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Anonymous
The philosophy of Lovecraft
2016-03-24 18:52:04 Post No. 7847056
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The philosophy of Lovecraft
Anonymous
2016-03-24 18:52:04
Post No. 7847056
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In Thomas Ligotti's The Conspiracy Against the Human Race he writes: "Lovecraft is perhaps the most felicitous example of someone who knew ravishments that in another context would be deemed 'spiritual' or 'religious.' Yet from childhood, he was undeterred from a precocious atheistic materialism (or nihilism, pessimism, cosmic indifferentism)."
and
"Whereas Lovecraft was uninterested in the human race except for its scale in proportion to an indifferent universe full of monsters, Blatty has proven himself as someone who is 'involved with humanity' and sensitive to its suffering. To overlook this fact is to miss the point of his work. That he is dependent on religious salvation to justify human suffering cheapens his writing for the unfaithful as much as it should give it value for believers. Perhaps no one since John Milton has made such an attempt to excuse human misery in religious terms."
The opening bit from The Call of Cthulhu:
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."
Does Lovecraft have any essays or interviews where he explicitly talks about cosmic indifferentism?
It seems a lot like basic nihilism, but I would still be very interested to hear Lovecraft's take on it. Nihilism is always interesting because everyone has a different way of reacting to it. I would be especially interested in Lovecraft's view of God(s) .
Some quotes I have almost gave me the impression that he believes in a God that has abandoned humanity. I think that is an interesting idea if he did mean it literally.
I know there is already a Lovecraft thread, but this is different.
