/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19303684]

Does anybody else get no joy out of discussing literature and philosophy with people? It seems like most of the time it leads to an argument, which is what you see happening here a lot. Almost every discussion on this board turns into shit-flinging. Not to say that you cannot have a polite and enlightening literary discussion, but it's very rare. I heard Kant forbade any of his friends or dinner-guests to bring up philosophy in their conversations perhaps for the same reasons.

[Anonymous No.19303691]

4chan /lit/ should not be taken seriously unless you just finished a book and want genuine discussion. Then you should make your own thread and add your observations. Effortposts are rare but they do exist. For example the thread on Lasch a few months ago

[Anonymous No.19303701]

>>19303684
I enjoy polite and casual discussion and argumentation about literature and philosophy both on /lit/ and irl. The way old aristocrats used to talk about these things. If I see the other person shares the same attitude, I go along; but if I see it's someone seething, I drop the discussion, because nothing good will come out of it.

[Anonymous No.19303702]

>>19303684
I don't discuss literature and philosophy because the majority of the time I'd have to give a half hour lecture to even lay the groundwork of what I want to talk about and nobody is going to want to sit through that. Not that I blame them.

[Anonymous No.19303737]

Most of the time whether a disagreement devolves into an argument or not is solely due to your decorum as a discussant. If you are conciliatory and probing instead of belligerent and combative, people tend to be respond in good faith. The best way is to present your own position as a question or with some degree of uncertainty, which invites the opposing party to engage with the point without triggering an obstinate fight-or-flight response which is so common in online discourse. Even the icy heart of the most cynical master-debater will melt before the olive-branch of a peaceable out-stretched hand. Benignus Aude—have the courage to be kind!

[Anonymous No.19303771]

yes but it's usually because i tend to avoid sharing my true preferences

[Anonymous No.19303814]

You probably haven't discussed literature and philosophy with anyone yet.

Very few people are really even able to participate good discussion in the first place because anything beyond light conversation or gossip is generally discouraged. So anyone you lock into a solid dialog is so unpracticed and uncomfortable with any serious communication that they will become defensive and turn it into an argument because that's all they know. Worse, very few people have read any philosophy at all, so the closest thing they have to relate it too is their politics. Thanks to the social controls thrown down by big brother, people are conditioned too simply always be angry in all matters political thereby ruining your odds of even trying to get a good talk in with someone who isn't well read enough to at least understand precept.

You probably need more practice yourself to keep out of the an argumentative mindset and the practice is hard to come-by. Also, the internet is for shit flinging. This is the worst place to find good conversation.

[Anonymous No.19303827]

>>19303684
The world is filled with a lot of people who think they’re the center of the world, and it’s also filled with a lot of books and a lot of writers, far too many for everyone to have all the knowledge of about. Talking about literature and philosophy (including in an academic setting specifically) highlights rather glaringly, at some point, that you are just one person amongst hundreds of millions of others talking about it and unlikely to be the greatest expert in the field, unlikely to get the fame you want, and also unlikely to get all the devotion and dedication you want to your own unique ideas. The Professor, the teacher, the poster on /lit/, compassionate, nice, and patient as they may be, almost always is forced to view you as just one amongst the thousands and thousands of students or conversationalists they interact with. You’re being processed by them and sometimes rather coldly, smugly judged and analyzed by them in ways which seem arbitrary to you, because they have so much experience with you and your kind that there’s little sentimentality in them about all this anymore.

The mindset of performing for others, wanting to be the best, get the awards, the pat on the head, get all the responses to you — leads to an inevitable feeling of emptiness, because it’s dependent on praise from, validation from, and attention from others. The greatest rewards in literature and philosophy are self-directed, about your own inner moments of joy, whether it’s in reading something you genuinely enjoy or writing something you can genuinely be proud of and enjoyed writing.

I used to browse /lit/ rather obsessively and also read a lot of the dense doorstoppers so worshiped on here as a sort of exhibition of one’s intelligence and stamina to be able to read through and talk about them. I’ve read and enjoyed these works, even while forcing myself to work through the difficult parts of them, and remember using to love the fact that if I put enough effort into posts and threads, I could reliably get people saying, “Nice work and effort-posting, this is a rare type of post on /lit/ I haven’t seen in a long time.”

But it doesn’t really matter in the end. Life went on, I became disillusioned to the fact that there’s no jobs in academia, and my attention span and desire to perform for others sadly shriveled away. I stick to light casual reading now and even science-fiction books for fun (the same genre fiction I used to see myself as so superior to), and my style of writing has become a lot simpler and less eloquent because I no longer read so many dense, eloquent works as a sort of test of my literary stamina and prowess. There’s a touch of sadness in the fact that I no longer get the same joy I got out of arguing and discussing with others, and sometimes coming out the victor, as well as of performing for professors and getting the, “This is rather exquisite work,” but that’s how life is.

[Anonymous No.19303836]

>>19303814
>You probably haven't discussed literature and philosophy with anyone yet.
How did you know that? That's true. I haven't discussed literature or philosophy with anyone beyond some friends who don't really read (convenient for me, as they won't be critical of my ideas).

[Anonymous No.19304100]

Discussing literature and philosophy with certain (male) friends or my highly educated mom is tolerable. Other philosophical and/or literary discussions usually make my blood boil due to the intellectual inferiority of my interlocutors. I have promised myself to stop engaging with retards, but sometimes I just can't help myself. When my girlfriend and I discuss philosophical topics, it usually ends with her tearing up and calling me unfair, mean, inconsiderate, toxic or some other silly adjective. I end up questioning her intelligence (inside my head, of course, never out loud) and asking myself why I started dating such and ignorant, philosophically untrained woman. I'm starting to think 99% of women are like this, and the more I talk to the women I date and fuck about things that aren't painfully mundane, the more convinced I become of the stupidity of women as a whole. Any books for this particular feel?

[Anonymous No.19304255]

>>19303836
Because I'm in the same boat. Good conversation is just too hard to come by. I'd like to discuss what literature and philosophy I've read, but I almost never get the chance.

[Anonymous No.19304268]

>>19303684
surely not here, imagine talking with the subhuman mongrels in here

[Anonymous No.19304465]

>>19303827
Nice work and effort-posting, this is a rare type of post on /lit/ I haven’t seen in a long time.

[Anonymous No.19304502]

>>19304100
>Any books for this particular feel?
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Studies_in_Pessimism/On_Women

[Anonymous No.19304656]

>>19303684
https://youtu.be/-O5OErHa88U?t=82

[Anonymous No.19305178]

>>19304656
>reads The Selfish Gene once

[Anonymous No.19305669]

>>19303684
I don't enjoy discussion at all, no matter the medium
I just mindlessly consume and move on, sometimes I feel something and will ponder and relive the sensation for a few days but I won't discuss it
it always feels stupid, forced and insincere, as if talking about it immediately diminishes and sucks out any joy or value I experienced

[Anonymous No.19305780]

>>19305178
>writes a memetic sequel with the tagline "A world without books is inconceivable" called "The Creative Gene"

[Anonymous No.19305829]

>>19303684
I think this is because of testosterone plus youth. Anybody that posts a word here is intelligent despite their opinions or worldviews, but you can still be an intelligent idiot if you don’t humble yourself against the entire backdrop of philosophy. Just because you know a few things doesn’t mean that you know them well, and you really should act like you don’t know anything. In the Pythagorean cult initiates had to be silent for a few years, and Plato or Aristotle recommended that philosophical thinking shouldn’t start until after 30.

With that being said, fighting about Buddhist apologetics in guenonfag threads is the most fun a human can have…

[Anonymous No.19305932]

>>19303684
When it comes to a discussion of literature, I find it hard to come up with something worthwhile to say other then "I thought it was good or bad because of x". In my mind a literary discussion would need to start with knowledge not only of the author's biography but, at least, a sizable portion of their work, which for a lot of author's I enjoy, is not something I've come to terms with.

On the other hand though I've been on the receiving end of literature discussions where the prompt was "Did you learn anything valuable from reading X?", or "Will reading Y help me in my career?", which I find repugnant and so I prefer not to bring up books as a topic of conversation irl.

>>19303827
I'm glad you still browse /lit/ anon and returned to reading what makes you happy

[N E M O . !!GgBWHLRiayD No.19306111]

>>19303684

It is the twentyfirst century; this is "4chan(nel"; it is not that you "get no joy out of discussing literature, and philosophy", with anyone, but, rather, you are codepedent, and therefore conversationally primalistic, and ontologically stunted.

[Anonymous No.19306581]

>>19306111
>you are codepedent, and therefore conversationally primalistic, and ontologically stunted
how do you stop being any of these things?

[N E M O . !!GgBWHLRiayD No.19306801]

>>19306581

By embracing their opposites; greater independence/autarky is conducive toward better introspection, which amplifies one's secernment; toward better introacton, which refines one's taste, thus facilitating subtler, implicatorial communication, and rendering unmediative dialogue superfluous.

The wholesome monologue is selfufficent.