I would have posted this on the Robert E Howard Forum, but, well, I was banned there years ago, and I am sure there is some interest in Howard also here.

Steven Pinker in his recent book THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE: WHY VIOLENCE HAS DECLINED quotes Howard as follows:

Quote:

As the novelist Robert Howard put it, "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split." (p 128)

The odd thing about this, of course, is that Pinker likes civilization, whereas Howard, famously, did not. Nor do I think the sentiment is original to Howard. (It is, of course, also strange to call Howard a novelist, and to drop the "E" from his name. One suspects Pinker is not really a Howard scholar.)

Jojo Lapin X Wrote:
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> I would have posted this on the Robert E Howard
> Forum, but, well, I was banned there years ago,
> and I am sure there is some interest in Howard
> also here.
>
> Steven Pinker in his recent book THE BETTER ANGELS
> OF OUR NATURE: WHY VIOLENCE HAS DECLINED quotes
> Howard as follows:
>
>
>
> The odd thing about this, of course, is that
> Pinker likes civilization, whereas Howard,
> famously, did not. Nor do I think the sentiment is
> original to Howard. (It is, of course, also
> strange to call Howard a novelist, and to drop the
> "E" from his name. One suspects Pinker is not
> really a Howard scholar.)

Howard didn't like barbarism very much either. And while Pinker may not be much of a Howard scholar, this does serve as good evidence of Howard's cultural penetration.

Scott

Any hint as to where this REH quote is taken from?

Is it not from a letter to Lovecraft?

Certainly sounds like one of of their debates...

The English Assassin Wrote:
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> Any hint as to where this REH quote is taken from?

It's from the short story "The Tower of the Elephant" (1933).

You are right; so it is!

priscian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The English Assassin Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Any hint as to where this REH quote is taken
> from?
>
> It's from the short story "The Tower of the
> Elephant" (1933).

Ahhhh, well spotted! Thanks.

Jojo Lapin X Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I would have posted this on the Robert E Howard
> Forum, but, well, I was banned there years ago,
> and I am sure there is some interest in Howard
> also here.
>
> Steven Pinker in his recent book THE BETTER ANGELS
> OF OUR NATURE: WHY VIOLENCE HAS DECLINED quotes
> Howard as follows:

Quote:
As the novelist Robert Howard put it, "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split." (p 128)

> The odd thing about this, of course, is that
> Pinker likes civilization, whereas Howard,
> famously, did not. Nor do I think the sentiment is
> original to Howard.

"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life." -- Robert A. Heinlein, Beyond This Horizon, 1942.

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“The true independent is he who dwells detached and remote from the little herds as well as from the big herd. Affiliating with no group or cabal of mice or monkeys, he is of course universally suspect.” — The Black Book of Gore Vidal.

Just one tiny little thing. The Heinlein passage postdates Howard.

Jojo Lapin X wrote:

> Just one tiny little thing. The Heinlein passage
> postdates Howard.

Indifference tightens its grip on the close-knit Eldritch-Dark-forum community when it is revealed that many participants are web-bots operated by the Chinese Defense Ministry. Comments one regular: "If I'd ever wondered at my complete lack of sensory and other experience, which I didn't, I'd possibly have assumed it was something to do with being Canadian. As it is, I'd now know better. Still, I could've looked on the bright side, had that been necessary, which it wasn't. The shock of not actually existing, when one doesn't actually exist, isn't so much a shock as, well, it isn't a shock," the regular concludes.

---

“The true independent is he who dwells detached and remote from the little herds as well as from the big herd. Affiliating with no group or cabal of mice or monkeys, he is of course universally suspect.” — The Black Book of Gore Vidal.