/lit/ - Literature

>>21757171
>origins of
Isn't it the default state for us?

>looking for something that will give me a fresh outlook on life and help relieve me from spiritual/existential anxiety
Sound like you just need to find a subject you're interested in and become obsessed by it. Obsession snowballs the more you read. Doesn't matter if it's Romantic poetry or Balinese agronomy or socialist realism.

Books on the social degeneration of man? It seems sadly inevitable, people don't even have much of a sense of basic morality today (at best primitive shaming of others to make them submit).

The people in this video appear to be young university students likely many of them wealthy by the way they look and act, and most of them are only there to loot some asinine product they obsess about (market-owned mind) and break some glass. Aside from destroying cars, they don't appear to be doing much damage as they can only break glass which is fairly easy to replace. It seems so, limp-wristed like a fake little dance before the real issue is set to: grabbing them products.

Questions of utility are already morally bankrupt, but is there even any ground for things like honour and uprightness to stand upon? It almost seems like meaningless noise in face of the fact that the vast majority of humanity in the near future will not be able to even comprehend it.

The video isn't really the issue ofc and I'm not American so I have little investment but it's a concise snapshot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUO8secmc0g

Anyone read this? I really like his prose and aesthetic ideas.

'Absolute was the Relative. In ethics the Taoist railed at the laws and the moral codes of society, for to them right and wrong were but relative terms. Definition is always limitation—the 'fixed' and 'unchangeless' are but terms expressive of a stoppage of growth. Said Kuzugen,—'The Sages move the world.' Our standards of morality are begotten of the past needs of society, but is society to remain always the same? The observance of communal traditions involves a constant sacrifice of the individual to the state. Education, in order to keep up the mighty delusion, encourages a species of ignorance. People are not taught to be really virtuous, but to behave properly. We are wicked because we are frightfully self–conscious. We nurse a conscience because we are afraid to tell the truth to others; we take refuge in pride because we are afraid to tell the truth to ourselves. How can one be serious with the world when the world itself is so ridiculous! The spirit of barter is everywhere. Honour and Chastity! Behold the complacent salesman retailing the Good and True. One can even buy a so–called Religion, which is really but common morality sanctified with flowers and music. Rob the Church of her accessories and what remains behind? Yet the trusts thrive marvelously, for the prices are absurdly cheap,—a prayer for a ticket to heaven, a diploma for an honourable citizenship. Hide yourself under a bushel quickly, for if your real usefulness were known to the world you would soon be knocked down to the highest bidder by the public auctioneer. Why do men and women like to advertise themselves so much?'

>>9586600
> What happened to hard science fiction? I miss books as thought experiments, written by scientists who know what they are talking about and have some crazy unique ideas. All those above sound like yet another space adventure, entertaining and forgetable. None of these novels is even remotely interesting to me + they’re parts of series which makes them even less interesting. Bring back original ideas and stand-alone novels before the entire genre is destroyed by boredom.