/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19487493]

>If you treat an individual as he is, he will stay as he is, but if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.
Does anyone know what this quote from Goethe actually means? Like should you treat a person badly because you think he should have done more, he will do more?

[Anonymous No.19487555]

>>19487493
its not about treating people badly, its about treating people with dignity and respect and recognizing the greater potential of people, but i think this applies better to children. If you never discipline or try and fix bad behavior in your child they will stay entitled/bratty/selfish and will not grow as a person. But if you impose onto them responsibility and agency for familial (and thus societal) good they will take up those responsibilities and come out better for it, even if at the time they may not have been ready for those responsibilities they will rise to the occasion because Goethe and a lot of other idealists argue that there is something of an absolute goodness inlaid into people, that just needs to be invigorated.
There was an interesting debate about this topic i read on the nature of the welfare states and land distribution. Say the government were to abolish land holdings of property not directly lived in by an individual, and all peoples currently residing or renting land were to take direct ownership of that land from their renters/banks. Would the land fall into disrepair because people are retarded and will not know how to fix and improve their own homes? Or will people rise to the challenge of actual property ownership, and work their land and improve it by their by their gained responsibility?

[Anonymous No.19487560]

>>19487493
also where is this quote from

[Anonymous No.19488215]

>>19487560
not him but bumping anyways, I would like to know. Is it from his maxims and reflections?

[Anonymous No.19488442]

>>19487493
It means I should treat you like my bitch because you ought to be my bitch. Goethe was all over the place philosophically. Who is he to know what a person ought to be? He is some poet. It's totally arbitrary what he thinks. How about I kick him in the balls? Oh what then??

[Anonymous No.19488916]

>Oh the People-Person! he acts childish around children;
>But the tree and the child seek what is above it.

t. hölderlin

[Anonymous No.19488935]

>>19487560
>>19488215
Why are you both so fucking lazy? It's from Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, Book VIII, Chapter IV:
https://www.bartleby.com/314/804.html
>Yes, he has thy noble searching and striving for the Better, whereby we of ourselves produce the Good which we suppose we find. How often have I blamed thee, not in silence, for treating this or that person, for acting in this or that case, otherwise than I should have done! and yet in general the issue showed that thou wert right. ‘When we take people,’ thou wouldst say, ‘merely as they are, we make them worse; when we treat them as if they were what they should be, we improve them as far as they can be improved.’ To see or to act thus, I know full well is not for me. Skill, order, discipline, direction, that is my affair. I always recollect what Jarno said: ‘Theresa trains her pupils, Natalia forms them.’ Nay once he went so far as to assert that of the three fair qualities, faith, love and hope, I was entirely destitute. ‘Instead of faith,’ said he, ‘she has penetration, instead of love she has steadfastness, instead of hope she has trust.’ Indeed I will confess that till I knew thee, I knew nothing higher in the world than clearness and prudence: it was thy presence only that persuaded, animated, conquered me; to thy fair lofty soul I willingly give place. My friend too I honour on the same principle; the description of his life is a perpetual seeking without finding; not empty seeking, but wondrous generous seeking; he fancies others may give him what can proceed from himself alone.

[Anonymous No.19489118]

>>19487493
Read his poem "Found".

Once through the forest
Alone I went;
To seek for nothing
My thoughts were bent.

I saw i' the shadow
A flower stand there
As stars it glisten'd,
As eyes 'twas fair.

I sought to pluck it,--
It gently said:
"Shall I be gather'd
Only to fade?"

With all its roots
I dug it with care,
And took it home
To my garden fair.

In silent corner
Soon it was set;
There grows it ever,
There blooms it yet.

It is every person's duty to bring out the best in other people. That is what he means.

>Everything exists of its own nature. Things do not produce each other, rather they give another cause to be.
From "A Study Based on Spinoza"

>Those whose skill is to criticize mankind and to shatter men's spirit rather than strengthen it are a stumbling block both to themselves and others.
From Spinoza himself