/lit/ - Literature

>>5620502
Just deal with it and spare no effort to patricianize those peers who would be open to it.

>>5620502
If you're so clever, then why will you be on your own tonight?

>surrounding yourself with people who are less than you instead of betters who will constantly challenge you

You probably like being the smartest one in the room, don't you?

>>5620566
morrissey has cancer

>>5620576
implying we can always have control over these things

>>5620502
Why are you on 4chan then?

>>5620620
>implying you can't

>>5620639
to get dubs

>>5620502
Of course I know this problem. Read Voltaire's The Good Brahmin if you want a good read about it; by searching for knowledge you imply that you prefer being an unhappy intellectual than a happy commoner.

>>5620657
>implying you can

recognize that most of your knowledge is useless

>>5620775
spoken like a true pragmatist
what are you even doing on a literature board?

No, it's not possible. Now go to university, get a PhD and write books all day for a living if you're that smart.

>>5620502
It seems like you're sorely lacking social intelligence. Not every subject of conversation has to be literature or philosophy. I mostly keep these things to myself. It's not much fun to talk about anyway.
Don't ever try to turn the people around you into "patricians". It's a process that will take years and most likely won't work.

>>5620576
>Tell me then, O thou heir of the argument, what did Simonides say, and according to you truly say, about justice?

>He said that the repayment of a debt is just, and in saying so he appears to me to be right.

>I should be sorry to doubt the word of such a wise and inspired man, but his meaning, though probably clear to you, is the reverse of clear to me. For he certainly does not mean, as we were now saying that I ought to return a return a deposit of arms or of anything else to one who asks for it when he is not in his right senses; and yet a deposit cannot be denied to be a debt.

>I don't want to talk about this anymore. It's just what I think, OK? Everyone thinks your wrong and nothing's going to change anyway, so just leave it.

>>5620837
>Don't ever try to turn the people around you into "patricians". It's a process that will take years and most likely won't work.
>implying there is anything more challenging and fun than playing Pygmalion with all your peers
Step up

>>5620798
to discuss useless but fun things. what is your point? why should we think we're better than our peers?

If you're so smart how come you have to ask?

>>5620837
Yes, instead we should talk about drugs and the lives of other people

>>5620853
literature, and knowledge is general, is not something that can be bound to limited concepts such as usefulness or fun
reading (striving to gain more knowledge) is a way of life, and it is also a deeply personal and spiritual experience

>>5620502
While you may think of yourself as being a wiser and more intelligent man, you seem to lack the capability to find good peers.
That's your problem/ Now go solve it.

I thought that way in high school. Then, in college, I realized there are people who make me look impish in comparison. So I started talking to them, asking questions. If you aren't constantly making yourself feel stupid, you won't learn. Be challenged.

>>5620502
> "Sorrow is knowledge. He that knows the most must mourn the fatal truth. The tree of knowledge is not that of life."

This is wrong. True knowledge is pure bliss.

>Is it possible to be too educated?
>I can't help but feel estranged from my peers when I'm already at a point of condition which they will likely never achieve in their lives.

If you feel estranged from your peers it's because you have been miseducated. True education gives you an appreciation for all men. More likely than not your kind of learning is pedantic and vain. That tends to be the case with people that considered themselves learned but are not.

It's like how Bacon said, A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion.", and how Pope said, "a little learning is a dangerous thing, drink deep, or taste not the pierian spring (the spring of knowledge)." You almost certainly have th e "little learning".
And being widely read is not the same as being learned. A humble man will learn more from one book than a proud man will from a thousand.

>>5620843

>But if you just listen, I can prove to you that your conception justice is only useful when nothing needs to be done and in-

>This was supposed to be a party. Who invited you, anyway? Was it Cephalus? He's getting senile in his old age, it would be just the kind of thing he'd do.

>>5620881
and why is that?

>>5620871
Well, why not?
I read and think about literature all the time, why would I want to talk about it too?
The lives of other people are often more interesting than they appear on the surface. Just yesterday I met some reclusive, suicidal 30 years old university student neck deep in debt who's trying to develop from the ground up a complex, trans-disciplinary philosophical system (it's bullshit). He's a man of contradictions who calls himself a humanist yet treats other people like dirt. He lives with some libidinous Don Juan who brutalizes him daily.
Making small talk with him was very enjoyable.

>>5620896
>Then, in college, I realized there are people who make me look impish in comparison.

In what way? Can you point me to any essay, blog, video, or anything, of a person you consider to be intelligent because I'm sick of demagogues and dilettantes and would like to know where this secret society of geniuses his hidden because I'm certainly not aware of it.

>>5620897
>True education gives you an appreciation for all men.
>A humble man will learn more from one book than a proud man will from a thousand.

You were making a decent point, but how can anyone take you seriously when you only speak in sophism?

>>5620937

Just leave your autistic logic shut off for a second and appreciate the art of sophism

>>5620900
Socrates was the first and most successful troll

>>5620903
challenging books ask a lot of the reader and have the potential to change the way he thinks and feels, not only about art or literature, but also about other people, and even God
there is a philosophical and spiritual aspect to literature that is often neglected, because it has nothing to do with usefulness (in the pragmatic sense) aesthetics or fun (by the way, literature can be fun but doesn't have to be)

>>5620900
>>5620843
I'm not sure if The Republic would have been better or worse if it had read like this rather than Glaucon and Adiemantus going

>Yes Socrates
>You are clearly right, Socrates
>I suppose that is obviously true, Socrates

for page after page

>>5620620
you mean you are smarter than the average hick, but not smart enough to have actual intellectual friends

>>5620968
fuck my bitch, socrates

>>5620897
>BEING HUMBLE
HI BARRELMAN

>>5621015
>I was only 30 years old
>I loved Socrates so much, I had all dialogues memorized
>I pray to Socrates every night before bed, thanking him for the life I've been given
>"Socrates is love" I say; "Socrates is life"
>My dad hears me and calls me a catamite
>I know he was just jealous of my devotion for Socrates
>I called him a sophist
>He slaps me and sends me to go to sleep
>I'm crying now, and my face hurts
>I lay in bed and it's really mild
>Suddenly, a warmth is moving towards me
>It's Socrates
>I am so happy
He whispers into my ear "This is my republic."
>He grabs me with his powerful philosopher hands and puts me down onto my hands and knees
>I'm ready
>I spread my ass-cheeks for Socrates
>He penetrates my butt-hole
>It hurts so much but I do it for Socrates
>I can feel my butt tearing as my eyes start to water
>I push against his force
>I want to please Socrates
>He roars in a mighty roar as he fills my butt with his questions
>Ariston walks in
>Socrates looks him straight in the eyes and says "It's all just now."
>Socrates leaves through my window
>Socrates is just. Socrates is right.

>>5620502

> tfw spend all my free time studying art history and literature
> tfw try to talk to my friends about it and they just ignore me
> tfw all they want to talk about is shitty blockbuster superhero movies and vidya games
> tfw my friend tells me with confidence that painting, as an art form is "irrelevant" and that video games are the next big thing

soooooo much cringe, I can barely stand to be around these people

>>5621058

10/10

Is it possible to be too narcissistic?

>>5620843
>I don't want to talk about this anymore. It's just what I think, OK?

That hits way too close to home

>>5620600
great post

Language, academics, "intelligent conversations", "art house films", education -- it's all bullshit.

My life has been much better since I became a (smart) hedonist. Drugs and jam bands are where it's at (although I've yet to do drugs).

>>5621261
>Drugs and jam bands are where it's at (although I've yet to do drugs).

>>5621058

So beautiful.

>be actually well-read and well-educated
>tfw /lit/ is like a bunch of "film buffs" who only watch/talk about recent movies, have no knowledge of the history of cinema, and take shit like Inception seriously
>tfw anyone whose list of top 10 favorite books includes three or more from the last 150 years is instantly a plebeian poseur who isn't entitled to an opinion until he actually reads an appreciable amount of the canon
>tfw critical theoryfags, continental philosophyfags, and leftists who think they have opinions about the importance of their respective fields despite not being able to give a reasonable political narrative of roman history 400BC - 500AD
>tfw retards who think they understand a philosopher's ideas because their phil101 class summed him up in one lecture and they spent a few hours on wikipedia gleaning the "major" points
>tfw pseudo-writers who want to write "compelling" stories with "good characters" but have no creative demiurge and no driving, underlying message or experience to share with humanity
>tfw "postmodernists" whose highest artistic goal is to craft the most subtle wink ever winked at an audience and be admired for it by hipsters for eternity
>tfw infinitely better than all these people
>tfw several of them are reading this post right now
>tfw no matter what boring rebuke they muster they will still never interface with the true intellectual gestalt of humanity like I do on a daily basis

>>5622966
>>tfw "postmodernists" whose highest artistic goal is to craft the most subtle wink ever winked at an audience and be admired for it by hipsters for eternity

this sounds like a lot of fun actually

>>5620798
That's not what pragmatism is, either in the colloquial sense or in the James/Peirce/Dewey/Rorty sense.

>>5622966
Is this pasta? If not you should feel pretty damn sad that you spent this much time trying to prove to a bunch of faggots on 4chan that you're better than them

Dunning-Kruger, y'all, all day everyday.

Intelligence is ability to get laid. Education is ability to get big salary in your intellectual work.

>>5622966
Fairly accurate list. You just forgot to add the

>i'm better than all the pseudo-wanking self-righteous "patricians" on this site, but I spend all my time here anyway

>>5622987

So you get paid a lot for your intellectual work (which is getting laid according to you).

Are you a whore?

>>5622999
>Are you a whore?
Geisha.

>>5622999
Depends do ability to get laid is intellectual work. Well I don't meant to say that

I don't usually discuss with people therefore I have never confronted myself with the reality of over-education. The more I learn, the happier I am, I have never felt such sorrow.

And if knowledge is not like, what is this life? A lot of things, in fact. Breathing is a good start. But, people are never too educated, the soul and the mind are the only thing that can expand relentlessly and endlessly. Every limits can be passed through.

But, there is something above knowledge that is a major part of education. Comprehension (i don't really know how to say "Entendement" in english) and a certain politeness. It is better to understand the than to simply know things. The more you understand, the better you can teach and interact with the world.

Well, a really educated man is never a fool. He knows how to live, he knows how to explain. He can't ever feel away fron home. His home is the world.

You may not change the nature of knowledge but you can access the morality (the original sens of the word, mores.) of a honnête homme by interacting gently with your peers. Be a teacher, without patronizing them (>>5620557)

>>5623037
>Well, a really educated man is never a fool. He knows how to live, he knows how to explain. He can't ever feel away fron home. His home is the world.

my feelings on this

>>5620600
:( why did you remind me, anon?

>>5622966
so.
this is what faggottown is like.
hmmm.
interesting.
on a daily basis of faggottown.

>>5623215
seems like a fitting place for a faggot like you, faggot

Know that you know nothing and your knowledge benefits no one save yourself.
Endeavor to practicality.

>>5620502
Knowledge, if existing at all, is impartial. There is no necessarily attached range of emotions that comes with it. If you say "I know too much so I feel sorrow and must mourn" then you're attaching unwarranted profundity to your own arbitrary emotional reactions. It's not so much snobbish as melodramatic and short-sighted.

Your answer would be to get more educated. Especially more sceptical regarding your own ivory tower that doesn't seem to be built very sturdily. You should question yourself more rather than others.

>>5623333

you fucking moron pyrrho

'man is the measure'

>>5623335
The notion of relativism does not imply "muh feels are right".

>>5623342
what is right is felt

>>5623344
>>>/x/

no, OP, you've just not balanced your Heraclitus with Democritus; you're half educating yourself even by that measure thinking the road down is not the road up.

Firstly, I'm on the other side of the fence in that I'm 'Pleb 'n Proud' and spent the last two years dumbing down amongst my peers until I reached a breaking point where I realised things like my lack of general knowledge, happiness and concentration were really holding me back in life.

What got me into literature recently is knowing that I can apply any knowledge I obtain into my career (design/multimedia) somehow. Whereas before reading Greek Classics may have been a pointless exercise in bettering myself, now I resource visual elements, names, quotations etc. and put them into my own career work. My social standing because it is irrelevant now, but I am making some of the best work I've done in years because of it.

There's reward in application of knowledge through other means besides socially.

>>5623344
That isn't saying that your feelings are true, but that you should understand your reactions and its source.