/lit/ - Literature

submitting is worse.

not even memeing but blood meridian kinda deals with this.

Submitting is better. Fighting back for no reason is wasteful and popularized by edgelords.

>superior strength
is not enough to answer the question

Milton wrote about this.

>>6033641
Seems you have read too many books. There is no superiority. Lying to yourself is always the worst thing anyway, because it infects everything you do.

>>6033713
*too many comic books

>>6033681
Edgelords might like it but its definitely not an 'edgelord' thing.

>Fighting back for no reason
>for no reason
You are the kind of person which does not care much about anything. There are many people who are not like you.

Submission is a really ugly thing. The ugliest of all things, I guess

>>6033704
in which pieces exactly he writes on that?

>>6033725
Go watch another anime

>>6033732
Specifically Book II of Paradise Lost when the demons discuss what they ought to do after realizing just how powerful God is. But it's all over the poem.

>>6033713
Seems you have read too many self-help books.

>>6033641
Read literature about the holocaust.
One of the main claims against the jews of europe during those times is that they (almost) completely surrendered to the nazi excecution.
Look for stuff about the rebel's in the Warsaw-ghetto and such.

define "worse"

>To surrender the city to you is beyond my authority or anyone else's who lives in it, for all of us, after taking the mutual decision, shall die out of free will without sparing our lives.

Constantine Palaiologos, The Last Emperor

>muh honorubu death
Truly one of the spookiest ways to die

>>6033641
Submitting is worse aesthetically, it's a horrific concept to think about.

It may be superior ethically, if it prevents the deaths of people under your command or something.

To be or not to be?

You all have shit aesthetics

If I knew I was going to be crushed by a force insurmountably stronger than me I would fight to the bitter end, not meekly surrender because it's easier.

Being a coward will always look worse than being foolhardy.

>forgetting your Hesiod

And here's a fable for kings, who'll not need it explained:
It's what the hawk said high in the clouds
As he carried off a speckle-throated nightingale
Skewered on his talons. She complained something pitiful,
and he made this high and mighty speech to her:

"No sense in your crying, you're in the grip of real strength now, And you'll go where I take you, songbird or not. I'll make a meal of you if I want, or maybe I'll let you go. Only a fool struggles against his superiors. He not only gets beat, but humiliated as well."

Thus spoke the hawk, the windlord, his long wings beating.

If it's just me, then fighting seems the better option if death is inevitable.

If it's a collection, then I think submitting for the possibility that lives may be spared is preferable.

tfw kuwabara dies

>>6033725
The question was fighting back if the enemy could defeat you effortlessly.

You are not a samurai, there is no honor in throwing your life away as some sort of retarded gesture. That idea of self sacrifice only makes sense if you have already submitted to somebody else anyways.

>MFW people don't realize that MAH HONOR only makes sense if you have already submitted to some master or cause higher than yourself.
>MFW the people who fancy themselves warriors get their ideas from bad comics and anime.
>MFW I'm surrounded by honorless dogs with delusions of grandeur.

>>6033742
I can't believe only one of you faggots have brought this up. I'd go even further and state that, while Milton acknowledges the allure of fighting to the bitter end, ultimately he acknowledges that the right answer is in fact to submit to superior power (i.e., God) and I think this is a key difference between Christian/Abrahamic (Islam: it's right there in the name!) and pagan aesthetics.

Pragmatically though I'd like to point out that it is far more common and easy for an eminence to elicit submission via the illusion of superior power than the fact of it. Milton's demons had irrefutable evidence of God's strength. You probably don't have irrefutable evidence of your school principal's strength or whatever it is you worry about.

This allows one to acknowledge the aesthetic superiority of submitting to a natural/Godly/whatever hierarchy of power, while also emphasizing the importance, and the struggle, of ascertaining that hierarchy.

>>6033971
>>6033948
>if you have already submitted to somebody else
>I'm surrounded by honorless dogs with delusions of grandeur.
projecting mad hard bois

>>6033997
It's not necessarily submitting to a 'higher power', it's a matter of submitting to the 'highest' power, the power above all other powers. The angels basically exist in a state of singing praises to God but I'm not sure this is necessarily portrayed positively. The angels do not demand submission, despite being 'more powerful' than Adam or Eve.

The poem has a lot more going on. Whether or not Satan even can submit to God, think of phrases like 'forced hallelujahs' make it seem as though he is of a state of mind that makes it impossible. Eventually 'that greater man', Christ, comes from disobeying the highest power leading to a 'paradise within thee, happier'.

I also don't necessarily believe your point about pagan aesthetics. The pagan world is far more concerned with submitting to a tangible hierarchy, i.e. the family unit. Clumping the Abrahamic religions together is also quite silly, especially the implication of a Judeo-Christian connection because that hierarchy of the family unit is present in Judaism but relatively absent, at the very least less important, from Christianity. The Israelites are a chosen tribe and their kings are connected through geneaology, where as Jesus is the last link in this (descendant of David/Lion of Judea) but is not worshiped for his earthly heritage. Even the far eastern pagan traditions are similarly hierarchical and require submission. The obvious Japanese connection (because of their samurai tradition) originates with a ruling line descending from the gods. Eventually the family unit becomes the city-state, which is why such an emphasis is placed on city life in the pagan world. Apparently the word idiot even stands for 'private person', someone absent from public life.

>>6033872
>>6033948
>"Its better to live a whole infinitely humiliated life than die"

And, seriously,, you don't have to make oath to feel humiliated. You seem to prefer to forget what humiliation. Maybe you lack imagination. Imagine your family living as slaves and being sodomized everyday by your "master", I think it might help you to understand what we are talking about. "oh, that's how humiliation looks like"

>>6033681
Papageno pls

>>6033641
>>6033641
False dichotomy. Choosing one or the other is the mistake. But for the sake of the question submitting is better short term, but plot vengeance in your heart for the long term. Bide your time and make your plans in the dark and then reap the rewards. Refuse to love your chains. This how I get through it at least.

>>6034285
but that counts as not submitting - at least if you're really planning to do something, not just fooling yourself. That's makes a difference specially if conditions are so that your chances of revenge are getting worse as time passes.

>>6033759
It should be 'define aesthetics'

>>6033755
the nazi state was unique in that hitler wasn't opposed to publicly slaughtering protesting jews

>>6036295
Source?

>>6033641
Aesthetically speaking, you should always anticipate and never find yourself in that situation to begin with.

If you do then yielding is preferable, if only to die by your own blade.

>>6033641
>Submitting to a superior strength or fighting it back and being effortless eliminated?

It depends on if the superior strength is justified.

Take an example, I don't have any problems with a superpower removing dictators in other countries, like the U.S has done. I am in principle against aggressive violence but sometimes one just has to recognize that if violence should be used for anything, it should be used for removing dictators.

In other words, I have no problem submitting to a superior strength if it satisfies my own morality and principles, but if it does not, I will fight it tooth and nail.

>>6036515
US removes dictators only when they go against US interests. Otherwise they sustain them (or even are the ones who put them there in first place).
-Saddam and Gaddafi were taken down for daring not to sell oil in dolars (would stop US ability to make money out of nothing)
-US overthrew many democraticaly elected governments which were economically inconvenient ( like in Iran and most latin america) and put puppet dictators on their place

You seem deluded. you are owned by business classes and politicians. And they could not care less about you.

>>6036582
>US removes dictators only when they go against US interests

Clearly, but this fact is true of any power system.

>You seem deluded. you are owned by business classes and politicians. And they could not care less about you.

As are you. Do you think that whining about being owned by them does anything good for you? I know they do not give a shit about me, but if some good comes out of the harrowing pit of injustice that the U.S perpetuates, then I don't really care.

>>6036624
Im not deluded or whining. The tone of the first post was totally different from this one. You clearly recognized your mistake.

>>6036718
No I did not, because I did not make a mistake, I stated my opinion.

Just because the U.S has self-interest, does not mean it cannot do anything good or worthwhile. Your assumption that because the U.S has done negative and downright evil things in the past, means they are wholly evil by definition is childishly pathetic.

>>6036727
Ok kid

>>6036816
>Ok kid

What a fag.

>>6033997
>I'd go even further and state that, while Milton acknowledges the allure of fighting to the bitter end, ultimately he acknowledges that the right answer is in fact to submit to superior power (i.e., God) and I think this is a key difference between Christian/Abrahamic (Islam: it's right there in the name!) and pagan aesthetic
Key difference between Western and Eastern thought, period. The Persians were all about submitting to a king as everyone was the king's slave, but the Greeks didn't even kneel to their Gods because that was a sign of slavery. A big thing divided the East and West on that a long time back.

Nietzsche kinda deals with your question. But he doesn't consider every fighting back better, especially when its a herd instinct motivated one.

Submitting to a superior strength is the wiser choice, but life is rarely that simple that superiority will last forever and is the same in every scenario.

>>6033971
>>MFW people don't realize that MAH HONOR only makes sense if you have already submitted to some master or cause higher than yourself.
No, only if you have submitted to a cause higher than your LIFE, then you can throw your life away. You could be the greatest hero-king in history and die for your own cause.

>>6033641

>What is aesthetically worse: Submitting to a superior strength or fighting it back and being effortless eliminated?

aesthetically worse to who? What regulates or dictates this esthetic criterion? Does it really matter if you're dead? Is being a moralfag a requirement to take this question seriously? What do I gain being aesthetically superior? Why can't you just join this 'superior power'? irl, you submit to higher powers. You're submitting right now. We all are. Everyone is. Even the most powerful douchebags. Does this hurt your ethical beliefs thinly veiled as 'esthetics'?

>>6036975
If aesthetics does not mean anything to you, of course this question makes no sense to you.

>>6036975
And you wont 'join' the superior power. You will be used and will just passively watch him get all pleasure possible from scarce resource(i.e. everything valuable) while you're left with crumbs. And that will keep repeating until you die.

>>6033641
I'm not too comfortable with sharing on of my most beloved authors here. Not that he's never mentioned, but anyway: Ernst Jünger's novels like Heliopolis etc.

>>6037147
(not that anon)
Still, it should include what time. During the late 1800 it was all the rage to write about the beauty of strength and dedicate songs to Napoleon, it faded away until the 1950's and maybe the futurists were the only ones still touching the subject through the beauty of war. But even then the academic circles were much more focused on the justification of art outside of a religious setting and into some universal truth to write too much about particular aesthetic experiences. The idea of multiple aesthetics working simultaneously wasn't really discussed until, and I know you guys hate this, post-modernists.

>>6037209
I really liked his war stuff, how do I get into his magical realism?

>>6037248
Well, I've never read the war stuff. Jumped right into Annäherungen (Approaches) and then continued with his narrative works.
Juicy detail: I started reading Jünger in Jerusalem.

>>6037209

Storm of Steel is one of my favorite books.

>>6037272
Whydid you start reading him in a war zone and never cared about his war journals? It'spretty cool stuff, Storms of Steel gets a bit pro war (as in "all wars are cool and we should have them for our people, not for the results, people should really go die in war it's good for ya!") but remains in an empathic position.
Do you know if I'll have problems getting translated versions of Approaches or some other recommendations? I have never seen anything besides SoS in a book store but I've never asked abou their stock either.

>>6037368
http://www.juenger.org/bibliography_english.php

>>6036939
>You could be the greatest hero-king in history and die for your own cause.

No you couldn't, stop watching bad anime.

>>6037585
It could be:

"conform to being a janitor"(no pay, no respect but no one will try fight you and you will survive)

X

"preferring to become a criminal" (probably more money, everyone will fight you and in a short time you will probably die or get arrested)

In first case you submit to the people you lost the "competence contest" to. In second, you prefer to declare war against them.

I think each person has a different "humiliation threshold", beyond which they will prefer to declare war.

undoubtedly the shittiest thread this board has ever produced

>>6033641
Both are aesthetically beautiful. The concept of the guardian/soldier serving a greater cause is awesome; meanwhile, the concept of a hero (a concept which requires rebellion against an antagonist) is also awesome.

Only God Forgives expresses this whole idea perfectly.