/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15898551]

Reading books is a waste.

I read extensively in my college years well into my mid twenties. If you wanted to find me on a weekday night you'd have to search up the city libraries.

I cannot say being literate will gain you access to sublime wisdom. Books are repositories meant for people within a system to have common terms and ideas to fall back on when they need to agree on something in the course of communication.

Do you really think you could not come up with the matters written in books by yourself? Do you really think you can understand material written in a book if you do not come up with it on your own outside your reading? Did you honestly believe you can 'understand' Nietzsche by reading him without beforehand having lived what he he has written about?

Highly accoladed yet retardedly leftist scholars piling up in academia are proof that no amount of books you read will set you above the rest of humanity. The book market is necessity meeting vanity meets smoke and mirrors.

The jocks were right, reading is for faggots!

[Anonymous No.15898622]

What’s your advice then? To live adventurously and figure out things along the way? That’s how I interpreted your post anyways.

>t. young twenties who just started getting in to reading last year

[Anonymous No.15898626]

>the reading books is a waste of time/ reading books is useful threads happen everyday on this board and people get baited into responding them again and again. They both have their benefits and drawbacks but I shall not go on to list them since I've been baited into responding to this one. Stick to tiktok and netflix you goddamn zoomer.

[Anonymous No.15898649]

You have to live and learn anon. That's the key. Learn to live better but don't forget to learn by living.

[Anonymous No.15898670]

>>15898622
Just live and if you are part of a system that relies on books, read the books of the system. Otherwise steer clear of reading and keep a free mind.

[Anonymous No.15898678]

>>15898622
Don't listen to this guy. You couldn't have figured out the vast majority of stuff you read in books. This is bait.

[Anonymous No.15898684]

>>15898678
example being?

[Anonymous No.15898701]

>>15898551
What were you reading during those years?

[Anonymous No.15898713]

>>15898701
any non-fiction I could get my hands on
also half a year of intensely reading fiction

[Anonymous No.15898725]

>>15898684
Literally every book you've read. There is noconceivable way you came up with every idea in that book before reading it.

[Anonymous No.15898729]

>>15898713
For example?

[Anonymous No.15898737]

>>15898725
Any relevant idea was either common sense formatted into language to communicate or it was only accessible with life experience to begin with.

[Anonymous No.15898741]

>>15898551
So I suppose Napoleon and Hitler were just wasting their entire childhood's reading only for it to help them with nothing at all? I guess Alexander the Great just held a copy of the Iliad with him on every expedition he went because he didn't read it? You're a retard and the only reason you think reading doesn't help is because you don't know how to read properly.

[Anonymous No.15898743]

What a terrible thread. How is it possible to read so much and come out the other end as more of a philistine than one was at first?
My professors generally meet this description, by the way. It's completely baffling to me.

[Anonymous No.15898746]

>>15898729
I have a roll of receipts of all my borrowed books that is probably as thick as a soda can idk I read anything mostly non-ficiton.

[Anonymous No.15898754]

>>15898746
That's not what I asked.

[Anonymous No.15898757]

>>15898746
>He kept the receipts
Nobody who uses the library often keeps their receipts.

[Anonymous No.15898773]

>>15898741
Hitler needed to communicate to the masses the French revolution were a time of humanist ideals and follies and the Iliad held cultural significance to Alexander, since for comparison Chinggis Khan probably thought that reading is for faggots.

[Anonymous No.15898783]

>>15898757
Ask me what I have read
>>15898754
It held nostalgic value. Also I wanted to keep track.

[Anonymous No.15898809]

>>15898773
>Hitler needed to communicate to the masses
What does this have anything to do with him having a library of ~16,000 books and reading one every night? How does him reading these help him communicate to the masses in any way?
>the French revolution were a time of humanist ideals and follies
So Napoleon spent his entire childhood, including his pre-teen years, willingly ostracizing himself to read all day on the 3rd floor of his building because "the French revolution were a time of humanist ideals and follies"?
>the Iliad held cultural significance to Alexander
Do you see Christians carrying a Bible around everywhere they go? Alexander based his entire life off of Achilles.

[Anonymous No.15898816]

>>15898783
You've already been asked that. Why don't you answer the question?

[Anonymous No.15898832]

>>15898551
Sorry, please explain to me. What exactly do you think the point of reading is? You do know it's a medium right? Presumably you wouldn't say don't watch films/television/YouTube etc right? I mean, how exactly do you expect me to learn about history? I'm not angry I'm just very confused by a strange take.

[Anonymous No.15898833]

>>15898809
>How does him reading these help him communicate to the masses in any way?
Picked up on the common denominators of the Zeitgeist. Also, maybe if he wasn't obsessed with making sense of a world that was easy to understand he may not have drowned Europe
>So Napoleon spent his entire childhood, including his pre-teen years, willingly ostracizing himself to read all day on the 3rd floor of his building because "the French revolution were a time of humanist ideals and follies"?
yes.
>Do you see Christians carrying a Bible around everywhere they go? Alexander based his entire life off of Achilles.
And Chinggis Khan based it on drinking horse blood yet he tore the globe a bigger asshole than Addy, Napo and Alex combined.

[Anonymous No.15898842]

Give us your reading list OP.

[Anonymous No.15898843]

>>15898816
because i cannot be bothered also anything i say you will respond to with some snark so unless you have relevant categories of non-fiction in mind, i cannot care enough to remember.

[Anonymous No.15898852]

>>15898843
I'm interested in your "half a year of intensely reading fiction"

[Anonymous No.15898863]

>>15898551
Somewhat agree. I'm gonna continue reading history, though, and I the occasional old fiction novel is my only escape from modern day politics.

[Anonymous No.15898879]

>>15898832
>Sorry, please explain to me. What exactly do you think the point of reading is?
To be knowledgeable on a shared repository of terms for things and ideas within a system you participate in that uses books as its communicatory backlog
>Presumably you wouldn't say don't watch films/television/YouTube etc right?
I absolutely say that and extend that to music of any kind as it all constitutes a lazy complacent way of life
>I mean, how exactly do you expect me to learn about history?
history is written at the historian's table and never forms a basis for making decisions for any generation. The idea of learning from history is dismissed by even historians

[Anonymous No.15898891]

>>15898833
>Picked up on the common denominators of the Zeitgeist.
What does this even mean in terms of our conversation?
>yes.
Then you're retarded.
>And Chinggis Khan based it on drinking horse blood yet he tore the globe a bigger asshole than Addy, Napo and Alex combined.
Ching chong wing wong's "empire" was vast, vast tracks of land with absolutely nothing on it, and the only reason he was able to conquer the tribes he did was due to horseback riders.
What are you even trying to argue anymore? Just about every intelligent person to ever live read voraciously and wrote.

[Anonymous No.15898900]

>>15898852
The book that really stuck with me from that time was East of Eden and I cannot understate what a miserable tale of smut that neurotic piece of garbage and how much I cringe having held it to a religious standard for years after wallowing in it

[Anonymous No.15898913]

>>15898879
>To be knowledgeable on a shared repository of terms for things and ideas within a system you participate in that uses books as its communicatory backlog
What does this mean in practical terms? And why is it useless?
>history is written at the historian's table
Professional history is not the same as history. Learn the difference.
>The idea of learning from history is dismissed by even historians
I've yet to hear of or meet any of these historians. They seem to refer to history all the time when they make arguments about the present. So does everyone else, for that matter.

[Anonymous No.15898925]

>>15898891
>Just about every intelligent person to ever live read voraciously and wrote.
Bias because the intelligent people you read about are often those with control over their bibliographic fate by virtue of being rooted in book culture.

[Anonymous No.15898947]

>>15898913
>What does this mean in practical terms? And why is it useless?
E.g. when you live in the West, it is handy to know terms of Greek mythology. This is largely useless or even irritating your peers if you are an Islamic scholar in Basra and people expect you to rely on Islamic terms for the same concepts.
>Professional history is not the same as history. Learn the difference.
If only..
>I've yet to hear of or meet any of these historians. They seem to refer to history all the time when they make arguments about the present. So does everyone else, for that matter.
Sorry I cannot state sources I heard a historian on the radio state that.

[Anonymous No.15898974]

>>15898925
>Bias because the intelligent people you read about are often those with control over their bibliographic fate
Elaborate?
>by virtue of being rooted in book culture.
I'm talking about all intelligent people, whether scientists or philosophers or conquerors etc..

[Anonymous No.15898988]

haha imagine staring at tiny marks on pulped wood for hours on end ha who does that

[Anonymous No.15899006]

>>15898947
>E.g. when you live in the West, it is handy to know terms of Greek mythology. This is largely useless or even irritating your peers if you are an Islamic scholar in Basra and people expect you to rely on Islamic terms for the same concepts.
You haven't read much, have you? That Islamic scholar in Basra might want to know Greek mythology because he is interested in the ways in which the Greeks influenced early Muslim scholarship and writing. If that is his purpose, then thoroughgoing knowledge of Ancient Greek thought and literature can only aid him.

>If only..
They are not the same. The 1619 Project is history, but not professional history. Holocaust revisionism is history, but not professional history. Every single worldview, every single policy argument, and every single prescriptive claim about man and the world is based on a particular interpretation of history, both in the broad and personal sense. There is no interpretation of the world that does not presuppose a set of concrete historical claims.
>Sorry I cannot state sources I heard a historian on the radio state that.
I see.

[Anonymous No.15899030]

>>15898974
If you were erudite, you were more likely to be a patrician and you would automatically raise the status of scholarship by virtue of sharing that hobby.
Scholars would praise you in their books to gain relevance. This would immortalize you in the literary world and create a positive bias loop.

Most intelligent rulers that did not read are not cited as often in books and are hence more forgotten.

Science and philosophy rely on books for communicating their unfinished ideas. Conquerors required information to conquer. Wisdom is not achieved by reading, yet it is what readers today commonly seek.

[Anonymous No.15899075]

>>15899006
>You haven't read much, have you? That Islamic scholar in Basra might want to know Greek mythology because he is interested in the ways in which the Greeks influenced early Muslim scholarship and writing. If that is his purpose, then thoroughgoing knowledge of Ancient Greek thought and literature can only aid him.

This Islamic Scholar is trapped in a literary cycle of self-reference that a Sufi can only scoff at and that his wife will make fun of should he fails to respond to basic challenges of religion.

>Holocaust
the holocaust is a piece of wartime propaganda blown out of proportion by Jews and turned into 'professional history', same with the gay gene and transvestite garbage. Never forget that Esther Villach was beaten up in the toilet of the Munich library which today hosts walls upon walls of feminist literature. I mean the library not its toilet which hosts logs of a different nature.

[Anonymous No.15899087]

>>15899075
>Esther Villach
*Esther Vilar - my bad

[Anonymous No.15899114]

>>15899006
>Every single worldview, every single policy argument, and every single prescriptive claim about man and the world is based on a particular interpretation of history, both in the broad and personal sense. There is no interpretation of the world that does not presuppose a set of concrete historical claims.

This is fashion - just like how people need to cite a psych study or one from a biology department if they want their arguments to be taken seriously in this age of scientism and its control over public opinion.

[Anonymous No.15899202]

>>15899030
>>15899075
>>15899087
>>15899114
You seem determined to believe that you've wasted your time reading, perhaps because you thought that reading would make you more attractive to women, or perhaps because you keep philistines for company and they've managed to convince you that anything that does not lead to sex is worthless. Either way, you're trapped in a self-confirming loop and show no sign of being willing to listen to alternative views or explanations. There is only so much that strangers on the internet can do for each other, and the very serious replies that you've received in this thread are as much as you can expect. I suggest that you reread the replies and try to understand what it is that we are saying before posting again.

[Anonymous No.15899276]

>>15899202
>because you thought that reading would make you more attractive to women, or perhaps because you keep philistines for company and they've managed to convince you that anything that does not lead to sex
[?]

[Anonymous No.15899296]

>>15899202
>I'm going to play armchair psychologist instead of dismantling my opponent's argument.
Cute.

[Anonymous No.15899346]

>>15899276
>>15899296
We answered. You refused to listen. What would you like us to do?

[Anonymous No.15899375]

>>15898551
k

[Anonymous No.15899786]

>>15898551
OP has never read McLuhan

[Anonymous No.15899824]

>>15899786
McLuhan is trash, which is why he's only on the reading list for art classes

[Anonymous No.15900284]

>>15898737
that assumes life experiences are both accessible and commensurable and that's obviously nonsense

[Anonymous No.15900292]

>>15898743
it's less your professors' fault and more their screwed-up professional culture

[Anonymous No.15900462]

>>15899824
it's all in the mystery and manners

[Anonymous No.15901016]

>>15898737
Give me the common sense real life experience explanation for Hegel's Phenomenology as a simple example.

[Anonymous No.15901086]

>>15899824
>Philosopher that wrote mostly about technology and communication
>Reading list for art classes
I hope you are joking.

[Anonymous No.15901088]

>>15901016
When history go big boom, spirit in man go awakowaka and consciousness go bloooop

t. Verified Scholar of dialectical materialism

[Anonymous No.15901121]

>>15900292
>it's less your professors' fault and more their screwed-up professional culture
Expand on this?

[Anonymous No.15901146]

>>15901088
Kek

[Anonymous No.15901155]

>>15898551
I have fun when I read, I dont try to read for secret hidden wisdom. You dont have a problem with fun, do you?

[Anonymous No.15901160]

I like reading books

[Anonymous No.15902123]

>>15901016
Lol you retard it is EXACTLY what I propagate https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=164&v=9Z1zY39EKbs&feature=emb_title

[Anonymous No.15902141]

>>15898551
Why hasn't this thread been deleted?
Its quite obvious that OP here is a pseud and an anti-intellectual. Jannies are the true cancer killing /lit/.

[Anonymous No.15902160]

>>15902123
I just discovered that my proposition is the phenomenology of spirit, which in turn is the wisdom of anatman; the 'source of all wisdom'.
>>15902141

[Anonymous No.15902174]

>>15902141
If you read books as a way to obtain wisdom, you are literary part of a master-slave relationship of dialectical consciousness.

[Anonymous No.15902185]

>>15902174
Nah. You are a faggot. All conjecture and nothing else. You lost.

[Anonymous No.15902195]

>>15902185
No, YOURE a faggot for starting off with an ad-hominem and closing the conversation with an insult.

[Anonymous No.15902200]

>>15902174
>>15902195
Not the guy you're arguing with. I can confirm that he's based and you're a faggot.

[Anonymous No.15902212]

>>15902200
the fuck are you you shit-covered tranny?

[Anonymous No.15902221]

>>15898551
Consider books as the culmination of one man's learning. A journey to knowledge alone is harsh and unforgiving: a book is a wise old man who will help you along the way. Or maybe it's an oaf, yammering on and on, but with a few insights. Read books with an open mind and see the person behind them.

[Anonymous No.15902248]

>>15898551
You are half true OP, reading does not matter if you do not think and build up life experience at all and it wont matter if you do not take what is best about literature and build on it.

One thing I noticed is that you give absolutely no concrete examples of what books you have written. This indicates to me that you just read through books quickly, then forget about them and then wonder what you got from those books.

[Anonymous No.15902253]

>>15902221
>>15898879
Why depend on music when you can do what Nietzsche, Mr. Neurotic himself, failed to do and be the music in you?

[Anonymous No.15902297]

>weeb on malaysian nazi board doesn't think you should read.

[Anonymous No.15902307]

>>15902297
>opinion of a fucking leaf

[Anonymous No.15902316]

Isn't OP just essentially advocating for a return to the dark ages

[Anonymous No.15902417]

>>15902253
I am the music in me. But I also listen to the music in other people. The best is when you can jam together.

[Anonymous No.15902489]

>>15898551
Strongly agree. I have gained virtually nothing that is truly useful or tangible from reading.

[Anonymous No.15902613]

How odd that these anti-reading threads seem to conveniently show up most often within 72 hours of me masturbating. Don't think I'm not onto your tricks you disgusting vermin.
>>15902316
Judging by his responses that's not far off since he's clearly saying, to put it into reductionist internet talk, 'media bad', but since like every other OP on this miserable board he is entirely unwilling to share more than one single incriminating detail (only mentioned East of Eden in terms of book titles, has not once stated what the non-fiction he was reading was about and can likely get away with it by saying 'too many topics to pin down anything') I don't see what the point is in engaging with him

[Anonymous No.15902669]

>>15898551
>hurf durf I can come up with wisdom myself
>hurf durf I used to read

why don't you lead by example and open a good thread that incorporates your wisdom,

the Napoleon Hill thread is better than this shit again

[Anonymous No.15902741]

>>15902669
Look at all this world as nothing but senses. It is the senses that form into thought.

But to every thought, you chose the senses arbitrarily. Why should you be anxious in a hostage situation, would you not exert more control over the captors if you were happy? Could you not become their leader if you were tough? Could you not escape if you were brave?

By crushing every thought structure that resulted from the feelings, you are left with your human essence: absolute emptiness from which feelings can be chosen, thoughts can be formed, feelings can be dismissed, thoughts can be crushed. Be smart. Resist. Do not put importance on the world. Do not read and do not consult others.

From a Western perspective: God, as the source of humanity, made all things good and bad, all feelings and thoughts from it, yet cannot be reached when even a single thought is clenched on to. God has always been Nirvana. Pure and simple. Your ancestors did not pray to an idea - they prayed to the source of thinking. Day after day, hour after hour, several times a day, several times an hour, they BECAME their connection to God, the Nirvana, the vast and empty human spirit. The bible is a signifying ornament, not a text to be delved into.

This is the difference between the system of materialism and that of days past. You were free by not holding on to the world. Materialists try to hold on to people, then people either become animals, or die.

Tragedy is not the world making you suffer, real tragedy is how the world is not able to hold on to what it desires the most: You.

[Anonymous No.15902859]

>>15898551
Embarrassing post.

[Anonymous No.15902874]

>>15902859
Embarrassing hobby.

[Anonymous No.15902876]

>>15902741
Embarrassing post.

[Anonymous No.15902955]

>>15902741
>By crushing every thought structure that results from feeling, you become a robot, an emotionally mute machine. You will let your soul out, on a leash, tamed and controlled, and it will be pale and grey.

In other words, read Jung.

[Knownonymous No.15903136]

>>15898551
Well, the vocabulary and insight I received thanks to reading most of my life DOES set me above the rest of illiterate humanity, so clearly you did something wrong.
Then again, being above the unreading majority makes it hard to communicate with the majority of people I meet, so there's that.

[Anonymous No.15903137]

>>15902741
I blame Schopenhauer as the instigator of this bullshit

fuck your gnostic buddhist marcionite babble

[Anonymous No.15904071]

>>15902741
Books about what a vagina feels like?

[Anonymous No.15905220]

>>15898900
Certified psued. Why did you classify east of eden as "neurotic"? The prose is simple and understandable, it's plain and filled with biblical allegories. And it's objectivley not a tale of smut, Kathy works in a whorehouse but there is never an explicit description of sex during the entire novel. There is only implication or mild talk about it.

Here you can see the cornered psued attempting to prove his intellectual prowess by attacking 1 single entry level book instead of listing 20 or more books he's read. I have a brain like a wet rag and a foggy memory from head injuries but I can still remember 20 books I've read this year.

[Anonymous No.15905313]

>>15902955
>>By crushing every thought structure that results from feeling
I meant that you pick a new feeling for life every time and obviously not necessarily a monotonous grey one at that.

>>15903137
>marcionite
care to explain?

>>15905220
>Kathy works in a whorehouse but there is never an explicit description of sex during the entire novel.
There is explicit description of male masochism which even in this day and age makes Steinbeck a Simp. I cannot fathom what it must've been like for the people of the time.

>instead of listing 20 or more books he's read
I will be honest I really cannot be bothered because I think all I read was not that important after all.
>I have a brain like a wet rag and a foggy memory from head injuries
I am sorry to hear that, hope you get well soon!

[Anonymous No.15905340]

>>15903137
Also I did not arrive at this with Schopenhauer. I feel humbled that you think what I said is babble, but how is a summary babble? Wouldn't it be babble if I had made it longer than needed?