[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by Ningauble

No serious Lovecraft scholar has put any stock in the idea of the Cthulhu Mythos reflecting the fall of Satan and the war in heaven since at least the early 1970s when Richard Tierney started dismantling Derleth's misconceptions in his essay "The Derleth Mythos". Besides, "the Cthulhu Mythos" is largely a Derlethian concept; Lovecraft never used the term and it's unlikely that he thought of some of his tales as constituting a sub-genre of their own. Lovecraft did not have any Great Old Ones vs. Elder Gods in his stories.

Interestingly, this was roughly the time I became heavily interested in Lovecraft, ca. 1971-72, when I was in high school. Once bitten, I've never shaken the fever. (And yes, this is a tongue-in-cheek reference to "Winged Death"....)

I do feel, however, that I need to address a couple of points anent evolution, not to continue the discussion on evolution per se, but because they are relevant to Lovecraft's handling of the issue and, therefore, likely of whatever symbolic value he intended (consciously or unconsciously) for the shoggoths:

darwin is wrong .....the NATURE"S fittest OR STRONGEST DOES NOT survive......THE LUCKIEST DOES.....!!!

I may be misreading this, but I'm seeing an equivalence between the terms "fittest" and "strongest" here, and nothing could be farther from the truth, either concerning such an identity of meaning or Darwin's (or modern evolutionary theory's) ideas on the matter. "Strongest" certainly doesn't imply fittest to survive; after all, predators cannot exist without prey. The identification of "fittest" and "strongest" is more from the "Social Darwinian" movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, long discredited as based on a very fallacious understanding of Darwin's ideas (not to mention the refinements of the basic ideas since). Now, it's been 30+ years since I last read either The Origin of Species or The Descent of Man, but as I recall, Darwin's contention was that those who were most fit (i.e., able to adapt to an environment or -- in the case of such an evolved species as humankind -- able to adapt an environment to them) survived. This is something rather difficult to argue with, as it eliminates the entire idea of "luck" -- a rather shaky concept when it comes to scientific reasoning -- or reality -- to begin with. Yes, there is a component of chance, but it is statistically rather small; and "fitness" also, in this context, would require the ability to adapt or change such environmental factors as you have mentioned. Or, in other words, Darwin was far from wrong on this one....

Now, as for Lovecraft's views on the matter, I cannot do better than to suggest you find a copy of his "In Defence of Dagon" essays (actually letters he wrote to the Transatlantic Circulator amateur journalism circle, from which extracts were published in essay form; the entire text of these letters has now been published under this title), which deal quite extensively and specifically with his views on this matter. Lovecraft was very much in accord with Darwinian evolution in general; in fact, a lot of this lies behind his association of horror with the "primal slime", primitive forms of humanity, etc. -- because he (at least fictionally and, from some aspects in his essays and letters, I would also say to some degree factually) viewed a retrogression down that evolutionary ladder as possible (aided, for instance, by such things as alcohol -- cf. his "More Chain Lightning" essay, as well as his letter to the Kleicomolo of October 1916); something considered highly unlikely or impossible in light of what we know of the mechanisms of evolution. It was the contemplation of where humanity had come from, and to which it could all-too-easily return, which gives such things in his fiction the power they have, because they had an enormous amount of power both aesthetically and philosophically for Lovecraft. This sort of theme runs throughout his fiction, from as early as "The Beast in the Cave" (1905) through at least "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" (1931). (I would argue that it goes through the end of his career, but in the latter stories it becomes somewhat more attenuated or transmogrified, perhaps even more intertwined with the idea of the "alien"; i.e., Peaslee's finding himself in the body of one of the Great Race, or Blake's feeling of identity with the Haunter of the Dark/Nyarlathotep.)

As for your reference to genocide -- well, while this may sound distasteful, yes, I do think it fits into the idea of natural selection... though not in the way most people would tend to think. I say that it does because we are part of that natural order; we do not transcend it, nor can we see it objectively, being a part of the process. We are a very small part of life, after all; our perspective is hardly such as to allow us to view the entire picture. This does not excuse such behavior, which is abhorrent and vile; but by its existence as a part of behavior within the natural history of one species... it is a part of natural selection. This would be so, even were we to eliminate the human race entirely, via biological or nuclear warfare, or simply the gradual damage we've done to the planet causing, in the end, our own extinction. What affects us deleteriously we naturally view with alarm, because it does affect us. However, on the cosmic scale... it is negligible. Over and over again, Lovecraft contrasted the narrow, human point of view with that cosmic perspective in which we have so vanishingly small a part. This is one of the things that has made his terror fiction nearly unique; the fact that, while presenting things quite often through the first-person (and therefore intimately personal, filled with the narrator's/character's own reactions to what they experience) point of view, he maintains that cosmic perspective of a universe which simply does not care about our existence or extinction, not because it is malefic or malign, but because it is mechanism only. It has no consciousness to care about anything, while we do. That collision (if I may) of these two perspectives, is what provides much of the dynamic of his fiction; and the evolutionary aspect of it is a part of that, as it, too, destroys our illusions about our own importance or uniqueness, leaving us simply another blind product of natural forces; but, ironically (as Donald Burleson has pointed out) we are highly developed enough to be aware of these things. It is this which allows the poignancy of so much of his work, going far beyond mere "horror" fiction.