I'll never read his stories again

[NoJo]

Ever discovered that a writer/poet you admire had political ideas so repugnant to you that you were permanently put off reading anything by them?

I came across this quote from one of my all-time favorite authors:

How will the New Republic treat the inferior races? How will it deal with the yellow man?… the black?… the Jew? Those swarms of black, and brown, and dirty white, and yellow people, who do not come into the new needs of efficiency? Well, the world is a world, and not a charitable institution, and I take it they will have to go… And the ethical system of these men of the New Republic, the ethical system which will dominate the world state, will be shaped primarily to favour the procreation of what is fine and efficient and beautiful in humanity – beautiful and strong bodies, clear and powerful minds… and the method that nature has followed hitherto in the shaping of the world, whereby weakness was prevented from propagating weakness… is death… the men of the New Republic… will have an ideal that will make the killing worth the while.

I wish I'd never read that.

 

[LadyJeanne]

Are you sure you have that in context? Perhaps he wrote it as an ironic and sarcastic prediction of what will be when the New Republic racists come into power? Kinda like Jonathon Swift and the whole eating kids thing?

 

[Guest]

José, move on. Most of the dead white European males whose books, paintings or music I admire were arrogant, racist dickheads. Bugger.

P.

 

[kendo1]

But was it rhetorical?

I don't recognise it.

 

[NoJo]

Are you sure you have that in context? Perhaps he wrote it as an ironic and sarcastic prediciton of what will be when the New Republic racists come into power? Kinda like Jonathon Swift and the whole eating kids thing?

Nope, sadly, he was being serious. He wrote it in 1905.

It's also a reminder that plenty of "left-wing" racists exist. Wells was a well-known radical socialist.

 

[kendo1]

Maybe he's got a point?

 

[NoJo]

José, move on. Most of the dead white European males whose books, paintings or music I admire were arrogant, racist dickheads. Bugger.

P.

So, you're into dead white European males. I score 3 out of 4.

 

[CharleyH]

Anything well written and repugnantly deserves attention. If it affected you? EVEN better. It all makes you a better writer, no Joe?

 

[NoJo]

Anything well written and repugnantly deserves attention. If it affected you? EVEN better. It all makes you a better writer, no Joe?

Personally I prefer clumsiliy articulated laudable sentiments. That's why I spend so much time in the Hallmark store.

 

[Guest]

So, you're into dead white European males. I score 3 out of 4.

Well, depending on which side of the social fence one faces, Jewish doesn't necessarily equal "white". But I'd do you anyway.

Perdita

p.s. Think on the characteristics of the Morlocks and Elois in The Time Machine (evil dark people vs. good/innocent types.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Sub Joe,

I'd like to read that in context because, to me, this excerpt does sound a bit like Swift irony.

The New Republic was, and is, a liberal/progressive magazine.

Welles list of "inferior races" included danged near everyone who wasn't the typical NR reader, upper-class WASPs, including:

"the yellow man?…
the black?…
the Jew?
Those swarms of black,
and brown,
and dirty white,
and yellow people,
who do not come into the new needs of efficiency?

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Guest]

Joe, I'm sorry, but I see nothing inflamatory in what he said and I read it twice to be sure. Wells does not give ANY insight into how he feels
personally about what he sees as the future of "The New Republic", which I can only assume is America. From what I see he is simply stating what he sees as a likely scenario occuring in the states but does not say that he agrees with it.

Given the mentality towards blacks and asian immigrants in America during that period, not to mention Native Americans and the mutitudes of "half-breeds", I would be more shocked if the majority of people who saw that quote back then did not agree that it was the likely outcome.

 

[Guest]

Seriously, there seems to be some question about Wells' racism. It was very real and as far as his latest biographers can detect, he never recanted such statements as Joe posted above. Wells was one of the most enthusiastic and long-lived proponents of eugenics. His antisemitics was a little less rampant as he presumed Jews could soon be faded out of the human race, but his very flagrant judgment of the inferiority of the 'dark' races is what led his studies and activist work for eugenics.

Btw, but for his fame Wells was not extraordinarily racist for his times (Victorian).

Perdita

 

[Guest]

Wells does not give ANY insight into how he feels personally about what he sees as the future of "The New Republic", which I can only assume is America.

Wrong. The 'new' republic for Wells was specifically targeted (by him) to be made up of white (his label) European nations.

Perdita

 

[NoJo]

Wells believed in Eugenics. He was a radical socialist -- he believed in "efficiency". He really thought that what he saw as the British Empire's "Charity towards the Lesser People" was a sign of Bourgeois decadence, and that there was no room for that sort of hypocrisy in the New Republic.

He was greatly admired by Stalin.

I'm sorry to say, the guy was just a fucking white supremicist.

 

[Guest]

Wrong. The 'new' republic for Wells was specifically targeted (by him) to be made up of white (his label) European nations.

Perdita

Pardon my ignorance.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I like some of his stories. I'll continue to like them. I wouldn't love Watership Down any less if Richard Adams came out for the extermination of homosexuals.

I don't have to admire the politics of the man to enjoy the genius.

 

[NoJo]

Btw, but for his fame Wells was not extraordinarily racist for his times (Victorian).

Perdita

Actually, the quote I cited appeared in a chapter of book that discussed changing attitudes to race. And the point being made was exactly that -- that his rhetoric, so shocking to most people nowadays, probably didn't even raise an eyebrow at the time.

 

[NoJo]

I like some of his stories. I'll continue to like them. I wouldn't love Watership Down any less if Richard Adams came out for the extermination of homosexuals.

I don't have to admire the politics of the man to enjoy the genius.

Richard Adams used to enjoy running over rabbits over with his car.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Wells believed in Eugenics. He was a radical socialist -- he believed in "efficiency". He really thought that what he saw as the British Empire's "Charity towards the Lesser People" was a sign of Bourgeois decadence, and that there was no room for that sort of hypocrisy in the New Republic.

He was greatly admired by Stalin.

I'm sorry to say, the guy was just a fucking white supremicist.

You're right. But as Perdita pointed out, his beliefs were more the norm than the extreme for that period. At the time, racism was academically, socially, and morally accepted.

There's a great story that US President Woodrow Wilson left a theater after watching DW Griffin's, "Birth of A Nation." with tears in his eyes, mumbling, "Yes, that's the way it was."

Wilson was a southern preacher's kid during the American civil war. He was also a Ph.d and former president of Princeton University, and he was wrong.

Welles' views of race are so outlandish by contemporary standards, it's very hard for us to put him in perspective.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[gauchecritic]

The times create the man.

I think you're being a bit hard with yourself joe. You seem to be disliking the fact that you can admire someone when you didn't have the facts but when you get the facts you begin to dislike yourself.

You enjoyed his simplistic writing and his apparent grasp of vivid prognostication, but compare his 'science fiction' with lots of modern science based fiction and you see he was but a simpleton living in simple times.

I'd reserve my disgust for writers like Heinlen who ought to have known better.

 

[Tom Collins]

Ever discovered that a writer/poet you admire had political ideas so repugnant to you that you were permanently put off reading anything by them?...
I wish I'd never read that.

It doesn't matter if Wells ment it ironically or not. The fact is that he published this thought, and that is what is troubling joe right now.

joe: I understand where you are coming from on this point. I, too, have experienced this letdown by a favored author. In one fell swoop they completely rock the way that you previously saw them. They suddenly become totally different people than you had imagined they were, they become real, living, stupid people. Just like anyone else, and it almost physically hurts. Sometimes you can learn to live with this closer to reality entity, and sometimes you can't.
For me it, I though Robert A. Heinline was a GOD. Then, while reading one of his books, I realized he was just a dirty old man who had a great imagination for future technology, and a real obsession with incest. (read "Time Enough for Love") Luckily I learned to sccept that he was human, just like me, and could enjoy rereading his books again. Same with Piers Anthony, but his obsession was sex in genereal. Possibly, I got over this so easy with these two authors because it was sex, and I came to understand that most everyone has a sexual obsession of some sort.
I think this one will be harder for you to get over. Maybe impossible. That's even if you want to, and I wouldn't blame you if you didn't.
If you can't accept the reality of his flaws, then I hope you find someone that you can replace him with. Frankly, I don't read much Anthony anymore. His work is like erotic for teens in most cases, like he never really grew up.(IMHO) Imagine Peter Pan in Eroticerotic Land.(second testy to the right, and straight on 'til morning)

 

[SeaCat]

Joe,

Many f not most people of Wells time were quite racist. If they weren't they were not the norm, they were the radicals. You must take each person, each author as a part of thier time. (Yes even R.A.Heinlein who was extremely racist and quite interested with Incest.) You must look at them from the perspective of their time. Much like readers in the future must look at us in our time.

We, as authors, must look at what another has written in the context of their times. Remember, in the future someone may unearth the Lit. Archives, look at what was written and think to themselves that what we have written was disgusting.

Cat

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I like Hitler's Westerns. Don't spoil them for me.

 

[Tom Collins]

Joe,

Many f not most people of Wells time were quite racist. If they weren't they were not the norm, they were the radicals. You must take each person, each author as a part of thier time. (Yes even R.A.Heinlein who was extremely racist and quite interested with Incest.) You must look at them from the perspective of their time. Much like readers in the future must look at us in our time.

We, as authors, must look at what another has written in the context of their times. Remember, in the future someone may unearth the Lit. Archives, look at what was written and think to themselves that what we have written was disgusting.

Cat

I've seen this sentiment many time, and not just here. What I disagree with is that just because it was correct for "the times they were in" doesn't make it right.
I'm not trying to say that this sentiment is "wrong" per se. I can see the world from this perspective. I just don't think it's right to excuse someone's fucked up thought patterns just because they didn't know any better. Would you agree to letting a serial killer go free because there was something so screwed up in his brain that he didn't understand that killing people was wrong? I somehow doubt it.
At the same time I recognize the truth of what my grandfather told me when I was about 8. Opinions are like assholes, and everyone thinks everyone elses stinks. Thanks to this statement, Which I didn't understand at the time, I can repect other people's thought whether I like them or not. (Atleast I try to. No one is perfect. Except maybe Santa. )