/lit/ - Literature

Harassment Architecture is quite funny, Gothic Violence is boring and you can get the same effect by going on BAPtwitter

>>21845372
Definitely edgy, but Harassment Architecture is funny enough to be worth an read and has some gems of actual good writing mixed in. I enjoyed it. It's a mix of serious /pol/fag opinions and satire of those same /pol/ types in equal measure, he's self aware enough to make it work while still being unapologetic. Lot of clear influence from Behead All Satans and Ellis/Palahniuk, but I'd say it's one of the better "4chan books" out there. Gothic Violence was a lot worse imo even though it's pretty much the same book with slightly more of a plot, I feel like you can tell he got burned out on writing it about halfway through, it still has a few good moments but is a lot less worthwhile. I'd give the first a shot and skip the second unless you decide you REALLY liked HA and want more of the same

>>21845372
He's definitely going to look back on all this eventually and cringe hard.

HA was good for the time but reading it now will make you cringe a little, GV was definitely weaker but has a stronger overall message. Both of them have some genuinely piercing quotes and passages, but dredging through the 200 or so combined pages to get to them doesn’t seem worth it. I’d say flip through HA and make a decision, you’ll know whether or not you’ll like it pretty quickly.

>>21845372
Mostly edgy schlock, I read HA. Supposedly Gothic Violence is better

>>21845372
harassment architecture is good and you can read it in a few hours, haven't read the other one

>>21845372
Far-right goyslop for pretentious frauds. Irredeemable

>>21845372
Harassment architecture is fucking terrible. Reading it gives you that same feeling you get when you talk to a stupid person you’ve just met and quickly realize that your most mundane, everyday thoughts about casual things like the weather or dinner are more intense than the greatest thought that person’s ever had and ever will have.
Save yourself the time and brain degradation. Don’t read it.

I'm in the middle of my second read-through. First time I found it to be an entertaining book with some immature political opinions. This time I'm picking up on the subtle indicators of satire: the narrator describes himself as an aloof alpha-male type, but also pauses in the middle of a rant to push his glasses up on his nose at one point.

What you're in for: the book has no real plot. It's a series of stream-of-consciousness monologues from the POV of a jaded young man who lives in New York. While wandering through life, he provides commentary on everything from the citizens of his upscale hipster neighborhood to various political/historical concepts and modern aesthetic trends. His insights are a bit deeper and more balanced than the average /pol/tard. He talks about the urge to return to nature while understanding that he is ill-equipped to do so.

His setting descriptions and dialogue are excellent, and he has a real talent for narrative misdirection. I recommend it.

The Elder Scroll/jewish part made me laugh out loud while reading, but most of HA is as forgettible as a well structured greentext. You're mostly entertained while reading it, but nothing really sticks

I read HA because I was memed into buying it, it was kind of funny at parts but not outright hilarious or profound. I give it a 6/10.

>>21848497
I think that's the main allure of the book, that it represents a foothold for a segment of society which has been more or less cut off from popular culture. We feel compelled to champion the book despite its shortcomings because we rarely get an opportunity to see someone from our corner gather any wider fame or respect.

That's something I wish the gatekeepers of popular culture understood: for every one woman who was horrified by The Handmaid's Tale, there were probably two others who were comforted by the fact that someone recognized and articulated the anxieties they were living with on a daily basis. Kind of like Orwell says in 1984: it's not so much about being loved as being understood. Liberals can turn on Netflix and see a dozen different fictional heroes triumphing on their behalf, or escape into a dozen different fantasies wherein their worldview is taken for granted as being correct, but conservatives are denied this same feeling of mass catharsis. I doubt Trump would have gotten into the white house if Starship Troopers was running an HBO miniseries extolling the virtues of discipline and civic sacrifice at the same time.

>>21845372
HA is sorta funny, but basically all of the humor is derived from Ma trying to depict absurd, almost surreal, scenarios or relying on pure edgy shock value. It’s definitely not anything highbrow or meaningful and you can tell it was written by a pretentious retard who spent too much time on /pol/ and other online right-wing spaces, but it’s mercifully short, you can finish it in an hour or two. Important side note, I read it like 4 years ago and my headspace has completely changed since then so I doubt I would ever care to read it again or find the humor appealing anymore. I have the second book, never read more than a few pages of it, never will. It’s a one trick pony.

>>21848637
> I doubt Trump would have gotten into the white house if Starship Troopers was running an HBO miniseries extolling the virtues of discipline and civic sacrifice at the same time.

They would if it would sell. Self discipline and civic duty doesn't sell. Tough guy movies about an antihero who does what he wants sells. Shit about the world somehow ending and suddenly the secret manly man hiding inside the guy who was "just kept caged by society," sells.

Discipline? The demographic you're talking about is fat and filled with alcoholics and drug addicts at least as much as the target for your standard Marvel fare, probably more honestly.

Plus they have their superheros, Punisher, Judge Dread, etc.

Conservatives consoom as much media as anyone else. They have all sorts of consoomer shit marketed to them. Who do you think is buying tactical baby carriers? Why did pickup truck sales surge at a time when fewer and fewer men work trades?

The ideal of the /pol/ demographic is only "civic action," in the sense that they think having a war will somehow .magically transform them into something that they currently or not. It sure as fuck isnt patriotism, saying some large percentage of your nation should be nuked or genocides is fairly common fare.

It's angst driven by fear of global competition mixed with nostalgia. Mostly though, and you are 100% correct on this, it's lack of recognition. Because the vast majority of the population is becoming easily replaceable and economically irrelevant, people don't get recognition. Unfortunately, the handful of good ideas in BAP, about raising up the status of the sciences and discovery, is basically ignored. It's now "soiance." All this is left is "war, Ill shoot shit and then they will have to recognize me." Aside from being infantile, it also isn't going to work. Some people get out of angst mode and start families. They don't want all the shit around them ruined.

The way forward is to create something in society you can identify with and build, but create some image of yourself as the last of the "real" men, immune to consoomption and "goyslop," and filled with virtue. People living virtuous lives wouldn't be so completely fucking miserable the way your average /pol/tard is.

>>21848967
Human civilization is inherently evil. What you say here
>The way forward is to create something in society you can identify with and build, but create some image of yourself as the last of the "real" men, immune to consoomption and "goyslop," and filled with virtue.
Is just idiocy.
The world will be good only when humanity goes extinct.

Why not download it and see for yourself?
Here's where I got my copy:
https://pdfcoffee.com/bestharassment-architecture-mike-mapdf-2-pdf-free.html
I read the first page & gave up.

>>21848967
These guys look like homos larping at a fag orgy

>>21849296
Tell them that to their face, brave boy.

>>21848967
>they think having a war will somehow .magically transform them into something that they currently or not.
It will transform everyone. When society breaks down and people start suffering en masse- that's when the human inside them will wake up.

>>21850123
You are actually delusional.

>>21849281
>>21850123

Right wingers confirmed for triggered angst teens. "Hurr, head strong, take you on, head strong, take on anyone."

Yeah bro, hitting the gym for 2 hours a week and eating only McHormone meat instead of McChemical plant mush has really made you le apex predator. All that is needed is collapse and you will be transformed from le virgin to le Chad. Better shoot up another daycare or grocery store to bring on le Boog!

>>21848637
Haha, bro look above at this civic sacrifice demographic of yours, they hate civilization even more than radlefts. The right has become, if possible, more post modern/relativist than the left even and more nihilistic. The postmodern idea that you should ignore any arguments and just look at the power structure that created them, literally critical theory, is now heavily embraced by the right on a wide number of topics from inflation to global warming. The dick down of hysterical, delusional leftoids of 2016, "Trump won, fuck your feelings," has been replaced by the totally delusion right tard fantasy of "Trump won, fuck your facts (and that he stopped being POTUS years ago)." Pure pomo.


>"Billions must die, but I am le ebin Chad who will be happier in collapse in flourish. It will be just like my Hollywood movies where the relatable protagonist becomes a hyper Chad through adventure!"

>"What? Go outside and try living innawoods for a long period without just car camping and bringing tons of food in a cooler? But where will I get my keto meat without a cooler? I'm an apex predator, I can't be bringing dry goods. Actually backpack and move long distances? Go off trail? Hunt for food? Be able to do one pull up or run a mile before I drop $10,000 on consooming my Boog load out? Are you insane? Ill die. I'll learn to be a grizzled woodsman only when everyone else's society is destroyed and not a moment before."

>>21850580
>Hunt for food?
Requires a permit.

>>21850625
Oh gosh, well I guess that does it for the Chad ubermensch. Filling out a $5 form online? That sort of preplanning is impossible.

I'm sure that's it. They would be grizzled woodsmen but are kept unhappy and seething on /pol/ because of the 0.01% chance they might get a small fine for taking a deer outside of season deep on the woods or because they can't manage the forethought of paying $4 for a fishing pass and printing out the receipt, which is all you tend to need.

Yup, you either let people do whatever they want, even if it fucks up the eco system, or you utterly oppress them with poorly enforced permits one can order on 5 minutes.

But maybe they are grizzled woodsmen. One by one they file into the back country for long treks. In the peace and tranquility of nature, strong and alone they think: "I can't wait to get back to /pol/ to talk about how unbearable life is. Maybe there will be a good "nigger hate thread," full of cool videos of children being beaten, those always hit the bump limit," and, smiling to themselves, "based."

>>21850580
>look at the power structure that created them, literally critical theory, is now heavily embraced by the right
Got any literature about the absurd right? How far looped upon itself can these ideas go?

>>21850807
They can become infinitely looped. Some versions of semiotics has it that symbols can only relate to other symbols. All one experienced in thought is symbols and thus all propositions are symbols.

This gets taken in some extreme directions. For instance, in metaphysics there is the issue of whether propositions are "real" abstract entities. For propositions to have real truth values we have to somehow link them to the world, the most common way of doing so being the "correspondence definition of truth." Very briefly, this means that "Theseus is standing," is true if and only if there is a Theseus and he is standing in the world. But some philosophers have argued that propositions are just language claims about narratives, or that they only refer to other propositions, symbols/words.

Nietzsche's opening to Beyond Good and Evil is a great read (great book overall) and sort of trumpets the dawn of the pomo vision. He argues that, for all their focus on "truth," philosophers, particularly moral philosophers, have conclusions they like for their own, perhaps unexamined reasons, and then they just develop arguments to justify what they already want to believe.

The pomo version of this today says that justification of the status quo is the same way, those with power justifying their power. Hence when /pol/ types want to throw out most economics, maybe sparring a few Austrians, they can point out that the literature is made up by elites who are serving their own interests (the same can be said of leftist criticisms). Both sides don't seem to understand that many econ professors are adjuncts making $18 an hour and that even full time professors and government economists are far from elites, but oh well.

Pomo says there are no absolutes. This itself is an absolute statement of course, but non-contradiction itself is just the privileging of one type of thought. You can take this very far. You can claim that the natural sciences and indigenous folk religions are just different ways of knowing, only privileged by who has power. This is very big on the far left.

But you'll see it from the right too. Mathematics is being corrupted by the left and must be sacred, sacred just until applied mathematics seems to contradict right-wing policy, then it becomes misused nonsense.

Reals are inaccessible. We live in a world of feels. Thus, feels = reals.

You can flip back and forth between "facts don't care about your feelings," and "trust the soience and 'vetted' sources goy."

There is a similar undercurrent in the sciences where non-consensus concepts or even consensus concepts that violate a sort of naive corpuscular realism are all "philosophy infecting the sciences," whilst all true scientists eschew philosophy (i.e. ignore it and so embrace whatever is consensus uncritically).

>>21846373
Are you a leftist by any chance?

>>21850580
Yeah, my point was that if mainstream fiction understood and acknowledged the concerns of conservatives and the alt-right, they wouldn't feel such an urgency to exert their beliefs in reality. Same thing if they were able to escape into fictional worlds which reflected their values. Take for instance: A Quiet Place, a film completely devoid of racism or hatred, which was (sparsely, I'll admit) criticized for "covert promotion of conservative values."

The reason the alt-right wants to tear down society despite being enthralled with fascist imagery and ideals is because they don't see a place for themselves in mainstream pop culture and discourse. Alt-right fantasies of innawoods homesteader shit is just as unrealistic as that "Your Job in the Left-Wing Commune" twitter meme.

>>21851830
definitely got that leftist Chuck Wendig style:
>Rather than explaining why I feel the way that I do, I'll think up a really colorful metaphor that has nothing to do with anything being discussed. Mike Ma is like a pony trying to send a fax!

>>21848637
>>21852133
>what rightoids really want is just Maddox's Best Page in the Universe in book form
So much for defending Western civilization. You fuckers deserve your deprivation. Any true literary efforts would be wasted on you anyway.

>>21852206
Woah, nice reference. I was actually one of the last admins at thebestfanpageintheuniverse.com

>>21845372
I liked both, it’s edgy but so life

>>21852133
Are right wing fantasies unrealistic?

I've seen a few "what will you do after the Civil War," threads, and it is filled with people saying they will move to the countryside and find a girl at church and own some land.

This is not a far reach for people in the US. Outside the Rockies and West Coast, houses with decent amounts of land are not that expensive. You can get a place suitable for a homestead under $200,000, which is totally affordable with a steady job. Churches are also open every weekend and are disproportionately filled with women for the younger age brackets.

It makes me think the whole thing is really some sort of weird cope.

If you want a "trad church wife," but you don't go to church and aren't Christian and you want to homestead but aren't actually interested in gardening and that sort of thing, then I think you actually want something else and can't articulate it. But it probably isn't living as an insurgent lol.

>>21845372
I enjoyed both Harassment Architecture and Gothic Violence. His style is like a stream of consciousness/fever dream. Very entertaining.

>>21846373
Seethe

>>21845372
... is there anything else like it?

>>21845372
Harassment Architecture was a fun read, I dropped Gothic Violence when he mentioned Billie Eilish.

>>21850643
Bro you killed them

>>21845372
def worth reading
bought white converse because of it

What does /lit think of Bronze Age Mindset? Most of the guy’s shtick is based on aesthetics and a type of masculinity that is not seen anymore in the West, and he is obviously extremely well read, and humorous at times, so I can see his vast appeal when the alternative is someone like Shapiro or even Fuentes. However he seems to avoid articulating ways to go forward in the real life political sphere. And of course he is a possibly gay member of the Semitic race which makes it pretty funny that he is considered a leader of the online Right.

>>21852955
>You can get a place suitable for a homestead under $200,000, which is totally affordable with a steady job. Churches are also open every weekend and are disproportionately filled with women for the younger age brackets.
Alright, I'll attempt this. Get back to you in some years.

>>21850643
/pol/ absolutely deaded

>>21852955
It's because of their fears of the government. Like this
>The Feds are constantly trying to increase their power over the people
>So even if you settle down in the good way, eventually the Feds will come, take your shit and murder your family
>Also they're working to destroy the environment by filling it with poison and whatever so farming will become impossible and the land will turn into Fallout
Yep, that's the train of thought preventing right-wingers from settling down. This isn't something I made up right now, it's just me summarizing the actual responses I've seen to the question "why not acquire woman and settle down somewhere rural?". Which I've seen be asked multiple times and always be rapidly responded with this type of stuff.

>>21850643
Midwit post. You are literally just saying: here is a group of people on the internet who are cringe retards and are also right wing, therefore right wing bad. You understand there is also a (probably larger) community of cringe retards who subscribe to whatever gay thoughts you hold, right? Are you therefore also a cringe retard by association?

>>21855422
If they hate the government and want to change society, going off grid and living in the wilderness does literally nothing to achieve that goal, although I'm sure they would be much happier as a person if they did. the nazis or commies who succeeded didnt go and larp in the woods, they chimped out.

>>21846373
Post shelf and body

>>21855326
>gay
>jewish
>straussian
Perfect leader for the online right. Oh boy (((National Conservatism Conference))) is gonna be packed this year!

>>21855326
Just read Evola and /fit/ shitposts instead, desu.

>>21850580
This picture makes me proud to be a right winger. Even at our worst, it's still better to go down as what we are than live as a cretinous vat-spawned leftist.

>>21846373

>>21845372
just read Fedbook unless you really want regurgitated 2017 frog twitter dogshit

>>21858296
do you have a copy of a pdf of this book? I dont want to give amazog any money.

>>21848967
The right is genuinely terrifying from the perspective of humans. Haha. All this larp, and we still haven't realized we are engaging in demonology. Angels whisper in my ears, "Billions must die." I shudder. The right is disintegrative and anti-human. It seduces the amygdala.
t. Shamefully right wing

>>21846373
This. It's like reading a collection of shitpost written by a young man who spent his teens on /pol/. I can see how it might appeal to someone who doesn't browse 4chan, but all of us are too used to that kind of crap.