only argument not to change it seems to be inertia. We should not change because that is the way it is, and you must argue why its important enough to change. And then the debate becomes about attack those arguments.

Whether or not it should be a big deal, people were offended, so they changed it. No one got censored or got an opinion surpressed. It is not up to the majority to tell the minority what they should or should not be offended by. Thus changing the trophy is a nice thing to do, so absent a compelling reason why wouldn't you change?

But here we go again, and this is becoming another proxy war between political correctness, and people with over the top objections to it. I wonder how many people who initially objected to the change are suddenly looking around at the people on their side and wishing they stayed out of it.

While most of the general population would not know Lovecraft, the people the award was being given to would know him. Plus his opinions are probably not that unknown as China Mieville remarked heavily on them in his intro to the Mountains of Madness.

So why keep the bust of an avowed racist as an award which clearly offends so many people (and with good reason)? This is hardly political correctness, this is common sense

[Nevyn]

Andorion, on 17 November 2015 - 05:05 PM, said:

While most of the general population would not know Lovecraft, the people the award was being given to would know him. Plus his opinions are probably not that unknown as China Mieville remarked heavily on them in his intro to the Mountains of Madness.

So why keep the bust of an avowed racist as an award which clearly offends so many people (and with good reason)? This is hardly political correctness, this is common sense

It seems like a lot of you got the complete wrong impression from what I said, so I will reiterate:

Whether or not it should be a big deal, people were offended, so they changed it. No one got censored or got an opinion surpressed. It is not up to the majority to tell the minority what they should or should not be offended by. Thus changing the trophy is a nice thing to do, so absent a compelling reason why wouldn't you change?

It is fine that they changed the trophy, and a stupid thing for people to get upset over, and being fought against for the wrong reasons.

This post has been edited by Nevyn: 17 November 2015 - 05:14 PM

[Andorion]

Quote

All in all, a bust of someone most people would not recognize by appearance let alone know the backstory of ought to be pretty low on the 'offensive' meter.

This sentence is the only one I objected to really. Agree with the inertia theory

[Nevyn]

Andorion, on 17 November 2015 - 05:19 PM, said:

Quote

All in all, a bust of someone most people would not recognize by appearance let alone know the backstory of ought to be pretty low on the 'offensive' meter.

This sentence is the only one I objected to really. Agree with the inertia theory

But that sentence is not untrue.

There are symbols which are so clearly and widely associated with racism (Hitler, swastikas, Redskins name, etc) that there really is no ambiguity. You can't even really argue that you mean no offence in using them, because it is clear that offence will be taken and they will be interpreted in a specific way. They are universal and understood.

This trophy even now does not rise to that level. It is entirely possible that there are writers with one on their mantle who do (or at least did) not even know who it was a bust of. And others who did, but who had no idea of his views on race. A person coming over and seeing it on your mantle is far more likely to draw conclusions of your writing skill than believe you are endorsing racist beliefs.

Now again, that does not matter any more. You cannot put the genie back in the bottle. Who it is and what he believed have been highlighted, thus continuing to use the symbol would be highly offensive and there is every reason to change. Once it has been pointed out, continued use is tacit endorsement.

But unlike the Hitler statue example that Erikson stated, there is every reason to doubt that there was ever any offensive or negative or racist intent on the part of the founders of the awards in selecting that bust for their trophy. I don't doubt that hundred of people have accepted and displayed the award without feeling that it had the slightest connection to nor endorsement of racism. Hence, again, it was not offensive at face value. To make it offensive required added context.

And that is what I was pointing out. There was no malicious intent in the selection of the trophy, and no reasonable expectation that the original selectors or earlier recipients should have 'known better'.

[amphibian]

Why have you structured your thoughts so that actions and traditions require overt offensive/negative/racist intent in order to be bad or needing change?

They don't.

If I put a voting booth in a place an hour's walk outside a bus line, only open it from 8 am to 5 pm, and require a driver's license to vote, I may have the intent of running the best dang voting booth thusly. I am also by effect excluding everyone who isn't capable of taking the day off from work to take the bus out there, to walk the hour to the booth, and who doesn't have a driver's license. In my country, this usually encompasses the minority groups. This also indirectly leads to political/official representation that's not truly representative of the people - just those who managed to vote.

Having H.P. Lovecraft busts as an award probably wasn't a decision made by Ku Klux Klan members who wanted to drive out anyone not fitting their ideal of the white person who should inhabit this country and portion of science fiction/fantasy literature. However, it has an effect - the continued veneration of a man who regularly and publicly said things like the following:

Quote

"Of the complete biological inferiority of the negro there can be no question he has anatomical features consistently varying from those of other stocks, and always in the direction of the lower primates... Equally inferior and perhaps even more so is the Australian black stock, which differs widely from the real negro. In dealing with these two black races, there is only one sound attitude for any other race (be it white, Indian, Malay, Polynesian, or Mongolian) to take and that is to prevent admixture as completely and determinedly as it can be prevented, through the establishment of a colour line and the rigid forcing of all mixed offspring below that line."

So by making Lovecraft the symbol, what does that tell people who aren't white, who do know of his words and the context behind them? Are those concepts and related lines of thinking something you want associated with an award you win?

The set of expectations the audience had of those who chose Lovecraft as the symbol was probably not the same set that award-creators would have today. That does not mean that their choice wasn't wrong and by its nature, exclusionist, even if the intent wasn't to do that.

[Nevyn]

amphibian, on 17 November 2015 - 07:31 PM, said:

Why have you structured your thoughts so that actions and traditions require overt offensive/negative/racist intent in order to be bad or needing change?

I HAVEN'T

Wow, this is getting tiring. I said it should be changed, and in fact that there is no good reason not to.

You may all feel free to ignore the rest of what I said, since apparently no one is getting the point of any of that, and you all seem to think that it is completely undercutting the fact that, again, I said it should be changed. I have no intention of arguing it further, because it is insinuating me into a position that I am not taking and I have apparently failed to point out the distinction.

It was an offhand observation that I further clarified and yet have had 3 separate people latch on to as if it were my central thesis.

This post has been edited by Nevyn: 17 November 2015 - 08:06 PM

[amphibian]

Nevyn, on 17 November 2015 - 08:04 PM, said:

Wow, this is getting tiring. I said it should be changed, and in fact that there is no good reason not to.

You may all feel free to ignore the rest of what I said, since apparently no one is getting the point of any of that, and you all seem to think that it is completely undercutting the fact that, again, I said it should be changed. I have no intention of arguing it further, because it is insinuating me into a position that I am not taking and I have apparently failed to point out the distinction.

It was an offhand observation that I further clarified and yet have had 3 separate people latch on to as if it were my central thesis.

Because you said:

Nevyn, on 17 November 2015 - 03:40 PM, said:

But here we go again, and this is becoming another proxy war between political correctness, and people with over the top objections to it.

Nevyn, on 17 November 2015 - 05:13 PM, said:

It is fine that they changed the trophy, and a stupid thing for people to get upset over, and being fought against for the wrong reasons.

Nevyn, on 17 November 2015 - 06:40 PM, said:

But unlike the Hitler statue example that Erikson stated, there is every reason to doubt that there was ever any offensive or negative or racist intent on the part of the founders of the awards in selecting that bust for their trophy. I don't doubt that hundred of people have accepted and displayed the award without feeling that it had the slightest connection to nor endorsement of racism. Hence, again, it was not offensive at face value. To make it offensive required added context.

And that is what I was pointing out. There was no malicious intent in the selection of the trophy, and no reasonable expectation that the original selectors or earlier recipients should have 'known better'.

Malicious intent is not required to have a bad/racist/offensive result. There's also the point that Erikson makes - even in Lovecraft's time, there were people who weren't racist or offensive in this particular way. So the mitigation of "reasonable expectations of people back then" is very little.

[Nevyn]

Well, this is going to get quote messy, but you seem to have misunderstood just about everything I said, so lets clean this up.

amphibian, on 17 November 2015 - 11:39 PM, said:

Nevyn, on 17 November 2015 - 08:04 PM, said:

Wow, this is getting tiring. I said it should be changed, and in fact that there is no good reason not to.

You may all feel free to ignore the rest of what I said, since apparently no one is getting the point of any of that, and you all seem to think that it is completely undercutting the fact that, again, I said it should be changed. I have no intention of arguing it further, because it is insinuating me into a position that I am not taking and I have apparently failed to point out the distinction.

It was an offhand observation that I further clarified and yet have had 3 separate people latch on to as if it were my central thesis.

Because you said:

Nevyn, on 17 November 2015 - 03:40 PM, said:

But here we go again, and this is becoming another proxy war between political correctness, and people with over the top objections to it.

That was entirely accurate statement on my part which I can't see why you object to.

Regardless of whether you think it is bad, changing a trophy because it offends some people is by definition political correctness. And some people have over the top objections to political correctness, going on rants about social justice.

Unless you object to the term political correctness, I don't see what your problem is here. And that term was coined by people advocating FOR it, even if opponents now say it with a sneer.

Nevyn, on 17 November 2015 - 05:13 PM, said:

It is fine that they changed the trophy, and a stupid thing for people to get upset over, and being fought against for the wrong reasons.

I guess I can see how you would misread this, so I will separate the three thoughts I was expressing for clarity

1) It is fine that they changed the trophy
2) The fact that the trophy was changed is a stupid thing to get upset over.
3) The people that are fighting the changing of the trophy are doing it for the wrong reasons, trying to win what they see as a 'larger battle' against any form of political correctness, invoking censorship and other nonsense.

Quote

Nevyn, on 17 November 2015 - 06:40 PM, said:

But unlike the Hitler statue example that Erikson stated, there is every reason to doubt that there was ever any offensive or negative or racist intent on the part of the founders of the awards in selecting that bust for their trophy. I don't doubt that hundred of people have accepted and displayed the award without feeling that it had the slightest connection to nor endorsement of racism. Hence, again, it was not offensive at face value. To make it offensive required added context.

And that is what I was pointing out. There was no malicious intent in the selection of the trophy, and no reasonable expectation that the original selectors or earlier recipients should have 'known better'.

Malicious intent is not required to have a bad/racist/offensive result. There's also the point that Erikson makes - even in Lovecraft's time, there were people who weren't racist or offensive in this particular way. So the mitigation of "reasonable expectations of people back then" is very little.

OF COURSE it is not required for a bad result. That is not the point. I am going to try to explain the point one more time, but I need you to bear in mind while I explain it that I have said all along that the trophy had to be changed. So even if you don't get the argument, bear in mind that the argument is not an argument that they should not have changed the trophy.


If a person uses an offensive symbol with the intention of causing offence, or even continues using it in spite of an awareness that it does cause offence, that is like on force multiplier on how offensive it is. It is confrontational, and a tacit endorsement of the offensive material.

If a person uses a symbol that they not only do not intend to cause offence, but that it doesn't even occur to them than it would, that makes it an innocent mistake. Since it is not an overt act designed to offend, the use of the symbol ought to be far less offensive.

That does not mean it can't have a 'bad result". And once someone reveals that they find it offensive, if you continue to use it you are promoted to the first example. But they are not the same. You may feel they are, but I feel very differently about something said with the intent of hurting me, and something said in ignorance of its impact on me. And that was all that I was saying.

Why did I express that thought? Because it speaks to my level of exasperation with both sides. This should have been easy and started that way. Someone politely objected. The committee thought it over, and decided to scrap the trophy, and got a nice round of applause. It was handled well. But the people who always object went off on the change, and have essentially baited everyone else into yet another fight that now has little resemblance to the initial problem. They have let themselves get dragged into a preposterous debate over just how racist the guy was, whether everyone back then was like that, and whether an award should be changed because of any of it. And NONE of that argument is even needed. People were offended. The decision makers did not intend to cause offence so changed it. And the rest is window dressing. There was no mass controversy or boycott or picket of the awards, no invocation of a local congressman to pressure the organization into changing. Just a noted objection and a change.

Is that clearer?

[koehkont]

I love how you are trying to say that all the 'extra fighting and arguing' was unnecessary and that you now ended up in an extended argument yourself. Oh the irony. This whole argument makes the best example of your point. It is clear to me now

[Nevyn]

koehkont, on 18 November 2015 - 10:13 AM, said:

I love how you are trying to say that all the 'extra fighting and arguing' was unnecessary and that you now ended up in an extended argument yourself. Oh the irony. This whole argument makes the best example of your point. It is clear to me now

Indeed.

And this argument was worse, because it was an argument all by people on the same side.

[worry]

Not me. I have the polar opposite opinion of everyone who argued.

[Salt-Man Z]

worry, on 18 November 2015 - 09:15 PM, said:

Not me. I have the polar opposite opinion of everyone who argued.

I respectfully disagree.

[Nevyn]

worry, on 18 November 2015 - 09:15 PM, said:

Not me. I have the polar opposite opinion of everyone who argued.

I disagree

edit: D'oh, Salt Man beat me to it!

This post has been edited by Nevyn: 18 November 2015 - 09:47 PM

[worry]

Good point though.

[Mob]

Erikson's reasoning is flawed. In fact, his argument is lazy and dishonest in construction.

I'll come back to that in a moment. But, something similar is currently happening at Oxford University, in that there is pressure to remove a statue of Cecil Rhodes from Oriel College. Rhodes was a rampant late nineteenth century imperialist with racist views. There are even calls for the statue of any historical figure, anywhere, with a racist view to be taken down and replaced with a plaque describing their prejudice. On that logic, Winston Churchill's statue outside Parliament in London would need to be removed.

Whitewashing the past doesn't achieve anything. Nor does deliberately cutting society loose from its historical moorings because we now dislike certain components of the past. Doing so is positively dangerous. It is cultural vandalism. And we invite our own removal from history when values shift once more.

Lovecraft was a great writer. Acknowledging that doesn't mean endorsing his other opinions. Wagner was a wonderful composer, and people are able to celebrate that still while being repulsed by his deep anti-Semitism.

And Erikson is being, frankly, lazy and dishonest in how he assembles the argument. If my students did this in an essay, I would skewer them.

First, he labels those who disagree, or who focus on 'historical context', as being 'apologists'. 'Apologists' is a very loaded phrase. Tossing it around is an easy, and lazy, way to win an argument because of its pejorative connotations. It is like crying 'racist'. Erikson then doubles down on it by writing that 'those who seek to apologise for the beliefs and actions of those in the past invariably do so in defence of the egregious and the objectionable'. So Erikson sees those who disagree as 'apologists' acting 'in defence' of Lovecraft's views.

This is nonsense. The people disagreeing with Erikson are not 'apologists', nor are they acting in defence of Lovecraft's opinions. He knows this, as well. Functioning adults should be able to grasp that someone from the past achieved x whilst still having view y that is now deemed unpleasant/illegal/repulsive etc.

And whitewashing human prejudice against the Other is doubly ridiculous because it is one of the few things that the human species has consistently been good at! It is laudable, valuable and right to try and curtail this in contemporary society. But to reduce the cultural value of the past on these grounds is preposterous beyond belief.

This post has been edited by Mob: 28 December 2015 - 10:18 AM