As a counterpunch to left-wing science fiction writer China Mivilles list of Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels for socialists Samuel Goldman of the American Conservative penned 10 Sci Fi and Fantasy Works Every Conservative Should Read." As Goldman explained Im not suggesting that these books express conservative views as such. But they do raise questions for conservatives or develop ideas from which conservatives can learn."
Goldman listed Robert E. Howards Conan stories as number seven. Following close behind was H.P. Lovecraft particularly the Cthulhu cycle" of stories. Lovecraft as Goldman reminded us in his article was Howards friend and mentor who believed society had to be defended from the eternal danger of barbarism."
The questions these writers raised have never been more urgent for conservatives. Both Howard and Lovecraft saw civilization and order as not only fragile but necessarily short-lived. In the fictional worlds these imaginative writers created the values and beliefs that made life possible had to be defended against forces of chaos that inevitably had the upper hand. What counted was the protagonists resolve and dedication.
Lovecraft was a literary and financial failure in life though in the 1960s and 70s both conservative and counter-culture fans rediscovered him. Jorge Luis Borges Umberto Eco Stephen King Joyce Carol Oates and French novelist Michel Houellebecq have all credited Lovecraft as a decisive thematic and stylistic (if not philosophical) influence.
A bright and sensitive child whose parents died in the same insane asylum Howard Lovecraft early on came to see the civilization around him as decadent and fated to give way to the forces of chaos. He agreed with Oswald Spengler that Western civilization was declining. On page 228 of Lovecrafts Selected Letters he admitted:
It would be better if we could still be naive beauty-loving and ignorant yet we cannot turn the clock back. Memphis and Nineveh Babylon and Persepolis Carthage and Ctesiphon Athens and Lacedaemon Rome and Alexandria Antioch and Tyre all these have had their day and their sunset; their grandeur and their fall. In the face of such a pageant of history it would be folly to expect anything else of the existing civilisation. This age in America corresponds quite startlingly to the luxurious and disillusioned age of Antonines in the Roman Empire when Rome Alexandria Antioch Athens and New Carthage blazed in the sunset that was to mark the death of the ancient world.
Like Lovecraft Robert E. Howard acquired his fatalistic view of the universe and civilization as a youngster. Howards Conan the Barbarian was a fierce but somewhat naive and stubbornly principled outsider who had little patience with the soft and decadent city dwellers he often had to rescue. Conans attitude toward civilization" and progress" reflected Howards own views formed by Howards childhood travels in the oil boomtowns his father served as a doctor in the half-wild Texas backcountry of the early 1900s. The saloons oil wildcatters and unscrupulous businessmen the young Howard encountered instilled in him the image of the city as a breeding ground of enervating luxury corruption and degeneracy. Despite Lovecrafts and Howards pessimism both upheld personal codes of conduct they clearly believed as essential for their personal honor and sanity as well as for the good of those they cared about. Conan was always quick to take up the cause of the weak and the unfortunate. A lady in distress would find not just a champion in the rough barbarian but a hot-headed and passionate lover as well. To his comrades Conan would remain fiercely loyal despite the perils. In Queen of the Black Coast Conan lost his patience with a judge who demanded Conan testify against a comrade in arms:Well last night in a tavern a captain in the kings guard offered violence to the sweetheart of a young soldier who naturally ran him through. But it seems there is some cursed law against killing guardsmen and the boy and his girl fled away. It was bruited about that I was seen with them and so today I was haled into court and a judge asked me where the lad had gone. I replied that since he was a friend of mine I could not betray him. Then the court waxed wrath and the judge talked a great deal about my duty to the state and society and other things I did not understand and bade me tell where my friend had flown. By this time I was becoming wrathful myself for I had explained my position.
But I choked my ire and held my peace and the judge squalled that I had shown contempt for the court and that I should be hurled into a dungeon to rot until I betrayed my friend. So then seeing they were all mad I drew my sword and cleft the judges skull; then I cut my way out of the court and seeing the high constables stallion tied near by I rode for the wharfs where I thought to find a ship bound for foreign parts.
And thus began yet another adventure. Similarly Lovecrafts protagonists confronted madness and evil as a result of what often began as misguided friendship idle curiosity or even scholarly pursuit. Their struggles however were always doomed from the start. In one of Howards best tales The Shadow over Innsmouth the intrepid and resourceful protagonist managed to evade an entire town of half-amphibian half-human monsters only to discover at the end of the tale that he was one of them. Again the forces of darkness and chaos proved inescapable. Despite his fatalistic view of life Lovecraft like Howard believed that a man must uphold certain standards for his own sake and for others. On page 111 of his Letters Howard made this explicit:Surely it is well that the happiness of the unfortunate be made as great as possible; and he who is kind helpful and patient with his fellow-sufferers adds as truly to the worlds combined fund of tranquillity as he who with greater endowments promotes the birth of empires or advances the knowledge and civilisation of mankind. Thus no man of philosophical cast however circumscribed by poverty or retarded by ailment need feel himself superfluous so long as he holds the power to improve the spirits of others.
As Samuel Goldman cautioned in his list for conservatives Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft may not have imparted conservative views in their highly readable and often disturbing fiction but certainly raised issues every modern-day conservative must confront.