/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.17639075]

Why do people nowadays think the 18th century, the age of enlightenment, was an extremely culturally vibrant period because of for example things like the french Encyclopedia, but then reject modern times as cultureless despite our times having an even greater equivalent of the Encyclopedia (the Wikipedia) that, on top of all, can be managed by all of humanity?

Isn't it fucking amazing? We have clearly achieved some great fucking things, culturally, in this century.

[Anonymous No.17639086]

because the world is ending

[Anonymous No.17639087]

>>17639075
Yeah but women and minorities have rights now. Was it really worth it?

[Anonymous No.17639093]

>>17639087
This but unironically

[Anonymous No.17639097]

>>17639075
Old = Good, New = Bad is pretty much the easiest, safest mentality you can adopt since you'll always be right (because other people, not (You), have determined what is right for you already). It's the mentality of cowards.

[Anonymous No.17639099]

>>17639075
>Why do people nowadays think the 18th century, the age of enlightenment, was an extremely culturally vibrant period
Because history was written by a bunch of anglos and other protestant whores.

[Anonymous No.17639101]

>>17639075
Fuck Wikipedia. Academic books and are where it's at. If you read a Wikipedia article even on an important topicc the information is still often a fucking century out of date - or poisoned with shitty interpretations and "takes" by Buzzfeed writers. Garbage piece of shit website. Fuck Wikipedia. If you are remotely familiar with a topic, its Wikipedia article will almost always seem abysmal.

[Anonymous No.17639106]

>>17639075
>Isn't it fucking amazing? We have clearly achieved some great fucking things, culturally, in this century.
Because

1/ the public servants became even more bourgeois and now everything is run by their corporations

2/ the ''you have knowledge on your phone'' is moronic. It is only secular humanists who dream that the people should consume knowledge and that encyclopedia is about knowledge. It's their dream to make everything be a little secular rationalist addicted to fetishizing books and the academia and saying Humanism is the best

It turns out people don't give a shit about secular rationalism, they just want the material perks of technological progress and now that innovations is dead, the atheists whine that democracy is in danger lol

[Anonymous No.17639108]

>>17639075
I don’t think anybody denies that we are living in exceptionally “vibrant” times. The question is whether that’s a good thing or not.

[Anonymous No.17639125]

What movie is that

[Anonymous No.17639127]

>>17639097
In today's age the easiest safest mentality is New = good, old = bad. Virtually anyone who claims the past was better in any way is immediately ridiculed as being reactionary or opposed to progress.

[Anonymous No.17639129]

>>17639106
You're looking at it from an emotional and subjective perspective. I'm talking about a more objective perspective. Think what would happen if the aliens came here thousands of years ago and observed our progress from afar. How they'd describe this progress of our species. I think they'd note the French encyclopedia as an amazing achievement and an example of the cultural vibrancy of the 18th century, but i think they'd be similarly astounded by the internet and later Wikipedia - an example of the cultural vibrancy of the 21st century.

Also, we all tend to disregard the present because "the grass is always greener" and we're used to the present, while the past seems so foreign and exotic.. and therefore exciting. But for an objective observer - that alien - our present, as exotic to him as our past to us - would probably be incredibly impressive. Think about it. Simultaneous mass communication across all of our species, across our entire Earth. This is like a sci-fi scenario pretty much, but no one gives a fuck in real life.

I think we should all dissociate ourselves from our reality a bit and look at things more objectively. We have achieved great things in the past, and we're achieving great things now. We're just not seeing it clearly yet

[Anonymous No.17639133]

>>17639129
That's a false premise though, because we have no clue what aliens would consider as "progress" or not. We only have our subjective perspective to insert into the perspective of potential aliens. What if aliens were like Predator? In that case, they'd see modern humanist internet as a complete waste of time, and a regression.

[Anonymous No.17639139]

>>17639129
>I think we should all dissociate ourselves from our reality a bit and look at things more objectively. We have achieved great things in the past, and we're achieving great things now. We're just not seeing it clearly yet
Additionally: we are seeing an incredible amount of art being created second after second by all people across the globe. This huge amount of knowledge being available isn't just "I LOVE SCIENCE" shit. It means that all people, from all walks of life, have access to things that allow them to express themselves in better and more sublime ways, through art etc.

And one form of such art, I think, are memes. We aren't appreciating memes enough. They're an enormous form of cultural expression, and I think that part of the reason that people think that modern times are culturally barren is because a lot of this sort of "cultural energy" went away from high art to memes. But i don't think that's bad. Luddites always say that we're living in times detached from the soul, insincere, but I see memes as a far more sincere form of human expression than high art.

[Anonymous No.17639140]

>>17639125
Midnight Cowboy
https://youtu.be/BFKDyVPkonc

[Anonymous No.17639148]

>>17639125
Midnight cowboy I think

[Anonymous No.17639151]

>>17639075
post-modern, modern distinction
the modern age was full of problems but somewhat still grounded in reinvented narratives of the past and a new rational order. now even those things have been uprooted.

voeglien was the one who noted that there is no true way of going back when history constantly defines the present. as such, we’re either on the verge of a renaissance of authenticity, or at the start of the singularity.

[Anonymous No.17639160]

>>17639139
>inb4 a meme is used to make fun of taking memes to be more authentic than classical art

[Anonymous No.17639193]

>>17639129
"Objectively", we're also living in a period of mass speciecide and ecological collapse. It's difficult to say what aliens would value.

[Anonymous No.17639224]

>>17639193
natural selection

[Anonymous No.17639239]

>>17639224
based retard

[Anonymous No.17639409]

>>17639139
>>17639129
This assumes aliens would value those things in the way you say. All of our greatest technological advancements are born from war, and as we're the only precedent set where this level of technological advancement is concerned, it's not far fetched to say that hypothetical aliens would be incredibly warlike.

I don't deny they wouldn't be impressed, but it wouldn't be at the benevolence of our society. What they would see is the State and what they might be impressed with is the speed at which it is subjugating its population and making the logistics of itself more efficient for the purpose of further war. History is the perfection of oppression, nothing more, and all your celebrate is the sweetening of that oppression.

Aliens:

Look at this species. See how they once saw fit to have their slaves till the fields within their own domains, but what fecundity:

See our brothers, our beloved enemies, look now how they have created nations of slaves to till out of sight.

Look at how they have made their inner dissidents into happy children, playing games of harmless rebellion and poisons the true seed of it.

Look! How their people are mired in information, utterly bedazzled for it all is useless in the hands of the individual, and so tantalized into the most profaned and willful submission by that which is called art.

[Anonymous No.17639592]

>>17639239
we don't need biodiversity

[Anonymous No.17639604]

>>17639409
>>17639133
You guys got into my metaphor too literally. Obviously I used aliens not literally but just as a tool to juxtapose an objective viewpoint VS a subjective one

[Anonymous No.17639691]

>>17639129
Why do people still say "muh modern society is sci-fi tier and we shouldn't bitch about it"? I guess they've read that Pinker book and think they're some kind of humanist intellectuals now.
For one, the present being materially better than the past is in not a reason to not hate the present.
And two, the present being "objectively" good (whatever the fuck that means lol) doesn't mean jack shit if it's going downhill. Would you rather live in an extravagant mansion that's going to blow up in one year or a good house that's going to last a lifetime?

[Anonymous No.17639720]

>>17639691
All i'm saying is that even comparing the present to the past by the metrics that according to which the past is great, the present is great too

[Anonymous No.17639766]

>>17639604
The objective view is that first world countries have perfected oppression. They keep their population in line by redirecting rebellious impulses into harmless outlets, and using consumer media as an opiate. All the good shit, like technology, and our current culture, is made possible by the mass exploitation of the third world in what is functionally mass slavery.

Just because people aren't dying or getting sick as much doesn't mean things are better. Liberty is slowly dying, and the power of the individual is being gradually reduced. The burden of proof is on YOU to present why this is not the case.

[Anonymous No.17639775]

>>17639766
>All the good shit, like technology, and our current culture, is made possible by the mass exploitation of the third world in what is functionally mass slavery.
Just like with the industrial revolution in the West in the 19th century, so does the same truth apply to the industrial revolution in the East in the 20th-21st century: the livelihood of the people is better than before industrialization.

[Anonymous No.17639824]

>>17639775
What? The industrial revolution lead to the entire collapse of the agricultural system in Europe. Farmers were moved en masse to the city, where they did not own but instead rented property so that they could work and die in factories alongside their wives and children.

All the workers rights born of that era were earned in blood, and renewed twice over after their attempted erosion. And every time, the powers of the State get a little better at pushing back against those dissenters. Automation will likely be the death blow that finally severs the haves from the have nots and usher in a new era of social immobility.

[Anonymous No.17639839]

>>17639824
>The industrial revolution lead to the entire collapse of the agricultural system in Europe.
Good.
>Farmers were moved en masse to the city, where they did not own but instead rented property
They rented property in the preindustrial times as well
>so that they could work and die in factories alongside their wives and children.
Better than working and dying on fields, or better yet, starving to death in the winter. And half of your children dying before they reach the age of 5.
>All the workers rights born of that era were earned in blood
Most of the workers rights - like ban on child labor - were just formalities, since capitalism outmoded these specific forms of labor because they were ineffective in the free market

[Anonymous No.17639842]

I'd rather live in a mud hut and die when I'm 27 after living a rather pointless life as serf

[Anonymous No.17639867]

>>17639839
Even all of the previous problems you highlight are just examples of the same system at play. You present these problems which the thing you're lauding causes, and then when they're fixed, you somehow think this is accomplishment. You're like someone who punches themselves in the nuts all day, and then upon removing your own nuts, brags about how it no longer hurts to punch yourself in the nuts. Duh!

And workers rights were most certainly not formalities, you're just wrong there lol.

[Anonymous No.17639876]

>>17639604
There is no objective viewpoint. That's the point. Any way you look at it (aside from stating a pure assertion of fact) you are inserting your own bias

[Anonymous No.17639927]

/lit/ is being taken over by redditors and anglophiles, what the fuck is going on?

[Anonymous No.17640041]

>>17639087
This x1000

[Anonymous No.17640323]

>>17639927
>being contrarian to /lit//pol/ is reddit now

[Anonymous No.17640363]

>>17639409
>>17639766
>>17639824
>>17639867
more pls

[Anonymous No.17640369]

>>17639075
Are there really people that think that? The 18th century was a cultural wasteland compared to the 17th and 19th century.

[Anonymous No.17640373]

>>17640369
>The 18th century was a cultural wasteland compared to the 17th
lol

[Anonymous No.17640392]

>>17639075
History is necessarily fiction, necessarily couched in an overarching narrative, and necessarily an exercise in ideological self-justification.

[Anonymous No.17640413]

>>17639075
>comparing Wikipedia with Diderot's Encyclopédie
You aren't serious, are you? Diderot and d'Alembert were actually trying to make knowledge accessible to the people, whereas Wikipedia life mission is to push propaganda in favor of the neoliberal establishment. Even one of Wikipedia co-founders admits that the project has become a disaster overrun with trolls and political actors.

[Anonymous No.17640422]

>>17640413
>Even one of Wikipedia co-founders admits that the project has become a disaster overrun with trolls and political actors.

Yeah, you're thinking of Larry Sanger.

[Anonymous No.17640425]

>>17639099
>a bunch of anglos and other protestant whores
The Enlightenment was first and foremost the product of a Catholic country (France) and most of its adherents were deists anyway.

[Anonymous No.17640450]

>>17640373
Yep I'm afraid the century of Molière, Shakespeare and Cervantes is better than the one of Voltaire and Defoe. 18th century's philosophy, while more historically relevant pales in front of Pascal, Descartes, Hobbes and Spinoza. Painting-wise the 17th century is also way better. I cannot choose for architecture. And 18th century has better music, but that's it.

[Anonymous No.17640460]

>>17639127
No? All the rage is going back to rustic days

[Anonymous No.17640472]

>>17639075
Are you equating an encyclopedia with culture?

[Anonymous No.17640478]

>>17639842
Really? Nothing would change, you know.

[Anonymous No.17641466]

We were seeing many benefits of Enlightenment thinking whiteout any of the logical conclusions of their consequences.
Standard of living was rising along with new philosophy meanwhile technology still limited mass third world immigration, governments were unable to subsidize poverty. women were still chaste

[Anonymous No.17641852]

>>17640460
Niche media that caters to boomers isn't representative of society as a whole.

[Anonymous No.17641871]

>>17640425
>France
The epicenter of Gallicanism and Jansenism.

[Anonymous No.17641923]

>>17641871
>Jansenism
Pascal was based though.

[Anonymous No.17641934]

>>17640413
LOL, the french encyclopedia was written to forward an ideology too. you're clueless

[Anonymous No.17642052]

>>17639842
but instead you live in suburbia or some shithole city and live pointless existence and die at 27

[Anonymous No.17642065]

>>17640425
>The Enlightenment was first and foremost the product of a Catholic country (France)
It wasn’t

[Anonymous No.17642068]

>>17642065
no?

[Anonymous No.17642093]

>>17642068
No

[Anonymous No.17642128]

>>17642093
wherer

[Anonymous No.17642129]

>>17639087
Clearly not.

[Anonymous No.17642140]

>>17639075
The Wikipedia has become captured and corrupted by jewish shills. All institutions are just propaganda mills for jews. All western culture —it's religions, scholastic conceits, and ideologies— are now just the deceits and schemes of jews. This is a darkened age.

[Anonymous No.17642170]

>>17642140

[Anonymous No.17642211]

>>17642170
This is dishonest. You should look at the actual article. There's an entire section on the soviet union

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_van

[Anonymous No.17642257]

>>17642211
True, that section seems like narrative control though... It isn't mentioned that Berg is a jew, and there's a lot of effort to paint it as a primarily 'Nazi' thing even though it appears to have been used in the Soviet Union considerably earlier.

[Anonymous No.17642296]

>>17642128
Western Europe in general. The ‘enlightenment’ was really just the culmination of intellectual currents that began popping up during the reformation and renaissance.