/lit/ - Literature

The marks of a dead medium are that personal taste is almost universally discouraged and the medium is prominently used as a mechanism for social signalling by pseudo intellectuals. With some other mediums this latter attribute may not be a death sentence but within mediums that have strong gatekeepers it probably is.

One example of a dead medium is theatre. One of the most common social signalling activities among pseudo intellectuals is praising Shakespeare. This is despite the fact that these same pseudo intellectuals pay close to zero attention to contemporary theatre or even past non-Shakespearean theatre. In most cases, Shakespeare's plays aren't even watched in a theatre, they are read silently in order to more efficiently gain the social signalling ammunition!

The sophistication of the self-referential Shakespeare praise systems has become so large that his plays are "taught" in schools and universities and it is a commonly held belief that somebody needs at least a PhD in English Literature or Philosophy before they can "understand" or "grasp" one of Shakespeare's plays. It is not widely known that Shakespeare himself had less formal education throughout his entire life than a 10 year old who was born in 2006. It is a common belief among today's pseudo intellectuals that Shakespeare learnt to write plays at the University of Oxford.

Is rogue one worth watching or will it solidify my feelings about most of pop culture being for dumb plebs?

1. Is morality subjective?

2. For the above question, I used the search feature on this board and looked through many posts and summaries of scholarly views. Every single one of these views, whether posted by the reddit user or citing philosophers, simply presents different conclusions based on different assumptions that are presented without evidence. I'm sure these assumptions are either seen as axioms or are deduced from prior axioms.

So, based on that, why the hell does nobody simple say, "Yes, it's subjective."? Why the hell is the can kicked one metre down the road by saying something like, "No, morality is objective as long as you believe in Philosopher X's 'Munich-Hedgehog-Footstool Metaphysical Epistomological Formulation of Ethics'", or towards any other axioms that you would then have to defend? Obviously this shifts the question to why I should trust the axioms to the system, but this is never answered (or admitted to be ultimately futile, or ultimately an appeal to emotion / intuition).

Feel free to ignore this paragraph if you're easily offended: It seems to me that anyone who chooses not to play the "Market your unfalsifiable theory based on evolution-religion-feelings" game self-selects their way out of philosophical discussion, so you'll rarely have someone like me who says, "Yes". But I know this board is sensitive to criticism of philosophy (i.e. meta-philosophy (i.e. philosophy, that you don't like)) so I won't go on and I am presenting things in this overly apologetic style. Feel free to tell me why I'm wrong.

You know when you, a heterosexual male, see a morbidly obese and middle aged woman shopping for make up?

You know how you wonder what the point is, and for her to even start looking attractive would require so many paradigm shifts in her lifestyle and eventually appearance, in addition to herculean willpower and patience, you not only doubt her ability to do it but also whether her good looking future self could even be physically possible due to the path that her mind and body took beforehand (i.e., her physiology has permanently changed, including her brain)?

You know how you note to yourself that to even be putting thought and time in to her make up is proof that she is desperately dodging the fundamental issues with herself?

Now ask yourself what a girl thinks when she sees a non-Chad (i.e., 90 % of males at each age) working out at the gym...

Have you realised that the information age, with the huge amount of reading material, everything in English or translated to English, and vastly increased number of (sub-)media for books alone (physical, magazine, tablet, phone, e-reader, website, blog etc.), has destroyed the idea of being "well read"?

I think this for two reasons. First is the huge volume of stuff. You could read all day and never even read 1 % of all that "valuable" stuff. When it was 1600 and you could have read everything during your 3 years of formal education (more than 99 % of people) you could immediately join the intellectuals club. Now that's not true and it's demoralising.

The second reason is the killer. The idea of some sort of central planning bureau setting the list of required books is seen as farcical. We truly live in a much more multipolar world. Back in 1100 the Church told you to read the Greeks and the Bible and you are suddenly intelligent and well informed. There were no universities or companies or groups to tell you otherwise. These days, the huge increase in education means that everyone has an opinion and the arbitrariness of the "canon" has been exposed even to the most soody of pseudo intellectuals. Not only due to the multipolarisation within literature, but also the multipolarisation among activities. Who would claim that some Fields Medallist winning mathematician is an idiot because he hasn't read the Bible? It would take a high level of soodiness. But it would have been easy 1000 years ago.

Ultimately all this "well read" stuff was just a way for groups of people to signal social status / intellectualism or deriving other benefits by grouping their claimed interests together. We see it today when the academia-media-publishing industrial complex tells you that you have to read books or you're stupid. But this has been taken to a farcical new level now that writers like Tao Lin / Mira Gonzalez exist. It's also clear in other places but I mention books to make it clear to this place.

>HURRDURR, Y U SAY that art is subjective? Is the craftsmanship of this desk subjective?

Well obviously anyone can say they want a different type of desk, so yes.

Are you fags so desperate for me to contribute money to your narcissistic barely disguised memoirs and laughable intellectual pretensions?

Also:

>HURR, WHAT THE DIFFETENCE BETWEEN STEM AND ART?

Well, my retarded friend, the only difference is that the criteria for what constitutes the valid practice of STEM is much more widely agreed upon by STEM practitioners. That is it. This leads to the greater level of dedication and rigour necessary to contribute (as defined by most STEM practitioners) to STEM.

Have you noticed the increased level of demoralisation and decadence on /lit/ since /his/ was created? lit was stripped of its pseudo intellectual / worldly innards and is coming to terms with the fact that literature is merely part of the entertainment industry. Except poetry, which has become newly pure through sheer irrelevance.