Re: I am not antisemitic or even anti-Arab
Posted by:
Kipling (IP Logged)
Date: 27 October, 2023 12:06PM
Hespire Wrote:
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> I loathe all things related to social
> progressiveness, cancel culture, and the idea that
> inclusivity is somehow inherently admirable. But I
> would like to point out that I am half-Japanese,
> and therefore I would be one of the predatory
> types you fear so much. I don't see how I, or
> people like me, contribute to the fall of any race
> or civilization. Also, I've known many people who
> were severely lacking in intellect and
> imagination, many of whom were white people. And
> one need only to read the letters of older
> generations to see that even in those ethnically
> purer times, men of high taste still looked down
> on the common man of their own race. Whatever
> devotion CAS felt for his race, he certainly did
> not think highly of the average white man even
> back then.
>
> If I remember correctly (it's been so long since
> I've read anything of his), CAS mocked the idea of
> people feeling proud of belonging to any
> particular race or species, because the majority
> of anyone from any group is going to be inherently
> stupid, arrogant, and unimaginative. The genteel
> class you're fond of has always been only a tiny
> fragment of civilization.
Here is Clark Ashton Smith's definitive statement on these matters, which you may have seen, but others here likely have not. It's his letter to Lester Anderson, circa 1934:. "Bierce puts the blame where it belongs-- on the shoulders of both Labor and Capital. He also suggested a solution which neither plutocrat nor proletariat is likely to follow... That solution was-- the application of the Golden Rule of Jesus Christ.... Well-- do you wonder that Bierce is disregarded by the Moderns? Do you wonder that liberty is being bartered for a pot of fascistic beans or a mess of communistic cabbage soup? Do you wonder that every cockeyed social panacea can find adherents?... But I simply can't see the collectivistic idea as anything but a new and particularly odious form of tyranny. If you put everything-- property, resources, etc., in the hands of the State, you give the state omnipotent power over the lives and liberties of individuals-- and that power will be exercised. Your dictatorship of the proletariat is nothing but a proletariat fascism.
Me for the Himalayas-- or a rocket trip to Mars-- if the U.S. is going German or Russian. Make sure there will ne no place for non-propagandistic authors under either system." (SL 260) Smith was no atheistic political progressive like Lovecraft. Far from it.
jkh