More and more I’m suspecting that Lovecraft was right about at least some of his creations. Nyarlathotep, for example. Of all his Old Ones that posed a threat to mankind, the “Crawling Chaos” was one of the few that actually *cared* about humanity. Most were vast cosmic entities that didn’t even really notice us, or noticed us only as bugs to be trod upon, or not, without much thought. Malevolent entities to be sure, but they barely gave a damn one way or the other. Nyarlathotep, on the other hand, actively walked among humanity, often taking on human form, and worked to bring down and drive mad civilization. He didn’t do this by using brute force, but by whispering in ears, showing people visions, hell, giving lectures. Those who witnessed often went bugnuts and tore civilization down around them in their insanity.
Sound familiar?
From his “prose poem” Nyarlathotep:
I recall that the people went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard. A sense of monstrous guilt was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the stars swept chill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places. There was a daemoniac alteration in the sequence of the seasons—the autumn heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and perhaps the universe had passed from the control of known gods or forces to that of gods or forces which were unknown.
After decades of race relations getting better, everything is worse now: mobs of racists are beating the tar out of random targets in shopping malls and on streets. Criminals are not only not being arrested, they’re being undercharged, or not charged at all, when they do get arrested. People with acknowledged violent streaks are being unleashed on the public to offend again and again. People who are so delusional that they mutilate their bodies to fit what they think they are supposed to be are *celebrated,* not given treatment; this form of madness is exploding in popularity, becoming statistically significant… and is now not only threatening the lives of those who don’t celebrate them, they are celebrating those who actually take the lives of children. The threat of nuclear annihilation disappeared thirty years ago… and now it’s fricken’ back. The Chinese look like they might replace the American dollar as the default world currency. Perverts and deviants are demanding – and gaining – access to children on an almost industrial scale; anyone who complains risks the wrath of not just the mob but the law. The upper echelons of political leadership are filled with the senile, the stupid, the brain damaged. How does this *not* seem like Nyarlathotep is standing in the shadows, whispering vast numbers into madness?
What I find especially bothersome is that we are on the precipice of *hope.* SpaceX, for example, is perhaps weeks away from a test launch of a rocket that could begin the process of freeing mankind from dependence on this one rock. Hell, we’ve finally got good Star Trek for the first time in decades… and it could all be flushed.
