/lit/ - Literature

Is this question make sense

>>7132265
Weren't you going to read Ada,
not watch Kubrick's Lolita?

shave ur arms you fucking baboon

>>7132272
I think so. Rorty: "I borrow my definition of "liberal" from Judith Shklar, who says that liberals are the people who think that cruelty is the worst thing we do."

>>7132276
Reading Strong Opinions. Waiting for pic related to arrive in the mail.

define the

>>7132293
Nice.

>>7132293
???
Sounds more like "socially liberal" than the overly vague "liberal", which is any thing from Ronald Reagan and Ayn Rand to Felicia Day and Laurie Penny.

No, it's optimism.

>>7132265
define cruelty

>>7132311
He is using the term liberal as an antithesis to someone like Nietzsche, maybe Sorel, fascists in general. I can already see the boring ends and means shadings on the horizon.

>>7132333
Why? So you can tell me to define pain and suffering?

relevant 1 of 3

>>7132351
For me, the words that come to mind when I think of the worst thing/ a bad situation would be...

Ennui, paralysis, lack of motivation, listlessness, ugliness, intellectual mediocrity.

I agree with Nietzsche, but not Foucault, on some things.

Maybe in countering those above mentioned phenomena, there would be a goal which is more important than avoiding cruelty.
Is that wrong?

relevant 2 of 3

No, inundating the board with a diluvian torrent of verbal piss is the worst thing we do

>>7132362
Isn't that the Matterhorn in Zermatt?
I have been there. Quite nice.

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>>7132376
Are you willing to adhere to the fulfillment of a goal (for example, a vibrant culture or the phenomena you mentioned) if a pyramid of corpses is required to meet it?

>>7132423
or the absence the phenomena you mentioned*

>>7132386
Ja.

>>7132423
>Are you willing to adhere to the fulfillment of a goal (for example, a vibrant culture or the phenomena you mentioned) if a pyramid of corpses is required to meet it?
The question seems perverse nor is it necessary to answer,
considering the event seems implausible.
Modicums of cruelty, perhaps, but again, I would not view the situation or any situation in such a perverse way.

>>7132426
Twiggy is ugly and has a bloated face, if it weren't for a pound a makeup she would only be a 6

>>7132434
>considering the event seems implausible

>>7132423
>Are you willing to adhere to the fulfillment of a goal (for example, a vibrant culture or the phenomena you mentioned) if a pyramid of corpses is required to meet it?
I don't think the Mughal horde is hiring any more tbh

>>7132265
the worst thing we do is unwillingly allowing cruelty

>>7132441
I don't lubricate constant end of world scenarios in discourse, sorry.
Its conversational paralysis.
I have already said the question is unnecessarily perverse,
but if you wish to continue asking it then go ahead.

Another, more straight-forward way of phrasing the original question is: Was Nietzsche wrong about cruelty and suffering? I hope one of his defenders will go further than old "too deep for you, you just don't understand him, those aren't fangs" story.

For Zarathustra, man is an un-form, a material, an ugly stone that needs a sculptor.

Finally—this is what is most terrible of all—the concept of the good man signifies that one sides with all that is weak, sick, failure, suffering of itself—all that ought to perish: the principle of selection is crossed*—an ideal is fabricated from the contradiction against the proud and well-turned-out human being who says Yes, who is sure of the future, who guarantees the future—and he is now called evil.—And all this was believed, as morality!—Ecrasez l'infâme! (Voltaire's motto—crush the infamy—in his fight against the church.

>>7132463
Nevermind.

>>7132265
There is no worst thing we do. Cruelty makes me sad, it is perhaps my least favorite thing.

People like >>7132376, like Lawrence, like Nietzsche, I do not understand them. Ugliness is an evil? Then all humanity is evil. This is mere original sin, not to be thought of.

No, Schopenhauer was right, man is my fellow-sufferer, I love him, I would not hurt him, or her, as the case may be. But again, there is no worst thing we do. We are lucky to do anything at all, forget best or worst.

"The old gang to be forgotten in the spring,
The hard bitch and the riding-master,
Stiff underground; deep in clear lake
The lolling bridegroom, beautiful, there."

Cruelty, if not the worst thing we do, is perhaps an untruth.

>>7132490
But do you not have any notion of self-improvement or sacrifice?
For what reason do you live but for that?
Are you aware of Faust?
For me Faust is more than Nietzsche,
my personal favorite adaptation of the legend being doctor Faustus, not Goethe's, contrary to popular choice, but Thomas Mann's, which I am currently re-reading.

>>7132520
What would you say to one with no notion of self-improvement or sacrifice, to convince such a person that such a notion is worthwhile?

I live because to live is all there is.

>>7132494
>Ugliness is an evil? Then all humanity is evil
Have you considered you unnecessarily choose to refrain from constructing intellectual dichotomies?
If you can't hate Ugliness, then you can't love Beauty.

>>7132490
>For Zarathustra, man is an un-form, a material, an ugly stone that needs a sculptor.
You seem to have missed Nietzsche's problem was not that man was malleable or socially formed. The processes by which it was formed and the ugliness of the resulting form were portrayed by him as the ugliness of the sculptor and his clumsy technique (European morality in your pic tangentially related). It's more clearly apparent in a shorter quote from The Gay Science than that:
>The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.
I am unsure how you think Nietzsche proposed cruelty and suffering to be for him to be right or wrong about them, but the malleability of man was inevitable as cruelty to him, rather than something he thought could or should be eradicated. He felt it ought to be acknowledged rather than smothered as in European morality.

>>7132531
If given the choice, then why would you not furnish your room with beautiful furniture?

Again, the question is unnecessarily perverse.
I know Beauty and I would like to live a beautiful life,
so I improve as opposed to not and sacrifice where said sacrifices need to occur.

I put a * mark in my last post because I wanted to post these quotations too, had to copy them from my book.

I get it, effeminate, maudlin pity can be separated from manly, joyous compassion but it does not explain these quotations from section 7 of the Antichrist:

>Pity crosses the law of development, which is the law of selection. It preserves what is ripe for destruction; it defends those who have been disinherited and condemned by life; and by the abundance of the failures of all kings which it keeps alive, it gives life itself a gloomy and questionable aspect.

>To repeat: this this depressive and contagious instinct crosses those instincts which aim at the preservation of life and at the enhancement of its value. It multiplies misery and conserves all that is miserable, and is thus a prime instrument of the advancement of decadence: pity persuades men to nothingness!

He values the absence of ennui, paralysis, lack of motivation, listlessness, ugliness, intellectual mediocrity even if it requires a pyramid of corpses. For him, cruelty is not the worst thing we can do, the worst thing we can do is live in a "decadent" society.

>>7132537
Have you considered you unnecessarily choose to construct intellectual dichotomies?
I am not so simple that I must follow as silly a rule as the one you propose there. I love ugliness, and beauty as well. If that confounds you, it shouldn't, but so be it.

>>7132549
If you would like to extrapolate, then do,
but for now it appears as an unnecessary perversion to me and I have no time for perversions.

>>7132547
The reduction is unnecessary.
Cruelty is ugly,
it falls in to the same category as the other things mentioned.
Avoid all of them without priority.

ITT: graduate tripfags

>>7132520
>But do you not have any notion of self-improvement or sacrifice?
I got the question from reading Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity by Richard Rorty. He wants to separate self-improvement and self-creation when it expands to improving and creating a society with no restrictions on the extent of cruelty required to meet the ends. Hold on, I have another screen shot if I can find the pdf.

>>7132547
>He values the absence of ennui, paralysis, lack of motivation, listlessness, ugliness, intellectual mediocrity even if it requires a pyramid of corpses. For him, cruelty is not the worst thing we can do, the worst thing we can do is live in a "decadent" society.

....He thought those things lead to most all the pyramids, both of corpses and Egypt, sweettits.

He has an illustration in Beyond Good and Evil of how the self pitying German ideology which held its naturally weaker yet somehow still terror inducing Semitic enemy was a great way for a nation to destroy itself, and much like those listening to the oracle at Delphi, the irony was lost on the Nazis too. He was advising against building a pyramid of corpses on which to make your own pyre. Have a cupcake and see if your brain ticks over.

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2 of 2

>>7132583
"too deep for you, you just don't understand him, those aren't fangs"

>>7132600
I apologise for thinking you were of average intelligence; it was wrong of me.

You're taking Rorty's maxim (as borrowed from Shklar) way too seriously, almost metaphysically. That's exactly what he doesn't want.

>>7132606
Thank you for recognizing my intellectual superiority and DOMINANCE over the anonymous posters on this miserable website.

>>7132611
What a stupid thing to post.

>>7132614
No, honey, you made an assumption that Nietzsche thought all those civilizations building pyramids of bodies was a good thing. You got something very basic very badly wrong. It's a spanking.

>>7132265
i blame selfishness. thats the worst thing we can do

>>7132621
No, asking "Is cruelty the worst thing we do?" in a Rortian context is stupid.

I am late for my moonless walk. Bye.

>>7132622
So deep. The snarky name-calling is a nice touch. Is everyone here retarded?

>>7132628
Shut up.

>>7132631
>Is everyone here retarded?
where you are, maybe?

I HATE all of you.

>>7132576
>>7132584
>>7132600
Cruelty is ugly,
it falls in to the same category as the other things mentioned.
Avoid all of them without priority.
If we are talking about politics, then I see no reason to think this agenda could not be followed, either.

I am confused, do you think we can either live beautiful cruel lives or live ugly kind lives?
There is no reason to adopt this perversion in to your Weltanschauung.
Do both.

>>7132640
Why do you hate me?

>>7132641
Forgot my tripcode.

>>7132640
If you have any more questions about Rorty I'll be happy to answer them for you, love.

>>7132490
>>7132547
I TOOK THE TIME TO TYPE OUT THESE QUOTATIONS TO PREVENT PEOPLE LIKE YOU FROM SAYING THIS AND YOU'RE DOING IT ANYWAY.

BYE.

>>7132640
Are you sure you're not just hungry?

>>7132652
If you are referring to me,
I never said I am an orthodox "Nietzschean".

>>7132665
>being any kind of Nietzschean
tbh

>>7132666
>I am confused, do you think we can either live beautiful cruel lives or live ugly kind lives?
This is my answer to any thing of the nature.
All I can say is they have an unfortunately perverse view of things and would prefer if we could have a nice conversation as opposed to the opposite,
if I was the person they were referring to.

>>7132658
>>7132658
Nah, I am only joking. I mean, I hate all of you but I don't feel annoyed or anything. Warm contempt. Just screwing around and HAVIN' SOME FUN. Well, found my flashlight and have my boots on.

>>7132682
Why do you hate me, though?
Why do you claim I am cruel when in fact you are the one who is proving themselves to be just that?

>>7132678
I get what you're saying and agree with you. I misunderstood. Love you, fellow tripcode user.

>>7132689
I am reading Nabokov to overcome my cruelty.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contingency,_Irony,_and_Solidarity#Part_III:_Cruelty_and_Solidarity

>>7132694
Thank you.

>>7132682
That's nice, dearie, I guess you had that cupcake.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgCleCTHvG8

>>7132678
Sorry, I don't do metaphysics

>>7132701
Ada is more about TIME, though.

is twiggy and twinshia the same person

>>7132725
...no?

>>7132725
no we're not

I have to go to bed.
I do not know why "Twiggy" is deleting their posts.
Night.

>>7132678
Perhaps I misunderstand you. I could agree with you if you were to agree with me that beauty, like kindness, is an act of will and not some external thing.

"Hanging his head down, with his mouth distorted
Hapless and ugly as an embryo chicken.

So I remember all of those whose death
Is necessary condition of the season's putting forth"

>>7132740
>beauty, like kindness, is an act of will and not some external thing
Kindness is beautiful.
Beauty is not an act of will, kindness is an act of will.

I do not conflate them,
one is a category and one is an "act of kindness".

Why does /lit/ attract the worst trip fags?


Sage

Whoever asked that question,
I have to sleep now so if you respond I will not be here to receive a response.
Night.

>>7132766
No one cares really

>>7132776
Well, they asked the question so evidently there is some sort of interest involved.
Night.

>>7132280
Shit taste pleb detected