/lit/ - Literature

>>6634421
>Our society and our literature and our culture are being dumbed down
said every old man ever

>>6634452
Are they wrong?

>>6634421
yes he's probably right. King and Bloom are natural lifelong enemies. I believe he referred to him as his nemesis once

>I don't feel old, just bitter

H. Bloom

Damn, H. Bloom is shitposting in IRL

>>6634465
While Stephen King probably doesn't give a shit about Bloom lol.

>>6634492
Steven King craves legitimacy


>Hemingway a shit. I have elevated the horror genre.
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/stephen-king-the-rolling-stone-interview-20141031

>>6634491
is there any other kind?

>>6634463
I mean its tough. Students in the US are starting to focus on STEM and less on the humanities. On one hand, more scientists is great but you need that balance of humanities as well.

>>6634421
>73 years old, on 4chan?

You would never know. Esteemed company it seems, anon...

Of course he was right just look at this
>http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/63195-ya-tops-nielsen-and-kindle-lists-for-2014-so-far.html#path/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/63195-ya-tops-nielsen-and-kindle-lists-for-2014-so-far.html

>75% of the list is YA/children's books
>a third of that (25% of the total list) are novelizations of the movie Frozen
>10% of the list are video game guides
>the only nonfiction books are religious, and one of them claims to be first hand account of life after death
>the only non religious, non children's, non video game book is a Pulitzer Prize winner from last year
>every book except for the devotional and the Pulitzer has had a movie adaptation

>two hour lecture about Walt Whitman racism

why is this allowed

>>6634559
I think the Goldfinch is getting a movie adaptation

>>6634509
Hemingway a shit, though

>>6634421
should have made an attack on post-structuralism when you were young, grandpa. now watch cultural marxist take over.

He's not even shitposting, he's absolutely correct. The fact that so many people don't realize it is a symptom of the very decline he's always going on about.
In the 1930's the average American consumed more literature than the average Frenchman or the average Brit, although those two countries have suffered a massive intellectual decline as well in my opinion.
Compare the writings of certain Harvard University students in 1925 to those of professors at that very same university today.

Bloom hardly "hates" anyone.

He would just say that these authors are not anything special and not worth your time in the long run.

you can be a "good writer" insofar that your work is an "easy read" as it is with king, but that does not mean king leaves you with anything profound.

Bloom is stylistically hyperbolic, he likes to say something was torture, but he is more concerned with something that was good as opposed to slamming authors who are not great


That all being said HP is shit if you read it as an adult. Its an amazing idea, but the writing is bad.

>>6634762
Kindle and co. will bring about a renaissance in reading.

So if we're in decline right now as a culture, what's the collapse going to look like?

>>6634559
Wow...I didn't know John Green was so successful. The samples posted here make his writing seem like absolute rubbish; how can he be so popular?

>>6634779
Go look at the best selling books on Kindle

>>6634421
>I was told that children would now read only J.K. Rowling, and I was asked whether that wasn't, after all, better than reading nothing at all? If Rowling was what it took to make them pick up a book, wasn't that a good thing?

I really hate this among people.

>any reading is better than none at all!

It's like reading gets some intellectual elevation just because it's a book.

>>6634779
Kek. People actually believe this nonsense. If anything it will only exacerbate the degradation of literature with more and more garbage being published without any sort of filter. I could see it leading to an expansion of smut and erotica though.

Of course he's right. I don't think society is being dumbed down as much as he says though. Pop culture has always been like that and always will be. It's why it's pop culture, it's trash made for the masses.

>>6634840
> It's why it's pop culture, it's trash made for the masses.

Exactly; however, I do think it is alarming that a wider array of the "upper population" is joining the masses in imbibing the dross of pop culture.

>>6634858
>the "upper population"

Who is that? There is no more aristocracy. The rich are as dumb as the poor in terms of culture.

At the very least I'm glad he's not buying into the "at least they're reading something" argument. People act like reading alone is a good thing when it's more important what you're reading and whether or not you're reading actively.

>>6634822
no shit, the mainstream will always be mainstream. only valid complaint bloom makes is about literature studies being ruined by hipster skelters.

He's looking haggard.

I want my cuddly Bloom back.

How much longer do you reckon he has left?

>>6634838
literature doesn't need protection from degradation, that's what cultural marxists do. art always survives. and writers will be able to self-publish and earn far more money.

he's absolutely right

>>6634883
>art always survives

Say that to all the historical works of art we have lost.

>writers will be able to self-publish and earn far more money.

You mean they could publish the greatest work of literature ever, but due to little to no marketing and exposure the work will fade into obscurity.

>>6634879
>How much longer do you reckon he has left?

He himself said that he may have only one book left in him (about Elizabeth Bishop), so I'm guessing not long.

>>6634818
>Wow...I didn't know John Green was so successful. The samples posted here make his writing seem like absolute rubbish; how can he be so popular?

When young women determine the bestseller list.

>>6634421
>I went to the Yale University bookstore and bought and read a copy of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."

What? Never heard of such a Harry Potter book. Do they mean the one with the philosopher's stone? WTF is a "Sorcerer's stone"?

>>6634905
Philosopher was too complicated for americlap audiences

>As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs." I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times.

http://web.ff.cuni.cz/novyweb/utrl/files/Book-1---Harry-Potter-and-the-Sorcerers-Stone.pdf

After a bit of searching i'm sure there's only one instance of the phrase "to stretch one's legs" in any of its forms. Why does Bloom feel the need to lie?

>>6634863
>The rich are as dumb as the poor in terms of culture

This is basically what I was getting at; doctors and lawyers consume the same garbage as a bank teller or janitor.

>There is no more aristocracy.

Not today, but in the US I think there has always been a de facto aristocracy made up of the rich; however, today, like you said, the rich are only distinguishable from the poor by their ability to consume more. What they each consume is substantial the same though. The masses now include everyone.

>>6634892
>You mean they could publish the greatest work of literature ever, but due to little to no marketing and exposure the work will fade into obscurity.

I wonder sometimes how many masterpieces have gone unheralded because of this problem.

>>6634914
Lol, I just knew a britfat was going to jump in to regurgitate that, his excited hands trembling at the opportunity to spam le epic bants.

>>6634901
>When young women determine the bestseller list.

>>6634935
It's called Philosopher's Stone or its equivalent in every version and translation except the American one. The philosopher's stone is a well-known concept that a 10 year old of average intelligence will have heard of. What is a sorcerer's stone? It's nothing.

>>6634952
>What is a sorcerer's stone?
You seem to be quite stupid yourself.

Let me give you guys two options.

One, you wake up tomorrow and you read the bestsellers list. Everything is basically the same, if not slightly worse - genre fiction and YA dominates fiction, the politics section are mostly ghostwritten books by public figures, economics is the same-old list of austrian garbage no one cares for.

OR

Two, you wake up tomorrow and all your favorite books (not the super well-known classics: the ones you're somewhat proud of having read) are on the top of the best-sellers list, your dense sociological and political treatises are being read by the common man, all the fiction you like becomes the taste of the masses

Which one would you choose?

>>6634966
Enlighten me, then. Show me some other instances where the expression is used.

It's nothing, it's something the American editor's made up.

>>6634971
I'd take the first one. The Masses would one degrade the classics.

>>6634979
Are you really this autistic? There aren't many references to the Philosopher's Stone in popular culture these days, so a mass market corporation altered the title so that it refers only to something found in the book, disregarding the general meaning of the two words.
Also
>editor's

>>6634971
Forcing someone to read something they don't care about doesn't work. It's tried in schools everywhere and largely fails.

>>6634979
>mfw the title was changed because the average british child didn't know what a philosopher's stone was resulting in poor sales upon intiall publication and the publishers didn't want to make the same mistake in america

>>6634992
damn bro your tastes are probably too elite for even anyone on this board

>>6634918

He was actually reading the same page over and over again and no one had the heart to tell him that.

>>6635007
>There aren't many references to the Philosopher's Stone in popular culture these days

And by that I suppose you mean MTV? There are references to it in fucking Donald Duck comics for God's sake.

>>6635022
do the british experience american culture on a 10 year delay or something?

>>6635022
>Donald Duck comics
>MTV
Gee I don't know faggot, which one of those has more cultural influence now?

>>6635033
Nothing is still nothing no matter how long you wait.

>>6635039
The first one, as it did when the first Harry Potter book came out. Especially if we're talking about children. But I'm not talking about America here, the only country in the world that felt the need to rename the book to "Sorcerer's Stone".

>>6634918
I did the same thing. Guess this is what happens when you speed-read as much as he does.

>>6634930
almost none

kafka is the only great writer not known during his lifetime.

>>6634559
>>a third of that (25% of the total list) are novelizations of the movie Frozen

I laughed way harder than I should have

>>6634527
it depends what you consider the pinnacle of civilization

renaissance or Pericles' Greece vs. rome

>>6635164
Culture is more important than structure IMO.

>>6635068
>the only country in the world that felt
>scholastic books is now the country
>tfw I will never be this blissfully retarded

Bloom is right. From personal experience, most people who are raised reading Harry Potter and latch onto it go on to read and produce vacuous YA fiction that functions only as escapism. They may be exposed to classics but they see these myopically in the eyes of what books like Harry Potter accomplish, which pretty much amount to just being wish-fulfillment, naive construals of the individual as the supreme truth of the world.

It's basically a giant circlejerk, and not in the productive way of philosophy being a giant circlejerk. It's a circlejerk with no climax, just endless self-satisfaction.

>>6634559
>minecraft guides

>>6634527
>Students in the US are starting to focus on STEM and less on the humanities.

Yeah but in either case, Stem or humanities, the education is diluted horseshit.

>>6635527
moots actually got a pretty great jaw. He would be a good subject for a Greek Scultpure

>>6635007
>americans getting this defensive over their public's lack of cultural awareness or education

lel

Bloom has never been relevant. It's like the last angry gasps of a man finally coming to terms with that and doing anything he can to be remembered.

does the dominance of YA have something to do with youth culture becoming a dominant force since the 1960s?

kind of like how classical music is being forgotten about and people consider art-rock and indie to be great music now

>>6634421
lol Harold Bloob look like a niger

>>6635579
thanks for your opinions anon. is he any different from you?

>>6635579
In what world do you live in that Harold Bloom has never been relevant? Do you realize how many other critics respect Bloom? His books are used as material in many college courses, too. You're a frumpy barrel dweller, lad, that's for darn shaw.

>>6634762
The idea of "consuming" literature is so degeneratively American. I'm not surprised that Bloom has read many more books than anyone else but has little to say that a smart highschooler couldn't have figured out.

>>6634920
Doctors of lawyers have been plebs for that past two centuries. Get with the times, granny.

>>6635144
>Only one author has been unknown during his lifetime because we only know one author who was unknown during his lifetime and became famous after his death

I can't believe this isn't bait.

>>6635580

Among the plebs (literal plebs) classical music was never so popular as much as folk tunes or bar chants or whatever. It was only when mass media was invented that it became easier to share those tunes and so the plebs voted with their wallets and made them more popular and relevant.

Same goes for YA shit. Of course printing's been around for a while now, and shit garbage romance books (the types parodied by Cervantes, Flaubert, and Joyce) were pretty much the YA of their times, but now with the internet, it's become easier for people to voice their opinion on what they find "entertaining". Remember back then books were expensive and the only way you knew they were good were from reviews in some esteemed publication. Now everyone can go to a thrift store or download a book for free. Why go for those snobby critics when you much prefer mrs. booktuber or sally "I have a blog"?

>>6635580
Only retarded people and stuck up pricks who haven't listened to what they are talking about think that "classical" music is necessarily better and "art-rock" music necessarily not great. Same with the people who think Picasso isn't a legit painter but will cream themselves over any derivative 18th century work. No personal taste or historical distance whatsoever.

>>6635632
>literary critics
>relevant
>English college courses
>relevant

Not him, but you're not making a very convincing case either.

>>6634421
>is bloom right?

ehhhhhhh *waggles hand back and forth*

>also why does he dislike king so much?

king's a shitty writer

V pleased with the amount Bloom on /lit/ of late. He's said that he's working on a memoir focussing on the development of his literary sensibilities. I'm exited. Pleased to know he's publishing something on Emerson as well.

>>6635732
Itd be cooler if people were actually talking about Bloom and not just his thoughts on Harry Potter or w/e

>>6635719
You must be a pleb if academia isn't what's relevant to you. I guess you're right, Chad doesn't know who Harold Bloom is so he isn't relevant.

Fuck off retard.

>>6635739
>implying modern academia isn't a diluted mess

>>6635751
There are points of academia that act as bastions. If we don't have at these small circles, then we don't have anything. Everything is a diluted mess. Most of academia is embarrassing, yes, but they would never teach Bloom because he's against political literature and minorities for the sake of minorities.

>>6634905

>Yale

>>6634421
(1/2)
I'd say that he's mostly right in his assessment of J.K. Rowling and Stephen King's literary skill. Harry Potter is a conglomeration of cliches and tropes from British children's literature, and Stephen King is probably more influenced by popular American films and cheap pulp paperbacks than say M.R. James, or even his self-proclaimed hero, H.P. Lovecraft.

IMO, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Rowling and King are not Great writers but they are creative in their ability to manipulate cliches and form content that is accessible, entertaining, sincere, relevant, and yet nostalgic. I think there's something to be said for the cheeseburgers and Beatles of literature.

I do agree that society as a whole is "dumbing down". I read an interesting study conducted by Markus Prior of Princeton University which argued to the effect that as people obtain a greater deal of freedom to choose what media they consume, they generally devote more attention to pre-existing interests like sports and celebrities and less to the news. He argues that this is why most people (Americans) are less informed about politics than they were twenty years ago -- greater media choice. However, those who were already interested in the news became even more educated about public affairs and contemporary politics as their freedom to choose informational content expanded.

>>6635836
(2/2)
I think that Prior's theory is applicable to culture at large. With the internet, we are free to read and discuss as much as we want about literature in a variety of forms, from anonymous image forums to content aggregators, open encyclopedia articles, BBC podcasts, YouTube videos of university lectures, etc. Believe it or not, most people on /lit/ probably know a lot about literature even if they don't read very often. But because of greater media choice, reading is now a niche interest. Before television, there was little option as to whether or not you read a book -- if you didn't read, you would probably have trouble finding entertainment. Now with the internet and hundreds of individual cable television channels, we are just as free to consume as much information as we want about literature as we are to read about celebrity reactions to transgender athletes.

So while people in general are becoming less knowledgeable about reading and Western culture, a certain subset of individuals are becoming more knowledgeable and more cultured than ever before. What I think we're seeing is a developing inequality in information and culture, and one that is self-imposed rather than forced upon us. The consequences of informational inequality and greater media choice leads to people who are not necessarily interested in literature reading and discussing books in ways that fit their pre-existing interests their already knowledgeable about: analyses of Walt Whitman's attitudes toward race, Minecraft guides, and novelizations of popular movies are made by and for people who aren't interested in literature so much as they're interested in topics they're consuming.

>>6634421

Not at all an HP fan, but:

>accuses someone of being cliche
>goes on a rant about how old he is and how everything sucks now

>>6634832
it's because is more likely that a person who reads the shittiest books eventually will get something decent or will be training their reading abilites retard

>>6635836
>>6635840
Hm, so the greater amount of media choice leads to a decrease in the consumption of things in which one is less interested. One could even extend this to generalize how the internet reinforces social-political beliefs, allowing for the creation of relatively extreme ideological groups (like /pol/ for instance) whereas otherwise it would be difficult. Do you happen to have a link to the study you read, or if nothing else, its name? I'd like to read more on the matter.

>>6635144
>shitting all over milton and melville

>>6635998
Yes, exactly. Prior actually has published an article following your same line of thought
http://www.princeton.edu/~mprior/Prior%20MediaPolarization.pdf

The specific article I was referencing in my previous post was this
http://www.princeton.edu/~mprior/Prior2005.News%20v%20Entertainment.AJPS.pdf

>bloom will die in your life time

>>6635840
One might almost, rather devilishly, suggest that a certain subset of individuals (perhaps not the same subset devoting themselves to classical literature) are becoming hyperadapted to make well-informed decisions, and that they should thus be the only ones making said decisions.

Maybe Plato was right, after all.

>>6636189
Both Milton and Melville were known -- it was Moby Dick that didn't receive its proper recognition.

>>6634971
>mainstream economics
>austrian

fucking wat
all people here seem to get wet over the latest lefie shill-book like 'Capital in the 21:st century' or some epistemologically dubious neoclassical economic histories or so. Never found an austrian book for sale except through mises.org or related.

>>6636582
Like a wilting flower bloom will fall to the ground, and his life will nurture the soil, in which the newly budding lives of appreciators to literature sit, and there they will be nourished.

>>6635649
>refuted the freudian analysis of Hamlet
>wow he has so little to say

>>6634879
He's 82 now I believe, he hasn't 10 years more.
I wanted to meet him and hear him lecute... that probably won't happen.

>>6636653
I understand that the person you're responding to is being a little too stingy on Bloom, but he has a point that Harold hasn't said much of value on...well anything other than post-culture wars english departments. He has a good head on his shoulders, but I've never read anything by Bloom that has surprised or intrigued me and I've read his stuff on Wallace Stevens. The man likes some indisputably great stuff, but he's not the best critic ever.

>>6636666
Nice quads.
Also, Bloom caters to a more conservative part of the English-speaking intellectuals interested in literature, and that isn't a broad audience - we have to look at his impact in the measures of his world.
His books are used, his theory on Shakespeare and Whitman is tought, he is talked about - that is far more than most other critiques can achieve.

>>6634421
The Yale University bookstore, huh? What an important detail!

>>6636768
Pointing out him poining out The Yale University bookstore, huh?
What an important detail, thanks, anon for your criticism!

>>6636778
>poining
Not a real word, opinion discarded

>>6636787
stop baiting

I think there is truth in a lot of what he said - especially the idea that reading dogshit is good because it gets people to read. As though merely reading is magnificent.

I don't think Harry Potter is that dreadful. It is quite imaginative, engaging and funny. It is also derivative, cliché and the prose is kind of average. Rowling is not Kipling but nobody would really say she is.

Part of the problem with the old man's argument is that he is completely out of touch with society - so from his perspective it has dumbed down because all those children's books he listed that were good are 100 years old. The last interesting children's books were in the 70s with Dahl and Watership Down. Children don't care though because the medium for storytelling has changed and there are many fantastic games, films and shows that are intelligent, well-made and emotionally engaging.

Nearly all the great children's stories come from British humourists and that is a tradition that has died off.

You always hear claims that society is getting dumbed down but you only need to speak to some older people to realise that is clearly not the fucking case.

>>6634617
Because it's interesting? Whitman lived in a time in which 'scientific racism' was pretty fundamental, and the notion that the ideologies of it wouldn't be pervading, influencing, and informing his writing is ridiculous. Using any of that, however, to censure Whitman - or, should I say, bothering to devote research-time and research-money to morally censuring dead authors at all - would be fairly pathetic, as well. We don't really know what lecture it is, whether it's the former or latter type, because all we have, from Bloom's account, is one mental artifact from one day when Bloom was in a bad mood. Ignoring racism in early authors, in my opinion, would be more in line with the type of 'liberal fallacy' he's complaining than would actually acknowledging and discussing its literary influence. End.

>>6634559

So because literary fiction only sells a modest amount that means everyone is retarded now? If you looked at the highest grossing films of last year you'd think nobody was watching interesting films. Which is of course nonsense. Those films just don't make billions.

>>6636793
>Children don't care though because the medium for storytelling has changed and there are many fantastic games, films and shows that are intelligent, well-made and emotionally engaging.
They would care if the parents could be bothered. The nature of humans can't be erased. Everyone is having a hard time growing up who doesn't hear stories. It's primitive, stories, compared to other entertainment we have, but it's needed. The 3 little pigs is about envy between brothers, the very oral tale of Hansel & Gretchen is about separation of children from the parent and so on.
These stories explain children figuratively to the very literal problems of theirs.

>>6636813
>to
that word wasn't needed. I changed 'introduce' to 'explain' and left the 'to' in.

>>6636793
>>6636813
Also read The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales by Bruno Bettelheim if you are interested. A supreme read.

>>6636813

What are you talking about? Bloom is referring to children's fiction not fairy tales.

Your little rant has nothing to do with whether children are reading 100 year old Victorian literature or watching Pixar films.

dfw called his writing turgid. was this ironic coming from a writer who wrote a novel 300 pages longer than War & Peace about junior tennis, film theory and AA meetings?

>>6635840
Great Post.

>>6634421
based jew.

>>6634918
>>6635020
>>6635105
That is actually so embarrassing wtf Bloom. The bias is too strong.

>>6634527

We don't have any real humanities though, it's all been replaced by this politically correct bullshit.

>reads 400 pages an hour
>could read 1,000 pages an hour in his prime
>spends pretty much all of his free time reading
fuck, how does he do it? I wonder how many books he's read throughout his lifetime.

>>6637032
>>6634918
>>6635020
>>6635105

When i have seen this posted or read about this piece by Bloom before, it wasn't that specific cliche, just general cliches and bad and unoriginal writing/phrases that he made a recording of.

>One can reasonably doubt that "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" is going to prove a
classic of children's literature, but Rowling, whatever the aesthetic weaknesses of her work,
is at least a millennial index to our popular culture. So huge an audience gives her
importance akin to rock stars, movie idols, TV anchors, and successful politicians. Her prose
style, heavy on cliche, makes no demands upon her readers. In an arbitrarily chosen single
page--page 4--of the first Harry Potter book, I count seven cliches, all of the "stretch his
legs" variety.

>>6634772
I tried to torture Harold Bloom by email once. I sent him a bastardized rendition of one of Shakespeare's sonnets, written in modern slang.

He politely thanked me for my letter.

>>6635836
>putting Rowling, King and the Beatles on the same level as cheeseburgers

fuck you

Bloom is literally the "Le rong generashun" of critics and has no standing in this day and age.

>>6636884
Well, DFWs book has a lot of merit. It's entertaining and insightful.

Bloom, however, revealed in his review of IJ two of his biggest weaknesses as a critic: hyperbole and bias. Hyperbole obviously from the "no discernable talent" part and bias from getting absolutely buttblasted by DFWs joke at his expense.

>>6637244
It's neither, it's a thousand pages of edgy navel-gazing expressed through some of the worst prose I've tortured myself with. His life was unfortunate and calls for some pity but all this hype is ridiculous.

>>6637279
> tortured

I didn't know you posted on /lit/, Mister Bloom! I'd recognize that hyperbolic fascetiousness anywhere!

>>6635195
the marketing choices of the publisher reflect their opinions of their audience so....

>>6634421
He's right and he dislikes King because King writes nothing of substance.

>>6634452
Yeah except not, try actually reading instead of repeating memes.

>>6637293
If you're pleased by reading about someone 'doing dope for the last time ever' in those exact words mixed with slight variations god knows how many times, with some interludes filled with painfully trite insect gazing and discoveries of sameness with said insect.. you've probably been lobotomised - good for you.

>>6634869
Yeah, the whole "reading is good" argument started because it meant people will move on to real literature. They haven't.

>>6636793
>games, films and shows
>intelligent
Nice ruse

>>6637340
i started reading books like harry potter at about age 8 and i'm now an english major at one of australia's top universities

>>6637383
There's an exception to every rule.

For instance, you're straight, but also suck cocks.

>>6637383
>at one of australia's top universities
nobody is impressed. it's australia ffs, the dean of your uni is probably a dingo farmer

>>6637386
well actually im not straight but yes i do suck cocks thank you very much

>>6637392
Fag

>>6637392
How do you live knowing Julian Assange is the only important Australian today?

>>6637207
le right genrashun
le poptimism
le kendrick lamar is better than dante
le ayy lmao
le black twitter memes
le taytay
le emojis
le tumblr
le BNM
le hiphopheads
le dank memes
le DAE think the beatles are overrated?

>>6637403
>implying Julian Assange is important

>>6637403
well actually there are lots of other important australians thank you very much.

for instanse joel creasey

>>6637412
>implying Wikileaks isn't

Lel

>>6637424
>Joel creasey
>some no name comedian
>important

xd

>>6637311
Sorry you didn't understand the book, better luck next time.

>>6635590
Tru xD

>>6634421
Give a kid one of the great books
don't be afraid taht it might be too hard to understand. The book has secrets to uncover, it's so much greater than the other books, it's hard to comprehend, it's a challenge.

Kids want to be smart. they'll work through it.

Give a kid like harry potter and it'll just learn that books are just a boring version of tv.

give kids good books, no matter whether fiction or non-fiction. Don't waste their time with poplit.

Short: I agree with that assessment.
I read archeology books. A kid can be entertained by almost anything, why not give them something that might have an effect on lifestyle.

I studied CS and Economics. Found work. And yet I decided to study History later. I truly enjoyed it and while History isn't my main income, I do get some shekels here and there through it. most importantly I have found something I love. No one in my family was a humanist, they were all either inclined to wards business or science. Books are a powerful medium to create an interest out of nothing. because it forces you to focus on it. It compels you to think about it.

>>6637361

>>6634527
Don't forget: even those who do the humanities are wasted. It's taught horribly

>pic related from /ic/ on a similar topic

I'm afraid of what the world might become.
It radicalizes me towards the political "right". And I loved liberalism. Read the thinkers, the ideals, the history of muh freedumbs. I still believe the liberal ideas are the more worthy ones to work towards, but reality shows that civilization needs to be lead by a leash.

If I'm not going full blown fascist in the next few years I'll probably become a neo-primitivist hippie instead.

It's weird how I can even feel so awful about something so intangible. I just wanted to enjoy books, philosophy, cultures and history and it opened a rabbit hole. I just wanted a simple office job and a small family.

And then came the realization: Spengler. was. right.

>>6637949
forgot the pic

>>6637340
>>6637383

I remember when Bloom was asked about readers moving from HP to real literature, he said that they should probably avoid HP in the first place for the sake of the limited time we have to read. If you want to know what books he thinks are good for children, here you go:

>http://www.mrbauld.com/bloomjr.html

>>6635558
Can't unsee.

>>6637979
What the fuck, Rand was right

>>6637072
>read
ayy lmao. that speed is literally, physically, mentally impossible. if you are 'reading' that fast, you are not reading at all.
50 page an hour with ~95% comprehension is what you should be aiming for

>>6637949
>>6637979
>muh failed idealism

beyond pathetic

>>6638027
That's what he claims.

>>6637979
>this particular artstyle needs to be revived because I need it for business reasons
Anyone who thinks this counts as a valid cultural critique has just earned themselves pleb status for life.

>>6636793
>Part of the problem with the old man's argument is that he is completely out of touch with society
I'd say the problem is society not that old man.

You read a book published to the masses and was meant for children, perhaps teenagers as it went along.

What the fuck did you expect?

>>6637406
I thought that appreciating the Beatles was a fundamental part of poptimism

>>6638063
rhetorics detected

>>6638247
then you're a clueless retard

>>6638274
go on

>>6638242
There's plenty of not shit children's books. Look at his Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages book.

>>6634914
>muh philosophy

>>6637995
>So if children are to individuate themselves, they will not do it by watching television, or by playing video games, or by listening to rock, or by watching rock videos. They will individuate themselves by being alone with a book, by being alone with the poetry of William Blake or A. E. Housman, or being alone with Norse mythology or The Wind in the Willows.

le wrong generation as fuck

>>6634952
Sorry we don't give a shit about your faggot stone here

>>6634971
>Austrian economics
>mainstream

Do you live in a bubble?

>>6638302
Go back to reddit if you want to spout memes you anime watching faggot

He's right, people are influenced by the media that they consume. You're an idiot if you disagree.

>>6638290
You forgot the "for the masses" part.

Actually, in hindsight, that's mostly the reason one shouldn't expect quality from this book. Simple fact that something this large is at some point hitting right with the lowest common denominator.

>>6638321
That doesn't mean that "individuation" is only something that happens to children who read Bloom's favorite authors. Tons of children grow up listening to rock music like Bob Dylan or Sonic Youth and are exposed to interesting ideas or become creative musicians. Or get interested in politics, science, screenwriting or cinematography through television. Or learn problem-solving skills and get interested in computer science through video games. Cultivating taste in fine literature isn't the sole mark of a good or interesting person

it's fine if he wants to compare YA trash and stuff to the quality of the western canon, but his opposition to other creative activities and forms of entertainment is conservative and shortsighted

>>6638376
Oh God, here we go with the "video games are a legitimate pass time" argument again

>>6638389
I'm not even arguing that, you cunt

we're talking about "individuation" here

>>6634869

Exactly! People think better of a person who reads Yun Grin and other shitty YA than a pro gamer who makes thousands a month just for playing. Ere's no difference between watching one of those retarded shows from Disney channel or reading some crap like peiper tawns

>And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.

This actually made me laugh like a fucking lunatic.

>>6637072
I had a professor who was a very early student of Bloom's and claimed the 1000 pages an hour was a myth but that he did read exceptionally fast.

>>6638389
this is not an argument. I play Proteus

>>6638755
how is proteus? i have eidolon, but realize they look somewhat alike.

>>6638726
He skims, which is why he has nothing interesting to say about any of the books he has supposedly read. He's a fraud.

>>6637403
>forgetting Grandpa Fritzl

>>6634920
>Not today, but in the US I think there has always been a de facto aristocracy made up of the rich; however, today, like you said, the rich are only distinguishable from the poor by their ability to consume more.

It's a shame, isn't it? But I do think, that in these, aristocracy is becoming more than a state of mind, and not one of ones background or wealth.

>>6638022
>>6637949
what's this about Spengler and Rand being right?
I don't know that much and am uneducated in this area

>>6635739
You seem very butthurt for a guy who's simply answering to the obvious. I'm studying in uni, I'll perhaps be part of academia in a few years, and if not I will at least have been trained by academia. I'm not making the "hurr college useless" argument.

I'm arguing that specifically, academic literary criticism has grown irrelevant over the past decades. It's not only that literature is now competing with several othe media, but that those media also considerably opened the arena for criticism. Now a widely read critic of books needn't be and in all likelihood won't be a Yale scholar, but a blogger/youtuber with quality realisation and interesting/funny/maintstream enough opinions. And in all fairness, even a century ago the most popular, influential, and in some cases the most insightful critics weren't academic. Baudelaire wasn't an academically trained art critic (and neither was Sainte-Beuve -literally who ? Bloom in 20 years), he was much closer to a well-educated and highly intelligent amateur. Likewise, even the most studied critic that write for magazines nowadays aren't full-blown scholars even when they have a somewhat scholarly background.


So what is left for the literary academia ? Criticism ? That belong to a variety of people, as I've said above. Advice to political leader and CEOs ? Some academics do it, but they ain't working in the literature department oàr doing academic literary criticism. Teaching people in a way that will matter to the course of the general society ? That's still the role of teachers, or college professors but again those who have impact on the way our society functions aren't in the literature department. Academia stuff like historical research ? Yes, and that can potentially yield valuable insight, but most people, including those who read, and even a sizeable chunk of those who prefer "high-brow" stuff, don't care about. And most importantly, those who run this world (the CEOs, the president but also the innovators, the workers, engineers, media pundits, news commentators, criminals, activists, artists and popular entertainers, the average consumer, the average angry non-consuming poorfag, etc.) don't care about it.

Literary academia is so irrelevant that one of the most learned academic in history can do no better to garner attention than publish polemic books where he shits on popular YA and makes meme-lists of great authors. Let that sink in: most of Bloom's relevance comes from achieving semi-meme status on a varuety of media venues. So yes, as intellectually important as this particular brand of academia might look to you, it's not relevant in most senses of the word.


Furthermore, you could ask yourself what's Bloom actual contribution to the field of literary criticism, but that's would be a bit besides the point.

>>6635836
>>6635840
>I think there's something to be said for the cheeseburgers and Beatles of literature.
>two things are popular entertainment therefore they are comparable in quality, originality and influence

You need to be careful with the examples you pick, and with the analogies you make.

>>6636653
>"refuting" literary analysis that is grounded on neither facts nor formal logic and doesn't pretend to be

Making an interesting case against something is not quite refuting.

Also
>refuting the freudian analysis of Hamlet
>important and original contribution

not nearly as much as you seem to think.

Bloom is an old patrician speedreader, and as a consequence also a good provider of patrician recs. Not so much beyond that.

>When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.

oh, man! sick!

>>6634840
>Pop culture has always been like that and always will be

No it hasn't. I hate to be that "le wrong generation" guy, but in terms of music at least the variety, quality, and political relevance has demonstrably degraded in recent history. Literature may be harder to measure, but it's still gone down the poop-chute.

Same with educational quality. It's no surprise that homeschooled/unschooled kids score in the top 75% percentile in tests, despite generally spending much less time practicing for them. To restate that, it's been statistically demonstrated that no education is BETTER than what kids are being put through now. People are being, perhaps unintentionally, systematically dumbed down by the system in order to be better consumers.

Instead of appealing to an unverifiable relativity (which is always taken at face value), we should be up in arms about what's going on in our society. Forget Sandy Hook, the real tragedy is what happens in the uninterrupted daily lives of students across the world.

>>6639694
bump

>>6635536
>Students in the US
>education is diluted horseshit

The US has 5% of the world's population and 14 of its top 20 universities.

>diluted horseshit

Oh, my sides. Stay golden, star child.

>>6639970
literally the only reason you think that is because
1 you're dum
2 history only remembers great works

>>6640003

no, it's because there is a cultural industry made up for filling with the same bullshit in different packages.

>>6634971
The second one obviously.
>tfw you'll never live in a world where La philosophie dans le boudoir is the cornerstone of sex education, Rousseau of civil thought, and Calasso spirituality
Capitalism would collapse overnight and be replaced by enlightened noble savages having orgies all the time, while perhaps occasionally raiding weaker countries for NEETbux. I literally can't think of a single downside.

Did plebs in the past complain about pleb media like they do now?

>>6639970
Your stats needs a little bit of work, though. Test scores of home-schooled children vs. regularly schooled children wouldn't have a random distribution because parents of much higher formal education and intelligence are significantly more likely to home-school their children, meaning it wouldn't be difficult to draw conclusions comparing their test scores. (tldr?; correlation isn't causation)

Secondly, if you're using the term "unschooled" kids, you'd by definition have to include kids who are truant, which I assure you do not score in the top 75% percentile.

>To restate that, it's been statistically demonstrated that no education
>no education
that's your problem right there, home-school is an education.

You're generalizing across several mediums as well. If we're going to discuss public education, I might suggest you address rising literacy rates and near-annual readjusting of IQ metrics for the increasingly high-scoring public.

Your notion of public education catering to the dumb children and holding back all the brilliant ones has been happening all along, but has only been brought to your attention recently because of media. American public schools are devoting extra resources to advanced students more now than ever.

I agree with the sentiment, though.

>>6640056
you tell us

>>6640049
you are naive and a lazy thinker

>>6635649
What an ignorant post. Latching on to one interchangeable, probably completely accidental, word and then making a sweeping generalization; you're surely one to speak of proper analysis.

>>6634452

Bitch, if you had any sort of sensibilities you would know that this is a big decline on the the reading selection. You don't compromise. You go forward. Everybody else is going back.

>>6637826
You refute the claim of his prose being piss-poor with 'you didn't understand the book'? Marvellous. I can only wish I was as enlightened as you, finding aesthetics in vomit. I understand Wittgenstein, Hegel, Proust, Remarque, any classic really, but magnificent little Wallace who only speaks in platitudes and cliches has escaped me completely. The horror.

'Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.'

'You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.'

'Try to learn to let what is unfair teach you.'

Jesus christ, it's a walking talking self help book. Again, nothing against the poor man personally, but any insight he ever had was blatantly obvious and expressed in an insincere parroting manner. No voice or essence, not a writer. Bloom is right if anyone with half a brain sees merit in it.

>>6638027
mfw I've had 50 pages an hour with 95% comprehension since age 14. gtfo low iq fags, you're wasting your time

>>6639970
I completely disagree that the quality of music has degraded, and it's objectively untrue that the variety has degraded.

The 21st century is most notable for returning to almost every bygone genre and style. There are new artists producing Dixieland, 70s Afropop, Krautrock, medieval motet, 90s grunge, etc. And the internet has allowed a completely unprecedented flowering in musical variety.

>>6639970
It's more a case of education being democratized, i.e. reduced to a level that is accessible to the lowest common denominator. So for that reason the average person nowadays is significantly better educated than they would have been 200 years ago, but the most intelligent people today will generally be somewhat less educated than their counterparts from 200 years ago. Without that intellectual aristocracy, there is no high culture.

>>6637949
If you were really so well-read you would know that right/liberal distinction is an awful way to look at political thought.

>>6635153
>>6634559
I cracked up as soon as I got to that

>>6640056
Yes. Apparently my grandfather used to always go on about how the electric guitar was only suitable for "fags and niggers"

>>6634559

not really knowledgeable about John Green, but is his book YA?

The cover of the fault in our stars seems appealing though

>>6637039
>still using political correctness as a bogeyman

You're the problem

>>6637391
A patrician dingo farmer

>>6635739
>>6635739
>I enjoy being sodomized my professor that has been teaching for 30+ years but is too money hungry to retire and hasn't said anything original in 20+ years

>>6646689
worthless rhetoric