/lit/ - Literature

he started young and was very studious.

>>23240011
I've been learning for a year and I just feel absolutely mogged reading about the Greek skills of people in the past.
I guess if I had been raised learning Greek and Latin since I was a little kid I would be excellent too, so I should just blame modern "education".

not to underplay him of course but the whole thing about learning it since a child is an advantage; I can read my Greek more or less but starting at ~27 alone of course has its toll

>>23240019
why would you compare yourself to someone who has studied the language for 10 years longer than you?

>>23240041
Since I know I'll never reach his level

>>23240045
You might be surprised what ten years of consistent effort in anything can do. At least don't rule it out for yourself. Don't reply.

Why would you even learn Greek for 10 years lol? You'll probably get through Homer, the tragedians, the historians, Plato, basically anything worth reading, in five years max. After that what will you even read? Funeral inscriptions? "Chrusippos promises 5 silver coins to Pantokratos"? That's why I just decided to larn a living language.

>>23240116
Ok, chang.

He was gifted and autistic

>>23240011
>>23240019
>>23240045
He woke up every morning at 5AM whilst at university and allowed himself no time for anything but study. He was dead set on being made the viceroy of the British Raj, before the position was abolished, and thought an education in the Classics was the best way to ensure that.

>>23240151
The story of him hearing about India's independence is pretty funny.
Fucking blue screen of death.

Reminder he learned Portuguese solely to read Os Lusiadas in the original, and /lit/ should follow through.

>>23240286
> Later, after Suez, he was asked by a colleague what Britain’s next move ought to be. ‘It’s over,’ he replied.

>>23240011
kek that Hausman quote

>>23240116
What about later texts?

>>23240151
Maybe this is a stupid question, but what does speaking Latin and Greek have to do with ability to govern India?

>>23240000
Because he was also a paederast (but for lil' Irish boys). He was an archetypal aristocratic Anglo.

>>23242095
The classical humanist education used to be all about literacy in its different forms. If you're a skilled writer, reader and rhetorician, you're fit to participate in the upper classes.

>>23242095
They made him an officer during ww2 because some colonel heard him speak Greek. It was a different time.

>>23242102
Being a skilled writer, reader and rhetorician is at least relevant but it still seems somewhat distinct from governing skill.

>>23242097
lol Taigs love saying this stuff and its complete deflection from the abuse by the church. Chillingly Jungian.

Also Powell was not from an aristocratic background, he was just autistically obsessed with the Classics

>>23240000
>Enoch Powell could speak "...English, German, French, Italian, Modern Greek, and Urdu, and had a reading knowledge of Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Welsh. Among classical languages, he knew Ancient Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Aramaic."
God damn, politicians used to be actually smart back then. It’s amazing how much poorer our politicians are now in every measure.
What the fuck even happened?

>>23240116
The vast majority of living languages don't have anywhere near the amount of quality literature as ancient Greek does, so they're useless, unless you want to do something as uninspired as talk to people. I'd rather learn something that keeps people from talking to me desu

>>23242138
Technically this is true since most living languages are barely written or not at all (and also are spoken in like one village in India or Africa) but of the few hundred living languages with a substantial literature surely many of them have more quality literature than Ancient Greek simply by numbers- even if what we have surviving from ancient Greece is the creme de la creme, if you have a million times more total literature in English or Russian or Mandarin then you're going to have more good literature.

>>23242136
Even then Powell was unusually educated.
>>23242097
This is a claim repeated without evidence. I remain open to actual proof but none has ever surfaced. It's one of those claims repeated so often by Irish Republican types that it becomes a kind of pseudo-truth among them when the real dangers lurked in their own communities.
>>23242128
Middle class family, with a mother who taught him Greek. It's worth noting that this was during the era where 'middle class' meant something more than a slightly better lease deal. Today there is no middle class, only the ultra wealthy and those beneath them. What I'm trying to say is that Powell's background would have been more than comfortable.

>>23242128
Lol at the cope, Your hero was a homosexual. Cry
>According to Michael Bloch, in his old age, Powell confessed to Canon Eric James, a former Trinity College chaplain, that he had been in love with a fellow male undergraduate at Cambridge, whom Bloch identifies as "probably Edward Curtis of Clare College", and that this infatuation had inspired love verses published in his First Poems. This confession was revealed by Canon James in a letter to The Times on 10 February 1998.[274]

>>23242095
In England, up until about the nineties, a degree in Classics would significantly increase your chances of securing a high paying position in the public sector. Large numbers of people who worked for the Foreign Office had a Classics degree, for example. It was theorised that a classical education would demonstrate the necessary analytical skills and set the student up for a rigorous life in which they would have to deal with a lot of varied pieces of information all at once.

This is no longer so much the case (pic related).

>>23242197
This may be true, but what does falling in love with a man his own age have to do with being into little boys, any more than falling in love with a woman one's own age has to do with being into little girls?

>>23242136
All the geniuses these days are going into quantum finance. Capitalism is exit, as Land would say.

>>23242203
He repressed his true feelings until they boiled over (to use an unfortunate turn of phrase given his disgusting poetry which I've had the misfortune of reading) and he was still looking to the past, further, and further back into the past till he got to younger and younger age in his frustrated youth that he could relive the way he always wanted to in his fantasies at which point he couldn't help himself and abused his power which was of course covered up. Excellent job to her late noncery's government fo covering up so many English paedos so well.

>>23242213
Where's the evidence that he was actually a paedophile?

I never saw a coloured person at Dunkirk and now they want to come here and run our little Island what was peaceful and now it is full of MONGREL’S.

>>23242095
You needed to be an aristocrat to get that position and classics became the go to education for aristocrats. Many orientalists started out as classicists. The idea being proficiency in Latin and Greek would lead to proficiency in Asian languages.

>>23242136
Educated and smart aren't the same thing. I've met Harvard students who are absolute fucking retards and there are a lot of classics students who know their Latin and Greek and are still dumb as shit.

>>23240045
Do not be foolish.

>>23242202
I still remember seeing this published in that thread and I felt the most tragic sensation wash over me the longer I read.

>>23242136
I claim that the bar has been lowered into the trash can. It feels like we live in an age where is completely fine to be trash.

We are probably powerless to this. Unless grand change comes we will see more intellectual degeneration. Nobody sees the point of human growth anymore. So many hedonistic slobs walk the earth now. Many do not care to rise to anything and would rather remain a pig for the rest of their life, well, all one can do is let them wallow in shit. Self-study is now the only thing one can do. Write, read and maybe hope to one day find people you can properly hold discussions with. But they are rare.

>>23240116
retard

>>23242095
It's not just speaking the languages, but translating ancient texts to a high standard. This cultivates an ability to think outside your own culture and adopt the view of someone very different. It also gives you a solid grasp of history, because you are familiar with the primary sources.
If you still don't believe this works, just look at the results and compare them with today's politicians who study law and spend the rest of their lives lawfagging.

>>23240286
>>23240424
>seethe about germany, calling Chamberlain and Halifax traitors
>realize too late that the Americans are trying to destroy the British Empire
why are 'gloids like this?

>>23242216
I think he's getting him confused with Mountbatten, who probably was a paederast.

The only proof of homosexual inclination in Powell is in reference to adult-aged men, if only young ones.

>>23242197
>>23245151
>phihellenist
>homosexual
every fucking time, no wonder the british were so obsessed with ancient gayreece

>>23245163
There is literally nothing wrong with loving Ancient Greece, and equally nothing wrong with being a paederast.

Ask yourself what propelled the creation of the British Empire in the 19th century: was it really a coincidence that all those purdahed public school boys were paederasts? No causal relation whatsoever?

>>23245163
Once again, the men with the least interest in women end up ruling the world. It's almost like there might be some causal relationship here...
>>23245222
Paederasty is a degeneration that consistently appears in dying powers. It's also related to the love of women, as a child is much more like a woman in both form and character.

>>23245236
>Paederasty is a degeneration that consistently appears in dying powers. It's also related to the love of women, as a child is much more like a woman in both form and character.
The difference being that a girl grows into a woman - no change - whereas a boy grows into a man.
Of course in the moment (emphasis) a boy is more similar to a girl than a man to a woman; the key point and the beauty in it is that the boy assimilates lessons as only a child can, and THEN crystalises them into his adulthood, where they manifest fully as and through an adult's abilities. This does not apply equally to girls > women, as what is taught to a girl is equally applicable to womanhood, only larger. This is not the case for boys: they have to change as they age into adulthood.

Think of it like alloying. You first have to heat the base metal into a receptive state before introducing the secondary metal. Childhood/Adolescence here is this heated 'receptive' state. When a boy is grown up it's too late.

>paederasty a degeneration
Says who? It's as vacuous as Fascist criticisms of modern degeneracy: you mean the degenerates who defeated you? Soloman the king who first engilded the Tabernacle? The Sacred Band of Thebas? Aristotle and Plato? The British Empire and creation of industrial and cultural modernity?
If these are representatives of 'degeneracy' I'd truly love to see what those critics have to proffer in alternative. What accomplishments have THEY to laud?

>>23242202
>someone lied on the internet
The West has fallen.

>>23245307
based

>>23245322
>>/reddit/

>>23245307
That is an argument for male pedagogy, not paederasty. To desire a child sexually is worse than the desire for women, for the latter enables procreation while the former is an unproductive indulgence in feminine attributes. Acting on those desires is harmful to the child's development, as evidenced by the ridiculous "gay culture" seen in the modern world, and therefore the precise opposite of pedagogical excellence.
The Sacred Band was a military organisation and therefore only contained men who had reached the age at which they could engage in mortal combat with other men - they were at the very least past puberty. Plato advocated chaste love and I don't know of any evidence that Aristotle engaged in any degenerate activity with pre-pubescent individuals, although he did recommend that men marry at around 37 and women at around 18.
The British Empire had already lost the greater part of North America and passed its peak expansion period by the time a culture of man-boy love became deep seated. As for Solomon, he met his demise at the hands of women.
The alternative to all of this is the culture of male fraternity, centred on chaste bonds and reciprocal duties between men. Sex is not centred, although individual men may have erotic desires for other men. Women are not included, although individual men may marry for the sake of producing children. What matters is brotherhood, and all else must serve this.

>>23245222
>>23245236
Anglos ruled the world due to a combination of luck, perfidy and their own place in the racial heirarchy. They also sold the empire to the US for similar reasons.
I don't take the might is right argument seriously. Without women, you do not have a nation in the first place that can subjugate the globe.
The conduct of the British Empire in the 20th century isn't much to be proud about. Being an unreachable little island in the sea, safe from the brunt of the conflict and strife on the continent isn't either.

>>23245222
>There is literally nothing wrong with loving Ancient Greece, and equally nothing wrong with being a paederast.
people like you are why I hate the greeks

>>23245418
>The British Empire had already lost the greater part of North America
Given nobody ever means Mexico, and it was never under British rule anyway, it's worth remembering that the British monarch is still head of state in an area of North America larger than the United States

>>23245418
>What matters is brotherhood, and all else must serve this.
Any why does the sexual impulse enervate this? It's literally the most powerful urge that men experience. Expelling it entirely as a motive to action doesn't just remove the possible ill-effects that it causes, but also all possible good ones to which it could be put. This is the point of the Sacred Band: the redirection of a particular impulse in another direction. And so too with Plato: the BEAUTY urge is NOT to be frittered away on the (as you said) sterile homosexual urge: is this indicative of the badness of homosexual acts? In Plato's view, yes; but the point noted is that this is still just harnessing mens' latent desires and then redirecting them to where one believes they are most useful. With Plato, the beauty urge is the Good, and to move the lover closer to the Philosopher-King ideal. THIS is the most efficacious way of promoting Good, as Plato saw it.
I disagree. The beauty urge, as Aristotle demurred, IS inextricable from the sexual, and any redirection of this force which pretends that can be disentangled is bound to break-up on the breakers of reality. The argument is not versus confraternity or male espirit de corps, but contributary: why should this necessarily impinge on that?

Regarding paedagogy: the point is to introduce an internal asymmetry. What I mean by this is, colloquially, getting a boy to have an adult-male friend who is purely 'on his side', and yet is on his side in such a manner as to promote his betterment. Boys his own age will reinforce his own views and behaviours. His father, or analogous non-lover paternal figures, will only be able to instill lessons in a hierarchical fashion, requiring deference. The lover is different. He is in the boy, a manifestation of his desire for what he wants to become; the lover is literally the future man in the boy, guiding him towards that goal, not as boss who mandates a ny particular path, but his own, supported and corroborated by himself, in his lover.

I agree with you, generally, on women. I don't think it's necessary to go into it. The be all end all is harnessing all existent desires and drives to promote Good. We can't, even if we wish to, turn our eyes from the strongest.

>>23245510
The Greeks and Paederats will both outdure you.

>wow person x who studied y for a job is so good at y
really? Do you really need to ask?

>>23245529
the greeks are dead and soon enough the pederasts will be as well

>>23245532
'No.'

he should've written a book on why the greek were feminists using one quote as evidence and then pure conjecture.

>>23245527
The sexual impulse is man's desire to conquer and therefore own that which is not himself. Ideally it should be sublimated to the group, such that they gain mastery of the external world. Applied to younger men it is still healthy, as it helps to initiate them into the group. When applied to women it is unhealthy, but productive and necessary as a means to produce offspring. When applied to children it is neither productive nor necessary. If you really love the children you admire, you will wait for them to pass puberty before you make sexual advances.
The perfect relationship of which you speak - neither father nor peer, but perfect ally - cannot exist when there is a sexual interest. The prurience of the erastes will always cloud his judgement, causing him to recommend courses of action that will benefit his own desires to the detriment of his eromenos. It is therefore necessary to maintain chaste relations until a boy has reached the proper age of discernment and independent sexuality, which at the very least corresponds to the completion of puberty.
A man who can do this is the perfect lover and perfect friend. The modern world will condemn him for his pure love, while the conservative Christians will condemn his sexuality. He is, however, more in keeping with the practices of the greatest men of history than any in his time.

>>23245716
I'm speaking predominantly, though not wholly, of adolescents; prepubescents are, in the processes I've been describing, always exceptional, though still ones that can occur.

I find your views interesting though. Would you describe yourself generically as in the Neechian/Pagan sphere? or more of a Fascistic one?

>>23245322
> someone lied
This book was published 98 and it’s already old news that the discipline is overrun by progs and people uninterested in the classics. If the dude got his degree in 2000 it lines up perfectly with the death throes.
Keep in mind it’s been a quarter of a century since then with nothing but faggotry in whatever is left of the discipline. The last of the old guard are retired if not dead.

>>23240116
you understand that you can learn other languages in parallel , right ?

>>23242202
Somebody please post the Norton Critical Editions version of Ovid's Metamorphoses, it turns it into cheesy "how do you do, fellow kids" 90s hip hop.

>>23242110
>It was a better time.
ftfy

>>23245524
The amount of land is irrelevant. The USA is the more productive and therefore greater part, which the British lost.
>>23245750
An adolescent boy is still in the process of development, at least until he has finished puberty and achieved full maturity of the body. Only then can he properly function as a peer to his fellow men without harm to himself or others. A girl cannot safely bear children until her womb is fully formed. In both cases this occurs around the age of 16-18, so the modern day convention of majority at 18 is probably about right. The modern world goes wrong, however, by reacting to the Christian heteronormativity of its past with an embrace of pansexual hedonism.
To answer your question, I don't particularly care for Nietzsche or for pagan religion and I'm not involved in any fascist politics. The only philosophy I endorse is logic, the only worship I endorse is Aristotelian contemplation and the only political action I endorse is a boycott of modernity.

>>23245322
>it's over