/lit/ - Literature

>>7068766
>Liberal Democracy
Basic bitch, loves corporate America and chooses the position most likely to be accepted there.

>Radical right/reactionary/libertarian
Male who was or is involuntarily celibate past the point he meant to lose his V card. Low empathy, high value on logic as a problem solving tool. Sincerely desires a zombie apocalypse because he's sure he'd be better off than he is now.

>American Republican/Evangelical
Loves the status quo in small business or finance. Chooses the position most likely to fit in with that scene. Not too smart or empathetic.

>Communist
No faith in self to get anything right in the real world, but spends a lot of time with books or computers. Physically weak. Might get laid but with uglier women than he thinks he deserves. The revolution is his version of the zombie apocalypse where he's sure he'll be better off than he is now.

>mainstream campus activist
Figured out that a lot of rich young women are extremely empathetic and feel the need to rescue somebody. Pitches in to get in their pants. Ends up dating some sort of organizer who lets him go down on her once a week.

These are collegiate stereotypes so of course they include more about sex than seems like serious discussion.

>>7064526
You know how people on here mock engineers because despite usually being really sharp analytic minds way too many of them just wageslave and spend their leisure time and pocket money on plastic consumerist distractions? Basically that but he thought the phenomenon was more widespread in his day.

>>7067054
He's probably also self-aware about the way drug used destroyed the psyches of some people he knew. If you read Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, you'll find that a lot of these people went way past the point where substances do anything positive for you because it was all knew and they weren't willing to recognize the risks.

On the whole I'd say we owe Ginsberg and his buddies for taking things a lot of people now do with more moderation to the ragged edge so we can watch the crash and do better ourselves.

>>7064020
That's the way some people see the world (academics call it paranoia when talking about Pynchon) and it's interesting to some of us, especially those who share Pynchon's penchant for that kind of freaked out thinking.

Some roundabout structures, especially in Mason and Dixon, contain anachronistic and historical allusions that tie the story in to something way bigger.

Other stuff he does is just beautiful. That's a subjective judgement, but when you come through a dense passage and identify the key to understanding five other points in the novel there's a definite dopamine rush, at least for me. Not to sound like more of an elitist than I've already made myself out to be, but that's probably less fun if you have to reread and dig for it.

>>7060928
So I'm reading The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and it's pretty well convinced me that psychedelics should be done maybe twice in a lifetime or else the risks of losing touch with reality are too great. Also hippies were assholes. There's a ton of ego apparent in their actions for all the talk of ego-death.