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/lit/ - Literature

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16746856 No.16746856 [Reply] [Original]

>Boo Hoo the 60's didn't achieve anything

>> No.16747173

>>16746856
>baby boomers failed to make any positive social changes
>still act like they saved the fucking world.

>> No.16747182

>>16746856
that's a helluva take you got there OP

>> No.16747184

>>16746856
it's the Odyssey, but the protagonist is a failed person in the 60s, what's not to love about it?

>> No.16747600

It’s true and unironically based especially coming from someone like Thompson who is a washed up hippie

>> No.16747638

>>16747184
Gee I don't know anon. Perhaps the complete lack of any humanity in the book? It's an exercise of ego masturbation and its creation literally pigeonholed the author into adopting a corny persona that robbed him of any authenticity, compassion, or dignity for committing to the ruse. Boomers just can't into authenticity when they get a taste of fame. Many such cases.

>> No.16747651

>>16747182
it's literally THE take.

>> No.16747665

>>16747638
Thompson said that he actually hated the persona. He felt obligated to put it on because he thought he had to live up to peoples’ expectations of him after this book.

>> No.16747682
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16747682

Will we achieve anything?

>> No.16747696

>>16747682
No. The same thing is happening again.

>> No.16747697

>>16746856
Is this book actually any good? I never read it but the lack of direction and turn to substance abuse reminds me almost of Holden Caulfield’s alcohol related experiences from the catcher in the rye and I loved that book.

>> No.16747794

>>16747697

OP here.

The book explicitly challenges and mocks the thesis/ideology of the 60's generation that psychedelic/recreational drug use, free love, and self expression will lead to a better, healthier society.

The fact Mr Duke and Dr Gonzo are crazier (not to mention, more unlikable) than a crazy town like Vegas is the point. Also Mr Duke is a jaded idealist, and escapes into the ideology of the 60's all the more heavily, especially right as the 70's begun, and the War On Drugs was just starting up (Which unleashed all kinds of hell on society).

I would certainly recommend. Thompson was a fantastic writer, and has a kind of acidic punch many journalists wish they had. Whenever they try, they're always nothing more than a pale imitation with none of the spirit behind.

There's an audiobook on YouTube if that's your thing, or pick up a copy wherever; I'm sure most bookstores carry it.

>> No.16747828

>>16747794
Thanks, I think I’ll give it a read!

>> No.16748175
File: 282 KB, 775x1176, Fear_and_Loathing_on_the_Campaign_Trail_'72_(1973_1st_ed_jacket_cover).jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
16748175

>>16747638
>>16747697
>>16747794
>not reading his best book instead
You all exhaust me.

>> No.16748254

>>16747173
What positive social changes were achieved by subsequent generations?

>> No.16748261

>>16746856
I thought the point was this dude just really liked drugs

>> No.16748303

>>16748175

OP Here

I would most certainly recommend Campaign Trail, but Las Vegas is good for beginners and newcomers to Thompson's work.

>> No.16748364

>>16747665
>He felt obligated to put it on because he thought he had to live up to peoples’ expectations of him after this book
Only a spineless person would do that.

>> No.16748525

If you truly understood the 60s, you’d kill Thompson yourself to prevent what happened.

>> No.16748589

>>16748303
I've never enjoyed Vegas that mich, though it is an introduction to the author. It gives too many the idea that drugs were his entire focus.

I guess it's better than starting with Hell's Angels.

>> No.16749049

>>16746856
Sure they did. They set the ship on a collision course and smashed any capacity to steer it or stop it.

>> No.16749367

>>16747638
Even though it's essentially become a meme, the part about the high-water mark is still a great bit of writing and I would argue that it is one of the books purest moments of humanism.
>>16747794
This is a good take.
>>16748175
This is a good book (my favorite is the two or three paragraphs where Hunter and Dick are talking football). But it is not his best. His best is the book on the Hell's Angels (though it is largely pre-gonzo).

>> No.16749427

>>16749367
Hell's Angels is mid-tier and I enjoyed it but his insight isn't really mature at that point.

>> No.16749444

>>16749427
>Hell's Angels is mid-tier
Hunter Thompson topped out as a mid-tier writer though.

>> No.16749446
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16749446

>mfw ever hipster/hippie faggot i know loves the movie because "DUDE DRUGS LMAO" and they are all too stupid to understand what is being communicated to them

>> No.16749451

>>16749446
The movie is shit.

>> No.16749460

uuuh, didn't boomers help with, you know, fucking civil rights and the end of open white supremacy in government?

>> No.16749466

>>16749444
Not wrong but he has his strong moments. He probably would have agreed with you too.

>> No.16749584

>>16746856
>went to vegas a few years ago
>excited to see what circus circus was like
>expected a crazy carousel bar surrounded by carnival shit
>instead it's the most kid-friendly tourist trap on the strip
what a let down

>> No.16749678

Sometimes I wonder what HST and George Carlin and Bill Hicks would say if they were still alive and I bet at least two of them would have endorsed Biden, so maybe it's better this way!

>> No.16750200

>>16747682
if you are a millenial, hardly so
if you are a zoomer, probably, but you have to quit this site right now and join progressives and liberals
if you are older than that what the fuck are you doing here?

>> No.16750210

>>16748254
we are getting there as we speak thanks to movements like BLM. expect a return of the Occupy movement as well

>> No.16750220

>>16749460
Explain Trump then

>> No.16750306

>>16746856
>>16747638
>>16747665
>>16747794
>>16748525
>And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .
>So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
Where can I find more like this?

>> No.16750630

>>16750306
not in that book.

>> No.16750648

>>16748261
based correct take

>> No.16750659

Absolutely Reddit.

>> No.16750727

>complaining about books

>> No.16751366

>>16747651
i'm talking about the "boo hoo" part of it

>> No.16751388

>>16749584

Vegas cleaned up since the 50's, 60's, 70's and even 80's, Anon.

Casino (The book and film) is legit. After the Mob got forced out, corporations moved in. Several of the casinos Thompson mentioned in the book were owned by the mob via the teamster's pension fund

>> No.16751429

>>16751388
And there it goes my only reason to visit the US

>> No.16751684

>>16750306
yeah that was a great line and even though I dislike Thompson stuff like that is real proof of his genius

>> No.16752308

>>16751684
Best part of the book. I'd like to read more about polutical ideals failing, but without the LoL dRuGs that Fear and Loathing has.

>> No.16752652

>>16752308
try camille paglia

>> No.16752985

>>16752652
Looking for fiction.

>> No.16753069

I really didn't like this book desu

>> No.16753078
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16753078

>>16746856
>Boo hoo the '60s didn't achieve anything

>> No.16753106
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16753106

>>16747173
Maybe it's that the idea of what constitutes progress varies by generation. Don't expect prosperity to treat you any less stridently.

>> No.16753192

>>16750220
thew last dying breath of white supremacy, the frog waking up and realizing the water is hot. you are beyond delusional if you dont think the movements of the 60s helped dramatically shift the overton window and create the current zeitgeist

>> No.16753449

>>16753192
If you think the left or progressives in any way control the current moment your delusional.

>> No.16753511

>>16753449
aah yes when conservative politicians across the western world are confronted and accused of being conservative or right wing in any way their response is to grovel on their knees about how they are actually really progressive and love trannies and minorities and mass immigration and hate whiteness, and there are virtually no actual right wing options in places like the US and Canada, but yea, the left totally doesn't have the western world by the balls. you have no idea what you are talking about

>> No.16753528

>>16753511
Liberals aren't left wing, the far right has been defeated by the a moderate right that occasionally masquerades as leftwing.

>> No.16753568

>>16753528
semantics aside the point still stands, it may have taken a few years for the reality to set in so people in '71 didn't notice it, but time has objectively proven that the movements of the 60s were devastatingly effective at completely changing the Zeitgeist of the west and virtually completely eliminated actual right wing thought from politics

>> No.16753612

>>16749584
I saw a woman pass out unconscious in one of the elevators in that hotel. I assume from drug od, she literally got all woozy and slumped to the floor all limp. The guy she was with started freaking out and called an ambulance. I just got off all spooked. I wonder if she died.

>> No.16754008

>>16753568
The actual right wing remains apart of politics in the west however, its the genuine left wing that was completely desimated by the false "new left" that emerged on college campuses in US during the 60s(with the help of the CIA)

>> No.16754022

>>16747638
All stories are exercises in ego masturbation

>> No.16754042

>>16753568
lol this

In the book HST complains about California being a Conservative War Hawk state.

>> No.16754083

>>16749460
Exactly, they ruined everything.

>> No.16754135

>>16748254
Nothing because Boomers destroyed American society and we deal with the consequences every day now

>> No.16754140

>>16754008
>The actual right wing remains apart of politics in the west however
Where? Trump lol? The man's a New York liberal the same as Bloomberg. All of these so called "fascists" popping up are liberal populists. Nothing they propose is structurally different, theyre not advocating fascism or monarchy or whatever. The New Left is full of people who outright call for the reorganization of society.

>> No.16754225

>>16754140
But the structure is fundamentally still Right wing and while Trump is a confused New York liberal who needs validation because his father never loved him, Mitch McConnell is one of the most effective conservative operators to exist in the last hundred years of American politics
I also disagree with your last point, new left does not call for the outright reorganization of society, it instead seeks to replace the individuals the top postions with marginal identiy groups but society will remain the same hierarchical class based capitalist system.

>> No.16754255

Will I like this if I liked On The Road?

>> No.16754394

>>16753612
Please write the short story.

>> No.16754415

>>16750210
You think BLM fucking matters at all when black youths are killing each other at a rate 100x what the police are capable of? We are not getting there. "There" is a rejection of emotion based reasoning and a capitulation to logos. There is meritocracy. There is class warfare to secure basic rights through the redistribution of wealth. Divisional movements without a universal element like BLM are specifically designed and supported to keep us from getting there. Divisional movements are regressive. The largest movement the corporate oligarchy allows to exist is women>men. That's 50% at best. Any other talk of a unifying movement 60-80% strong is swiftly destroyed.

>> No.16754463

>>16754415
Hey this is /lit/ not /Pol

>> No.16754481

>>16754225
In the end it is not left this or right that which invites total ruin but the exact process you described at the end. Shifting wealth around and providing more services leads to a healthier and happier collection of slaves. Failure to do so leads to stressed out and angry slaves. However subverting meritocracy and deciding leadership based on arbitrary metrics like ethnicity instead of results is deadly. It was not the ideas of Marx that failed and lead to widespread famine it was the replacement of the proven productive members of society with an unproven token figurehead. There is no surer path to nation destruction than the subversion of merit. Cancel culture and representation fetishism has to be defeated at all costs or the West is doomed. We've literally abandoned the enlightenment ideals for a new dark age of irrationality.

>> No.16754501

>>16754463
Sorry my response contained wrong think (an idea you did not agree with). Go ahead and cancel me.

>> No.16754525

>>16754481
Purely for the sake of my curiosity, which Marxist states would you say supplanted meritocracies? I would hardly call Tsarist Russia or Feudal China societies governed by proven productive members.

>> No.16754619

>>16754525
I didn't say governed by. I was unclear when I used leadership I suppose. I'm referencing the production functionality of those nations. What exactly would you call the call to arms of the proletariat to seize the means of production from the bourgeois? The sentiment was admirable but the targeting was wrong. Practical skill was devalued in favor of political ideology. That is a recipe for disaster. Removal is a hell of a lot different than redistribution. I don't fear communism, but I do fear the effects of cancel culture and what it has historically demonstrated to lead to.

>> No.16754692

>>16754225
your posts ironically prove my point, you seem to think anything right of seizing the means of production is right wing and not going full on globohomo is "extreme right wing"

your perspective on these things perfectly encapsulates how the zeitgeist has changed, and this shift is entirely due to the movements of the 60s

>> No.16754787

>>16754619
I would still question the existence of meritocracic leadership in those countries as leadership positions were more often than not either hereditary or effectively hereditary.
As an alternative I would place the blame for those famines on central planning being in its infancy, similar to the economic collapse experienced in the Netherlands as a result of the tulip crisis when liberal market economies were in their infancy.
>>16754692
There is still resistance to the LGBTQ movement in the west. All left wing economic movement in the west was destroyed when Keynesian economics was abandoned for neo liberal.
Your perspective places too much emphasis on the bread and circus social issues and ignores the real economic policies that actually shape the state of the world.

>> No.16754839

>>16754787
>There is still resistance to the LGBTQ movement in the west
meanwhile in reality its career suicide for a politician to go against it and social suicide for an individual to do this same, and this didnt just magically happen in a vacuum, the social movement of the 60s are directly responsible for this becoming the new reality

> bread and circus social issues and ignores the real economic policies that actually shape the state of the world.

like i said, you seem to think anything left of socialism is right wing, economics have without a doubt shifted left across the western world, and either way, and people are what shape the world not just economics and these "bread and circus acts" dramatically change demographics and individual peoples perceptions

>> No.16754884

>>16754839
>meanwhile in reality its career suicide for a politician to go against it and social suicide for an individual
But yet polticians, media figures and certain individuals voters do still stand against unlike left wing economics which has been pushed so far to the margins it is completely absent from the discourse.
>like i said, you seem to think anything left of socialism is right wing
In my pervious post I provided Keynesianeconomics as an example of a left wing views that are almost completely without champion in the west today.

>> No.16754937

>>16750306
Every Hunter S. Thompson book that isn’t Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

>> No.16754939

>>16754884
aah yes of course there are no politicians or media figures or individuals pushing left wing. virtually the entirety of popular culture, every celebrity and every well known up and and coming politician is working towards pushing things further left

what fucking planet do you live on?

>> No.16754990

>>16754939
They are only left wing on certain social issues. The overwhelming majority of so called "left wing" politicians and media figures only push social policies which would affect negligibly small sub sections of the population.
When it comes to issues that really matter they don't talk about them because its in their class interest to support Neo-liberal policies brought into place by right wing figures like Reagan and Thatcher.

>> No.16755846

>>16748175
Why 'instead'. las vegas is more accessible and better as a starting point. just read both

>> No.16755880

>>16754990
what are the "issues that actually matter"?

>> No.16755966

>>16750210
everybody hates blacks, they are retarded and irrelevant

>> No.16756012

>>16754990
are you one of those people who think that anything short of socialism is just a different shade of right-wing

>> No.16756049

>>16746856

I still dont understand the point of this book/movie

I've seen and read it many times and I just dont fucking get the point. It reads like a random chain of unrelated events

>> No.16756183

>>16756049
good bait

>> No.16756476

>>16755880
>>16756012
These questions and other would be answered if you electionfags just read the fucking thread before posting.

>> No.16756586
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16756586

>>16750210
faggot detected

>> No.16756933

>>16746856
this book made me want to do drugs
which i know is probably the stupid 16 year old reader interpretation, but i don't care. stupid suburban 16 year old asshole who wears sunglasses would be an up from mid-20s autistic shut in.

>> No.16756958

>>16748175
>the entire Ed Muskie campaign train bit

>> No.16756959

>>16749460
Every important figure in the civil rights movement was Greatest or Silent generation.

>> No.16757000

>>16754481
reminder that the term "meritocracy" was coined by a man who was using it to describe a dystopian society.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jun/29/comment