[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 157 KB, 746x982, 7b0.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
12952529 No.12952529 [Reply] [Original]

Is it even possible to be a great writer if you've never been to war? It seems like the 20th century canon is filled with veterans who saw action in either WWI, The Spanish Civil War, WWII, or Vietnam. Unless you have experienced the highs and lows of active service, you don't have a sufficient grip on life's truest meanings to write anything with any worth or message. It seems to me, unless you've fought in a significant conflict, you should give up now.

>> No.12952534

war is hell. why do you want to write about hell OP.

>> No.12952549

You have witnessed the meme war.

>> No.12952563

>>12952529
Served in 2008 - 2012 as an artillery captain in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is no true meaning in war. The war on terror was a meaningless and boring clusterfuck. To be honest I think those wars define our generation pretty well.

>> No.12952566

>>12952529
>>12952563
You can always enlist if you want but don't expect to be enlightened. The military today is a shitshow and it will leave you even more jaded and cynical than you were before. Trust me I had those delusions of grandeur too before I went to the academy and realized how much of a meme the army is.

>> No.12952604

>>12952563
>>12952566
>The war on terror was a meaningless and boring clusterfuck
>The military today is a shitshow
Well yeah, there's a reason why I ended my list at Vietnam. There's nothing literary about pushing a button and flattening a neighborhood full of illiterate peasants, no meaning in carrying out violence just because the President told you to. Anything after the Tet Offensive doesn't count. Which is why there hasn't been a good book produced in the West since that time.

>> No.12953058

>>12952529
The navy is the redpill

>> No.12953084
File: 766 KB, 1080x1440, 215023_v9_ba.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
12953084

>>12952529
i don't know about that OP, the greatest writer we ever saw was never a soldier

>> No.12953090
File: 23 KB, 250x408, shkreli.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
12953090

we're living in 4d war

>> No.12953094

>DUDE UNLESS YOU SHOT BULLETS AT OTHER HUMAN BEINGS IN SOME RETARDED CONFLICT FOR OIL OR LAND YOU DONT KNOW LIFE
Fuck off. Only absolute retards and good goyim get roped into risking their lives for stupid garbage.

>> No.12953096

>>12953058
>vanishes underwater when it begins to be interesting

>> No.12953104

>>12952563
war, war never changes

>> No.12953107

find some other disciplined and interesting environment. military is just a shortcut

>> No.12953128

>>12952529
You can join NGOs that provide warsite relief. Or be a war time reporter. I don't think you need to be holding a gun to experience war, and you certainly don't have to stoke it's fires. You can struggle for life and for truth.

>> No.12953135

>>12952563
That was a single war of a particular type. The other side no doubt experienced it in a very different way, as do the proxies in Syria, the native people, and both sides of foreign spec ops.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulf_War_Did_Not_Take_Place
There is a deep meaning to the war on terror, just very few realise it, or could articulate it.

>> No.12953150

>>12953135
it's not even really a war, just policing
no disrespect, my dad was there

>> No.12953163

>>12952529
>I have wreslted with death. One cannot imagine anything more tedious

War is 90% boredom and uselessness, 5% confusion et 5% terror.

>> No.12953164

>>12952529
no

>> No.12953554

>>12953094
You write like a person without substance. War might help you learn to be a man, and discover if you have something important to say.

>> No.12953571

>>12953554
Yes, putting my life on the line for Israel seems like an enlightening thing to do lmao

>> No.12953628

>>12952529
If you work with professional outreach efforts in areas of serious poverty/gang violence/mental illness/etc. you can functionally find war in your own backyard, minus the murdering aspect.

>> No.12953661

>>12952529
The war of the mind is the greatest war of all desu

>> No.12953739

>>12953571
jesus christ did it

>> No.12953782

>>12952529
>20th century canon
>great writers
Pick one. Also, if you think your pathetic experiences or your identity have anything to do with writing, you're wrong.

>> No.12953833

>>12953782
what? course it does

>> No.12953924

Is there more "wisdom" to be extracted from war apart from these ingenious insights:
>War is bad!
>Killing is bad!
>People do hurtful things!
>People die when they are killed!
>Oh the humanity!
>Families torn apart, so sad!
>Violence is absurd!
>Brothers in arms! (no homo)

>> No.12954005

>>12953739
and you'd compare yourself to our lord and savior?

>> No.12954015
File: 10 KB, 354x36, mm.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
12954015

>>12953924

>> No.12954047

>>12954005
he's a good role model

>> No.12954088

>>12952529
Cringe. Pure statist propaganda.

>> No.12954926
File: 64 KB, 840x440, Elk-fighting-in-snow.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
12954926

>>12952529
you can expose yourself to nature,feel the pitiless sun blister you and the mosquitoes eating you alive,you can battle the elements and outwit the wildlife.

odysseus fought for his life in the sea and was reduced to being naked sleeping in a pile of leaves like an animal.

>> No.12954975

The key to great writing is unique insights presented in a way that is interesting and accessible.

War is an easy place to get unique insights because most people don't go to war, but it's not the only place.

>> No.12955075

>>12953739
christ put his life on the line for all of humanity. israel is just the people that killed him.

>> No.12955138

>>12952529
The new war is memetic. All citizenry are fighting it. We are and have been at war. This is the battleground the great artists of the age are in.