/lit/ - Literature

>>11922941

What's the best argument against materialism?

A lot of people are saying Dostoevsky ITT, I had a similar experience.
I read House of the Dead when I was 18 and was struck by how people in such a horrid environment could find the inner strength to carry on with their lives and not just end it all. I read Crime and Punishment which had a very similar vibe although WAAAY more autistic about it, symptom of the main character, whatever.
Been reading more holocaust narratives and gulag lit (Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Drowned and the Saved, Kolyma Tales, Maus, and yes, everybody's favorite meme The Gulag Archipelago are notable), have come to the conclusion that people define themselves within a historical context, and that the "meaning" of their life will become apparent after they die. This meaning is entirely subjective, but it does exist, in the same way that money is said to have value... There is a dialectic to which people contribute all over the world, that dialectic has changed over time, my aim as a person is to contribute to that dialectic, moving it forward. Thus, due to the fact that I only have one life, we should try to do good for this world instead of wallowing in some nihilist stupor.
Big ups to Hannah Arendt and Eichmann in Jerusalem, that book is brilliant. Evil is not demons, they do not exist. Evil is a man sitting at his desk ordering thousands to be executed.

Atheism doesn't make coherent sense without materialism.

prove me wrong faggot