/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11406097]

Has anyone read A Darkening Age? It's about how the Christians destroyed most of Roman culture.

>Nixey is a funny, lively, readable guide through this dark world of religious oppression. She wisely insists at the start of her book that this account of cultural violence should not be read as an attack on those who are “impelled by their Christian faith to do many, many good things”. It is instead a reminder that “monotheism” (or, one could say, religion in general and Christianity in particular) can be used for “terrible ends”. The book is also an essential reminder, in the age of Brexit and Donald Trump, that intolerance, ignorance and hostility to cultural diversity are sadly nothing new.

[Anonymous No.11406111]

>>11406097
Was interested in I saw it was a woman author, got worse when it said brexit and trump so
>into the bin it goes

[Anonymous No.11406146]

Pleb whore servitor of accelerationist neoliberal globalism detected. This is the standard footsoldier of the apocalypse model.

>funny, lively, readable
>Brexit and Donald Trump
Pander to the plebs. Make sure your average low-test milquetoast liberal faggot is listening for the ideology you're about to shove down his throat.
>"monotheism" is bad, "cultural diversity" is good
Typical machine cult. There is no transcendent principle, or will to truth; there is only diversity, plurality, alterity, syncretism, "polytheism," the re-enchanted world, the bohemian hippie Starbucks circlejerk. There is no need for asceticism - we're all different, so we're all really the same, and the mere "experience" of difference is the only thing that matters. So treat life like a smorgasbord! Live in a deracinated megacity and experience all the difference you can, all sorts of different foods and re-processed culture from dead civilisations brought before you in an endless (and pointless) buffet of otherness. Melt down all the world's difference as fuel for a general phantasmagoria that never ends. No purpose, no end, no aim, no change, no sublation, only "polytheism," the continual importation of displaced kitsch to the imperial capital so Outer Party shufflers can drive around in Johnny Cabs with their tranny cocks out and EXPERIENCE all the world has to offer. That's what made Rome great! The will to truth was tyrannical! It made people do things they didn't want to do! Remember, when the people can do whatever they want, THAT is democracy. Everyone be a mincing fucking progressive kitsch-consuming faggot until the end of time. The end of history is here, and we're allllllllll the winners!

[Anonymous No.11406280]

It's the Christians fault papyrus degrades! #impeachchrist #remainpag

[Anonymous No.11406380]

Oof, didn't see that description with the Brexit/Trump allusion.

Anyway, I haven't read the book, but read this very thorough and thoughtful critique (from a non-Christian):
https://historyforatheists.com/2017/11/review-catherine-nixey-the-darkening-age/

As an art history major I'm very sympathetic to the tragedy of Roman art being destroyed (and the need to recognize the danger with modern parallels with ISIS), but the book looks like a very juvenile good guys/bad guys narrative.

[Anonymous No.11406401]

>Romans wuz gud bois dey dindu nuffin

[Anonymous No.11406404]

Seems based

[Anonymous No.11406409]

>>11406401
Fuck off Jew

[Anonymous No.11406412]

>>11406097
People like this forget that a lot of the supposedly "pagan" philosophical heritage of Antiquity was in actuality largely contrary or against the grain of common religiosity and morality at the time. E.g. Socrates, Cicero etc.

[Anonymous No.11406441]

>>11406097
>The book is also an essential reminder, in the age of Brexit and Donald Trump, that intolerance, ignorance and hostility to cultural diversity are sadly nothing new.
*SNAP*

[Anonymous No.11406448]

>>11406441
Pretty ironic because the Christian destruction could have been prevented with hostility towards cultural diversity

[Anonymous No.11406869]

>new cultural/civic force destroys old cultural/civic force

Yeah, no shit.

[Anonymous No.11407301]

>>11406111
This, lmao

[Anonymous No.11407806]

>>11406097
>she
dropped

[Anonymous No.11407823]

Apparently it's just a histrionic rehashing of the stuff Gibbon wrote in his Decline and Fall more than 200 years ago. And Gibbon has better prose.

[Anonymous No.11409529]

>>11406097
Lmao. Like anything could have filled the power vacuum Rome left in it's wake. Rome declined for many reasons, none of them Christianity. The church assumed power and it turns out that mass illiteracy worked for the papacy but one can't look backwards like that and expect to understand history. The church grew in proportion to the lack of others powers to abate it. I bet this book doesn't examine the holy Roman empire or the Byzantine empire which was highly Christian and continued to be a bastion of civilization for 1000 years after the fall of Rome.

[Anonymous No.11409739]

>>11406146
>There is no transcendent principle, or will to truth
That's true though. You're just a LARPing Greeknigger.

[Anonymous No.11409747]

>>11406412
People like this also forget that Rome and Greece was a fucking shit place to live in.

[Anonymous No.11409753]

>>11406448
Oh yeah, if only the Romans had tried stamping out Christianity

[Anonymous No.11409843]

>>11406146
Sometimes I wish the authors of these books would read the things /lit/ writes about them here.
I'm not sure exactly why, I think it might just be entertaining seeing her reaction.

[Anonymous No.11409929]

>>11409843
>Implying she's so frail
The book is written to provoke. You really think there aren't 100 other books conveying the same message? This is a political act

[Anonymous No.11410287]

>>11406097
Sounds like garbage by a bottom tier scholar. The title is already propagandic which implies biases saturated throughout the work - aka trash's answer to scholarship. The subtitle is actually less biased. I'm starting to wonder if women are actually capable of pure scholarship, so far it seems they turn everything into an agenda. What do you think bros? Have you seen genuine scholarship from a woman? I'm sincerely curious.

[Anonymous No.11410292]

>>11406146
fucking based

[Anonymous No.11410296]

bro op i was gonna cop it but amazon sold out of the paperback on like the first day shit must have been preordered than a mother fucker, def. gotta cop tho thanks for reminding me