/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.16676319]

It's tiring constantly being discerning. In almost everything I do I try to be discerning. I'm judgemental, but for good reason. My heart sinks whenever I hear people talking about Hunger Games or Harry Potter. Even stuff like Brandon Sanderson novels. People don't know what they're missing. They don't reflect, they're not aware of themselves. It's not just books. I have genuine contempt for people that just absorb all of the lowest common denominator shit. I can't help it though. I always try to seek out what is considered classic, the best and worthwhile. It's in my nature. It's not even just elitism, I just always want to go to the source. If I watch a film, it'll be something old and incredibly well reputed. If I read a book, it'll be the same. I don't play games or give a shit about any of that. Even in my music, a sphere which is famously subjective, I try to listen to classical music and when not classical it'll be some band--more likely a 'music project'--incorporating lengthy lyrics and powerful symbolism, etc.

How do I except that the world tends towards utter trash in culture? How do I live, as someone in his late twenties, with everyone around being the type of person who indulges in unthinking drivel?

[Anonymous No.16676335]

>Hey Anon, I read Hunger Games and loved it! You're into books, you should give it a go. In fact, what books do you like? Read any fun ones recently?
>I like Hamsun, Hrabal, Eco, MacDonald, Sabato, Cioran, Pliny, Diogenes, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Woolf....

[Anonymous No.16676378]

>>16676319
You're not the things you read, the media you consume. Detach your identity from that, just enjoy without ego.
Accept the fact that different people enjoy different things.

[Anonymous No.16676381]

>>16676378
Different people enjoy different things. Yes. But most people enjoy things that are of so little value as to be scorned and derided. Do you really have a live and let live attached for people who listen only to Cardi B and read self published trash romance novels with badly photoshopped bodybuilders on the cover?

[Anonymous No.16676421]

>>16676378
>You're not the things you read, the media you consume
Most people are, though. Otherwise speaking in memes wouldn't be a thing.

[Anonymous No.16676428]

>>16676381
>as to be scorned and derided
Why? If some people enjoy them, what's there to scorn?
Have you tried to produce anything that brings joy to someone else?
I have more respect for the writer of trashy romance novels than the discerning reader that produces nothing.

[Anonymous No.16676437]

>>16676319
>>I hate being the only person around with good taste
>>I actively seek out thinks that Others Consider classics

Not discerning enough to judge the quality of your own shit post.

[Anonymous No.16676444]

>>16676421
No, people are way more than that. They are the sum of their life experiences processed by their perception.
The media they consume is just a tiny fraction of the whole.

[Anonymous No.16676455]

>>16676319
How do cope with being a young man who has the best taste in everything, and is so much better than the common muck of humanity littering the streets?

Don't worry, countless teenage faggots before you have managed to come through this.

[Anonymous No.16676458]

>>16676381
They're enjoying themselves, no? All you say of consuming classical literature is that it's "in my nature" - you don't even do it because you enjoy it? You do it because "thinking" and disdain is your godsent identity. Man up and watch some B-movies with the lads, listen to some Viper. Everything presents its own ideas worth considering, only a seething midwit would get so worked up about people enjoying dumb fun

[Anonymous No.16676736]

>>16676428
I'll never understand this attitude. Why are you so complacent? Why are you okay with things being terrible and promoting unhelpful ideas? Are you seriously suggesting that watching nothing but trash action films and listening to mumble rap is good and something to be applauded? Also, I've written all of my life and have produced hundreds of pages of text. I write for myself and my brother. I've also done sculpting, wood carving, and many other hobbies.

[Anonymous No.16676743]

>>16676455
Tedious. Yeah, yeah, you think you I'm one of those special teenage faggots who thinks they know everything. No, I don't. The point is I know how little I don't know. And yet people in this thread are genuinely advocating stagnation. People in this thread are okay with reality tv shows and thug culture, are they? Seems like it.

[Anonymous No.16676752]

>>16676458
>Everything presents its own ideas worth considering
What a bullshit harmful concept that is. It's also deeply sad that you think wallowing in trash is a virtue and something to be proud of. You remind me of those people who wouldn't read, I don't know, Crime and Punishment because it's "too long and pretentious" or "white and stuffy".

[Anonymous No.16676763]

To give another example, my idea of reading something easy and for entertainment is Calvin & Hobbes comics. But even those are meaningful and valuable. I do almost nothing in my life which attempts to enrich me. I absorb nothing which doesn't at least attempt to say something important.

[Anonymous No.16676771]

>>16676763
doesn't attempt to enrich*

[Anonymous No.16676800]

>>16676319
Hipster Manifesto the Post

[Anonymous No.16676814]

>>16676800
What does that even mean?

[Anonymous No.16676884]

>>16676319
Clearly you are a God among men. You should stop surrounding your self with men and start surrounding your self with other Gods.

[Anonymous No.16676885]

>>16676763
If you truly believe that this is the way that people around you should live to make their lives better then the only recourse is to show them that this is the case, not by pretentiously grabbing them and shouting in their face, but by living it and allowing your life to be an example that they wish to follow. In other words show them just how good a life can be living by your ideals. Your life is better than theirs by comparison isn’t it? This way of living has brought you insights that would benefit any person that engaged in it properly right? Then it should be self evident in your life and thus be enticing to the people around you who pay any attention to your existence
Or are you just here to wine that the world isn’t the way you think it should be? Or maybe you don’t believe that people are capable of seeing what is really good for them even if the example is set by someone clearly in the know. Or maybe your external life is just as banal as theirs and you don’t live according to your own principles. Or even worse yet thread really is just pretentious garbage and you don’t actually have anything going on internally that’s worth spreading. But if none of these are the case then your only recourse is to teach by example and make the world better according to your own ideals.

[Anonymous No.16676891]

All of the god stuff is pretty tedious and low effort. Not once have I said this. Just because I try doesn't mean I AM or Have Become. Not once did I say I had a better life than others. In fact, I'm sure I don't.

[Anonymous No.16676963]

>>16676891
Then why should anyone believe that what you value is actually valuable? If the people who enjoy low tier entertainment have a better quality of life than you do how could you say that it’s better to consume higher tier art? I believe there is an argument to be made for higher art adding more quality to life than Low tier entertainment but I can’t see the point in making an unclean other out of those who don’t when it seems to make them a happier person. Making yourself less happy in the process. At worst you can treat other people’s taste with indifference, anything erring more toward contempt seems like a waste of emotional energy.

[Anonymous No.16677050]

>>16676963
>>16676963
it comes with the added delusion that even though some enjoyable entertainment is genuinely terrible, you aren't allowed to say that because "art is in the eye of the beholder" and "everything is subjective". Live and let live is all good if we aren't accidentally devaluing art as a whole and actively turning kids away from enjoying the good shit because it supposedly doesn't matter whether they watch Avengers or read Homer, especially because as a young boy without guidance you come in contact with the former more than the latter nowadays due to radical advertisement and then you'll stick to superheroes in your adulthood because nobody encouraged you to approach different things. In the past even the proles vaguely knew what the good shit was even though they couldn't afford or understand it, mass media turned it on its head and tries to make money from bombarding people with well-advertised garbage.

[Anonymous No.16677148]

>>16676736
>Why are you okay with things being terrible and promoting unhelpful ideas?
Who are you to decide what's terrible and unhelpful? It may just be that you're not the intended audience of a particular piece of media.
>Are you seriously suggesting that watching nothing but trash action films and listening to mumble rap is good and something to be applauded?
I don't think that consuming content is something to either applaud or scorn. In the end it's just art/entertainment.

Good of you to have productive hobbies though.

[Anonymous No.16677287]

>>16677050
This is a fair point but the solution to this is not to demonize the masses for not buying your product because it’s not accessible. It comes from showing them the error in craving accessible and flashy instead of nuance and substance. This starts by showing them that life can be better if they put the time into appreciating the latter through your own example. People don’t respond as well to proselytizing as they do to examples of better alternatives.

[Anonymous No.16677322]

>>16676319

lol i can imagine you re-reading and editing the shit out of that piece of text just so you don't come off as a fuckin imbecile braggin about how high brow you are and slippin a typo in or having some bad formulation.

Relax. It slides in more easily that way.

On a serious note though: the classics and whatever shit is well reputed is just bullshit. Some of it is good, some of it is bad. Anyone you ask, even intelligent well educated people will have different opinions about almost anything that comes down to taste.

Get off your high horse and start accepting that people are different, and also limited. Not everyone can be a "Muh philosophical logic iq". Most people are average. And they like average shit.
Personally i think you seem like a slightly above average, "i'm a genius" a dime a dozen c/lit/izen.

[Anonymous No.16677459]

>>16677148
>>16677148
>calling one of the two things that discern us from other animals "consumable media" and "hobby"
>In the end it's just art/entertainment.
very nihilistic and disgusting take desu. If there's anything to applaud or scorn it's art. I don't even know what you're doing on this board, you're infinitely worse than the people you are defending.

[Anonymous No.16677902]

>>16677459
There's nothing nihilistic about what I wrote. It's just about acknowledging different value systems and tastes.
Being able to take a look into the mind of a complete stranger is one of the things that makes literature interesting. It would be boring and pointless if everyone shared the same taste.

>If there's anything to applaud or scorn it's art.
It's fine to like or dislike things. I just find it weird that the mere act of enjoying certain kinds of art should be somehow praised or shamed.

[Anonymous No.16678199]

[Anonymous No.16678448]

>>16677322
chud