/lit/ - Literature

>>22976399
De Sade
few

>>22976399
>The kind of writers who really make you doubt if they even held a drop of evil within them.
What is this sentence doing in the middle of your post? Works written in good faith aren't going to obscure the capacity for evil in their author.

>>22976428
saints are real ya pinhead

>>22976458
Saints admit they are sinners and that they are perfected over time by God's initiative. It's characteristic of them.

>>22976472
the admission and subsequent attempt at repentance absolves them of being characterised as evil, which is what those aforementioned writers would do.

>>22976458
the biggest moralists I know are people who (although I like them) never admit or talk about their faults, only how they're going to make the world a better place. The most moral people I know talk of themselves as insignificant and have almost never moralized.

>>22976502
sin and repentance is the energy that fuels eternity, it's not a singular act or something you ever defeat

Not exactly off the beaten path, but I recall having something of this feeling when I was reading Montaigne. That guy had a lot of good sense

There are a number of Hindu saints I've read in translation who also struck me as powerful advocates for a better life, perhaps most prominently Kabir, whom I read in Linda Hess' translation. Nammāzhvār is beautiful too, but maybe doesn't speak to you as directly as Kabir

>>22976619
Therefore it is impossible for a writer to reach that realm of morality, except for poets maybe, isn't it?

>>22976639
Montaigne is the man

>Pursue the heroic and pursue knowledge.

>>22976624
Wow

Ralph Waldo Emerson

>>22977206
nah he was just retarded

Unironically Immanuel Kant.

>>22976399
Dostoevsky
CS lewis

>>22976619
What about reformed moralists? As in, people who refuse to judge because they have seen the own hypocrisy in themselves back when they were heavy preachers

>>22977106
I actually have him on my plate later on

>>22977951
It’s impossible for someone to exist their entire lives without throwing judgement on something. If no one judged anything we’d accept lies for the truth.

>>22978000
Well that's true; but when I say judgement, I mean condemnation. There's a fine line between comprehension and punishment.

>>22977931
read his biography a while ago and i was left with this impression as well.
also plato.

>>22978163
>his biography
which one? I might give it a peep

>>22976399
Eliezer Yudkowsky, HP:MoR, Project Lawful.

>>22976399
Mark Twain.

>>22976428
Abstract evil is not some thing that exists "within people"; evil has to be consciously willed. But that's just offtopic pedantry.

>>22979072
the one written by manfred kuehn.

>>22976399

>>22981228
every first hand account i've heard of him says he was an asshole. and his books confirm this.

>>22981291
His books are clear, honest, and insightful. No idea what you're talking about.

david foster wallace

>>22976399
john is a good man

>>22977110
Yep. I feel like he would have supported Hitler and the nazi party initially but then would have detested it for all the pain and suffering it was causing Europe.

>>22981228
>>22981330
Being a proponent of scientism, materialism, utilitarianism and atheism makes him evil by default.

>>22977948
>CS lewis
beat me to it

>>22981374
Creep and rapist pretending to be le harmless, tormented and sensible writer. Basically a male feminist.

>>22976399
Weininger
Eckhart
Hakuin

>>22982713
You are delusional

>>22982722
don't sign your posts

>>22983169
he's right

>>22983248
Imagine being opposed to utilitarianism and atheism. You want delusions that aren't even useful lol

>>22984891
>

>>22982713

>>22984967
>(You)

What about some example of the opposite of this?
Chesterton, Russell, Sartre come to mind

>>22984974
Dosto

>>22984974
Ayn Rand would be the obvious one

>>22984974
Popper

>>22984974
> Chesterton
It is Saint Chesterton for you

>>22976399
Epictetus (But he does write about his shortcomings)

>>22981228
Nice trolling attempt, lol

>>22982713
This

>>22976399
>push the reader to believe what they believe
>pure intentions
You're contradicting yourself, OP. The pure author only seeks to imitate life or self-reveal. Propaganda is not pure.

>>22985463
then stop reading books, internet posts, and everything else
Might as well throw your eyes away

>>22977948
was gonna say this

>>22985468
Midwit cope. There's plenty which fits the criteria I described.

>>22985585
then you should be naming them

bump

>>22985795
>le spoonfeed me zoomer
No. Start reading.

>>22985456
To liars, the truth seems evil.

>>22986469
so you don't know?

>>22976399
This is a great idea for a thread and is how I choose what to read now.
>Kierkegaard
>CS Lewis
>Dostoevsky
Yes.
>Russell
Unironically yes
>>22981291
>He was an asshole
Kierkegaard dumped his fiancee and broke her heart with lies because... well that's the central question, isn't it? Being an asshole and wanting the best for humanity are not related in any way.

>>22987404
were should one start with Kierkegaard? Any prerequisites?

unironically plato

>>22984974
Aquinas. Dogmatism is not a virtue.

>>22987438
> t. member of the infallible non-denominational movement

>>22987550
atheist. there's no point to philosophy if you already assume that you know the truth.

>>22977948
nope.

>>22981228
/thread

>>22987438
Aquinas was known to be personally warm and his philosophy is always healthy and humane and aware of the goodness of God (compare and contrast with St Augustine, who unironically argues that babies go to hell). Total slander of one of history's truly good doods, heretics really can't help themselves.

>>22987415
>Prerequisites
A good familiarity with the Bible, particularly the story of Abraham, and some first hand experience with shattering existential despair. If you aren't at least a little depressive you aren't going to understand, but then again you aren't really human. Kierkegaard gets weirdly technical at times but he's not a systematizer, he's more about what kind of inner life is required to face the world authentically.

>>22976399
Is that John Maus?

>>22976399
>Post authors who write with the absolute purest intentions
My friend.
All famous writers are connected. Their intention is to capture and engineer specific demographics.

>>22988898
did you come out of cryosleep from 1900? writers don't do that anymore, there's this niche invention called the television now which does a much better job at that.

>>22984891
Pretty easy to imagine, every genius who has lived was opposed to these things. The best you've got are a couple of mids like Russell or half-wits like Dawkins.

>>22987325
Nice [predictable] cope, brainlet. Like I said, start reading.

>>22982723
Weininger is a tragic case for me because you actually feel that he was carrying all the world's troubles on his shoulders as you read Sex and Character. I will be spending my twenties solely making babies of the mind with thots because of him, I will also one day visit his tombstone. May he rest in eternal bliss.

>>22988306
Okay? Being a good person doesn't make you a good faith philosopher. If you have a book full of stuff that you accept without evidence, that is not "good faith".

>>22989108
>If you have a book full of stuff that you accept without evidence
Every book is full of stuff you accept without evidence, anon. Everyone has assumptions, no matter if explicit or implicit.

>>22984973
Die

>>22987570
So you’re someone who enjoys pegging?

>>22976399
Kropotkin, though he is a poor political theorist because of it.

>>22989390
Look at his widdle face

>>22976399
Immanuel Kant and Spinoza. They were both the purest souls that have walked this eart

>>22989074
Amen.

Lautréamont in his Poésies I and II was being very sincere. Leopardi sincerely wanted his readers to git gud. Ezra Pound too, so sincere was he that he found himself in an asylum and all he wanted was an ethnostate and a purified popular language in the vein of la langue d'oc and that of the court of Frederick the 2nd. He wrote guide to Kulchur from memory alone. Mme. de Staël's brand of sincerity was captured by Léon Bloy in a rapturous éloge of Enthusiasm. She lived as she read and what she read and wrote about it innocently.

>>22989074
Amen.

>>22989135
I would draw a distinction between implicit assumptions born from imprecise reasoning versus reasoning with a single conclusion in mind, and not allowing your assumptions to be questioned. Picrel.

>>22989198
No, I'm not catholic.

bump

>>22990169
So i was intrigued and i started reading sex and character. Book starts by claiming we cant anatomically differentiate between sexes.
Is this book just some jewish subversion or does it get better?

Also, to add to the ops question, unmentioned: camus

>>22990704
>Book starts by claiming we cant anatomically differentiate between sexes.
>Is this book just some jewish subversion or does it get better?
The second, psychological-philosophical part is more important that the first, biological-psychological part.

>>22990750
So its kike subversion?
I have bad experiences with schizo namefags, so can some anon chime in on this?

>>22990789
It's only "subversion" if the idea that women (or feminine-minded/unconscious people) should be treated as human is subversive.

>>22990183
Russell is considered as a particularly bad writer when it comes to others he didn't agree with. His comments on Stoicism are very ignorant, from what I remember reading. I'm not a follower of Stoicism, by the way.

And you didn't get my point.
Everyone is always working under a set of assumptions taken without evidence. No matter how someone thinks highly of himself as rational, he will always have a set of faith beliefs.

>>22990825
These shouldn't intentionally enter into philosophy though. And some are more excusable on the level of the person than others.

>>22976399
>>22976428
Because op is a tremendous faggot

>>22990835
We will always have assumptions.
Russell had his set of assumptions about reality. So did Plato, the Stoics, the Skeptics and everyone else.

>>22990814
Well as pol says, women are the jews of gender.
Im all for that but this otto guy reads like wilhelm reich, for example. Batshit insane, focusing too much on sex, with trademark jewish overintellectualization without ability for common sense

>>22990704
It says we can't anatomically differentiate between sexes *up to a certain point*
Meaning at one point it's all the same.

>>22990185
I though reformed congregations enjoyed pegging

>>22989390
His mutual aid theory is interesting, if a bit flawed, just like Spencerian social Darwinism

>>22990825
>Russell is considered as a particularly bad writer when it comes to others he didn't agree with.
I have heard this and I sort of remember thinking this myself the first time I read his survey of western philosophy, but when I reread it I found it wasn't true at all. He definitely has opinions and an outlook about what is good (rationalism) and what is bad (romanticism), and a lot of this comes from the fact that Hitler was bombing london while he was writing. But he's not unfair - Rousseau really was a cunt, that's a legitimate point to make about someone who wants to tell you how to live a moral life; and while he's not Nietzsche's biggest fan, his comments are very fair and had a much more sophisticated understanding of his character and viewpoint than most people have today, let alone when he was literally adopted as the official philosopher of the Nazis.

The thing about Russell is that he really had read everything, whatever you think of his political opinions (in his 90s he was being trotted out for all sorts of causes because of his name, unclear if he even knew where he was much of the time - and WWI actually was a fucking awful idea, if more people had gone to jail for saying so the west would likely be in a far better position). This was basically the opposite of every "public intellectual" of the last 50 years, always giving strident hot takes on shit they don't know anything about and kicking up dust when they are exposed as ignorant. It's about respect for your audience, even when they are "only" the general public, and respect for the truth, all things which sound very corny to clever people now.

>>22990857
>We will always have assumptions.
Even Euclid started from axioms, which are exactly assumptions, immaculately conceived. You have to start with something, and you can't "bootstrap" your way to a logic that proves its own axioms, it's circular reasoning by definition. "Facts and logic/ I f*cking love science" types are illogical and unscientific, mathematics and formal logic is inherently mystical from its conception, as everyone from Pythagoras to Wittgenstein understood perfectly.

>>22976399
>guy lays out every idea he thinks is important for the next generation
>brings up his autobiography only if it's relevant
>suggests sources for further research
>very humble tone, basically grandpa giving you life advice
are there any books like this? I'd be interested to see a similar style book from a socialist or anyone else really.

>>22984974
Celine is a bit of both. He does all he can to be perceived as the opposite of well meaning but upon reading him I always get the feeling he actually cared way more than we can imagine about the people around him.

>>22987415
I started with Either/Or, then Fear and Trembling, then Sickness Unto Death. Those three provide a good foundation for his philosophy. Do a little research beforehand, though, or the structure of Either/Or might confuse you. The only real prerequisite you need is a general knowledge of the Bible, but it couldn't hurt to be familiar with the major theologians up until Kierkegaard.

>>22984967
They should remove the Californian accent bit for the bug man which is normally associated with surfers, OC Skinheads, and skateboarders, and replace it with the smarmy Brooklynite new york accent, and Portland accent.

>>22991625
Don't even mention Celine in relationship to this list

Daily reminder that accusations of arguing in "bad faith" is the normie's way of coping with a contradiction in core values, because they lack a real theory of mind and live life through projection.
There's no way you can really think that way. You must be lying!

>>22992206
why?

literally me, desu. this is my struggle and i'll find out if it's worthwhile in the end

>>22989054
>every genius who has lived was opposed to these things
Wrong, in fact, the most successful nations on Earth are based on utilitarianism and are set up explicitly against the enforcement of religion. For human prosperity to exist, it requires a secular state with a Godless constitution.

>>22992438
The most "successful" nations on earth are hubristic abominations which have the means to expand through destroying everything except the instruments of economy then exporting their sick behavior (US, China)
Plus they're inherently boom economies which destroy their own prospects through their own behavior. You wouldn't know human prosperity if it burned you at the stake

>>22992438
>the most successful nations on Earth are based on utilitarianism
They most certainly are not. The most successful nations are liberal democracies, and all such nations have various rights enshrined in law. Utilitarianism denies the existence of rights.

>>22992451
Have you seen how these liberal democracies behave?

>>22992438
when separation of church and state was introduced, what they meant by it was that protestants and catholics can't fight over how to teach the nation their religion. it was not a thing at the state/regional level and if you called it the same thing as denying God to their face while supporting utilitarianism of all things they would consider you a satanic monarch.

>>22992438
>>22992467
unless you mean to tell me jacobin france and bolshevik russia are the peak of human prosperity in which case... let's just say i question what you consider prosperity.

>>22992480
NTS but I think those countries (and other examples e.g. China's cultural revolution) are what humanity deserves
So in a way, revolutionary terror is the apex of human existence. Gotta be nice to see people actually get criticized and punished for their flaws no matter how small

>>22992487
>NTS
Nta*, t. Phoneposter

>>22992487
i'm sorry your drunkard father beat you anon but that doesn't mean you have to have to give into despair.

>>22992492
*...doesn't mean you have to give into despair
hey i'm phoneposting too no worries

>>22976624
What kind of salvation is that when you're still a slave to your sin? Haven't you read that the Son shall make you free, and if the Son makes you free you shall be free indeed? Whosoever is committing sin is the servant of sin and whosoever doeth not righteousness is a child of the devil. Jesus said you cannot serve two masters, either you will hate the one and love the other else you will hold to one and despise the other; you cannot serve God and mammon.

>>22977951
>As in, people who refuse to judge
You mean those smelly hippies who don't have consistent beliefs and constantly judge others for judging righteous judgment (e.g. condemning sodomy), rather than as the world judges or according to the appearance (e.g. condemning Christ or condemning other hellfire preachers)?

>>22992487
>what humanity deserves
The only thing all of mankind deserves is pic related.

>>22978003
>Well that's true; but when I say judgement, I mean condemnation.
Do you not condemn evil like murder, theft, or rape?
>There's a fine line between comprehension and punishment.
Should we not condemn and punish evil to the best of our capacity? Is a murderer not worthy of death?

>>22992467
>what they meant by it was that protestants and catholics can't fight over how to teach the nation their religion.
You might as well by a Romanist sympathizer, as one would be a communist sympathizer, with how you depict that abominable false cult's history of being drunk with the blood of God's saints in fulfillment Biblical (prophecy proving the divinely inspired nature of the Holy Scriptures btw).

But why study prophecy? And why accept a prophecy study that doesn't aim to discredit Scripture or misdirect as a Romanist priest/bishop or as a Jesuit infiltrator would.

>>22984974
Adorno and Marcuse.

>>22992556
i don't much like popery either anon but you need to take a chill pill, that's literally what it was made for. religious wars were destroying europe for two centuries at the time y'know and jefferson was probably thinking "yeah locke has a point. keep it in europe, we're not doing that shit here. keep the papists in europe too though"

>>22992585
>anti-intellectual all lowercase poster is a prescription pill junkie who thinks regular discussion is something people need to take pills
Why am I not surprised. You didn't even understand the point. Why do you even reply when this is all you have to add, just whining and being so deliberately stupid. How many prescriptions are you on anyway?

>religious wars were destroying europe for two centuries at the time
It was over twelve centuries, as prophesied. Even ended in the way it was prophesied and returned since then, again as prophesied. Why do you even go to discussion boards when you're so averse to any discussion with any depth or nuance, and why reply to posters who are clearly out of your league? It's not like you're even pretending to play the same game here.

>>22981228
LMAO his autobiography is among the dullest garbage I've ever encountered, I kept reading because it was fascinating that he could believe he was leaving the reader with a good impression of himself. It was fundamentally dishonest and misunderstood the meaning and place of his own life within his time. Truly amazing, how someone could be so wrong philosophically, ethically, and aesthetically.

>>22991137
>The thing about Russell is that he really had read everything, whatever you think of his political opinions

He said Hegel was responsible for Communism and Fascism, and his quotes from his works are either incorrect or mistranslations done on purpose. His interpretation of Nietzsche is outrageous and show his bias against ANY GERMAN philosopher. His historical work is among the most outlandish and fanciful lies on others philosophy I've ever seen, that it is held in high regard at all show the English inability to be honest.

>>22993501
>show his bias against ANY GERMAN philosopher
What kind of monster would be biased against an entire natio-
>the English inability to be honest.

>>22976399
Alan Moore.

>>22993501
>His interpretation of Nietzsche is outrageous and show his bias against ANY GERMAN philosopher.
definitely

>>22976399
test

>>22976399
Saint Paul

>>22993501
>His historical work is among the most outlandish and fanciful lies on others philosophy I've ever seen, that it is held in high regard at all show the English inability to be honest.
WOW

>>22976399
AA Milne
David Graeber
Walt Whitman
O Henry

>>22992451
Rights have utilitarian value, in fact, along utilitarian lines, rights are indispensable.

>>22976399
Goethe

>>22995852
this is a controversial position among utilitarians, don't pretend otherwise

>>22992206
He’s kind and humane while enveloping himself in an aura of brutal selfishness and cynicism. Probably from all he seen during the war, yet by all accounts from random people who were his patients he was a very warm and concerned practitioner going the extra mile for them.
Far from a saint, but just two cents to add to the discussion.
Same as the way the most evil ones wi never present as such, the ones who try hard to appear nice and kind will never be such.