/lit/ - Literature

>>19223088
You are a god and never have i heard anything more divine.

Anyone else love jpeg degradation? I feel like i'm an archeologist digging up an artefact from a long lost civilisation, and trying date it back based on how ravaged it is by the sands of time. it's like our computers are playing a game of chinese whispers. Or like when you find an old forum that hasn't had a post in a decade, and you're hit by a slight sense of melancholy, wondering who used to live there and where they are be now. You would think that with things that are essentially reproducible blueprints—pure information—you could 'Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour', but it seems even things in the digital world can't escape time's soft embrace.

>>14636265
h-how'd you do that?

How could you deprive your children of the opportunity to experience a time of great change and instability? A lot of the greatest writers, thinkers, leaders, etc. came about and were inspired by the greatly shifting world around them. Sure, life may be less comfortable, but i think it is in uncertain times there is the potential for the human spirit to burn the brightest.

Climate change will prove him right.
right or wrong, he's a riot to read.
>Famine seems to be the last, most dreadful resource of nature. The power of population is so superior to the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some way come to visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction; and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague, advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and their ten thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks the rear, and with one mighty blow, levels the population with the food of the world.

>>12244990
The Communist Revolution and America’s growing Liberal Internationalism under Wilson would spread this idea of citizen happiness even further, as economics, not politics, would become the driving force of history and society. Our story could almost end here, however the straggler of the revolution, fraternité, would show that popular government can be formed around other concepts. This third wave of popular revolutions would, of course, be Fascism and Nazism (you might place Japan’s weird militaristic Kokutai belief here too) which rejected the universalism of liberalism and communism, and the idea of humanism along with it. The nation would instead be centred again around prestige, power, and national destiny—only now of the “people” and “race,” rather than the crown or sceptre. This rejection on universalism led to events we are all familiar with, and after the cataclysm of the Second World War the third revolution laid in ashes. What they found in those ashes only served to further reinforce the belief in the necessity of Humanism. Then followed the cold war, a war of ideological posturing more than anything. One of the primary propaganda points of America and Liberal-Capitalism was the happiness of the citizen in the “free choice” of consumerism, and the depression of those in the fetters and chains of communism. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Liberté became the sole survivor of the three revolutions; however, the other two had parts of their genealogy woven in. Though this may not represent “the end of history,” for now Liberalism stands triumphant.
It is unsurprising that in modernity happiness is considered the primary goal: Since Humanisms conception, to every challenge it faced, the pursuit of happiness has only been reinforced. Prestige, Power, strict equality, all are seen as passé due to the circumstances of history. The siren call of consumerism further promotes the valuation of happiness-as-meaning, and, as we know, Bread and Circus has always been attractive to the masses. In the hallowed halls of academia it is only Utilitarianism and Deontological ethics that are studied. So, whether Happiness is the ultimate goal of politics, or whether it ought to be, Is a question for philosophers to answer, but it is easy to see why it is so.
That’s my take anyway.