/lit/ - Literature

culture of critique is essential

Spice and Wolf by Ayn Rand.

They were Enlightenment thinkers and all trash.
They were the liberals of their day. You are bluepilled.

You might enjoy this, I saw this years ago on TV

https://www.feelguide.com/2016/03/29/watch-antiques-roadshow-appraise-thomas-jeffersons-1822-letter-to-a-man-who-wanted-to-be-smarter/

My friend studies this period for fun and I am constantly amazed by his knowledge of it. He will spend half an hour telling you about all the little subtle connections between different weird intellectuals and utopians and major political figures of the time. I can't say much useful on this note but definitely read a few biographies if you can.

>>12328970
>America was founded by liberals
Imagine the Republican butthurt.

>>12328989
>stuck in a left right dichotomy
Republicans are liberals too.

>>12328966
>>12328968
I thought that was self-evident, you two are new?

>>12328970
But I want to be an enlightenment trash thinker
and bluepilled, so what you have?

>>12328970
thanks man, I am interested in books that talk about how they debated writing the Declaration of Independence, it would be amazing to read how they presented their ideas and then another one finds a breach and brings a solution. Imagine the amazing discussions that took place. Ask your friend if he knows a book or series of book about this particular subject.

>>12328997
Yeah, technically, but some of the would define themselves as "conservative."

>>12328970
not an argument

>>12328961
>>12329000

would love an unironic answer for this. Got into reading on the Founding Fathers in Decemeber and looking for some non-dadcore books on early US political history along with any literature that influenced the fathers themselves

The Founding Fathers were all Romeaboss, they loved their Livy and their Plutarch and their Cicero. America is basically one big attempt to refound Rome on a countrywide scale, and without some of the mistakes that led to the Republic's downfall.

This is ironic because America today looks a lot like late republican Rome.

>>12330314
*Romeaboos, I meant

>>12328961
General intro to figures ideas of early US
>The American Founding: Its Intellectual and Moral Framework by Daniel N. Robinson

Inspired founding fathers:
>Everything by John Locke
>Commentaries on the laws of England by William Blackstone
>Essays on Crimes and Punishment by Cesare Becarria
>read general Roman history, idk best resources for this, sure someone here has a good rec chart.
>Utopia by Thomas More
>Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
>Montesquieu particularly for balancing power (John Adams)
>The Price by Machiavelli

Read this, then read the works and workers mentioned therein

https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/founding-father-s-library

>>12330314
>The Founding Fathers were all Romeaboss, they loved their Livy and their Plutarch and their Cicero. America is basically one big attempt to refound Rome on a countrywide scale, and without some of the mistakes that led to the Republic's downfall.
>This is ironic because America today looks a lot like late republican Rome.

The problems are inherent to a Republic desu

>>12328961
>what to read to be like them
Just become a mason, laddie.

Many of them were Satanists and Masons...

>>12331722
>Many of them were Satanists and Masons.
okay retard

>>12330380
>verything by John Locke
>>Commentaries on the laws of England by William Blackstone
>>Essays on Crimes and Punishment by Cesare Becarria
>>read general Roman history, idk best resources for this, sure someone here has a good rec chart.
>>Utopia by Thomas More
>>Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith
>>Montesquieu particularly for balancing power (John Adams)
>>The Price by Machiavelli
skip all this
Just read the founders themselves, Samuel Johnson the Whig, Algernon Sidney and the French enlightenment thinkers

>>12331739
>being this naive

>>12330314
While I am not as familiar with the founding father's specific influences, they totally are Romeaboos as you say. Thinking about how we are the intellectual descendants of the greatest civilizations gives me a hard-on.

Imperial North American States following the Liberation of Canada when?

>>12328961
Thomas Hutchinson’s “Strictures upon the Declaratiom of Independence”

>>12328961
Learn Latin and Greek. Everyone (except Washington) knew those tongues.

Read a bunch of Cicero.
Read your Epicurus, if you like Jefferson.
Read your Epictetus, if you like Adams.
Read the Bible, twice: once as God's only Truth; and once as mere Literature.
Read and know your Shakespeare.
Read and reread Addison, particularly his 'Cato'.


Right answers:
>>12330314
>>12330380

Plus, as >>12331747 said: their own works, Johnson, and Sidney. For Enlightenment thinkers, definitely throw some Voltaire in as well.

Pic related might help.

Wow what a shit thread.

They obviously started with the Greeks. Focus on the classics and the western canon.

>>12331722
Being Freemason during the Enlightenment was /lit/, a la Mozart and Goethe

>>12330314
>>12328961
How did American politicians decline so drastically within a few generations?

>>12334160
Because the American man declined.

>>12331749
>being this naive

>>12332043
good post

>>12334160
Jewish post WWII diaspora invading and subverting our major educational, political, and media institutions certainly contributed to the direction we now find ourselves. I'm not sure how we allowed it to happen; it's not like European nations where two entire generations of the best young white men in the world - which is to say the cream of the global human crop - were slaughtered by tens tens of millions for no constructive purpose. Most of our soldiers survived the wars and came home. Then baby boomers presided irresponsibly over post-war prosperity directing us into our current decline complacent with the malicious social changes pushed by the subversives in our major institutions.

>>12328968

>>12334160
The '60s, basically.

>>12334910
>I'm not sure how we allowed it to happen
Because the US is a Republic.

>>12328974
Well, what does the letter say?

>>12328970
Wrong. They didn't share the same vision. Jefferson, for example, wanted America to be a decentralized agrarian utopia.

>>12334160
The increase of mass media

>>12330314
>>12330380
>>12330434
>>12331551
>>12331747
>>12331973
>>12332043
thanks to all of you

>>12330257
I also wait for this one specifically

>>12334160
Allowing women to vote.

>>12328970
I'll have you know that Alexander Hamilton was in fact nazbol.