The Street

[Kaelestes]

It's certainly a more understandable story when you consider that socialists & communists back then weren't your warm & fuzzy "hippie" types.  More along the lines of your Emma Goldman, rioting in the streets anarchist types, or your Leon Czolgosz-style "murder the President" type, or the classic Russian "line mother & children against wall, gun them all down" type.  Or the Pol-Pot "kill anyone with a college education" type.

Hippie types? Modern hippies are a bunch of spoiled rich kids trying to act out and be noticed (mostly due to the smell). What an insult to socialists and communists! Explain yourself or be destroyed! Hungary is aiming their nukes at your house! Actually I don't think Hungary has nukes, but they're probably very upset and aren't likely to share any food with you. China on the other hand . . .

[Parallaxicality]

I think a lot of Hungarians would be upset to be described as Communists, especially considering what they went through at the hands of the USSR (viz: the Hungarian Uprising)

[Kaelestes]

No, no, no, they're socialists. It's a socialist nation. There's the problem with grouping the two right there!

[bar1scorpio]

Well, both leaning towards the same end of the fiscal political spectrum.  Governments in increasing levels of business, which pretty much leaves you with the Vogons in charge.  Alternately, on the other extreme you end up with John Bircher Libertarians, who pretty much believe in no controls.

As for Emma herself, she may have never been directly linked to violence, but she seemed to be one of the "Helter Skelters" of her day.  Where seriously disturbed people would view her as inspiration.

[Kaelestes]

I just came here to make fun of hippies.

[catamount]

I just came here to make fun of hippies.

Dirty hippies!

[cthuid]

Filthy dirty hippies.

[dadavoodoo]

This one can only be blamed on H.P.L!

[lilhankey]

After a while, Lovecraft's revisions just kinda' shove as much Cthulhu as possiable. man, I can't wait for for you guys to get to the "Winged Terror". things are going to get freaky when you guys read that, "The Horror in the Museame" expect  most of these revisions to be pretty bad. but,you should should give the Love dead a try though, i thought it was somewhat good, I nice little break from the Mythos!

[old book]

It's certainly a more understandable story when you consider that socialists & communists back then weren't your warm & fuzzy "hippie" types.  More along the lines of your Emma Goldman, rioting in the streets anarchist types, or your Leon Czolgosz-style "murder the President" type, or the classic Russian "line mother & children against wall, gun them all down" type.  Or the Pol-Pot "kill anyone with a college education" type.

I feel the need to defend Emma Goldman, and anarchists in general,  as Goldman is one of my most important political influences. 

To chrarterize Emma as a 'rioting in the streets' anarchist is really only going paper deep in your analysis of what she advocated.  Of course, like most anarchists Emma advocated revolutionary social change, I would argue that Emma's was philosophically committed to revolution more then she was in practice.  More then anything, she was a firebrand and a populist who enjoyed railling up people and her detractors. 

When confronting the idea that anarchism is only 'rioting in the street' Emma wrote:

Destruction and violence!  How is the ordinary man to know that the most violent element in society is ignorance; that its power of destruction is the very thing Anarchism is combating?  Nor is he aware that Anarchism, whose roots, as it were, are part of nature's forces, destroys, not healthful tissue, but parasitic growths that feed on the life's essence of society.  It is merely clearing the soil from weeds and sagebrush, that it may eventually bear healthy fruit.

Beyond what she advocated, the bigger question is how is freedom of speech handled in a democratic society, and how do we treat unpopular beliefs?

There was at this time anarchists committed to "propaganda of the deed" like the Galleanists who in 1919 committed a series of bombings.  These bombings fueled the Red Scare of 1919-20, and led directly to the Palmer raids, where more than 500 foreign citizens were deported, without trial, because of there beliefs and not because of any particiation in any crime. 

The end of the First red scare effectively ended on May Day of 1920, in the absence of the massive communist uprising, which was predicted by Atourny General A. Mitchell Palmer to occur on that day.

At this time, Lovecraft was an ultra-conservative reactionary (as he was for most of his life).  The red scare was happening; he was swept into that and used the fear of communists/anarchists/leftists as a mask for his xenophobia. 

Yeah, I like Emma too. I think she only really smelt bad after she got out of jail and was homeless in Central Park for a while. That whole thing with McKinley was a cock-up, she had nothing at all to do with it beyond guilt by association.

[bkd69]

I'm going through the episodes in order, and reading each story ahead of the episodes, so this brings me a bit late to this party...

So, awful, agreed, but I figured it was a natural response to the Wall Street bombing, as it was contemporary.

Then I checked the dates.

The Street was written in late 1919, published December 1920 (no doubt helped into print by the Wall Street bombing), while the bombing occurred in September 1920. So HPL was really in tune with unrest in the streets.

The other thing to take away from this story is the whole notion of buildings and neighborhoods having souls, which is well he drinks from quite heartily in future writings.

[Kaelestes]

If you're interested, China Mieville wrote a short story called Reports of Certain Events in London, which is perhaps an homage to The Street, only infinitely better and thoroughly creepy. It can be found in his Looking for Jake collection.

This short story, in the form of a collection of fictional documents supposedly "received" by the author, presents the idea that there exist certain autonomous streets which phase in and out of existence...

[Bob Lovecraft]

Did they ever find Jake? Or would that be a spoiler?

Bob

[Kaelestes]

Did they ever find Jake? Or would that be a spoiler?

I'll leave you with an answer of "sorta" in hopes that it will pique your interest.