/lit/ - Literature

>>17457789
Uhh that we are coming to maximize freedom through dialectical struggle, idm waht you mean by better though

>>17457789
Ya his history writing is cringe, it was the 19th century, things HAD been getting better. It was a very optimistic time

>>17457789
He's right. Prussia was the perfect state.

>>17457789
he thought things were getting more complete and evening out through the struggles of opposites. but he didnt account for these opposites: perfectly even complete order and uneven uncomplete unrest and chaos. so for things to even out, evening out and not evening out have to even out.

OWLS ARE NOCTURNAL

>>17457789
No. Did you actually read him or just go off pop philosophy videos based on secondary sources

>>17458560
Why?

>>17457789
The thing is, things have been continually getting better.
Corona aside, we are living in the freeest, healthiest, wealthiest, best educated, most scientifically advanced, safest, most peaceful era in human history. Even the places that are shitholes today have infinitely higher living standards than they did 100 or 200 or let alone 500 years ago.

Just because there are problems doesn't mean things are bad. Things are actually pretty good, most people today have it better than most people ever had it in history.

>>17457789
Yes concerning history as a whole, but it is wrong to say that a particular moment in time is necessarily better than a previous moment in time.
>>17458172
Then why didn't Prussia conform to Hegel's Idea of State

>>17458586
Because Prussia wasn't a state, it was just an army that happened to look like a state..

We were progressing towards the Absolute through mutual recognition of consciousness and conscious interaction with the concrete

>>17458577
"The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk." Meaning philosophy can only comprehend what's already happened, not predict the radically new things which will arise in the future.

>>17458583

>Even the places that are shitholes today have infinitely higher living standards than they did 100 or 200 or let alone 500 years ago

See, this is exactly Hegel's problem. His analysis is so abstract and global that he can't account for a single local variation of any kind. Bitch actually tries to predict the climate while ignoring the weather

>>17458583
Quality of life may be up, but everything else is down. People are more miserable than they've ever been, art is dead, etc.

>>17458766
so is it really a good measure of "quality of life" if everyone is depressed, culture is dead/repetitive/stagnant, wages are stagnant, and hope for the future is bleak?

>>17458583
>healthiest, best educated, safest
LMAO
Scientifically advanced is not a good thing, either. I'll give you most peaceful if you are a westerner.

>>17458774
By quality of life, I was referring to the things mentioned by the anon I was responding to; people are living longer lives due to modern medicine, a decrease in war, etc. However, that doesn't really mean much because despite this, things are just as bad, if not worse, than before.

>>17458790
>However, that doesn't really mean much because despite this, things are just as bad, if not worse, than before.
What things specifically are worse?

>>17458809
Well, two examples that I already gave are:
>Rates of depression and suicide are skyrocketing
>No work of art that is comparable to the works of say, Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare has been produced for hundreds of years.

>>17458018
>*blocks your whig historiography*

>>17458820
I agree with the overall sentiment but I'd say art wise the modernist writers were definitely up there as God tier. Joyce is the best prose writer of all time.

>>17458820
>No work of art that is comparable to the works of say, Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare has been produced for hundreds of years.
So? If we take Homer, Dante and Shakespeare as roadpoints, we are getting one in the next few hundred years. Who cares? Shakespeare was not available to be read in Homer's time, and Homer was not available to be read when Gilgamesh was written. All those works are available for you to read today.

Rates of depression are higher than they used to, yes. Like I said, there are problems. Doesn't mean living today isn't better in almost any aspect than it was in all of human history. The problems western people have today are laughable compared to the problems most people had in history, and the people in all third world countries are living better lives than people in third world countries did hundred years ago, or even fifty or twenty years ago.

>>17458809
Purchasing power of the currency, housing costs relative to inflation compared to past generations, downward mobility, climate change, post COVID surveillance technocapitalist state

>>17458937
>post COVID surveillance technocapitalist state
I don't think we are having a post COVID surveillance state, seeing as we are not in a post COVID time.

>>17458809
According to some, the rise of mass immigration in Europe (and elsewhere) and globalization, which eventually leads to a dilution of culture in many different countries into a shared internationalist pop culture, animated by the media. This ends up being essentially the promotion of the culture of the global superpower (in this case America and perhaps China in the near future).

I can talk to people all over the world in English, go anywhere in the world and see Hollywood stars or Mcdonald's, recognize all the same things in the American media even though I live in France. For my part, I'm not a fan and I prefer French culture. Our native people and culture become foreign.

I won't even go into the other unpleasant aspects of the Internet and the hip hop culture, critical race theory imported from the United States which push their racial tensions everywhere in the world (see BLM protests reaching Europe). American capitalist culture is not good for the morals to say the least.

In a sense, America has colonized the world with its cultural power, global media and military projection. It has shaped most of the world to its image of a liberal market economy, either through brute military force, diplomatic pressure, or culture as a weapon.

Globalization is a creeping force, with many other drawbacks as well, ranging from the imposition of the Western consumerist lifestyle on the rest of the world, further accelerating the depletion of resources and environmental destruction, to the outsourcing of lower class jobs to foreign countries in a parasitic master-slave relationship between the capitalist and the Third World child worker for the purpose of manufacturing shitty goods sent abroad. It's disgusting to watch.

>>17458713
Nah, Hegel said that philosophy cannot make any prediction. Owl of Minerva 'n shit. As far as we know the developement of Absolute Spirit might require the extinction or torture of the whole human race. There is a "march of history", but it can be understood only in retrospective.

>>17458583
>If we only accept the most base form of slavery and deliver our property and spirit to our oligarchic slave-owners they will even allow us to watch marvel movies and eat Deliveroo burgers!!!
so this is the power of Hegelianism.....senpai.....I kneel

>>17459099
>modern times are worse than old times because we are forced to eat marvel movies and watch fast food
m8 you can freely choose to watch different movies, or no movies at all, and eat different food. No one forces you to become a slave.

>>17458583
Ass.

>>17459124
Yes, we can consume the art of the past, but a healthy society should not only be consuming good art, but producing it as well.

>>17459140
I'm sure our society produces great art. We will see in 50 years when the filter of history has showed them to us.

>>17459175
Name one piece of art produced in the past 50 years that is truly great

>>17459209
Mein Name sei Gantenbein
2001 - A Space Odyssey
Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi

If you honestly think there is no great art made in the last fifty years, why not kill yourself? Honest question. If this is truely your opinion, and not just internet hipsterism, why not end your existence?

>>17459237
Because my biological urge to live prevents me from doing so

>>17458691
while so far his communist revolution has never come true, his predictions about the continuation of capitalism were spot on

>>17458766
>art is dead
oh boo hoo, sorry that paleo man was living a fuller bon vivant artistic life jerking off to obese totems than you are now with access to the internet and thousands of different artistic niches.

>>17459209
Blade Runner 2049

>>17459209
Danganronpa Trigger Happy Havoc

>>17457789
His works are satire, Hegel practices the dark arts, don't you know?

damn bitch you live like this?

>>17458820
>>Rates of depression and suicide are skyrocketing
In comparison to what? People have only been measuring rates of depression has only started in the 60's and knowledge of it wasn't prevalent until the last decade or two.

>>17459209
Hundred Years of Solitude (its been actually 54 years but whatever)

>>17458583
Based
Tradcucks seething

>>17459313
>biological urge
So MUH SOVL stops existing when you faggots want it to huh

>>17460661
>He hasn't read Durkheim
Suicide is almost unheard of in pre-industrial societies. It was literally only a "I must die for honor after my defeat" or "My eternal love is dead, woe!" thing. The rates started going up in the 19th century and they continue to skyrocket now. "Uh, people were totally in denial!" is a stupid and unfalsifiable answer.

>>17458820
You realize Dante didn't read Homer?

>>17461105
I don't see how that's relevant to the point. The point is that our society is not producing artists of the caliber of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and so on. Like I already said, a healthy society not only consumes good art, but produces it.

>>17461023
I don't believe in a soul, I'm an atheist. I'm not a TradCath LARPer, I don't think the decline of society is all due to "degeneracy."

>>17458832
Carlyle seems based, gonna have to give him a read

>>17458583
fuck off Pinkner

>>17457789
They kind of are in the big picture, even with covid and shit. That is, of course, unless climate change fucks us all in the ass.

>>17458766
If they feel less fulfilled it's only because they have much higher expectations than their ancestors, and that eventually leads to demands for a better basic standard.

>>17457789
I give in Hegelchads. Where do I start with him? What do I need to read to get him?

>>17459128
>I'm going to start by stating right off the bat that I'm a wholehearted Rationalist, a seasoned Scientist, a card-carrying atheist, a pitiless nihilist, and a full-on rapist. What are my intentions in writing this book? Are such things as intentions even available to us anymore, given the quandary that modernity has left us in? I've read my Schopenhauer and Mainländer. I've attended a few of David Benatar's seminars. I know that the only rational response to this fetid pantomime we call existence is the willful negation of it. Why don't I just kill myself here and now? Why, maybe I will. Maybe I'll splatter my brains on the final page of this damned book and leave those sizzling globs of gray matter, clumps of twisted hair, and skull fragments for my gory signature! Le couteau de beurre répand son beurre! Ah, but I anticipate myself. I leap too far ahead. The pistol returns quietly to the drawer... for now. Let us instead turn back to the subject of rape, which no doubt astonished some of the less rational among us when I invoked it. We see here [figure 1.1] a most intriguing graph of the IQ distributions between men and women, which leaves us with rather interesting inferences regarding the morality involved in man's treatment of women." - Steven Pinker, in Enlightenment Now (2018), pg. 1

>>17459209
PYNCHON
Lotr films
Memes collectively
My diary desu
Aquascaping and jar ecosystem YouTube

>>17461504
Try Frederick Beiser's introduction text, titled 'Hegel'
Maybe jump into his Philosophy of History, Shorter Logic, or The Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences

>>17461504
If you want to read Hegel I suggest:
>some familiarity with presocratics, plato, and aristotle
>some familiarity with early modern philosophy and kant and later developments in german idealism
>start with his lectures (logic, history, religion, philosophy, aesthetics) -- this is how he introduced students to his system
>Phenomenology of Spirit
>Lesser Logic
>Greater Logic
>Encyclopedia
>Philosophy of Right

>>17459006
based effortpost

>>17462736
>Greater Logic
you're familiar with it? I've heard many give it a lukewarm appreciation.

>>17457789
Fucked up, right?

>>17459313
So life is worth more than art? Glad we agree than that the world has gradually become a better place.

>>17461063
Because living standards are much better compared to the 19th century. We have more time to contemplate and we all know the phrase about an idle mind being the devil's workshop

>>17459209
Bladees 2013-2018 discography was pretty great, as good as arts been at any point. That’s the only true greatness of the 21st century that I’m aware of , although the 80s had Closer by Joy Division, as well as Neon genesis Evangelion. The Beach Boys came close to true greatness in the 60s but didn’t have enough meaning behind their work. Kubrick was similar. Although pop art is a different sort of appeal to things like literature or classical music or philosophy, it has still created some great artists, because the human spirit has prevailed despite our degenerating culture.

>>17461121
It is relevant because great works of art are few and far between, so complaining that within such a short time frame of 50 years we don't have something to the caliber of Homer is silly. Zoom out and I guarantee there have been great works and will continue to be so as long as man exists. As the other anon put it, Shakespeare wasn't available in Homer's time, Dante didn't read Homer...etc but not you have all of their works at your disposal.

>>17459554
I like video games but you’re stupid. Games have produced some good art though but nothing of true greatness like Dante or whatever

>>17463322
the moniker of masterpiece is typically determined long after a work is published. I'm sure hundreds of years from now historians will point back to some piece of art produced in this time as being a masterpiece

>>17458583
Absolutely based. The people seething at this are just delusional mass media spoon fed idiots with no perspective

>>17458766
>People are more miserable
This is so wrong it hurts. Stop projecting your depression as a universality

>art is dead
????????? How is it dead. Lurk more faggot. A lot of good art gets released each year

>>17458583
LOL. I BET THIS GUY VOTES

>>17463329
I agree but it won’t be a video game. I already made a post stating that Neon genesis Evangelion is a masterpiece

>>17459006
Still better than the 20th century regardless

>>17458916
>The problems western people have today are laughable compared to the problems most people had in history.
So you think that lack of community and atomization and alienation of individuals in a decadent society, degeneration of religion and the sacred - merely the origin and foundational pillar of all cultures and civilizations, which explains how everything in our times has degraded to a quality so low, inferior and empty is ''laughable'' compared to having to take a cold shower, having to actually talk to real people outside, and not being able to indulge yourself in other petty comforts? I don't even think that times before were good, the fact is that things are not better and will never be perfect as you people want to think.

>>17463990
>compared to having to take a cold shower, having to actually talk to real people outside
Plus, the malnutrition and dying to an infected knee. I think you being lonely because you live in your mom's basement and larp as a tradcath isn't that much of a problem on a global scale.

>and will never be perfect as you people want to think.
No one in this discussion, or anywhere in this thread, said that the world is or ever will be perfect.

Anyway, what time then the current time do you think is better? When would you rather have lived?

>>17464041
>what time then the current time
*what time other than the current time

Ayyyy lmao the amount of seethers here

>>17464041
I will ignore the expected personal attacks and assumptions. One with reason would not resort to such vile resources. But again, being obvious to everyone you have no reason at all, this behaviour was more than expected.

>malnutrition
Compare the milk you buy today to the natural milk not only more practically available but being standard. Compare your meat, fruits, vegetables, etc.

>Dying to an infected knee
This is a meme, but someone so brainwashed like you would have no idea about anything. Read the medical procedures and medicine in the Ebers Papyrus in fricking Ancient Egypt. They had antibiotic mixtures. People have always had access to natural anesthesia. One thing that I concede is that, yes, some medical procedures are much easier and comfortably painless to be made today.

>No one in this discussion said tha the world is or ever will be perfect
Then it is a progress toward what? It wants to become better without becoming better?

>What time do you think is better?
As I said, there are different problems, but even though the quality of older times was much higher in essential elements of human life, suffering was still unanimous. We probably don't suffer as much as some people in those times, we are anesthesized, we are empty, and this is dehumanizing and much worse.

>>17457789
my what metric things are getting worse?

>>17464152
People live healthier, longer lifes and they don't need to die in wars, so they have more freetime to be sad.

>>17464171
>healthier
myth

>longer lives
myth

>they don't need to die in wars
leave your house for once, read history books

>they have more freetime to be sad
sure the average worker has a lot of freetime

in sum, you are a brainwashed bugman

>>17464206
>leave your house for once, read history books
m8 life expectancy is rising by the minute. And no, I won't die in a war if I leave my house, as deaths in war are generally reclining.

>>17464217
>life expectancy is rising
i doubt it but even if it were true it still means nothing but how life has degenerated into thinking quantity is superior to quality, this is just one of the countless examples of the reign of quantity.

>wars
the greatest two wars in human history happened recently, there are still many wars going on.

>>17458583
>freest
America's belief in its own freedom is FAR greater than its actual freedom.
>healthiest
In America?
>best educated
Absolutely not.
>safest
Only if you're in a place that hasn't had riots yet, or isn't inner city.

>>17458595
Feudalism is like that too anon, it's common.

>>17459719
Man seeing that shit as a kid was fucked.

>>17464242
>In America?
Okay, America is obviously a shithole when it comes to freedom and health, my bad.

>>best educated
>Absolutely not.
What time has a better educated general population?

>Only if you're in a place that hasn't had riots yet, or isn't inner city.
Crime is declining even in the USA. Also, how many people actually died or were injured in those riots?

>>17464380
>What time has a better educated general population?
This is the problem. Needing to educate everyone the education must lower itself to be accessible and serve everyone equally. And there is no such thing as real education today even among the most ''well-educated'' academics and scientists. They subscribe to the current thoughts, ignoring a much more comprehensive and polymathic understanding of things.

>>17464380
Your definition of safety is too impoverished for you to have a meaningful discussion about it.

>>17464380
>Crime is declining even in the USA.
I am much more afraid to walk in the streets of an american city than a brazilian one.

>>17464474
What is your definition of safety?


>>17464491
How many Brazilian cities have you been to?

>>17464443
But anyone who actually wants an education can easily get one. All the information that you need is available to you, you can access basically every relevant book that was ever written if you want to. If you lived 200 years ago, chances are you couldn't even access a single book because you couldn't read, unless your dad was rich.

Or do you recommend that we stop educating people so that you get the chance to maybe get forcefed a better education?

>>17464497
For someone to actually feel safe they need stability/security of the following:
- body (no looming threat of injury, harm)
- property
- morals/manners
- community

>>17463313
You belong on reddit.

>>17464522
I concede that internet helps a lot with education but the opposite is also its price, a lot of people are swayed by influences that not only don't offer a good education but mislead them terribly. So it is not internet and information being available alone, it needs guidance (and our current epoch lacks the ability to guide proper an individual), how many people you know that use the internet use it to consume books on erudite and intellectual matters?

>If you lived 200 years ago, chances are you couldn't even access a single book because you couldn't read, unless your dad was rich.
Almost just like if you lived in today's time and needed to work almost 10 hours a day because you are not a millionaire, huh?

>Or do you recommend that we stop educating people so that you get the chance to maybe get forcefed a better education?
I support wholeheartedly the end of public education. People are already forcefed a terrible, superficial, useless and even biased education that tells more lies than truths.

>>17459175
I think we'll see that the era since the 70s is one almost completely bereft of true masterpieces. I think we're finally reaching the point where we can stop pretending that things like jazz albums, rock albums, Pixar moves, etc. are masterpieces.