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Comment by aomurphy | Hacker News Reader

Lovecraft's racism was significantly more extreme than for his time. He constantly called New York "Jew York", even while married to a Jew. He was a complicated fellow, but explicitly wished not to be a product of his time, but an imagined better era (Specifically he calls out the time of Queen Anne in one of his letters0.

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Lovecraft (who lived from 1890 to 1937) was far from extreme, and did not favor much beyond a degree of cultural (and possibly genetic) protectionism. The goal was to preserve the unique beauty of each culture including many cultures besides his own (he was quite fond of Japan).

He strongly criticized Hitler, who he called a clown and who's policies he called barbaric. His main critique of the Jews was their cultural influence: "Aryans ought not to leave their guidance and interpretation to persons of an irreconcilable Semitic culture,...If the Jews had a nation of their own (and they would if they had our guts and self-respect) I’d be the first to insist that it be kept free of Aryan influences. As it is, I honestly regret the Aryan taint (any infusion is a taint if it’s where it doesn’t belong) in the noble and ancient culture of Japan."

(Quote from here: https://chuckhoffman.blogspot.in/2016/03/making-excuses-for-... )

Even today many folks hold similar views: think of SF nimbys and other left wing activists who are critical of the cultural influences of tech bros and gentrifiers.

He also thought blacks were fundamentally inferior; are you going to characterize this as somehow uncommon in the 1890-1937 era?

That remark about Jews is quite horrible. And it definitely is not just "critique of cultural influence". He calls them without guts, without self respect and claims them to be "irreconcilable". From that quote alone, it makes sense to talk about that too.I did not knew he was that much racist before.

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