/lit/ - Literature

That's a pretty literal reading of the text, not an analysis.
And no, of course not. While there are one or two similarities, you'd have to be retarded to think that there were more similarities than differences.

>>3986446

Prove that you're not retarded.

That was going on in his time, he didn't predict anything.

>>3986458
You made the original premise, the burden of proof is on you, dickhead.

When Huxley first wrote BNW he thought it was awesome.He was right, it's full utopia 10/10 would live in, pushpin is as good as poetry.

>>3986461

My diagnose after the latest psychiatric examination is "sane".

Your turn.

>>3986477
Same here.

>tfw no loonybux

>>3986477
Your "diagnose" is not relevant to what Huxley thought or what 4chan is.

>>3986483

It demonstrates that I am not retarded.

Your turn.

>>3986492

Neither retarded nor sane are in the DSM-5. They are not "diagnose".

>>3986483

Well, the issues discussed on 4chan are trivial and the incessant chatter anesthetizes people from actually doing something IRL.

Huxley, in Postman's words, feared triviality, i.e. a population "preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy."

4chan embodies what, according to Postman, Huxley feared.

>>3986499
Retardation is diagnosable with an IQ test.

>>3986499

DSM-5 is a U.S. standard.

Not an Americunt.

Try again, gun-loving fatso.

>>3986501
Some of the things discussed here are trivial, yes. That's one similarity.

Now see if you can find some differences. Go on, it'll be a good exercise. Stretch your mind.

>>3986504
>IQ test
>2013
>mfw

>>3986506

I find none. Your turn.

>>3986505
>DSM-5 is a U.S. standard.

It's an attempt at a standard, not an actual one. The NIMH officially renounced it earlier this year.

>>3986505
You're avoiding the central issue by derailing the conversation into petty name-calling. Besides, I'm clearly not American.

>>3986510
My turn? How many action points does pitying you use?

>>3986507
>calling someone a retard which is a concept dependant on IQ measuring
>dismisses IQ tests

>>3986533
>retard which is a concept dependant on IQ measuring
...no. Not even close to right. You don't need some standardized test to tell if someone is retarded. Hell, these days you can literally check for chromosomal deficiencies.

Huxley was concerned about simple, unquestioning sybaritism. About people unquestioningly absorbing things for the purpose of sensual gratification and simple catharsis.

It probably fits video gamers and movie watchers more than 4channers. Actual interaction and endless rhetorical controversy over trivial matters is sort of what Huxley advocated. It's his idea of culture. Now, it's not that he considered it better than actual creativity: he had a low opinion of tea-tray philosphers too, but not as bad as bland unapologetic consumers of escapism and diversion.

>>3986550

OP here.

This is a thoughtful, interesting analysis.

Thank you, anon. I think your post puts things into perspective.

>>3986521
Please. PLEASE.

>>3986436
>the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy
English isn't my first language. I don't have a clue what that means.

>>3986436
yes, the answer is no
no, the answer is yes

what's the difference between amusing yourself with façades and amusing yourself exposing façades?

every culture is a counter-culture to some other culture, you cannot escape it

>>3986550
Ha, nice attempt to rationalize. 4chan is definitely escapism. The "interaction" here is mostly thoughtless and I've never seen any "rhetorical controversy" in all my years on the board.

>>3986694
also,
your, or postman's personal values and aesthetic sensibilities are just that, why do you fling them at others like monkey flings its shit?

if you want to make culture seem trivial using diminutives, then "we" always have been

the quantity or value of "culture" is immutable. all cultural values are necessary and relevant to the time that they were created. Huxley, though often credited as "forward thinking," was a product of his time as much as we are a product of our own. we've been hating our own time and hoping for a better future for literally thousands of years. Huxley's culture, and Western Culture in general, have been made superfluous by various technological and sociological trends. Things change, but only as is necessary. there will ALWAYS be young people

>tfw feelies

the point is that it's not simple passive absorption of sensual distraction. That's clearly what huxley was against. The couch potato and the gamer. even participating in this thread is a lot more constructive and socially useful than the stuff he was parodying.

>>3986743
>social usefulness
there is no such thing, you are just juxtaposing your shitty sensibilities against his, woopty-fucking-doo

>>3986753
>being this relativist

social usefulness exists because there are clearly some behaviors that are more beneficial to society. online debating requires interpreting and responding to other people. understanding and replying to other people are essential skills in our hyper-social culture and therefore socially useful. the problem for most channers i imagine is translating successful online social interaction to offline success.

>/rationalization

>>3986789
>beneficial to society
you just repeated yourself, your argument is a tautology

'beneficial' is just a value judgement, your beneficial is not his beneficial, then there's the meta level of 'beneficial' being desirable itself

also if you define beneficial as 'desirable' then you went full circle and simply preach your personal values

>>3986806
see? You're agrguing relativism, on 4chan. Clearly not what Huxley was worried would happen to society. I think he'd be more appalled at world of warcraft and netflix by far than this place.

>>3986806

>'tautology' is just a value judgement, your tautology is not my tautology

>>3986817
really? so when are you gonna get down to showing how your values are universal (YOUR values, what a coincidence). Or maybe you just plan on skipping that part, that would be very huxley-like, innit?

>3986829
i don't even know what you are trying to imply

>>3986701
Well we can't help it if you're blind.

>>3986558

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JrZMlF9GcI

>>3986843
My values aren't universal. And how would it be relevant to whether 4chan type things were what Huxley was worried about if they were?

I'm not getting the connection i guess. I don't think Huxley was concerned about people using communications media to debate the relevance and meanings of his work to their society whn he wrote Brave New World. He seemed to be more worried about things like, movies, sporting events and casual sensuality. I doubt debating relative values using any set of judgemental criteria was what concerned him..

Is that clearer?

>>3986858

Isn't this please, with its banality and shallow pseudointellectualism, a mere sensual divertimento devoid tangible fruits?

>>3986843
your mentality is the perfect example of how deconstructionism stifles discourse and breeds apathy. rather than critique someone's argument you point out that it's just their opinion and refuse to engage. i imagine you believe that all meaning is subjective (a fancy way of negating meaning entirely). i was mocking you because you're neutered by your own philosophy: all arguments (including yours) become meaningless because they are merely a reflection of the speaker's subjective experience. i hope you grow out of your nihilism.

>inb4 you ask me to define my terms

>>3986871

please = place

>>3986871

>>3986858
in previus posts you made a value judgement out loud, an action as useful in this discourse as a noisy fart

I just pointed out that you simply sharing your aesthetic sensibilities like they were fundamental is a silly rhetorical move even your typical /lit/ pleb can see through

Huxley/Postman being descriptive can be supported by intependent evidence, being prescriptive as with your "beneficial to society" is baseless and ultimately pointless.

>>3986877
>your mentality is blah blah
cool you want to dismiss me dismissing other's shitty value judgements by invoking a shitty value judgement of your own; pathetic

>rather than critique someone's argument you point out that it's just their opinion and refuse to engage.
arguments relate to independently verifiable reality
value judgements don't

You show you are either deluded or a manipulative liar, your post is just a badly-masked justification of imposing your shitty values on me.

>i imagine you believe that all meaning is subjective
I create my own meaning, external reality impacts this process, since my (physical) brain exists in it and follows its rules. Yes, every value is subjective, this is a fact, this is empirically verifiable. If you are so foolish to claim otherwise, the burden of proof is on you. Show me the evidence.

John is a whitey - is independently verifiable
All whiteys need to be gassed - is a value judgement

get your shit right, son, before you start throwing your ad-hominems around

you talking about growing out of things is so ironic

it's like this babby never stumbled upon is/ought problem

sage for 2013 /lit/

>>3986877
#reck'd

>>3986883
not sure what posts you're referring to. Also, don't see value judgments as being to the point, universal or not. My point is that what we're doing here, on this website and in this thread, is basically the same thing Huxley and Portman do in their books: we're debating, considering, arguing and analyzing things. Maybe not as well as they do, but even so.

And that's clearly not what they see as a threat to society, tea-tray philosophy and drawing room politicians to the contrary notwithstanding. They are concerned with things that don't require interaction or creative input, even the slight exercise of intelectual muscles that this sort of thing requires.

It was casual hedonism and identification catharsis they worried about: Mindless, noparticipatory consumption of slight entertainment and participation pointless sporting events and sensual activities. The glorification of the flesh, the triumph of appetitie and the subsumption of creativity into mute absorption of the mundane.

>>3986871
It's not the fruits, so much as the efforts. The stuff here is crap, often, but it requires thought, effort and some skill to produce.

>>3986939

Hey, anon, these two guys arguing should not merit your sage to my OP.

It is even interesting what they're discussing.

Let be. What do you want? Only DFW threads or what the fuck?

>>3986962
i saged bcuz i doubleposted, also learn what sage actually does, newfag

>>3986966

It drowns the thread.

P.S. I has dubs. Respect me.

>>3986960
Premise 1: If X is good, then the question "Is it true that X is good?" is meaningless.

Premise 2: The question "Is it true that X is good?" is not meaningless (i.e. it is an open question).

Conclusion: X is not (analytically equivalent to) good.

eat shit, fagget

>>3986995
what are you even doing? Premises 1 and 2 are the two opinions being debated. You can't just state them as a contraction and pretend to be mathematical.

>>3987039
>being debated
that's a good one

there are just faggots stating some shit is _true_ and me asking to prove it (no proof follows).

>>3987209
you're not even worth replying to

>>3987241
yet you still do it

you braindead morons are trying to make something a fact just by sheer will

you are beyond helpless

>>3986936
>cool you want to dismiss me dismissing other's shitty value judgements by invoking a shitty value judgement of your own; pathetic

my judgement is supported by evidence:
>you didn't engage anon's argument
>you merely pointed out it was only his opinion thus essentially closing the argument and stifling discourse

>arguments relate to independently verifiable reality
>value judgements don't

this is false because one can argue about what is moral and morals are inherently value judgements (unless jesus was right)

furthermore, anon (>>3986817) was arguing that huxley would be more concerned about video games than 4chan. granted, he didn't provide any evidence to support his argument but i'm sure he could have. regardless, you blithely dismissed his argument merely a reflection of his subjective experience.

>I create my own meaning, external reality impacts this process, since my (physical) brain exists in it and follows its rules. Yes, every value is subjective, this is a fact, this is empirically verifiable. If you are so foolish to claim otherwise, the burden of proof is on you. Show me the evidence.

you're entitled to your beliefs brah but some of us believe values like loyalty, honesty and charity are objectively good even without evidence.

>>3987317
>pointing out your argument is not an argument at all is stifling discourse
>therefore every argument no matter how retarded is now to be protected from them unpleasant critics
you are stifling my discourse bro

>this is false because one can argue about what is moral and morals are inherently value judgements
yeah another tautology, morals is just another name for one's personal value judgements, especially since there are no _universal_ values
Who gives a shit about the "process of arguing". I care how this pointless activity relates to the actual goal of it: determining FACTS.
And as it happens, it cannot determine a single fact at all, aka attribute truth value to any single moral statement. You've got nothing.

>you're entitled to your beliefs brah but some of us believe values like loyalty, honesty and charity are objectively good even without evidence.
this speaks for itself, lold hard

>>3986507
>2013
>egalitarian everyone is the same bullshit

>>3987343
>pointing out your argument is not an argument at all is stifling discourse

claiming that huxley would have been more concerned about WoW than 4chan is an argument that you refused to engage.

>since there are no _universal_ values

then truth doesn't exist and this argument is meaningless. you're entitled to be a nihilist.

>this speaks for itself, lold hard
and so does this, i will pray for you anon

>>3987401
>then truth doesn't exist and this argument is meaningless. you're entitled to be a nihilist.
no you moran, truth and falsehood of facts about reality can be independently verified (reality exists independend of the observer), "facts" about morals - cannot - hence those "facts" about morals are no facts at all

am I being trólled?

>>3987417
and that shows that morality is meaningless how exactly? Just because they cannot yet be quantified by the scientific method does not mean they do not exist.

>>3987575
they in ya head nikka