/lit/ - Literature

Are there any books you deem essential for understanding the world we're in today? The questions is very vague, I know, but I'm considering books on topics such as history/politics/economy/philosophy/psychology etc. It would be interesting to see /lit/'s take.

ITT: essential non-fiction

Hyperreality

>>10016935
This. Or Baudrillard.

In the situationist notion of spectacle, every once lived experience has receded into a re-presentation; that is, 'life' is not even directly lived any longer. It is the furthest redevelopment of Marx's theory of alienation, where under the current stage of capitalist production, workers are not merely alienated from the product of labour, but are severed from all directly lived experience through an economy of re-presentatory images that take the place of 'Real Life'.

>>9944139
Because we live in the spectacular society

>>9723076
Sorry, used the wrong pic there. Meant to ask: map > territory or territory > map? Anyways.

>In the Christian sense, it is the moral dilemma that is the source of the "tragic", but this is not the original sense where something is tragic because of fate.
Christianity and tragedy. This was the road that led me to Girard: that tragedy completes myth in the same way religion completes tragedy. That is by no means an airtight argument. I'm based at Camp Girard to look into these questions for now. But there are other ones. The rabbit holes are deep
>and full of rabbits?
>yes. vampire rabbits
>doesn't sound too spooky
>they eat your nuts tho

>There is something about terrorism that merely sociological or economic categories do not capture. For a long time i've viewed terrorism under a political lens. But there's something missing. It's the right path though. Politics is the technological contemplation of metaphysics.
...maybe. Possibly. But you can see where this goes. Cry Havoc. It's better when you have the occasional anarch like Junger who can refuse the will of the sovereign, yes? Or the Russian guy who defies the orders of his commanders urging the submarine towards Cuba? The disruptive hero, the anarch, the rebel...if all of this falls under your definition of politics, that's fine. In the end we're talking about History. That Reality should be Real I'm fine with.

>Politics is the technological contemplation of metaphysics.
Of course, you said this. You didn't say it was all about *action* but *contemplation.* So there you go.

>(Meta?)politics > metaphysics > politics
Probably. But I need to be convinced by my metapoliticians that they've done their homework. If it's a gun to my head I get to laugh.
>as they shoot me
>still i laughed tho
>they will probably shoot you again girardfag
>casino_royale_rope_torture_scene.jpeg

>When the Dalai Lama speaks, is he cynically putting philosophy in service of power or is it rather that power makes philosophy possible? So China says they have right to determine the reincarnation of the next Dalai Lama, which while prima facie ridiculous, maybe isn't wrong after all. What if they really can decide? What if politics is what makes the metaphysical real? Metapolitics.
I can accept this.

>No one is surprised that the CIA was funding the Dalai Lama. But does this make Tibetan Buddhism any less authentic?
No, but did it ever matter to the Buddhists in the first place? That's the attraction of Buddhism, isn't it?

>>9723160
>But meaning slips in through the cracks.
That's it. Whether it's an Oedipal Freudian slip or Azathoth.
>starting to realize why i love wabi-sabi aesthetics so much, whether the universe is unfolding from nothing, or to nothing, or from nothing to nothing and we are there somewhere in the middle

(cont'd)
(also, have to go out for a bit but will return later.)
(after one more)

>Only life in such a tense atmosphere, only a life which is based on constant awareness of the sacrifices* to which it owes its existence, and of the necessity, the duty of sacrifice of life and all worldly goods, is truly human: the sublime is unknown to the open society." The societies of the West which claim to aspire toward the open society, actually are closed societies in a state of disintegration: their moral value, their respectability, depends entirely on their still being closed societies.

>>9543525
Robin Williams' french surrealist-marxist doppelganger.

"Onceideology,whichistheabstractwilltouniversalityandtheillusionthereof,findsitself legitimatedinmodernsocietybyuniversalabstractionandbytheeffectivedictatorshipofillusion, thenitisnolongerthevoluntaristicstruggleofthefragmentary,butratheritstriumph.Theclaims ofideologynowtakeonasortofflat,positivisticexactness:ideologyisnolongerahistoricalchoice, butsimplyanassertionoftheobvious.Namesofparticularideologieshavevanished.Theportionof properlyideologicallaborservingthesystemmaynolongerbeconceivedofotherthanintermsof an"epistemologicalbase"supposedlytranscendingallspecificideologicalphenomena.Ideologyin materialformisitselfwithoutaname,justasitiswithoutaformulablehistoricalagenda.Whichis anotherwayofsayingthatthehistoryofideologies,plural,isover."

how do we kill capitalism

pls help

>>6408798
It's inevitable. The neurosis of modern day life leaves everyone depressed, abnormal, detached, and alienated. Constantly reaching for what is just out of reach, money, fame, a hot wife, our only relief from the hell we've manufactured ourselves is empty and hollow commodities.