/lit/ - Literature

>Guys, is literary merit objective or subjective

IT IS OBJECTIVE YOU IDIOT PLEB

>Guys, why is this Harvard educated Princeton professor telling people to throw books in the trash if theyre by white men

LITERARY MERIT IS SUBJECTIVE YOU PLEB

>Guys, shall I skip the republic and just focus on the ideas behind it? I am not much interested in a wank fantasy about a form of government I dont care about.

NO, THE PHILOSOPHERS MATTER JUST AS MUCH, IF NOT MORESO THAN THE IDEAS

>Guys, it is clear that the space for unfalsifiable ideas is an infinitely sized space. Why should I care about certain ideas over others if even the selection of criteria is an unfalsifiable assertion?

SHUT UP AND DO WHAT THE ACADEMIA-MEDIA-PUBLISHING INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX TELL YOU TO DO, PLEB

>Why is literature seen as a philosophical endeavour instead of an entertainment endeavour?

STOP ASKING QUESTIONS REE REE REE

>Does Kendrick Lamar have greater artistic achievements than you will ever create?

NO NO NO, BECAUSE HES BLACK. ALSO FUCK OFF /POL/!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/01/07/poet-i-cant-answer-questions-on-texas-standardized-tests-about-my-own-poems/

Pseudo intellectual academia-media-publishing industrial complex hangers on ON SUICIDE WATCH (oh wait, they have no shame).

>muh study of English literature is anything other than a self referential, contradictory, unfalsifiable, non widely agreed upon pile of BS designed to create easy degrees for women and numales and scam the government for money

I really feel like giving up on every single book that doesn't either give me immediate enjoyment or raise my pseudo intellectual cred among the pseuds.

Fuck the academia-media-publishing industrial complex telling me that I have to care about some New Yorker / NYROB / LROB, Oxbridge / HYP attending, former public / prep schooler's self indulgent, narcissistic, and barely disguised memoirs and pretend that it is both entertaining and informative and philosophically profound and somehow I'm supposed to give a shit about them when none of them give a shit about me (yeah, it's 2016, I can say that, deal with it).

I'm tired of being told that I have to read shitloads of stuff to be smart while those pseuds have done nothing intellectual in their lives and live the bohemian fuckfest life in London or New York while pretending they're above it.

We have the internet, stop pretending that reading means shit in an age where chopping down trees and to make a book is an anachronism. Stop pretending that 99.9 % of non fiction books can't be summarised easily.

Have you realised that the information age, with the huge amount of reading material, everything in English or translated to English, and vastly increased number of (sub-)media for books alone (physical, magazine, tablet, phone, e-reader, website, blog etc.), has destroyed the idea of being "well read"?

I think this for two reasons. First is the huge volume of stuff. You could read all day and never even read 1 % of all that "valuable" stuff. When it was 1600 and you could have read everything during your 3 years of formal education (more than 99 % of people) you could immediately join the intellectuals club. Now that's not true and it's demoralising.

The second reason is the killer. The idea of some sort of central planning bureau setting the list of required books is seen as farcical. We truly live in a much more multipolar world. Back in 1100 the Church told you to read the Greeks and the Bible and you are suddenly intelligent and well informed. There were no universities or companies or groups to tell you otherwise. These days, the huge increase in education means that everyone has an opinion and the arbitrariness of the "canon" has been exposed even to the most soody of pseudo intellectuals. Not only due to the multipolarisation within literature, but also the multipolarisation among activities. Who would claim that some Fields Medallist winning mathematician is an idiot because he hasn't read the Bible? It would take a high level of soodiness. But it would have been easy 1000 years ago.

Ultimately all this "well read" stuff was just a way for groups of people to signal social status / intellectualism or deriving other benefits by grouping their claimed interests together. We see it today when the academia-media-publishing industrial complex tells you that you have to read books or you're stupid. But this has been taken to a farcical new level now that writers like Tao Lin / Mira Gonzalez exist. It's also clear in other activities.

>Hey /lit/, why do you pretend that books and art quality is objective? Why do you dismiss art forms that use new technology when books themselves were born from new technology? Why do you pretend to love "knowledge" or "wisdom" but ignore all of STEM and only mentally masturbate over the Greeks and Romans? Why do you never acknowledge the academia-media-publishing industrial complex and its role in society?

Why am I being told I have to read lots of boring novels and told that these books have "incredible insights" when all these insights are seemingly unfalsifiable theories made up by people in order to give faux-intellectual credit to authors and justify the existence and continued funding of English Literature departments?

Why are people discouraged from using enjoyment as a criterion for which books they read?

Why am I constantly being told to praise a philosopher's completely unfalsifiable chain of reasoning (when the space for unfalsifiable ideas is infinitely large) and told to stop being sceptical of all philosophies by famous philosophers of the past or professional philosophers of today?

Why am I constantly being told to read contemporary non fiction books about the latest psychology findings / China / the economy etc. and threatened with a reputation as an idiot when the breadth of areas for the expression of human intelligence and the cultivation of skills and discoveries is much greater than whatever the academia-media-publishing industrial complex happens to consider marketable at that point in time?

Why is it that non-STEM philosophers actively avoid trying to answer questions that involve mathematics at a greater than high school level when the scientific method (or seductive mathematical method) is merely one method out of infinitely many?

When did you realise that the ideal of being well read was a harmful meme propagated by the academia-media-publishing industrial complex?

"Good peon... Focus on the barely disguised narcissistic memoirs of some dead person... Books are mind enriching... Consume more books... Never mind that the information age has made a mockery of information's value as a commodity among people... You're just so curious about the world and such a voracious reader, aren't you, peasant...

That psychologist's new 400 page book based on lab experiments and that could be summarised in 5 pages has been read by most people at your local cafe! Imagine the embarrassment if they find out you haven't read it... You're right, enjoyment is an immature state... That continental philosopher has such profound and non trivial insights about our society, it seems like you now have another 12 books on your "must read" list in order to be well read... Don't forget the conservative tradition, that's another 20 books you must read... No, don't ask any meta-questions or ask whether they work within self referential citation ring systems with unfalsifiable theories and trivial insights; bad peasant! Your dinner party guests would be shocked to hear that!

This 1200 page post-modern masterpiece references 500 works that you must also read before you die... No, don't fall asleep while reading it! The cover quote calls it, "Frequently hilarious!" Maybe you haven't read enough to fully appreciate it?"

>Yiannopoulos announced on Thursday that he had inked a book deal with Simon & Schuster reportedly worth $250,000.

>"I met with top execs at Simon & Schuster earlier in the year and spent half an hour trying my hardest to shock them with lewd jokes and outrageous opinions," he said. "I thought they were going to have me escorted from the building — but instead they offered me a wheelbarrow full of cash."

Tell me again why you worship the academia-media-publishing industrial complex...

>when I was younger
>"Lol the curtains were just red, who cares, why am I being told to find subjective conclusions and being judged as if they're objective?!"

>When I was older and smarter
>"The curtains were red for a very intelligent reason by the genius author, a reason which gives maximum insight in to human nature and the objectivity of aesthetics, not that I will dare ask why I should care about those or why everything is so obscurantist!"

>when I reached my final form

Literary Theory, as it is practised and as a whole is a set of intentionally vague, contradictory, and ever changing rules that create a logical system used by the academia-media-publishing industrial complex in order to monopolise the judgement of art, secure government funding, compete in the form of social posturing (by far the strongest reason), promote a large government, and guilt trip insecure members of the public in to paying for and proclaiming enjoyment of art.

>inb4 you say "I don't know art but I know what I like" in a non RP accent

I'm not even passing judgement on the "value" of this dominant version of "literary theory". I'm simply awaiting the butthurt that will inevitably commence just from pointing out that other forms can exist and not genuflecting towards the dominant form.

Can we have a serious discussion about the New Yorker / New England / PoMo / MFA writers that seem to have been heavily promoted by the academia-media-publishing industrial complex? And how people who don't aspire to be like those people or dislike their work are denigrated?

They are awful pretentious unfunny windbags. Fuck off, I will never find Pynchon funny, ever.

One of the key problems with them is that they turn up and feel entitled to take the "royal road" to profundity / meaningfulness. You can literally tell within a few pages what they are trying to do and it is excruciating. It reads like 13 year olds. But 13 year olds are laughed at / lightly scolded and can be forgiven. These PoMo fags are heavily promoted by publishing companies and the zombie hangers on and they just keep repeating the same shit.

I think the British equivalents aren't quite as entitled but they are pretty bad.

When did you realise that the ideal of being well read was a harmful meme propagated by the academia-media-publishing industrial complex?

"Good peon... Focus on the barely disguised narcissistic memoirs of some dead person... Books are mind enriching... Consume more books... Never mind that the information age has made a mockery of information's value as a commodity among people... You're just so curious about the world and such a voracious reader, aren't you, peasant...

That psychologist's new 400 page book based on lab experiments and that could be summarised in 5 pages has been read by most people at your local cafe! Imagine the embarrassment if they find out you haven't read it... You're right, enjoyment is an immature state... That continental philosopher has such profound and non trivial insights about our society, it seems like you now have another 12 books on your "must read" list in order to be well read... Don't forget the conservative tradition, that's another 20 books you must read... No, don't ask any meta-questions or ask whether they work within self referential citation ring systems with unfalsifiable theories and trivial insights; bad peasant! Your dinner party guests would be shocked to hear that!

This 1200 page post-modern masterpiece references 500 works that you must also read before you die... No, don't fall asleep while reading it! The cover quote calls it, "Frequently hilarious!" Maybe you haven't read enough to fully appreciate it?"

https://youtu.be/UmSq0htLgak

Literally watch this video and tell me why you think the academia-media-publishing industrial complex is great.

Have you realised that the information age, with the huge amount of reading material, everything in English or translated to English, and vastly increased number of (sub-)media for books alone (physical, magazine, tablet, phone, e-reader, website, blog etc.), has destroyed the idea of being "well read"?

I think this for two reasons. First is the huge volume of stuff. You could read all day and never even read 1 % of all that "valuable" stuff. When it was 1600 and you could have read everything during your 3 years of formal education (more than 99 % of people) you could immediately join the intellectuals club. Now that's not true and it's demoralising.

The second reason is the killer. The idea of some sort of central planning bureau setting the list of required books is seen as farcical. We truly live in a much more multipolar world. Back in 1100 the Church told you to read the Greeks and the Bible and you are suddenly intelligent and well informed. There were no universities or companies or groups to tell you otherwise. These days, the huge increase in education means that everyone has an opinion and the arbitrariness of the "canon" has been exposed even to the most soody of pseudo intellectuals. Not only due to the multipolarisation within literature, but also the multipolarisation among activities. Who would claim that some Fields Medallist winning mathematician is an idiot because he hasn't read the Bible? It would take a high level of soodiness. But it would have been easy 1000 years ago.

Ultimately all this "well read" stuff was just a way for groups of people to signal social status / intellectualism or deriving other benefits by grouping their claimed interests together. We see it today when the academia-media-publishing industrial complex tells you that you have to read books or you're stupid. But this has been taken to a farcical new level now that writers like Tao Lin / Mira Gonzalez exist. It's also clear in other places but I mention books to make it clear to this place.

>academia-media-publishing industrial complex
>pseuds / soods
>narcissistic barely disguised memoirs
>flailing about within the infinitely large space of unfalsifiable thoughts
>Munchhausen Trilemma

Does anyone else only read in order to not seem like a pleb when they talk to people (or in case they ever talk to people; or for the unjustified superiority complex over normies)?

That's me. I see literature as entertainment that has gone out of fashion which means that while it slides in to complete irrelevance it is used as middle class and above social signalling ammunition. I literally don't give a fuck about some academia-media-publishing industrial complex chosen Oxbridge / HYP educated rich person has to say in their narcissistic and barely disguised memoirs. I'm not going to pretend that their stupid and boring pomo novels are enjoyable or have any philosophical merit (LOL) whatsoever.

I plan to just read old books and tell people I don't read that much. So whenever books get mentioned, and almost only famous old books will be mentioned, I will be able to truthfully claim to have read them. I will seem modest about how well read I am but I am really doing it in the most efficient manner.

Also non fiction, unless it is enjoyable, is a bad joke in today's information age. And that's just in general. In particular, stupid border disputes (I.e., Napoleon, Alexander the great etc.) seems like petty and trivial nonsenses. Reading Plato try to figure out objective morality (inb4 "But he dusnt doo dis!!1") is a bad joke. I can barely care about the Romans when I can watch the Americans today.

Do you see literature as a form of entertainment that is as disposable as a candy bar? Or have you been brainwashed by the academia-media-publishing industrial complex?

Picrelated: Sebastian and Olivia at one of their Penguin Publishing company nights out in Central London during their summer internships near the end of their Oxbridge History of Art degrees, splashing the pseudointellectual neckbeard derived company cash while you sit in your room on a Saturday night pretending to enjoy a dead rich person's narcissistic and barely disguised memoir.

I really feel like giving up on every single book that doesn't either give me immediate enjoyment or raise my pseudo intellectual cred among the pseuds.

Fuck the academia-media-publishing industrial complex telling me that I have to care about some New Yorker / NYROB / LROB, Oxbridge / HYP attending, former public / prep schooler's self indulgent, narcissistic, and barely disguised memoirs and pretend that it is both entertaining and informative and philosophically profound and somehow I'm supposed to give a shit about them when none of them give a shit about me (yeah, it's 2016, I can say that, deal with it).

I'm tired of being told that I have to read shitloads of stuff to be smart while those pseuds have done nothing intellectual in their lives and live the bohemian fuckfest life in London or New York while pretending they're above it.

We have the internet, stop pretending that reading means shit in an age where chopping down trees and to make a book is an anachronism. Stop pretending that 99.9 % of non fiction books can't be summarised easily.

https://youtu.be/vLkaaPzu9jg


>see above link
>Professor of philosophy is spouting some broad brush illogical nonsense

How the fuck can ANYONE take the academia-media-publishing industrial complex seriously any longer? Not just this video but reams of acclaimed people line up to talk shit and either prove themselves idiots or look like they're aiming their arguments at some hypothetical idiot that I'm not sure exists.

Why am I supposed to pretend that some Soho condo dwelling latte sipping liberal arts degree holder's latest short story collection contains profound philosophical truths and enlightenment and is entertaining as well?

How can I trust that the great books are worthwhile if the academia-media-publishing industrial complex is fucking vacuous?

When did you realise, from interviews, that film makers, writers, and musicians don't spend large amounts of time watching / reading / listening to other people's stuff and that being a consumerwhore is a modern condition that leaves you irrelevant and in penury? The famous people are too busy making stuff and having fun to consume art.

The idea that you have to read X before you can do anything is a poisonous one pushed by the academia-media-publishing industrial complex in order to sell media.

When did you realise, from interviews, that film makers, writers, and musicians don't spend large amounts of time watching / reading / listening to other people's stuff and that being a consumerwhore is a modern condition that leaves you irrelevant and in penury? The famous people are too busy making stuff and having fun to consume art.

The idea that you have to read X before you can do anything is a poisonous one pushed by the academia-media-publishing industrial complex in order to sell media.

I am a litizen but holy shit, THIS is the type of cuck promoted by the academia-media-publishing industrial complex? Literature is so fucking dead, it's not even funny. Plain old dead. The only people left are attention whoring women, numales, and pretentious charlatan artistes.

I'm serious. Tell me why literature hasn't died. Maybe you'll just appeal to subjectivity and then go back to claiming objectivity when this topic is archived. Maybe you'll appeal to some welfare queen academics who write obscurantist and bullahit papers. Yes, I am unironically calling literary theory bullshit. I didn't call it bullshit and then take it seriously and am now calling it bullshit. I am just calling it bullshit.

The medium is deader than cinema, though it isn't yet the walking zombie that is poetry.

There is no way to force others to agree with your definition of literary quality. Most people have an artistic quality definition of "Whatever gives me joy" and their definition of joy is their own and may vary from time to time.

What the academia-media-publishing industrial complex and its pseudo intellectual hangers on (i.e., /lit/) seeks to do is band together to form a large group with a common definition of literary quality, a definition which may not be honestly believed by individual members of the group. This gives them many advantages, one of which is relevant to /lit/: the ability to claim to have a superior intellect or literary knowledge based on their literary preferences.

This same pattern repeats itself among many groups.

>tfw I popularised "pseuds" and invented the term "academia-media-publishing industrial complex"
>tfw Ive written the latter term so many times on my phone that I only need to type "aca" and then a few more taps to get the whole thing