/lit/ - Literature

The primary fact of human nature guiding Joseph de Maistre's writing in the St. Petersburg Dialogues is man's fallenness. He asserts that all men can attest to this reality, namely, that all men suffer imperfection and experience sorrow. Man's corruption is such that, if one were truly introspective, he would blush at the sight of himself.

Despite this, something in all men stirs them to seek happiness, pointing to that man was made to be happy. Further, all men desire the good. This is evidenced that, whatever decision one makes, he does it because he believes it to be good. Even if one commits an evil act (murder, for instance), he does so because he perceives that evil act to be good.

Man desires happiness. Man desires the good. Man cannot provide these things on his own because of his obvious degradation.

Maistre is drawing the reader upward precisely to show that anything good in man must come from outside himself, from above, as it were, from God. This fallenness is nothing other than Original Sin, and man is not his own solution; Christ is, and this alone through His Catholic Church.

This is chiefly the systemic folly of modern philosophy: man is his own savior. The modern world supposes that science, moral liberality, affluence, and so on, will provide true happiness. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I wish the reader to observe this in modern literature. Personally, I take well to more depressing narratives, such as The Sun Also Rises, Winesburg Ohio, The Idiot, Notes from Underground, and others. These novels illustrate quite well man's terrible state. Consider Sherwood Anderson's work. His short stories include characters who are isolated, lonely, and unable to communicate. This speaks to the isolation, loneliness, and lack of reason in a world lived as if without the Triune God.

All that aside for now. My friend, let's call him JR, knows my nihilistic taste in literature despite my joyous Catholicism. As I tell him, the most nihilistic characters showcase the joy we are made for. Anyway, he suggested to me recently to read Houellebecq.

I am not good at answering texts, and forget watching a video someone sends me, and he thinks I will read this Frenchman!

In his defense, my friend is a duck. He is not just any mallard, either. No, his broad shoulders (wings?) signify his unwillingness to conform to modernism. He despises all that the modern world offers. I inform him that we must return to the ancient ways, for what is eternal is ever new. Yet, autist he is, he tells me he is "losing it" and descends into the depths of the pond from which he came.

Maybe I will read Michel. He smokes. I find that appealing.

"All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full; unto the place whither the rivers go, thither they go again. 8 All things are full of weariness; man cannot utter [it]: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. 9That which hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun."

And there are people who DARE dismiss the Bible as a stupid book? Who are these fucking brainlets?
The Bible contains so many pearls of wisdom that it's hard to decide which book I like the most. The Bible is the best book ever written, and it is so because it is literally the word of God.

>hurr durr christcuck!

Seethe, cope, dilate.

>>16047029
AND FROM THE SON
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>>15957287
If any janny delete this post, let him die the death, let him be fried in a pan; let the falling sickness and fever sieze him; let him be broken on the wheel, and hanged. Amen.

>>14223719
The bible

>>14030338
based and godpilled

Guys... You know how to get into heaven, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KruYOy1fRLw

Reminder that it is altogether unlawful to kill oneself, for three reasons.

>1. Contrary to Natural Law & to Charity
First, because everything naturally loves itself, the result being that everything naturally keeps itself in being, and resists corruptions so far as it can. Wherefore suicide is contrary to the inclination of nature, and to charity whereby every man should love himself. Hence suicide is always a mortal sin, as being contrary to the natural law and to charity.

>2. Injury to the Common Good
Secondly, because every part, as such, belongs to the whole. Now every man is part of the community, and so, as such, he belongs to the community. Hence by killing himself he injures the community, as the Philosopher (Aristotle) declares (Ethic. v, 11).

>3. Sin Against God
Thirdly, because life is God’s gift to man, and is subject to His power, Who kills and makes to live. Hence whoever takes his own life, sins against God, even as he who kills another’s slave, sins against that slave’s master, and as he who usurps to himself judgment of a matter not entrusted to him. For it belongs to God alone to pronounce sentence of death and life, according to Deuteronomy 32:39, “I will kill and I will make to live.”

Thomism is patrician and all, but can my cat REALLY not go to heaven?

>>8898948
>/lit/ is marxist
hold your horses

>tfw patrician level 0 knowledge and fedoras cannot prove you wrong

And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shall you say unto the children of Israel, I AM has sent me unto you.

What did He mean by this, anon?

And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shall you say unto the children of Israel, I AM has sent me unto you.

What did He mean by this, anon?