/lit/ - Literature

*tips fedora*

Probably because as technology advances, more and more alternatives for passing the time pop up.

>>4724933
>>>/tv/

>>4724934
*looks up from under fedora* What's that kid? *puts right hand on katana and prepares to draw it*

Decline of education, particularly Latin; manufactured 'teenage' "culture"
people who don't know Latin are really easy to manipulate

>>4724933
>>4724941

>abloobloo the past was better
no, shut the fuck up
since the beginning of time only a few people were educated thats just how it works

>>4724932

This, plus shorter and shorter attention spans, plus younger people seem to be getting more and more self-absorbed, generation by generation. Bunch of navel gazers these days Itellyouwhut.

>>4724948
old people are significantly worse at receiving irony than they have been before
conditions of degeneracy

>>4724945
Heh... I'll wipe that smirk off your face *throws fedora in front of you and when it goes past your vision he's gone*
Over here, kid *appears behind your back and slashes you in half with the superior blade which has been folded over 1000 times* *wipes your blood off face* Heh... all you racists talk tough, until a REAL MAN shows his face... *picks up fedora and pulls it over his eyes*
Pity... some of you at least put up a challenge... Maybe if you'd open your eyes to the big picture you wouldn't be so blinded by your own hate... Oh well. Not my fault you became a bigot. Should've paid attention in science class... *walks off into the sunset*

>>4724942
>When Rimbaud was nine, he wrote a 700-word essay objecting to his having to learn Latin in school. Vigorously condemning a classical education as a mere gateway to a salaried position, Rimbaud wrote repeatedly, "I will be a rentier".

No, you fucking retard.

Bell curve. Most of the population have always been stupid. Look at today. Book after book becomes best seller and makes millions. More people are reading now than ever, EVEN AFTER adjusted per population growth. What they're reading is mostly trash, but all books ever written are mostly trash. People a hundred years ago weren't reading classics, they were reading the forgettable Twilight-tier trash of their time. If anything, due to the abundance of books, book sharing, and e-books, reading has increased even for the mouthbreathers.

I hate you simpering faggots. "Baww the guy in class next to me is on his iphone. Why is everyone so dumb? Let me go on my iphone and post about it on 4chan."

>>4724948
did anyone say the past was better?

>>4724961
It is, but it's a better way to a salaried position than whatever foolishness they teach children these days. The academy can be blamed in every case.

Young people still read, it's just that they do it less frequently as back in the day since there are more shit you can do now. Also, partly due to the instant gratification culture we got going now that stands polar opposite to literature, a medium with slower pacing to it than other media.

>>4724963
But in the past typically people would have read to pass the time instead of gone on their iPhone. Bullshit people read more than ever now. Complete horsecrap.

>>4724979
...are you completely retarded? In the past most people were illiterate. In the past people didn't have the leisure to read, even if the could, b/c they were working 12+ hour days. Jesus. Complaining about decreasing literacy is something thoughtless retards do to try and appear smarter, and you're proof.

>>4724976
Why are young people more instantly gratified than anyone else? Abstaining from part of a culture doesn't remove you from that culture.

because the 20th century produced no good works of literature

im not joking

>>4724983
We're both talking about 20th century compared to now right? One century ago people read a lot more than they do now, bud.

>>4724983
>>4724983

In protestant countries the majority has been literate, even the dirt poor, since the reformation

>>4725006
Perhaps among white middle class.

Meanwhile with the advent of globalization, lower classes and ethnic minorities more than ever in US.

>>4724996
>the 20th century produced no good works of literature
Shut the fuck up nigga.

>>4724942
>people who don't know Latin are really easy to manipulate

>>4724960
this deserves some sort of award.

>>4725018
You could just stop being a new faggot and doing all of the new faggot things that make reading your posts gayer than AIDs.

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

>>4725021
hmd

Because people are inherently lazy, and other forms of entertainment are easier.

>>4724942
>people who don't know Latin are really easy to manipulate
ok

You are now aware that the only truly accepted literature amongst the higher culture classes during the 1700s was poetry; the romance novel was seen as trash that made young people lazy and stupid, and most other kinds of prose was looked at with scepticism.

>>4724979

>what is a bar
>what is a danceclub
>what is hanging out
>what is a pub
>what is a park
>what is a sports team

The choice is not internet OR books. A shut in autist like you might not know this, but some people have lives. (I am not one of them.) Ain't no one ever been sitting around reading all day. Not in victorian england, not in the US in the 30s, not ever. Only a small subset of the population has ever bothered with reading.

>>4724979
fucking normalfags

>>4725046
Yes, the most casual and widespread way of spending the time has always been shooting the shit with other people. And we, on /lit/ now instead of reading, are pretty much like a gang of medieval peasants huddled around a keg of ale crudely insulting one another for laughs.

>>4725051
if only we had some Frenchmen to chuck spears at, then it'd be a party

there's too much writing out there

>>4725054

>spears
>not shots from superior english longbows over the channel

Pour me a pint, brother.

>>4725046
I do those things as well, except for sports, anon. Don't assume please

>>4725066

You're missing the fucking point.

Normalfags just hang out all day, they don't give a shit about books, they've never given a shit about books except the 1800's version of Oprah's reading list and Twilight. Do you understand the point I'm making, or are you willfully ignorant? The vast majority of people have never given a shit about books. Pre-printing press, most people were even illiterate. Pre-1930's, in the US most people didn't even go to high school. We have more readers, and more educated people, per population today than ever before. Yet, you fedora faggots are complaining how they aren't as enlightened as you because they drink on the weekends and YOLO.

>>4725046
>bar
>pub
what's the diff and what's the point of buying overpriced bad tasting alcohol?

>>4725073
>We have more readers, and more educated people
Now you raise some interesting points, but this I think, is the biggest flaw in yurt argument. Simply because people are reading does not mean they are educated. There is a lot of fluff out there and we all know America, the third most populous country in the world, does not have the best education system. There might be a systemic problem but it is my proposition that even the colleges and universities in America are suffering academically from a capitalization of education, resulting in lower quality textbooks. I believe that the education system was comparably much better one century ago.

>>4725085
And to tack on another angle to this issue let me add that most of the things Yu listed are esoteric, socializing activities. What about the introverts? What do they do now to develop and hone their inner spirit? Video games? Movies? George really retarded martin books? You see my point? The entire nerd culture completely wipes out any semblance of individuality left in the human spirit, you are sold piecemeal to the corporate constructors of entertainment, which frequently follows arbitrary standards, instead of applying yourself one on one with an author and his writings.

>>4725080
>what's the point of buying overpriced bad tasting alcohol

YOU HANG OUT WITH FRIENDS THERE

Holy fucking shit, you're seriously autistic and I'm not even joking. Seek help.

>>4725085

You said reading, not educated. And we are more educated than ever before. You think 500 years ago that people knew the pythagorean theorum by heart? We teach geometry to 6th graders now.

our education system is far from ideal, but the population globally and nationally are more educated than ever before in history. It's unprecedented how good we have it. Go ask a history buff, go ask /sci/. All this talk about education and you need to find yourself some, buyo.

>>4725092
>Yu
You.
>the first esoteric
Exoteric

Thanks autocorrect

>>4725006
This is statistically untrue.

>>4725094
and you can't do this elsewhere? just because i question the social norms doesn't mean i'm autistic man. stop being such an autist.

>>4725097
How can you assert that? Do they have statistics on this? Simply because more people go to high school does not mean more people read. I know people that went to high school and didn't read at all.

99% of the people have always have been plebs and always will be. there's nothing wrong with this.

Movies, TV, Computer Games, Internet

>>4724928

I don't know that reading *has* decreased amongst young people. Could you provide some sort of citation? I imagine people should read more than before, given the ease of access that the internet provides.

>>4725106
There is if they are allowed to breed and I have to pay for it. Because breed they will, always.

They don't know, they don't care, and it doesn't matter

Believe it or not, they actually need to read less, for both information and entertainment.

>>4724928
globalization

kids watch tv
tv labels introverts as perverts, liars, and schemers

it's always the one smart kid that get's caught/ beaten by the group of dumb kids
because LOL DA POWA OF FRIENDSHIP > SMARTS!!

>>4725867
Plebs are useful workers.

>>4725008
Being this Eurocentric

>>4725977
>I don't believe I'm a feminismist but femism isn't about feminisistism. It's about emancipating feminsm from their fefminism.
You need to splain that.

>>4724928
Because youngins can absord the same information piece by piece through other media

>>4726296
wat chimchim read?

>>4724928
Internet

>>4726306
The feminists that blow up towers and cut down crosses aren't TRUE feminists, they're radical feminismists. True feminists don't try to push feminism on people and are just like you and me but they go to different churches and pray to different gods
The problem is feminismists that think feminism should guide social and political life. They give feminism a bad name

>>4724960

>>4724928
>>4724932


The general decline of print, as a source of news, entertainment, etc, due to the invention of television, and subsequently, the internet, is the main cause.
Aggravating this is the modernist and post-modernist movements in literature and philosophy, which both have significant elitist elements, paired with the counter-cultural movement in the 60's and 70's, which damaged American's (who would regard education previously) regard for education. (Keep in mind, before television, it was considered bad for kids to stay inside and squint at books.) 4896885 9538

>>4724928
What is this "reading" you refer to. Would that be interpreting squiggles arranged into words? Because if that is it, then reading has increased exponentially since 1995. Astronomically increased by orders of magnitude.

But that is most not what you mean is it? You mean "the close study of texts longer than 20,000 words, sustained over a period of more than 20 minutes." More specifically, I would guess you mean, "reading of books."

That's an easy one: Why is the Palmer Method dead in schools? Because it is an economically useless skill.

>but muh form of complex analyses
>muh critical reasoning

Yeah, no. Those forms of thought which depend upon close reasoning sequel to sustained concentration are useful only to those who invent, design, or innovate. In other words, professionals of law medicine or STEMs; or novelists or academicians; or entrepreneurs.

The pleb masses of whom you bemoan never had any use for "reading" and are now from all appearances, quite relieved to be done with it. As with the Palmer Method. And shoeing horses.

I'm pretty sure reading has gone up significantly thanks to e-readers and young adult novels.

Typical muh evil capitalism leftist butthurt.
Reading HAS GONE UP SIGNIFICANTLY

>>4726263
What are labor unions?

>>4726339
Reading of what? What is this "reading" you invisibly assert? Think it louder, please.

>>4726314
What about the feminists that shot that like boy in head for raising his hand in school?

>>4726359
Obviously influenced by radical sally-fisting feminist preachers. Feminists dislike them just as much as anybody else, they're like the feminist Westboro Baptists
There are good feminists that just want to work and be regular citizens like you, they don't want to change any laws or destroy your culture.

partly pavlovian conditioning
People associate reading with schooling, which teaches reading wrong

>>4725101
you meet new acquiantances, pretends it's one of your Dating Sims, that girl on the other side of the place may want to bear your child, but you have to interact with her first

>>4726334
>young adult novels.

id rather they didnt read at all