“As for the Republicans—how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical ‘American heritage’…) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead."
-H. P. Lovecraft, 1936
(though I wouldn't necessarily limit it to one political party...)
That's depressing; not only does that fit both political parties, but it's still extremely applicable some seventy years later. :(
ReplyDelete"Democrats invariably ape the grotesque crudities of the lower orders and make conspicuous clowns of themselves; jeering at civilised speech, manners, and standards of accuracy and beauty instead of respecting these things and urging their beloved masses to work up toward them. As long as they persist in this position, they will win nothing but the distrust and hostility of men well-disposed toward civilisation and the fullest realisation of the human personality." (H. P. Lovecraft to Woodburn Harris, 9 November 1929)
ReplyDeleteDonovan K. Loucks
Webmaster, The H.P. Lovecraft Archive
http://www.hplovecraft.com
Well played, Sir Loucks.
ReplyDelete(Apparently my trifle of a blog does indeed get picked up in the search engines...)