/lit/ - Literature

Why is it that all over reaching, incoherent, unfalsifiable, and just plain stupid academic theories / areas viciously denounced unless they conform to the preferences of left wing critical theory lovers. Why can't people see that they're all charlatans?

I see topics trying to decipher Hegel and I don't know who's trolling who or if the posters are all low IQers. Rather than try to understand the internal logic of Hegel, why not treat it as a black box and ask its practitioners to make falsifiable predictions with it. I'm sure that's fucking easy for them since they never shut up about how Capeetal / History is explained by their theories. If they manage to predict things then we have a good sign that the theory isn't self referential nonsense.

Of course what I am describing is feasible yet I am humouring them because they'd never do it and I know right this second there are outraged people who will say I am stupid. They will say the theory shouldn't have to do anything. And then I will ask, "So why should your theory be given attention or government subsidies over the infinitely many possible other theories?" Then I will get no answer.

>read chapter called "Alyosha" in the brothers Karamazov
>starts with fedoras and christfags fretting over whether what a holy man's dead body having a smell means
>rakitin randomly invites Alyosha to grushenka's house
>rakitin is a beta orbiter for grushenka, a mistress and attention whore
>grushenka sits on Alyosha's lap and presumably Alyosha is a naive and innocent Chad
>they talk for a bit and grushenka goes from flirty to hysterically attention whorish

Damn... How profound! Psychological and philisopical insights everywhere!

I'm half convinced that the awkward formality of Russian translated faithfully to English adds a lot of pretension. A lot of what Dostoevsky writes is unbelievably petty. You may think that he is "Incredibly Deep Literature" but he did not take the royal road in to that territory.

>>9362020

Why do some writers insert French words in the middle of English sentences? I noticed that George Saunders does this, and it makes me cringe so much.

>>9353068

>chinos

Faux-posh.

How can anyone take discussions about "redemption through suffering" seriously? It's like asking how many angels can fit on the head of a pin . It's just flailing about in the infinitely large space of unfalsifiable ideas while judging ideas based on their marketing.

Is anyone else suffering constantly due to an absence of any simple and flawless philosophy of how to act during every moment, while considering all time frames? I can cope with not knowing about God or life after death. But feeling guilty about all my actions and hyper analysing everything is plaguing me. I analyse both my actions and the psychology of my actions, so I am double cucked.

Shall I read one book at a time or multiple books and why? If it's one, then I may get bored and remember it less. The time between starting and finishing it will be less compared to the other case so I may remember it less in the long term. Or maybe focusing on one book will help me remember it more. But maybe I'll have to force myself to read through boredom at times...

Shall I go to the gym tomorrow and then do those chores I've been putting off? Or go to the gym later and make sure I do the chores first so I don't avoid them all day? But this is like admitting I have no willpower. But maybe I do have willpower at the time and choose not to do the chores...

I could go on you get the picture. Infinite variables and I want to optimise for everything. And there are infinite bullshit artists telling you to optimise for variable X even while they break their own stupid rules all the time.

And of course I know there is no answer. But I can't act like there's no answer, I may as well roll dice to make every decision. But maybe if...

Why does nobody acknowledge that there are infinitely many possible philosophical axioms and infinitely many criteria for the judgement of these axioms?

It seems like once you realise this, all philosophical discussions become either laughable speculations about what the "true" definitions of concepts are (when these concepts are obviously arbitrarily defined); or, flailing about within the infinitely large space of unfalsifiable* conjectures. And the judgement of these speculations and conjectures is pretty much based on marketing.

I have never seen a worthwhile response to this. Can someone please give me an explanation?

* I mean we can't currently, at this moment, verify these things (e.g., We go to heaven after we die", "Once computers become fast enough, they will gain a consciousness"). And I know that science is merely a subset of philosophy. And I know there isn't an agreed upon scientific method. And i know there isn't an agreed upon definition of verify.

Has anyone else found that they've grown out of lit? I'm not the "universities lol" guy but it's frightening that there are people on here who think writers need MFAs or English degrees or that Literary Theory was anything other than hopefully entertaining charlatanism.

Literature existed. Then this stupid formalism / Critical Theory / Literary Theory grows alongside it. People take this seriously even though knowledge of this theory seems to give no ability to actually create art. Never mind the fact that all this theory is internally inconsistent while making only unfalsifiable claims while attempting to monopolise the authority to make these claims.

>reading brothers Karamazov only because I'd be called a pleb if i didn't
>realise I'm only two sub chapters from the Grand Inquisitor section

Wow, THIS part was hyped up for years? From what I'd been reading over the years i thought that section was some sort of 50 page story within a story work of genius that comes at a crucial moment in the book.

Literally nothing except some stupid half assed ramblings on god and psychology are happening. This is like a parody of what i expected.

>tfw 25 and haven't had a real career job since i left university (just part time stuff)
>tfw reading a lot but it makes me feel pathetic because only really young and old people should be inactive enough to get lots of reading done; also remember Schopenhauer talking about reading yourself stupid

Look at this shit. Reddit was completely unable to answer my question with anything other than sophistry and appeals to social conventions.

These people fucking go on and on about how the study of philosophy requires massive amounts of "critical thinking" but when you question their assumptions suddenly they go crazy and claim, "Well we shouldn't bother questioning that!"

>inb4 "why not ask 4chan"

I have, but you guys ignore stuff due to shitposting elsewhere.

https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/5ya5hm/what_does_concept1_say_we_should_do_what_is_its/

>tfw you will never be able to appreciate hundreds of great works of literature in their native languages

I hate only speaking English

>"oh yeah I love the classics! Charlotte and emily bronte, and charles dickens are so good!"

>book has a central female character

aaaaaaaaaand dropped

>buy new book
>sounds pretty good
>start reading it
>main character is gay

Thanks publishing for not specifically stating this in the blurb and making me drop a brand new fucking book

>watching booktuber
>"hey guys I got this awesome graphic novel the other day, have a look!"
>she pulls out saga

Every. Single. Fucking. Time.

>talking to girl about books
>"oh yeah I love the classics so much! charlotte and emily bronte are like the best ever!...no I haven't heard of tolstoy....or joyce....or cervantes....."

>I'm sorry anna karenina, but the raging war and peace has caused the death of ivan ilyich and the cossacks

>>8626844
>_in_Fiction

>>8384299

yeah.

Like an interpretation of what the art is, OR against a policy.

It's a literal socialist/ marxist/ third wave feminist circle jerk at times.

Say "I believe in the freedom for people to be who they want to be, and I believe that socialism and communism and your marxist/ feminism school of thought impedes on the individual. You want to organise people into tribes, you believe that everyone from a certain race, economic background, or religion is exactly the same. Why not judge a man for what he does, and not pander/ belittle him for who he is."


They then proceed to state that my individual form of thought is "typical white mentality"


Also, have you heard of the futurists? Not every single form of artwork is left wing.

>birthday today
>gf knows I read a lot
>she got me fucking paper towns by john green because "it's what the girl at the bookstore told me was popular now"

Should I dump this bitch?

>American book
>it says "Now a Major Motion Picture!" on the cover
>the authors name is bigger than the title
>open up the book
>the letters are about twice as big as normal books
>it's written in first person present tense
>every "chapter" is only a couple pages long, we are literally talking about "chapters" that don't make it to their third page
>lots of grammatical and spelling errors
>product placement out the ass
>any "facts" are poorly researched or not researched at all

Why? What's the point of American "literature"?

>"we live in a cyberpunk age"
When will this meme end? It's complete bullshit.