/lit/ - Literature

>>2719681
What's left?

and advertising gurus

"A good evening is it?" he said sharply. "You fellows would call the end of the world a good evening. Look at that bloody red sun and that bloody river! I tell you that if that were literally human blood, spilt and shining, you would still be standing here as solid as ever, looking out for some poor harmless tramp whom you could move on. You policemen are cruel to the poor, but I could forgive you even your cruelty if it were not for your calm."

"If we are calm," replied the policeman, "it is the calm of organised resistance."

"Eh?" said Syme, staring.

"The soldier must be calm in the thick of the battle," pursued the policeman. "The composure of an army is the anger of a nation."

...

"I will tell you," said the policeman slowly. "This is the situation: The head of one of our departments, one of the most celebrated detectives in Europe, has long been of opinion that a purely intellectual conspiracy would soon threaten the very existence of civilisation. He is certain that the scientific and artistic worlds are silently bound in a crusade against the Family and the State. He has, therefore, formed a special corps of policemen, policemen who are also philosophers. It is their business to watch the beginnings of this conspiracy, not merely in a criminal but in a controversial sense. I am a democrat myself, and I am fully aware of the value of the ordinary man in matters of ordinary valour or virtue. But it would obviously be undesirable to employ the common policeman in an investigation which is also a heresy hunt."

"Do you mean," asked Syme, "that there is really as much connection between crime and the modern intellect as all that?"

"You are not sufficiently democratic," answered the policeman, "but you were right when you said just now that our ordinary treatment of the poor criminal was a pretty brutal business. I tell you I am sometimes sick of my trade when I see how perpetually it means merely a war upon the ignorant and the desperate. But this new movement of ours is a very different affair. We deny the snobbish English assumption that the uneducated are the dangerous criminals. We remember the Roman Emperors. We remember the great poisoning princes of the Renaissance. We say that the dangerous criminal is the educated criminal. We say that the most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men; my heart goes out to them. They accept the essential ideal of man; they merely seek it wrongly. Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it. But philosophers dislike property as property; they wish to destroy the very idea of personal possession. Bigamists respect marriage, or they would not go through the highly ceremonial and even ritualistic formality of bigamy. But philosophers despise marriage as marriage. Murderers respect human life; they merely wish to attain a greater fulness of human life in themselves by the sacrifice of what seems to them to be lesser lives. But philosophers hate life itself, their own as much as other people's."

>existentialism
>fatalism and determinism

OH BOY I CAN'T WAIT TO READ THIS THREAD

stay away from dem CIA yall

>>2719695
the sauce to this quotes, please?

>>2720601
Google.

I'm calling it now, this thread, page 0, in 2 days time.

>>2719681
I wish.

Unfortunately there is the cult of vitalism, pop psychology, futurism, humanism and new age spiritualism

this sounds incredible faggy.
not bad, op! 6/10

>implying Determinism is dangerous

>>2719681
those things aren't even related. so it would be 6 cults, maybe 4 or 5 if you combined some of the more related ideas.

but the only things that are bad are nihilism and reductionism

>>2721179
nihilism isn't good or bad, it's just true.

>>2720613

What is so wrong about futurism and humanism? They don't seem all that bad.

>>2721181

>nihilism
>there is no truth
>"it's just truth"

>>2721181
yeah i would say it's at first not a nice idea but ultimately self defeating.
reductionism is only dangerous when it's taken to extremes

>>2721186
Nihilism is the inescapable conclusion of thought (logos).
Like it better?

>>2721191
How is nihilism self defeating?

>>2721197
well not self defeating, but its prime conclusion: everything is permitted frequently overlooks the fact that it goes both ways. It allows everything, which includes prohibition.

>>2721201
Yeah. In fact totalitarianism exists.
The point is to underline that such prohibitions find their only justification in power. They exist because they are powerful enough to convince you or coerce you.

>>2721206
thats besides the point.

the main thing that scares everyone about nihilism is 'holy shit you can do anything you want!!!!' when in fact, 'holy crap, you could have done that anyway'. The same restrictions are in place whether or not you're aware of nihilism.

i don't think an awareness of nihilism makes it any easier to justify overthrowing an established order. getting rid of a dictator or changing something in your governing circumstances still comes down to the same emotional moral arguments or force.

so basically nihilism seems dangerous if you don't understand it but eventually you realise it changes nothing.

of course, there still the danger from the guy who really sees everything as nothing to the point were he loses any care for himself. That guy truly is capable of anything and it's terrifying. but how common is it really? it's pretty fucking difficult to reach that kind of mental state and radical i basically shows us it's actually easier to convince yourself of anything horrific through faith and meaning, not nihilism.

>>2721225
*radical islam

There exists in our nation today a powerful and dangerous secret cult -- the cult of intelligence. Its holy men are the clandestine professionals of the Central Intelligence Agency. Its patrons and protectors are the highest officials of the federal government. Its membership, extending far beyond governmental circles, reaches into the power centers of industry, commerce, finance, and labor. Its friends are many in the areas of important public influence -- the academic world and the communications media. The cult of intelligence is a secret fraternity of the American political aristocracy. The purpose of the cult is to further the foreign policies of the U.S. government by covert and usually illegal means, while at the same time containing the spread of its avowed enemy, communism. Traditionally, the cult's hope has been to foster a world order in which America would reign supreme, the unchallenged international leader. Today, however, that dream stands tarnished by time and frequent failures. Thus, the cult's objectives are now less grandiose, but no less disturbing. It seeks largely to advance America's self-appointed role as the dominant arbiter of social, economic, and political change in the awakening regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. And its worldwide war against communism has to some extent been reduced to a covert struggle to maintain a self-serving stability in the Third World, using whatever clandestine methods are available.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_CIA_and_the_Cult_of_Intelligence

>Nihilism is the inescapable conclusion of thought (logos).

lol at faggots here who haven't experienced precognitive dreams or paranormal activity.

even then the only people who are nihilists are uneducated fools or undergrad students

There exists in our world today a powerful and dangerous faggot -- OP

>>2721244
god, you're such a tool.

>>2721249
If it's easy to understand and is popular among young college kids then IT IS FUCKING WRONG

>Medusa has sometimes appeared as representing notions of scientific determinism and nihilism, especially in contrast with romantic idealism.[16][17] In this interpretation of Medusa, attempts to avoid looking into her eyes represent avoiding the ostensibly depressing reality that the universe is meaningless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medusa#Nihilism

Roaches gonna roach.

>>2721257
>not looking her in the eyes and then slaying her

>>2721253
don't you have to go and watch youtube videos about the illuminati or bigfoot, /x/fag?

protip: it's impossible to take nihilism as a philosophical stance. everyone who says they do is misinformed. this does not invalidate nihilism as a concept. you're the same as them, thinking that it's a fashion accessory and that its validity is determined by its users, go kill yourself.

>>2721268

I'll destroy you with extremely abstract metaphysical arguments if necessary.

>>2721271
lol

give it your best shot, punk.

>>2721264
medusa's eyes will still kill you even if she's dead. that's the point.

> Implying absurdism isn't the most practical view of living

>>2721300
>practical view of living

who the fuck cares? do you even know what philosophy is?

>>2721300
>implying you have any sort of argument that it is.

>>2721272
And the point is that some faggot nerd decided to try to justify his nihilistic beliefs even more by applying them onto a fucking myth that has nothing to do with nihilism.

>>2721264
>defeating nihilism with my accounting job and 20 year mortgage

>>2721339


You just don't get it.

hitman
conk
methods
redragonsiteleftexmtmrewaybackbribe

>>2721338
>confirmed for not knowing shit for myth
>confirmed for not knowing shit about allegory
>confirmed for not understanding the oxymoron that is "nihilistic beliefs"

you fail at being a human.

>>2721338
medusa's only used as a symbol of nihilism and determinism, not a justification for it.

>>2721225
People really have little understanding of nihilism.

If you read heidegger or nietzsche you see that what they mean by nihilism, as in political effects, is basically middleclass ruled technocratic democracies.

>>2721345
Whatever, at least I know nihilism and determinism are wrong.
it hurts doesn't it? your precious counter-beliefs are WRONG

A God can still exist.
meaning is a human concept.

>>2721352
No
and No

>>2721358
Wonderful argument.
I bet you are going to use "science" to try justifying it on a philshopy board.

Just cant handle anything that isn't atheistic and deterministic, huh?

>>2721350
i never said they were right. i just said medusa is a symbol of them. just because you analogise something does not make it an additional argument. it's just a method of explanation.

>>2721367
Don't try hiding your integrations from me, john.

>>2721362
No reason to argue with people that haven't even read Heidegger's lessons on european nihilism. If you say that meaning is a human concept it mean you are stuck with John Locke in the 17th century. It means that you have not even read wittgenstein.

>>2721376
>implying everything isn't just words

>>2721358
>A God can still exist.
>no

why not?

>>2721381
>Implying that our comprehension of the world is filtered by our linguistic structures

>>2721385

Because a God with the capital G is a personal God. A personal God is incompatible with a universe which is highly impersonal when not downright cruel.

A non personal god, like for deists, is irrelevant as it would make no difference.

>>2721397
jokes on you, i have precognitive dreams and paranormal experiences

>>2721397
>universe
>highly impersonal when not downright cruel.

You sure are aware of the bigger picture and are full of wisdom and non-anthropomorphism.

>>2721408
I don't believe in anthropomorphic universe. What I state is that an Anthropomorphic God is the only relevant God. Any other type of God is either irrelevant or new age bs.

>>2721408
I talked to god. He told me he doesn't exist and that I should be a materialist. Joke's on you.

>>2721408
>my psychosis supercedes logic

go the fuck back to /x/ you cunt

>>2721430
Go back to /sci/.

>>2721421
>materialist
So pleb.
Bet you didn't even understand late (superior) Wittgenstein.

>>2721443
>late (superior) Wittgenstein.
>(superior) Wittgenstein.
>(superior)
>i feel the need to point out the obvious because I'm a poser and I want you to believe me

>>2721443
I actually do understand the late wittgenstein. I was a student of James Conant.

>>2721443
/sci/? So anyone who dismisses your ridiculous claims is automatically a logical positivist? Lol go eat a dick you granola cruncher.

>>2721448
uchicago whatup