/lit/ - Literature

>>4152750
by spamming my facebook friends with atheistic quotes and xkcd comics : )

Even if you're an intellectual, you're still a human being. Stop being a snob and pretending that you're not.

I subscribe to the delusion that everyone is dumber in conversation.

>>4152750
i hide from the outside world in my parent's basement and seek refuge on /lit/

when i'm in public and i see people doing/saying dumb things i feel superior, but when i'm alone in my basement while so many others are out enjoying themselves i feel inferior.

>>4152755
>not doffing your fedora at females whilst wishing them a DAMNED good blasphemy day
plen

I retreat into a pointless decade of studying the Humanities by half-assing my courses and never doing any really edifying reading or writing because all my time is taken up by busywork and crap I only read out of necessity. Then I squander the few remaining drops of energy I have at the end of the day or week by arguing about undergraduate understandings of undergraduate books on internet forums with people in similar situations, so that I can at least temporarily live in the illusion that all my wasted time and money has made me the high class genius I always wanted to be. When I'm 35 and I can't get a job as a brilliant writer I'm going to permanently see myself as a failure and make very little money until I die.

>>4152890

It's knowing that counts.

>>4152890
that cuts deep man, fuck you for that feel

>>4152890
Hahaa....

>>4152890

>>4152890
Fear not anon, for you are accomplished! This vaguely humorous and insightful posts of yours shall live on in the hearts and uneasy smirks of maybe a dozen other anons. As mine will not.

>>4152750
I make the plebeians look up to me. A lot of americans hate smart people, though. We like religious leaders over actually intelligent leaders.

>>4152757
yes

i'm in college and everyone respects my dick because i'm more erudite, smarter and more handsome than everyone. in about two years i will transfer to an even more prestigious school where my dick shall be respected more. i will climb to the top of its ranks while using my foresight and genius to secure a solid career path, likely going back to school for law, then ending up as prince of the united states.

plebeian problem solved

>>4152890

>>4152973

>>4152978
>law
>prince

>>4152997
the united states must be turned into a monarchy under my rule if it wants to stay dominant

>>4152978
>i'm in college and everyone respects my dick because i'm more erudite, smarter and more handsome than everyone

you'll fit right in at law school

I'm not an intellectual I just know more things than those assholes

>>4153003
good

>>4153003
I wish law school was still a somewhat economically rational thing to do

>>4152890
don't let money be the judge of your success as a human.

>>4152978
i just realized this is outrageous. since i'm already smarter than everyone why should i toil in the world of plebs for years and years until finally being redeemed? this is ridiculous. i need to speed this up super fast. i hope we default on our loans so the country descends into chaos and i can take control somehow

>i hope we default on our loans so the country descends into chaos

I'd give just about anything for something that interesting to happen this day in age.

Maybe I'm being insensitive, but I really detest 'normal' people; people of averageness who deem sports and consumer culture and opposite sexes things which, completely subconsciously, ought to dominate chunks of their lives. Maybe I envy their ignorance and wish my problem could be about McDonalds discontinuing the McRib because that would be a lot simpler than bearing what is exposed/explored in a contemplative life. I suppose I'm slightly more 'virtuous' than others, but when the entire capitalist structure feigns consideration for any moral integrity and this leaks into the minds of the individual, then it all seems like a lost cause. But having the ability to understand what others psychologically cannot makes me feel useful, a little more superior in the end while that semblance of meaning as some pseudo beacon of truth is what keeps me chugging along alone.

>>4153066
Euphoria intensifies

>/lit/ actually thinks they are intelligent

>>4153066
>durrr it's so much worse to be slightly smarter than average and feel my ennui feels than to be fucking stupid and live a life of shit because your idiocy is constantly being taken advantage of by those who you are entirely dependent on while you have no recourse because of your own delusion and incompetence

i bet you think being a child is better than being an adult, too

>>4153066
It's pretty reprehensible to detest people for not being other than what their environment has conditioned them into from the very beginning. Particularly given your purported intelligence is but the result of a similar albeit parallel process.

>>4153079
>It's pretty reprehensible to detest people for not being other than what their environment has conditioned them into from the very beginning.
actually it's not lol
people are allowed to not like things

>>4153086

Oh yeah says who?

>>4153089
the jews

>>4153073

>>4153086
i think i can smell that gif

>>4153078
>>Normal people; people of averageness
>fucking stupid and live a life of shit
I'll remind you to read critically, BUB.

>>4153086
Not like != detest. And the premise and nature for said aversion is what makes it unseemly.

>>4153121
normal people are stupid and live a life of shit
have you ever been around 100 iq people

>>4153122
>stop having opinions ;_;_;_; you can't dislike people who do stupid shit that's classist and racist and cis privilege
people are allowed to detest whatever they like

>>4153126
I was really arguing for something akin to determinism but ok.

>>4153130
durrr the universe forced me to be a piece of shit

>>4153133
durr I'm special and better than people.

>>4153137
please stop thinking that you're better than an alcoholic 95 iq gas station manager ;_; it's not nice ;_; every1 is equal

>>4153140
Given you quantified, smarter != better. Better, to me, implies some kind of fundamental superiority. Everyone is equal—equally worthless.

No, John. You are the plebeians.

>>4153155
it's fine with me if you want to think that you're equal to bronies pedophiles toddlers teenagers michael foucault section 8ers etc. but you're not going to convince me to think the same way
>b-but you're not allowed your own opinion of yourself either!

>>4152750
Never mind intellectual. I'm trying to cope with being a god amongst mere mortals.

Good goyim. Under no circumstances should you think yourself smarter than those around you. Who do you think you are? While you're at it, why don't you watch some reality TV, then play Grand Theft Auto and masturbate to some anime cartoon porn while drinking light beer? What, not "high-brow" enough for you? Do you think you're smarter than everyone else? Don't seek to rise above your station, goy.

>>4152750
I have problems with real idiots, but I can spot potential from a mile away. plus whatever loneliness I ever felt has hardened my mind. So I just mind my own businesses and focus on my own life. that's the only thing that matters to me right now

>>4152750
>this thread
I wonder if 4chan would even exist if not for the misconception that the world is evil, and that the only people good enough to speak to are the ones who share your interests.

Also, how many cool/smart/nice people do you think you have just walked right by in your time? Maybe you have even talked to them, and because they also expected you to be another sheep, they gave off as little about themselves as you did, and nothing ever happened besides a few pleasantries.

I'm not saying 'hurr durr be open to new stuff,' but honestly, there are more people out there worth talking to than you think.

>mfw sometimes i forget that this is what i believe and i feel exactly like everyone in this thread

>>4153201
but why would they want to talk to me

i'm fat / uncool

>>4153219
Because they might be uncool too, initially trying to be cool because that's what they think they're supposed to be. Like you probably do.

Remember that probably 9/10 people feel nervous and uneasy about meeting new people anyway. It takes off some pressure.

>>4153044
lol, don't make me. You think a scrawny/overweight (as most of us seem to be here) would take control somehow and not some pleb brute? In any apocalyptic scenario muscle always beats brain, because your knowledge of Ezra Pound poems and Dickinsonian tropes will count for naught, and the brute is guaranteed to have enough low cunning to take you over. Plus you need charisma to be a leader of any sort and your aspire ass won't cut it, or mine, or anyone else's here.

>>4153339

"Nature hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind as that, though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together the difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he. For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself. And as to the faculties of the mind, setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that skill of proceeding upon general and infallible rules, called science, which very few have and but in few things, as being not a native faculty born with us, nor attained, as prudence, while we look after somewhat else, I find yet a greater equality amongst men than that of strength. For prudence is but experience, which equal time equally bestows on all men in those things they equally apply themselves unto."

Hobbes contradicted you 362 years before you even posted that comment #wound

>>4153044
lol, don't make me. You think a scrawny/overweight tard (as most of us seem to be here) would take control somehow and not some pleb brute? In any apocalyptic scenario muscle always beats brain, because your knowledge of Ezra Pound poems and Dickinsonian tropes will count for naught, and the brute is guaranteed to have enough low cunning to take you over. Plus you need charisma to be a leader of any sort and your aspie ass won't cut it, or mine, or anyone else's here.

>>4153342

see

>>4153341

Most intellectuals only read shit to feel superior. And some plebs are cool people. Therefore I decided that being an intellectual or not does not mean shit.

>>4153341
I don't buy it. First of all why is Hobbes observation more valid or true than mine? I've been in the world, I've seen things and drawn conclusions from them. He has the excuse of antiquity to bestow on him a certain aura of dignity/importance, but fuck.

Anyway, yeah, theoretically a smarter person could devise some scheme to take over but as even he mentioned, you need social skills to execute any scheme that requires more than one person (as any scheme to take control necessarily must), and this attitude of superiority we've cultivated has served to distance us from people and atrophied those very necessary skills of interpersonal communication.

>>4153348
At work I'm quiet, but when I say something is usually thought through, so people think I'm smart but since I'm quiet they also tend to assume I'm some smug elitist. Dat American fear of intellectualism and feeling inferior

>>4153354
Yeah, it's kind of sad they don't realize you're just Asperger's

>>4152750
plebeianism and intellectualism are not incompatible you bourgeois fuck.

How do you guys deal with being a plebeian in a world of intellectuals?

In a perfect world, I'd make a point never to get too intimate with people who, unless they randomly share the same hobbies as mine, namely classical music and anime, are not acquainted with at least 2 forms of language:

-Literature: the language to describe the human mind
-Mathematics: the language to describe the universe
Anyone can master the former just by reading, and will see how people throughout history have held on to mistaken beliefs. Those who master the latter often show otherworldly perspectives on things and have a healthy interest in philosophy, physics and the future instead of nihilism.

Mastery of both, while delightful in debates, is not such a great fountain for ordinary conversation, or meandering small talk (see Jane Austen). But I wonder whether I want to hear about how my mother's friend is going on a vacation? I don't hate such information, but they have no retention in my mind. In contrast, I find myself the most alive when I'm hanging out with academics, talking about abstract things I care about, with people who know. I can see others making fun of my interests, calling me nerdy, aloof and accusing me of a kind of subconscious elitism I can't honestly deny or confirm, seeing how the things I love are ordinary to myself. A better description would be alienation. But why fear alienation? Let's not indulge in the more reprehensible parts of human nature by waging some wars on plebeians and Others, but go on your own quest with enthusiasm instead.

People often say I'm very cultured - and sometimes that I should write -, but I think I'm far from being as good at literature as people who have studied it.

And I'm too much of a hopeless loner to feel really superior to people This girl who was in my promo love Twilight, ok. But she's intelligent, nice, very dynamic and has the kind of job I would love, while I'm unemployed feeling incapable.

>>4153079
It's pretty ridiculous to write in bizarrely structured, pompous sentences.

>>4153387
What are you doing on /lit/? Everyone knows /lit/ hates literature.

I want to weigh in here on this "I dislike people whom I deem inferior" issue that you guys are arguing about.

I'd just like to know why, when you encounter somebody that you perceive as your cognitive lesser, do you choose to stand above and apart from them- not next to them, attempting to elevate and liberate them as a peer, share your insight free of condescension or agenda?

"But anon," you shout, "people are so DUMB, they can never be helped!" Helping somebody else learn and grow is a daunting intellectual task, dudebro. Assuming a mindset of superiority and choosing not to attempt means that you have not yet distilled your own knowledge to the point where it can be digested by somebody else.

That, my man, is admitting defeat and accepting that there is an intellectual problem that you cannot solve, and you are therefore not the intellectual you claim to be.

Work with me, dude. Feed a stranger, win a brother.

i´m surrounding myself with people who like the same things as me and talk to them and develop friendships or relationships. when i talk to people that seem like not being into books or philosophy or stuff i like i don´t talk to them about that stuff and most likely won´t develop a friendship or relationship.
i think it´s fairly easy because there are people that are into the same stuff as you. you just need to talk to people to find out. most of them won´t like the same stuff but you know it´like that´s it. people like different things why be so weird about it.

>>4153424
I talk dick jokes with them.

I'm a pleb, so I don't trouble myself with these things.

>>4153387
that's a pretty thought, about not indulging our more base qualities

>>4152890
What would you consider a fulfilled and successful life?

>attend free workshop on creative writing at my university
>discussing plot
>everyone picks examples from movies and tv
>suddenly turns into new star wars vs. old star wars movies discussion
>never went back again

i spend days on /lit/ with my fellow intellectuals

>>4152750
i dont consider myself patrician, just above everyone else i know

I'm not an intellectual, but the fact that I know more stuff about simple things than most people I meet daily is a very bad sign.
I find myself mentioning a philosopher or a scientists every once in a while (perhaps to make myself feel better) and when I see the black stares of people not recognizing if the person I mentioned is even a male or female.
Something went wrong somewhere, because I'm stupid and yet I feel much more knowledgeable than a lot of the people I meet.

>>4153546
knowledge != intelligence mate.

>>4153561
Yes, I understand. But people I meet are always on auto pilot where every day is the same and there is no form of development and progress in any field or knowledge or intellect. I've known some people for around 8 years and they are still the same in every way.

>>4153201
>how many cool/smart/nice people do you think you have just walked right by in your time?

Very.Fucking. Few. Unless they are totally driven to hide their personality at least for me it is pretty easy to figure out where on a scale someone falls from utter pleb to true patrician. I have a very avoidant personality though so I'll generally make one comment or remark near these type of people that might clue them in, and past that I'll let the whole thing pass by.

>>4152750
by wishing i was a pleb. Life is much easier

>>4152757
I am above the human being, an uberhumanbeing, an ubermensch and this is my original concept.

>>4153125
Not the guy but you're missing the point. That's not what he means by normal. You could be very intelligent and making seven figures and still be a normal person by the standards of that anon.

I suddenly get the impression that you guys have verrry punchable faces IRL.

>>4153086
People are allowed to do whatever they want, that doesnt mean they are above reproach for that action.

>>4153599
lol you sound like a gigantic faggot. i roomed with a douche like you once. i'd take his towel and wipe out the toliet's pee catches with it.

also
>being a weeb fag

>>4153126
Yes they are, but that doesn't mean such an action is not reprehensible. It is reprehensible, regardless of whatever amoral edginess you are implying, to detest someone for their race.

>>4153201
>mfw sometimes i forget that this is what i believe and i feel exactly like everyone in this thread
Everyone ITT in a nutshell.

>>4154497
>It is reprehensible, regardless of whatever amoral edginess you are implying, to detest someone for their race.
Cool totalitarian egalitarian point of view bro

>reading new Pynchon novel today
>girl asks me what it's about
>give setting, main character, situation without sounding like a douche
>never once used the word "post-modern"
It isn't that hard not to sound like a edgy hipster to most people.

I sit at home all day thinking that tomorrow I'm going to change the world, meanwhile I browse the internet all day, smoking and drinking coffee while doing my best to make other people feel like shit for no real reason other than my own amusement.

>>4154513
/lit/ embodied

>>4152750

If you think it's hard to /lit/ Imagine to /sci/.

>>4154507
Do you seriously believe there is nothing wrong with looking at a person, noting their race and hating them for it?

>>4152750
>browsing lit
>intellectual

>>4154525
Did I ever say that?

1.) Examine my post very carefully.
2.) Wipe your tears of righteous indignation off your keyboard
3.) Think about what I said
4.) Get back to me

i'm not an intellectual. i'm actually embarrassingly stupid.

>>4154525

>>4154525

There's nothing wrong with seeing a Black man for example, and feeling apprehension. After all, most violent criminals are Black. These people have only been out of the jungle for a few hundred years, hardly enough time to breed all the wild out of them. Best to avoid them entirely if possible.

>>4154532
Jesus man, stop being so caustic and sarcastic please. Apparently I'm an idiot. I'm just curious as to what your viewpoint is then. Finally, nothing that I've said so far is meant to imply my point of view. I'm just trying to make out your opinion because you keep posting short, intentionally critical statements instead of actually contributing.

>>4154537
Welcome to /lit/!

>>4154548
Actually I'm not even the guy you were responding to. Did you think about what I said?

>>4154543
>These people have only been out of the jungle for a few hundred years, hardly enough time to breed all the wild out of them. Best to avoid them entirely if possible.

Could have been an excellent troll except for this last part. In the future, omit this

>>4154553
Lolz.

I tried and I seriously don't get what you mean. I dont have much a philosophical background.

>>4154559
I'm disappoint. Saged.

I enjoy their company because unlike intellectuals, they know how to socialize, be silly, and not take life too seriously. Intellectuals are often boring. Their image is always at stake

>>4154549
even /lit/ is too smart for me.

I'm not an intellectual at all. I visit /lit/ out of a masochistic compulsion. This board simply makes me feel inferior, inadequate, and wrong in every way. I am lost.

I love my fellow plebians. They are a necessary part to a healthy system.

>>4154596

Why do you think you're not smart? Does /lit/ really give off the impression of true intelligence?

I feel like /lit/ isn't intelligent, but just verbose

>>4154596
i know what you mean. most of the threads about philosophy make me feel stupid because people are discussing things that i've tried to understand but can't.

>>4154596
if you start reading books you'll realize that ~99% of people on lit are retarded

>>4154668
Not necessarily, but the eloquence of /lit/ posters coupled with the general cruelty of 4chan posters is brutal.

>>4154683
And then they outright call you stupid and worthless!

>>4154676
Maybe that's the case, but you can see glimmers of true smarts every now and again. I think a lot of people here are aspiring intellectuals, with a few having reached true intellectual status.

>>4154683
I just ignore those threads. A lot of the time it's not the ideas that are complex but the words through which they're expressed. There's a lot of jargon that makes it seem more erudite than it is (like the ubermensch someone mentioned) but it's really not worth it.

I actually can't deal with it but it has nothing to do with me being an "intellectual". I think I just forgot how to be a sociable human. Plebs are nice, honestly. During summers I work at a factory in rural Canada and the proles in there are 100x nicer than the average "intellectual" I've met. Not even talking about /lit/, you guys are the worst and I'm not sure I've ever seen someone being genuinely on here except maybe a few times in Christian threads.

Fuck you all, literatards, I'm leaving this shit board for ever.

>>4154707
But how come you think you're not smart?

>>4154712
What constitutes being an intellectual and why should I try to be one? I don't want to end up like /lit/ and I don't see many benefits.

>>4154714
>leaving this shit board for ever.
many have tried

>>4154723
I don't partake in intellectual activities nor do I understand intellectual topics. I have little genuine interest in either. I like plebby things. I may be intelligent, but I am not intellectual.

>>4152750
I read Deltora Quest

>>4154724
There's no real reason to try to be one. Certainly not in America. Most of the time people who want to be intellectuals do so because all their lives they haven't quite fit in with others, but usually they realized that they were a bit smarter than the average prole, so that becomes their niche and they want to play to their strengths so they come to places like /lit/ and seek to become what in their mind is the apogee of smartness, The Intellectual.

If you can find something else that you're good at, go with that. Intellectualism offers few real world advantages

>>4152890

>Then I squander the few remaining drops of energy I have at the end of the day or week by arguing about undergraduate understandings of undergraduate books on internet forums with people in similar situations

That's something I've never understood about people here. I read some comments where people get really heated and wonder what kind of person you would have to be to act like that. Other people - I like to think better people - take their time to point out flaws in a friendly manner or put across their opinions as thoughts that somebody may want to acknowledge; it is as if their knowledge isn't some esoteric ideal that only they can possibly understand.

It's one of the biggest problems this board endures.

>>4154741
But /lit/ seems to think that living the life of an intellectual is objectively the best thing to do, that plebs are disgusting delusional subhumans, and that if you disagree you simply do not get it. I have no self confidence so I can't disagree.
In other words, I can't get over thinking that I'm a delusional, stunted idiot because of this board.

The act of study is gratifying itself, and makes me constantly feel the need to learn more thus making me feel as if I have far to go to become an intellectual; a goal which is unattainable in my thinking but one I'll strive for anyway (the absurd?). That is in itself an edifying concept which makes being a lot more tolerable.

Why is being a pleb bad?

>>4154751
We tell ourselves it's the best thing to do because it's the only thing we can do. I'm assuming you refer to the "literary lifestyle"? Truth is most of us are emotionally/physically/socially stunted. So we seek refuge in the one strength we think we have, which is being (or appearing to be) smart.

>>4154762
It's not. It's just a term /lit/ uses to exclude those that have for most of our lives excluded us. This place is a social clique before anything else

>>4154512

I always have problems explaining shit to people. I always think they won't understand or think I am weird for reading old novels. One dude approached me, asked me what I was reading and I clammed up. I didn't know how to explain Nietzsche to a plebeian. Turned out he knew Nietzsche and I was able to talk about it without spilling spaghetti

>>4154769
You might be projecting. I'm stunted in all of those ways myself.
I think /lit/ is a very mean-spirited board even by 4chan standards.

>>4154772
>I didn't know how to explain Nietzsche to a plebeian.
Aren't intellectuals supposed to be able to teach what they know? It can't possibly be beyond you to summarize Nietzsche in simple English.

I think I can relate to some of the feels on here to do with feeling superior, but 90 % of it is to do with this comic.

I think the fact that we're in to a hobby that most of society deems sophisticated gives us a bit of a superiority complex. You just say the word "Nabokov" to the average person and they suddenly think you're 2deep rather than utterly entry level.

I also think the fact that I'm ugly and have no friends ironically intensifies any superiority feels I have. Also academically I've always been easily top 5 % (best in my school and go to sub-standard uni, so I was never knocked down to being average). I do a subject that normalfags think is impressive as well.

And add to that the fact I browse 4chan, which, let's be honest, is one of the edgiest places on the internet. All 4chan regulars are about 10 steps ahead of popular culture in terms of humour.

What I actually want most of all is a few IRL friends who browse 4chan.

>>4154596
Me too.

At least some of you can actually compensate social failures with intellectual refinement. I try it too, but i'm too dumb for even that.

Too smart for the plebs, to dumb for the intellectuals, life is lonely on the twilight zone.

>>4154798
the vast majority of people don't read serious literature nor do they understand basic philosophy

>>4154821
Is reading serious literature required for being a decent human being?

>tfw an irrational sense of superiority

I have never been a good student, but always find a way to blame it on something. I think reading and watching the classics makes me smarter than everyone else. I overly criticize any mistake people make.

In reality I am just like everyone else, but with no friends

>>4152750
>Come on /lit/ for the first time
>see this thread
>mfw /lit/ was exactly how I expected it to be

You have to be at least on the level of Nabokov in order to treat people like Nabokov.
Does anyone here seriously think they're Nabokov?

>>4154832
Suck my voluminous literary cock

>>4154732
this is where we're different. i don't partake in intellectual activities nor do i understand intellectual topics, but i have great interest in both and that's what's so upsetting about it.

>>4154919
Then you aren't a full pleb like me. My situation is upsetting in a different way.

Everyone itt: how does this make you feel?

>>4154941
Just look at those fucking normos

>>4154941
Good, because I know I'm infinitely superior to those fucking plebs.

>>4154941
she's all right, he's a Missouri faggot