/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20431652]

Unpopular opinions thread.
I'll start.

>Nearly all fiction is dogshit midwit trash, even (and especially) the canon classics.

>Poetry is the highest form of literature, and filters people for the same reason why fiction is so appealing (i.e. people are midwits).

>Reading plays and drama is absolutely fucking retarded, Shakespeare included.

>Nearly all of philosophy was and is written by deeply mentally ill schizos and autists and there is almost nothing in it of value, and many of the ideas presented in their doorstoppers can be articulated in a few sentences or paragraphs.

>Nearly all history books are wrong, biased and promote an agenda of the time it was written in. The only history books that should be taken as potentially true are ancient aliens type stuff because they are the only people questioning the mainstream narrative.

>There has not been a single good book ever that was not written by a white male.

[Anonymous No.20431673]

>>20431652
>Poetry is the highest form of literature, and filters people for the same reason why fiction is so appealing (i.e. people are midwits).
based

[Anonymous No.20431674]

>>20431652
>Nearly all fiction is dogshit midwit trash, even (and especially) the canon classics.
Based and truthpilled.
/lit/lets will seethe.

[Anonymous No.20431680]

>>20431652
Holy Based. Who is your favorite poet? Mine’s Whitman

[Anonymous No.20431689]

>>20431652
>There has not been a single good book ever that was not written by a white male.
cringe

[Anonymous No.20431711]

>>20431652
>female authors (incl. female philosophy) is all self-insert masturbation fantasies

>Stephen King wrote some good books

>translations rule

>all pessimistic literature is an example of "like attracts like" and is the maxim Nietzsche wrote about the abyss

>if your history book has no war in it, its trash

>Rene Guenon was anti west and anyone west of Russia should take it with a giant grain of salt

>schizo philosophy is the best kind of philosophy

I'm sure I can think of more

[Anonymous No.20431713]

>>20431680
Wordsworth probably. In terms of sheer consistency and quality over a 60 year career, no one comes close.

[Anonymous No.20431730]

>>20431652
>>There has not been a single good book ever that was not written by a white male.
You haven't read every book written by a non-white or a woman, so you can't defend this claim.

[Anonymous No.20431738]

>>20431730
I've read enough to make a comfortable judgment. Even the mouse eventually learns through trial and error that the shock from the lab cheese isn't worth it.

[Anonymous No.20431747]

Call of the Arcade is way better than Call of the Crocodile.

[Anonymous No.20431752]

>>20431652
apart from the opinion about history books, these are all indefensible opinions. I think it’s funny to be purposefully and aggressively ignorant, but if you’ve actually convinced yourself this is true, you were the midwit all along

[Anonymous No.20431754]

>>20431738
>Even the mouse eventually learns through trial and error that the shock from the lab cheese isn't worth it.
Ew...

[Anonymous No.20431843]

Marx was right

/pol/ is a bunch of glowed mkultra'd bots

[Anonymous No.20431847]

poetry is probably the best medium, but novels and plays have as much potential

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.20431889]

>Nearly all fiction is dogshit midwit trash, even (and especially) the canon classics.

Remove the especially and I’d agree, the vast majority of literature is inferior to the other arts whereas the best lit is superior to basically all of the other art.

>Poetry is the highest form of literature, and filters people for the same reason why fiction is so appealing (i.e. people are midwits).

I agree but it suffers from the problem that most of it is shit but even worse. The bad long poem is worse than the bad long prose, the bad flash fiction is easier than the bad short poem. There’s also that the contemporary form is so much more gay.

>Reading plays and drama is absolutely fucking retarded, Shakespeare included.

It’s fine if it’s not your taste but there’s some kino plays if you try to get into it.

>Nearly all of philosophy was and is written by deeply based and redpilled people for its own sake

Yes.

>Nearly all history books are wrong, biased and promote an agenda of the time it was written in.

Eh kinda but also there’s only so much you can manipulate, so history has always been full of gossip and Bias, but there’s also a lot that’s just accurate according to our studies of places, areas, ruins, and other records. To say it’s all fake is far too extreme.

>The only history books that should be taken as potentially true are ancient aliens type stuff because they are the only people questioning the mainstream narrative.

Not at all, in fact they’re worse because they for entertainment or their xenophilia will put value over the strange and wondrous over the analytical and factual, they’re almost universally going to be more bias and corrupt.

>There has not been a single good book ever that was not written by a white male.

This should be enough to disregard all of your opinions as a whole. All of the cultures and ethnicities which are obviously the most dominant and high cultures, from the various European powers, to the Arabs, Asians of all sort and so forth have produced phenomenal literature, with china and the grouping of Italy-France-Germany-England+ancient greco-roman (related) lit being basically the best the world has to offer in most cases.

I would sooner believe the opposite opinion, that there is no truly great book written by a black woman. And even then that’s still pretty debatable.

[Anonymous No.20431932]

Unpopular for /lit/ because of the larpers here, but Christianity is clearly not true because there are things in the Bible that are simply wrong. Here's an example from Matthew chapter 2:

>14 Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt. 15 He stayed there until the death of Herod, that what the Lord had said through the prophet might be fulfilled, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

This is a quote from Hosea 11:1

>When Israel was a child I loved him, out of Egypt I called my son.

I.e. God called Israel out from their stay in Egypt as described in Exodus. This is not describing Jesus or a Messiah. Hosea 11 goes on to say:

>The more I called them,
>the farther they went from me,
>Sacrificing to the Baals
>and burning incense to idols.

Matthew makes a false claim, Hosea is describing an event in the past, Israel's Exodus and unfaithfulness. Jesus isn't fulfilling any prophecy here about the Messiah. Christians explain this by saying it's 'typology' which means an author trying to fit an old text to a current context. Here, Matthew has taken a snippet of text out of its context and excluded the surrounding text which shows it can't be predicting a Messiah. This method is useless for finding prophecies because you can use it to make any text predict anything. I can say "Jo Rogan went on a hunting trip, this was so what the Lord said in the Book of Mormon might be fulfilled: 'Behold, I went to hunt beasts in the forests' [Enos 1:3]"

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.20431933]

>>20431847
My hot take is that at the highest level, all forms of writing blend into poetry. I mean, how can we really say the best examples of prose or best lines of a play aren’t poetry? Especially when stuff like prose poetry exists?

For me, if a work puts enough effort into mastering the form and sound of it, that written work is a poem.

[Anonymous No.20431952]

>>20431843
>I absolutely insist on protecting private property... we must encourage private initiative."
>-Adolf Hitler
Gotta love how posts even trying to shit on Hitler end up making him look better.

[Anonymous No.20431955]

>>20431652
>Nearly all history books are wrong, biased and promote an agenda of the time it was written in. The only history books that should be taken as potentially true are ancient aliens type stuff because they are the only people questioning the mainstream narrative.
Any non-fiction is going to have a bias of some degree. Whether in it's presentation of material, choice of material, etc. However, saying a book is unbiased because it 'questions the mainstream' is hardly insightful. One can make up a ton of bullshit on physics and retards will eat it up because it's rejected. I'd sooner read a biased book that makes its biases clear to the reader, than one that tries to hide its biases under self-proclaimed objectivity.

[Anonymous No.20432018]

>>20431932
Here's another one from Matthew chapter 2

>16 When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious. He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi. 17 Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the prophet:

>18 “A voice was heard in Ramah,
>sobbing and loud lamentation;
>Rachel weeping for her children,
>and she would not be consoled,
>since they were no more.”

So Jeremiah prophecied Herod's massacre of the infants? Let's look at the verse directly after the one quoted by Matthew:

>Thus says the Lord:
>Cease your cries of weeping,
>hold back your tears!
>There is compensation for your labor—
>oracle of the Lord—
>they shall return from the enemy’s land.
(Jeremiah 31:16)

Obviously the dead babies aren't returning from an enemy's land. The following verses of Jeremiah discuss God returning Ephraim from the enemy's land. Ephraim was one of the main northern tribes, which didn't include Bethlehem where Herod's massacre took place (Joshua 16 lays out its boundaries). The reference is clearly to the northern kingdom of Israel which was taken into exile by the Assyrian Empire (2 Kings 17).

Again, the Christian explanation is typology, but when the quoted text clearly doesn't apply to any massacre of infants in Bethlehem, you can see it's a case of an author taking a snippet out of context to make it look like it applies to something else.

I don't think the author od Matthew was being deceptive on purpose, he clearly knew the original context for these verses, but he obviously had a superstitious belief that there were hidden messages he could find by ignoring the context and manipulating the text. But you can use this method to find prophecies for whatever you want. It's simply wrong to say the book of Jeremiah prophecies Herod's massacre.

[Anonymous No.20432028]

>>20431933
that's basically my point, novels and plays are similar enough to poetry anyways to be just as good if you put just as much effort in.

[Anonymous No.20432041]

>>20431932
>>20432018
I believe Jesus was an enlightened man influenced by Eastern thought and tried to bring this message to a monotheistic culture and it mostly failed. When he said things like “it is the father that works in me” he was just emphasizing non-doership, a common non-dualist teaching. He never said anything about paying for our sins through his death, which is strange since, according to mainstream Christian thought, this was the whole reason for his coming. Many of his verses are probably genuine, but others may have been added, and the resurrection was completely faked. Even the Bible shows that it was Joseph of Arimathea that buried Jesus and that the Romans didn’t even start guarding the tomb until the next day. Jesus was turned into something he wasn’t to appeal to the masses.

[Anonymous No.20432049]

>This is the dumbest board of all 4chan

[Anonymous No.20432118]

>>20431652
>There has not been a single good book ever that was not written by a white male.
This was written by a woman:
>One warm spring night in 2011, a young man named Travis Hughes stood on the back deck of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity house at Marshall University, in West Virginia, and was struck by what seemed to him—under the influence of powerful inebriants, not least among them the clear ether of youth itself—to be an excellent idea: he would shove a bottle rocket up his ass and blast it into the sweet night air. And perhaps it was an excellent idea. What was not an excellent idea, however, was to misjudge the relative tightness of a 20-year-old sphincter and the propulsive reliability of a 20-cent bottle rocket. What followed ignition was not the bright report of a successful blastoff, but the muffled thud of fire in the hole.

[Anonymous No.20432139]

>>20432041
I'm not a fan of this take, you are still reading the Christian gospels but just taking the quotes you like and saying those are from the real Jesus and the ones you don't like are made up.

[Anonymous No.20432228]

>Nearly all fiction is dogshit midwit trash, even (and especially) the canon classics.
I disagree. Fiction is our greatest teacher, more so than non fiction.


>Poetry is the highest form of literature, and filters people for the same reason why fiction is so appealing (i.e. people are midwits).
When poetry is good, it's damn good. But the vast majority of poetry isn't all that great, and prose is better on the whole

>Reading plays and drama is absolutely fucking retarded, Shakespeare included.
It's not completely retarded, but you are missing the point of a play by reading it.

>Nearly all of philosophy was and is written by deeply mentally ill schizos and autists and there is almost nothing in it of value, and many of the ideas presented in their doorstoppers can be articulated in a few sentences or paragraphs.
There is some truth to this, in that philosophy tends to be long winded, but it's not wise to completely dismiss it

>Nearly all history books are wrong, biased and promote an agenda of the time it was written in. The only history books that should be taken as potentially true are ancient aliens type stuff because they are the only people questioning the mainstream narrative.
I agree, but it's near impossible to report on things without a bias. That being said, most history books are for pushing an agenda

>There has not been a single good book ever that was not written by a white male.
Non white men have written good books. Most women suck at writing

[Anonymous No.20432547]

>>20431933
Prose poetry doesn't exist.

[Anonymous No.20432550]

>>20431843
Hitler was a national socialist, not a marxist socialist. He's a socialist all the same.

[Anonymous No.20432840]

>>20432049
Nah, /lit/ can get pretty bad, but pseud havens like /his/ or the arthouse thread on /tv/ make /lit/ look like a Parisian salon.

[Anonymous No.20434790]

>>20431652
>Nearly all fiction is dogshit midwit trash, even (and especially) the canon classics.
I don't like fiction but that's extreme.
>Poetry is the highest form of literature, and filters people for the same reason why fiction is so appealing (i.e. people are midwits).
Wrong. Non-fiction and instructional texbooks are.
>Reading plays and drama is absolutely fucking retarded, Shakespeare included.
True. Plays should be acted out in front of an audience.
>Nearly all of philosophy was and is written by deeply mentally ill schizos and autists
This isn't even an unpopular opinion.
>and there is almost nothing in it of value,
You're just being contrarian here
>and many of the ideas presented in their doorstoppers can be articulated in a few sentences or paragraphs.
True, but normies need parables.
>There has not been a single good book ever that was not written by a white male.
The Greeks weren't, and still aren't, white.

Conclusion: you are a midwit and have severe Dunning-Kruger syndrome.

[Anonymous No.20434807]

>>20431652
>Nearly all fiction is dogshit midwit trash, even (and especially) the canon classics.
There is no canon. There are many canons, depending on time, place, and culture. Your statement is essentially meaningless.

[Anonymous No.20434870]

>>20431652
The average zoomer has read more books in the last year than the average millennial has in his whole lifetime. (not American btw)

[Anonymous No.20434900]

>>20431889
>that there is no truly great book written by a black woman. And even then that’s still pretty debatable
Oh no guys Frater stopped being based

[Anonymous No.20434914]

>>20434790
>instructional texbooks
>the highest form of literature

[Anonymous No.20434949]

>based, based, based
>cope, seethe, dilate hahahaha i'm so based
>based

what about actually reading books? I guess you'll save some time by blowing your brains out as soon as you can.

[Anonymous No.20434963]

>>20431652
Political philosophy is interesting, but politics in practice are not, and you're no better than a reality television watcher if you know anything about contemporary politics and what's happening right now. Extra dumb points if you vote.

[Anonymous No.20434971]

>>20431652
>Nearly all fiction is dogshit midwit trash, even (and especially) the canon classics.
Agreed, there's little value in any of it. There is neither substantial intellectual content, nor gripping plots and interesting characters, nor much aesthetic beauty, nor is there much value in how it "plays with language" (whatever the fuck that means).

Modern anime and manga is far superior to virtually the entirety of the western literary canon simply by virtue of having interesting plots that people care about and find enjoyable to experience. Even if it offers nothing past that, it still offers one thing. Most of the "canon classics" offer nothing.

I think there's still absolutely a place, indeed a need, for narrative fiction in the world, and narrative fiction will continue to evolve in film and animation, video games, comics, visual novels - anything with a visual component, really - but I view traditional literary fiction as a dead end.

>Poetry is the highest form of literature
Hard disagree, poetry sucks.

>Nearly all of philosophy was and is written by deeply mentally ill schizos and autists and there is almost nothing in it of value, and many of the ideas presented in their doorstoppers can be articulated in a few sentences or paragraphs.
Would you say the same about contemporary analytic philosophy? I don't know how someone can look at and understand the Sorites paradox, or the Mary's Room argument regarding qualia, or debates in philosophy of science about the ontology of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, and conclude that there's no value in it. Even if there's no "practical" value, they're still deeply fascinating questions that demand an answer.

In terms of pre-analytic philosophy, I view Plato and Nietzsche as exemplary models. They had beautiful ideas, and they communicated them in a beautiful way.

[Anonymous No.20434973]

Some people on lit actually read

[Anonymous No.20434989]

>>20434971
>Modern anime and manga is far superior to virtually the entirety of the western literary canon

[Anonymous No.20434999]

Pessimism is the best way to approach life

[Anonymous No.20435002]

Few men think, yet all will have opinions.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.20435003]

>>20434900
Don’t worry, G my racism and misogyny is fully intact, it’s only debatable due to the variety of what can make a book great being dependent on an individuals particular taste, by no means do I think any black or woman has produced a book of the highest level, simply that they dependent on taste have produced works which can be argued as having value, not that they even necessarily have value, simply that it is a point of debate.

[Anonymous No.20435006]

Shakespeare was literally correct when he said brevity is the soul of wit, and this is why short form media is better than long form in every single instance.

[Anonymous No.20435009]

>>Reading plays and drama is absolutely fucking retarded, Shakespeare included.
Not absolutely, but yes I think you should be watching plays not reading them. It'd be like reading the script of a movie instead of just watching the movie. All the rest of your opinions are far too extreme.

[Anonymous No.20435010]

>>20434989
In a way, it was reading Plato that turned me onto the idea that most of “the canon” actually sucks.
Reading the trial and death of Socrates, and certain scenes from The Republic, was exactly as gripping and exciting to me as reading the best modern genre fiction, or playing the best modern video games. It showed me that there’s no excuses - there’s no “high pleasure” and no “low pleasure”, there’s no “yes this book isn’t very exciting, but I’m appreciating it on a higher conceptual level”. If this guy on the other side of the world 2300 years ago could write something that resonated with me this powerfully, something that carried almost no signs of age despite its incredibly remote distance from me in space and time, then what excuse does a guy from 200 years ago in France have for writing a boring ass novel about problems that no one cares about anymore?
Writing, art in general, either grabs you by the balls or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t grab you by the balls, then it’s no good.

[Anonymous No.20435030]

Gigachad posters are worse then frog posters

[Anonymous No.20435046]

>>20431652
All based except
>Nearly all of philosophy was and is written by deeply mentally ill schizos and autists
seems like you view humans through the lens of modern psychology which is very cringe

[Anonymous No.20435047]

>>20431652
>the only history books that should be taken as potentially true are ancient aliens type stuff because they are the only people questioning the mainstream narrative
This idea of "contrarians are always more honest because they're not receiving ebin social reward" is the goddamn worst thing to come out of 2000s hipsterism.

[Anonymous No.20435057]

>>20435047
Contrarian is just one of the easiest ways to seem smart. If a contrarian can’t back up his statements or opinions with a “why”, it’s useless.

[Anonymouṡ No.20435263]

Butterfly is more confused than a tortoise in a tumble-dryer, but she is still a better person than the majority of /lit/ anons, and some day I am going to carry her off to my cabin in the woods.

Cormac McCarthy has become a self-parody, albeit with flashes of brilliance. The Passenger and Stella Maris are unlikely to be first-rate.

Novels are not made out of ideas, and anyone who thinks they are will never write a novel worth reading.

Art is never morally neutral. It either has a good moral effect or a bad one, and it should have a good one. People who say "morality has no place in art" just want to produce immoral art.

The most under-appreciated art form is architecture. Wretched modern paintings, for example, do little harm, because no-one with any sense ever looks at them. Wretched modern architecture is inescapable and poisons millions every day.

Although Ezra Pound's Cantos have some fine moments, they are not, as a whole, worth reading.

Faulkner is at his best when he relaxes. When he gets up on tip-toe (for example, in the massive baroque sentences in Absalom, Absalom!) he sounds strained. This is not true of e.g. Melville. The over-the-top ranting in Moby Dick is GREAT.

The original Tom and Jerry cartoons are worth more to humanity than Gravity's Rainbow.

If a writer has no sense of humour, we may admire him, but we can never truly love him. Some examples: John Milton, William Wordsworth, W. B. Yeats, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath.

Everything in Les Miserables is in Dickens, and better.

[Anonymous No.20435277]

>>20435263
Hemingway has some good humors moments like A Moveable Feast, and For Whom the Bell Tolls

[Anonymous No.20435406]

>>20435263
>If a writer has no sense of humour, we may admire him, but we can never truly love him.
>John Milton
Did you even read Paradise Lost?????
In Milton's version of Adam and Eve, Eve convinced Adam to bite the apple, God gets angry, and then Eve immediately points fingers at Adam. Saying it was all his idea. It's funny as fuck.

[Anonymous No.20435436]

>>20434973
>Some people on lit actually read
No they don’t.

[Anonymous No.20435458]

>>20435263
>The original Tom and Jerry cartoons are worth more to humanity than Gravity's Rainbow.
i think pynchon would agree with this statement.

[Anonymous No.20435460]

>>20435436
I read. I’m not spending as much time here as I used to though

[Anonymous No.20435467]

>>20435263
>Art is never morally neutral. It either has a good moral effect or a bad one, and it should have a good one. People who say "morality has no place in art" just want to produce immoral art.

God you sound like a faggot

[Anonymous No.20435486]

>>20435263
>Art is never morally neutral. It either has a good moral effect or a bad one, and it should have a good one. People who say "morality has no place in art" just want to produce immoral art.
This makes you a giant faggot and it’s hard to take anything else you say seriously

[Anonymous No.20435509]

>>20431652
I agree with your 4th and 5th opinions. I'm not a fan of poetry though, I am a midwit though

[Anonymous No.20435519]

>>20431752
Do you seriously agree with what he said about Ancient Alien schizos? that was the most midwit part of his entire rant

[Anonymous No.20435536]

A lot of anons here aren’t as smart as they think they are, myself included. Intelligence is a fine trait, but there are better traits to have. Many are compensating because they lack those traits. Also intelligence means nothing if it isn’t applicable

[Anonymous No.20435542]

Why is taking strong conclusions out of weak premises, being wrong about literally everything just because you feel like being out of the mainstream will *somehow*, *magically* make you right about everything, taken as Chad behavior here?
I thought the archetype of Chad was more than just popular, ignorant ogres with strong beliefs following the might makes right dimwittery

[Anonymous No.20435550]

>>20435460
>I’m not spending as much time here as I used to though
So no one in /lit/ reads.

[Anonymous No.20435562]

>99.9% of poetry is nonsense
>LOTR is ponderous, pretentious, and dull. The films are great
>a separate peace is horrendously written. Nothing can convince me that Knowles wasn't paying someone off for its '''''classic'''' status because he wants high schoolers to suffer through it
>I know why the caged bird sings is basically soft core porn at points and angelou can't write to save her life.
>Marx was a fool who didn't understand human nature, anthropology or history and his theories aren't worth the dustbin

[Anonymous No.20435573]

>>20435542
I think a lot of it has to do with the signals for chadness and basedness getting mixed up as neighboring phenomenons. Basedness is the courageous expression of one's own views despite the societal flak it might bring, while chadness is ultimately about the ideal of self-actualization and confidence in oneself because of the inner contentment that a wholly self-actualized man feels, often resulting in an outward expression of this contentment by way of being altruistic towards others (which is why gigachad is more often than not thought to be a very benevolent figure).

[Anonymous No.20435588]

>>20435536
It's all psuedery, of course people that believe they're intelligent would flock to a board for literature in an attempt to prove to themselves by way of association that they're really as smart and special as their mother told them
Reading entire libraries and memorizing philosophical points isn't intelligence any more than being able to excel on Jeopardy is
Keep in mind that this is a website for chronic underachievers to waste their time on as a means to avoid any sort of genuine real-life social interaction

[Anonymous No.20435598]

>>20435588
I agree. If you live on this site, get off. You’re life will improve. I try to only come here if I have a thread in mind to start and tend to, or I scroll through the catalog and see if anything truly catches my eye. Sometimes when I’m bored I’ll post in threads like this. I do my upmost to avoid any negativity, pointless bickering and screeching. Those only hurt me

[Anonymous No.20435602]

>>20435562
>I know why the caged bird sings is basically soft core porn at points
Is this a pervasive trend through Black Literature? I remember Beloved specifically as well as some others I had to read for assignments that had some really obscene portions

[Anonymous No.20435619]

>>20435602
I just think it's a general cliche of novels about people living at the bottom rungs of society. Sex when the elites do it is hot and sexy, when poor and ugly people do it it's weird, or at best awkward.

[Anonymous No.20435623]

>>20435619
and at worst, it's outright repulsive. Sex is just a metaphor for the characters having it.

[Anonymous No.20435629]

>>20435619
>>20435623
Sex is literally a basic human inclination. If you don’t desire it, you’re weird

[Anonymous No.20435635]

>>20435629
Did you actually read what I said?

[Anonymous No.20435641]

>>20435635
No. I was just adding my 2 cents

[Anonymous No.20435655]

>>20435588
Reading comprehension is a skill that probably correlates in some respect to intelligence. It is also much more practical than excelling at Jeopardy. I wouldn't discredit the intelligence on /lit/, but it's an environment that breeds poor opinions, half-assed responses and general shit posting. There are some good threads that pop-up every now and then. Self-reporting also seems to indicate a lot of young scholars/ professionals (masters'/law students (of the NA variety), engineers, lawyers, the occasional PHD candidate/professor, etc.). I doubt those would be found on other boards desu. I agree though that most people have become quite conceited with their IQ, but I think that's a general societal/ internet problem and not solely one to burden /lit/ with (*cough* reddit *cough*).

[Anonymous No.20435666]

Stephen King has some great books.
Philosophy is largely read by pseudo intellectuals.
Joyce is a hack.
James Fenimore Cooper would have been great at writing philosophy because he can somehow say nothing of importance in 100 pages.
Thoreau is a hack.

[Anonymous No.20435675]

>>20435629
I don't really care, but some of the descriptions of the acts I've read in those make Anais Nin look prudish in comparison. Taking the idea of >>20435619 into consideration, it makes sense to have the acts be written in colloquial or simplistic, even vulgar terms, but the sheer level of detail and importance given to passages like that seems perverse and strange to me. I dont care about slickening juices and fine silk fur petals hiding fleshy nubs, no matter how allegorical you make things.

[Anonymous No.20435699]

>>20435675
That is what it's about, though, probably. Poor and ugly people, the dregs of society, gross sexual content, they go hand in hand. Trainspotting comes to mind, too.

[Anonymous No.20435716]

>>20431652
OP’s a poet? That makes him an extra faggot.

[Anonymous No.20435732]

>Stephen King has some great books.
>great
Anon I...

Even the worst XIX century writer is better than the best XXI century writer

[Anonymous No.20435738]

>>20432547
Prose poetry is an oxymoron shitty poets invented to try and distinguish themselves from competent prose writers.

[Anonymous No.20435744]

>>20435732
Not really.

[Anonymous No.20435751]

>>20435732
I imagine he's talking about 80s King, but
>Even the worst XIX century writer is better than the best XXI century writer
Is still a dumb take even for a thread like this

[Anonymous No.20435761]

>>20435277
Hemingway dedicating all that time in A Moveable Feast to just roasting the fuck out of Scott Fitzgerald is one of my favorite things ever put to paper.

[Anonymous No.20435776]

>>20435751
Name 5 (five, cinco, cinq) great XIX century writers

[Anonymous No.20435780]

>>20435751
>>20435776
And then name 5 XXI century great writers

[Anonymous No.20435790]

>There has not been a single good book ever that was not written by a white male.

You was actually making a few good points until this. Retard

[Anonymous No.20435796]

>>20431652
>people uses the word midwit are usually midwits themselves

>poetry is meaningless trash written by people wanting to call themselves author but not talented enough to write actual literature, fawned over mostly by people wanting to be a part of the art-consuming intellectual scene without putting any actual effort into it

[Anonymous No.20435799]

>>20431652
>Self-help is a good genre, people just don't know how to suss out bullshit books (Reading a book on cognitive behavioral therapy vs The Secret or ideological bs like 12 Steps)

>Actually reading shit like the greeks or old philosophy texts is some chronically online shit, nobody gives a fuck about them, being old does not mean they somehow have better ideas or revolutionary ideas (someone probably thought of it before them and was not famous enough to survive through the ages), this is very similar to a teacher that thinks that Shakespeare is the pinnacle of literature

>Graphic novels can sometimes be a better medium for telling a story

>Poetry is garbage, anyone can do that shit

[Anonymous No.20435819]

>>20431652
>There has not been a single good book ever that was not written by a white male.
Is that why you posted an image of a woggish looking Azerbaijani (i.e., Gigachad)?
You snow niggers have a tsundere affair with men like Gigachad raping your whorish women or something like that.

[Anonymous No.20435822]

>>20431652
Impressive how you managed to cringe me harder with each opinion

[Anonymous No.20435882]

>>20435799
I'd say The Greeks and Shakespeare are more important for the huge influence they've had on culture in general rather than any ideas they have or stories they tell. Aristotle was regarded so highly for centuries and used as the basis for a lot of our scientific thinking that saying there's no importance in his works is like saying there's no importance in The Bible.
I feel like you've taken an overly simplistic view of the reasons for study of these figures.

[Anonymous No.20436111]

>>20431889
What makes good poetry in your opinion? I was never into poetry that much (although I enjoy a good poem) and I would like to get into poetry. Since you said that most of it is rubbish I would like to ask for guidance. I really have no clue where to start and how to judge a poem.

[Anonymous No.20436144]

>>20431652
Your actually retarded. You don’t read

[Anonymous No.20436149]

>all these people shitting on philosophy
Have you read anything that was done in philosophy in the last 100 years? Or did you just read a page of Aquinas and go “pfft there’s no God this is dumb” and assume that all philosophy was like that?

[Anonymous No.20436152]

>>20435003
Holy based, but what do you mean by "the highest value"? Isn't that classification subjective and taste dependent as well?

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.20436188]

>>20436152
Here I wrote this for an introduction to a poetry collection that will come out at some point; it elaborates in depth on my ideas on taste and their relation to various writers and philosophers and poets on their ideas of what is beauty, how objectivity of some sort can be had in art without rejecting the subjective taste, that sort of thing. I know it’s asking much to read but, the alternative is overwhelming the thread completely.

https://pastebin.com/un9sgQab

[Anonymous No.20436210]

>>20431652
>Language has cucked itself in favor of maximal spread/growth
>Not everyone is meant to be literate

[Anonymous No.20436235]

>>20431652
Tips on how to get into poetry?

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.20436250]

>>20436235
Pick up one of the anthologies of verse like Norton or the bloom, and read an introduction to poetry like rhyme’s reason, or poetic meter and poetic form.

The latter will teach you the basic mechanics of what poetry is like so you can see what’s going on under the hood, though you can enjoy poetry without this if you don’t feel like it. The first one, the anthologies will give you a sampler from the major movements and periods in English writing so you can get an idea of what your taste is like, what kind of writers you’re even into. If you like a few of the poems you read from the anthology just read that same poet’s other works or look into which movements he’s associated with, who he enjoyed, that kind of thing.

A major major thing should be you should try to actually recite the poetry you’re reading if you want the full kino of any poem. If a poem sounds worse when recited that’s a sign it’s a bad poem, whereas the good poem is even better when recited.

[Anonymous No.20436263]

>>20436250
I'll check those out, thanks anon.
Is poetry as an art form any different than music, or dance? Is it just another form of artistic expression or is it more than that?

[Anonymous No.20436287]

I hate when people blame "DA JOOS!" for everything and try showing proof of their "master plan!", as if that isn't just propaganda to keep the clan together than a literal plan to control everything. It'd be like using nazi propaganda as proof white people are all evil and should be killed.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.20436350]

>>20436263
TLDR I believe art, for it to be considered art, must contain an act of artifice and should conjoin a mental form, a regulation, an intellectual impulse, an idea of what the thing should be, conjoint with a sensual element that is the engine of the pleasure of the art.

In this regard music, cuisine, painting, poetry, these are all arts, but where they differ is that arts while all conjoining sense and intellectual formation, are naturally aligned more so to one extreme or the other, for example the most extreme of sensual pleasure in art is food, there is not a big diversity in what food can tell you, its narrative capacity, the capacity of it to transmit ideas and clothe ideas in sensation is very limited compared to say, painting or a film.

Now arts often can have more sensual and more purely formal/intellectual sub divisions; for example baroque/classical compositions operate via form much more so than a slew of African music which is primarily understood to operate on rhythm, rhythm being more sensual and easier to feel but imo doesn’t have the diversity or depth potential of melody, is a great example.

What makes literature special in my opinion is that it is the least sensual of the arts, and poetry in particular is an even further abstraction because no longer is the artistry in the content, but in the very form of how the content is given, thus I consider the best prose which is most conscious of how it sounds and is given to be not really different from poetry.

Poetry has the highest capacity for information, ideas, narratives, the spiritual and conceptual and subtle to be communicated, however this comes at a big cost. The more sensual an art is, the more immediately impressive and enjoyable it is, the less work it requires for it to be entertaining. Poetry I consider to have the lowest floor of entertainment and value while also having the highest ceiling. The bad movie and bad song can be funny, the mediocre guitar player or painter can still be serviceable, we like bright colors and salty meaty things, but the bad poem is so boring it cannot produce any enjoyment, not even in a mocking way, even prose can have an enjoyable quality in it being terrible like reading fan fiction, but poetry is the lowest floor, yet on the opposite end, poetry has proven time and time again to be the art with the biggest capacity for aesthetic pleasure and definition, to create and destroy religions, wage wars and found nations. For it has the most ability to reflect the mind and spirit of the author and their ideals. Thus the biblical poetry, Dante, the epic poets, the rhetorical speeches of founding fathers of various nations based on the poetic methodologies as explained by Cicero, etc.

It is poetry which has the highest ceiling and lowest floor.

[Anonymous No.20436382]

>>20436350
Thank you for writing this. I'll screencap it and reread after reading some poetry myself, as admittedly a lot of it goes over my head.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.20436407]

>>20436382
Good luck! I recommend starting with some Blake and some Coleridge. And hearing them recited is not cringe, it’s actually the most traditional way to consume poetry, so check around YouTube. Here’s some examples.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfrx_JQcIsI - kubla khan by Coleridge recited by Cumberbatch
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vJrCO153LdM Blake’s chimney sweeper
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u2FT4_UUa4I Yeats reciting his own poetry
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lX0h1KSM5fs Pound reciting his own poetry
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BefliMlEzZ8 Poe’s raven recited by Christopher lee

[Anonymous No.20436435]

>>20436350
10/10

[Anonymous No.20436525]

>>20431652
You're just saying things without telling us why you think these things. You, sir, are the midwit.

[Anonymous No.20436561]

>>20435882
>Aristotle was regarded so highly for centuries and used as the basis for a lot of our scientific thinking
I understand this but that doesn't mean we need to read a fucking book he wrote. You can summarize his contributions easily on a single slide. If the greeks and Shakespeare are so deeply entrenched into the cultural zeitgeist...there's no need to read them. You could just watch a play or something and be like "ok i got it". Really no need to understand the endless references other than "wow look a reference!!111!"
>I feel like you've taken an overly simplistic view of the reasons for study of these figures.
I feel like the reasons to study these figures is simplistic. You can just look at the wiki, it's the 21st century. Hamlet has been done ten million times. No need for me to sit down and read it.

[Anonymous No.20436614]

I thought Snow Crash was pretty good.

[Anonymous No.20436648]

>>20436188
Thanks mate! I will get around reading this when eventually.

[Anonymous No.20436684]

>>20431652

> Protestantism is a disease and Americans should stop judging Christianity based on their own wrong version of it.
Christianity has been, for the vast majority of it's lifespan, illiterate. Reading the Bible is not a Christian tradition. People become Christians by following the sacraments, that's it.

following up on this:
> Science would not exist without Christianity. Science would not exist without the value that is placed on Truth by Christian tradition.
Many religions aim to seek Truth. But is was Christianity's flavour of Truth which brought to us the scientific method. In particular, I believe that the confession was responsible for igniting within the priests themselves (not the people confessing) an almost morbid desire for Truth that is willing to delve into ugliness and immorality.

> We are currently living in the unwritten "3rd testament". After the death of God, people used ideology to fill the void that was left in it's place. People reject nihilism because they're afraif of it, but ideology amounts to little more than cope that will ultimately cause more harm than good. The only way forward is to embrace nihilism. Buddhism is a good nihilistic philosophy. I believe that Buddhism applied to Christianity will lead us to some form of neo-gnosticism. Baphomet will be reclaimed from the statanists, just like pepe was reclaimed from the normies.

[Anonymous No.20436705]

>>20431652
Some writers are mostly propped up by their reputations

[Anonymous No.20436716]

>Too many people read books like The Bell Jar which do not actually further objective knowledge of the world in any way.

[Anonymous No.20436792]

>>20431652
Most philosphy is just very smart autistic people who had some interesting ideas most of which isn't useful in any way and most of it isn't worth reading unless you know it expands upon your naturally occuring worldview.

People will just choose one philosopher to agree with the most and then act like it had some major impact on their lives while in reality they can now just explain a bit better why they are so insufferable to be around.

People who read and especially people who study philosophy aren't any any way independant thinkers or anywhere close to actual philosophers themselves. All they can do is look at a situation and try and interpert it to the eyes of better men while adding nothing of their own.

[Anonymous No.20436852]

>>20431680
Poetry has to rhyme unless it was produced before 1400AD.

[Anonymous No.20437117]

>>20436852
Dumbass

[Anonymous No.20437192]

>>20437117
Pile of shite. A tired rambling of Jewish dogma.

[Anonymous No.20437219]

>>20437192
Deepest apologies, about your double digit iq.

[Anonymous No.20437238]

>>20437219
It's typical early modern drivel. If you want to read a proper poem, read Voluspa.

[Anonymous No.20437248]

>>20431711
>>if your history book has no war in it, its trash
Could you realistically write the history of anything without mentioning any war, even in passing?

[Anonymous No.20437292]

>>20437238
You don’t speak old Norse.

[Anonymous No.20437347]

>the opposite opinion, that there is no truly great book written by a black woman.

[Anonymous No.20437361]

>>20431889
>there is no truly great book written by a black woman.

Someone's never read Beloved

[Anonymous No.20437413]

>>20437292
>read a poem
>read
>you don't speak
KEEEEEEK. Besides, it's been translated.

[Anonymous No.20438073]

>>20431652
/lit/ doesn't escape the general 4chan(nel) formula of (board theme) + (lonely incel cope)

[Anonymous No.20438233]

>>20431652
Bernie can still do it

[Anonymous No.20438241]

>>20431652
Your post sucks make a better one

[Anonymous No.20439575]

>>20437413
>poem
>translated
Ngmi

[Anonymous No.20439609]

New Atheism is actually much more profound than most people give it credit for. This is because of the main strength of atheism, namely the acceptance of death.

Death denial is the starting point of all delusions, and when this isn't embraced, then neither are all other delusions. This is the real reason why atheists can manage this brutal realism, because death isn't denied. Unfortunately, this main strength of atheism is hardly ever noticed, and therefore atheism will continue to be marginal, until its main strength is recognized

[Anonymous No.20439642]

>>20439609
By asserting that death does not exist, you are denying death, therefore atheists are the greatest death deniers of them all. Atheists will never live with the intensity of the fear of eternal punishment, life will be mediocre and uncharged because everyone is now a nihilist.

[Anonymous No.20439658]

>>20436792
>>20436149

[Anonymous No.20439679]

>>20439642
>By asserting that death does not exist, you are denying death

My friend, can you read? 'Acceptance' means the exact opposite of what you claim it to be

[Anonymous No.20439687]

>>20439679
Atheists all claim that death is nothing. In other words, they deny death.

[Anonymous No.20439963]

>>20439687
Do you honestly understand what the word 'acceptance' means? I've literally never heard a single atheist claim that death is 'nothing', nor is this what accepting death means.

If anything, accepting death is about considering it to be very real, which I would consider the opposite of nothing

[Anonymous No.20439996]

>>20439687
Listen anon, stop posting and learn to live with your embarassment for the rest of the day. Nobody will ever know what a dimwit you are.

[Anonymous No.20439999]

>>20435780
haha no one could do it lmao

[Anonymous No.20440016]

>>20431652
Greeks, ancient Jews, ancient Buddhists are not white
In fact, the so-called excellent white writers are only those in modern Germany

[Anonymous No.20440045]

>>20432118
Women truly shouldn’t be taught to read n write (beyond what is necessary to cook n do chores)

[Anonymous No.20440071]

>>20431843
>words words words

[Anonymous No.20440078]

>>20435010
While your aesthetic principle of balls-gripping is essentially correct, what you’re lamenting here isn’t the majority of the canon, it’s just the sentimental modern bourgeois novel, the chaff of the 19th century just now beginning to scatter in the wind.

[Anonymous No.20440094]

>>20431652
>>20431730
>>There has not been a single good book ever that was not written by a white male.
Dumas?

[Anonymous No.20440107]

>>20440094
Everything Dumas wrote is the lowest garbage

[Anonymous No.20440141]

>>20431652
>Nearly all of philosophy was and is written by deeply mentally ill schizos and autists
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IHuFSnhKG9I

[Anonymous No.20440284]

>>20440078
Different poster, but
>it’s just the sentimental modern bourgeois novel, the chaff of the 19th century just now beginning to scatter in the wind.
Would that imply that there's plenty more chaff to be scattered from the 20th Century, too?

[Anonymous No.20441105]

>>20431652
>Nearly all of philosophy was and is written by deeply mentally ill schizos and autists and there is almost nothing in it of value, and many of the ideas presented in their doorstoppers can be articulated in a few sentences or paragraphs.
Based, philosophy is a waste of time

[Anonymous No.20441137]

>>20434971
>Modern anime and manga is far superior to virtually the entirety of the western literary canon simply by virtue of having interesting plots that people care about and find enjoyable to experience.
Autistic weebs arent people

[Anonymous No.20441174]

Philosophy is only worthwhile if it’s practical in everyday use. Otherwise it is an autistic hobby. Nothing wrong with that though, just make yourself out to be better or smarter if you’re into it

A poet is not a poet if he doesn’t embody poetry himself

In a period of ~100 years, the USA put out literature that could rival any country’s whole output. America was truly a bright flash that is now sadly fading

The best writers aren’t the most famous

The short story involves more artistic style than the novel. Any novel over 400 pages usually has superfluous material

There will be a literature revival. Even those who use social media the most are catching on to it’s major negative impacts

The only Bible that is literature is the KJV. All other versions should have a religion board here to discuss dogmas and spirituality. Maybe the second half of this isn’t controversial

A true artist is often great in multiple forms of art

Postmodernism destroyed literature

[Anonymouṡ No.20441443]

>>20441174

>Philosophy is only worthwhile if it’s practical in everyday use. Otherwise it is an autistic hobby. Nothing wrong with that though, just make yourself out to be better or smarter if you’re into it
I assume you intend a "don't" in there. I have a pretty low opinion of most philosophy, but "practical in everyday use" sounds a bit draconian. Sometimes the "practical use" only happens a hundred years down the road.

>A poet is not a poet if he doesn’t embody poetry himself
Nonsense. "A poet is the most unpoetic creature imaginable." — John Keats

>In a period of ~100 years, the USA put out literature that could rival any country’s whole output. America was truly a bright flash that is now sadly fading
First sentence — a bit of an exaggeration. You're probably only considering those works from other countries which happen to appeal to our present sensibility. Second sentence — who knows?

>The best writers aren’t the most famous
Pretty much impossible to refute. Who knows what awesome stuff has been lost (or was never known)? But if you mean you know about some relatively obscure writer who is better than all the big names — I don't believe you. Who?

>The short story involves more artistic style than the novel. Any novel over 400 pages usually has superfluous material
"Any" and "usually" are fighting one another in your second sentence. Why not just say "Most novels over 400 pages have superfluous material"? Anyway, if you simply mean that the 'shape' of a short story is a larger part of its presence in our mind, then yes, obviously. A novel is so big, it's like a whole country. Hard to see it all at once.

>There will be a literature revival. Even those who use social media the most are catching on to it’s major negative impacts
Possessive "Its" doesn't have an apostrophe. Literature hasn't really gone away, so I'm not sure what you mean by a "revival". If you mean, it will become once again the dominant art form — only if we lose the technology that gives us video. Words hard. Monkey like picture more.

>The only Bible that is literature is the KJV. All other versions should have a religion board here to discuss dogmas and spirituality. Maybe the second half of this isn’t controversial
I don't know what non-English-speakers do for a Bible. They might have a decent one. Why anyone reads anything else in English I have no idea. Yes, there should definitely be a philosophy/religion board.

>A true artist is often great in multiple forms of art
"Often" is a bit much. "Sometimes" is nearer the mark. There's a lifetime's work in mastering just one art form.

>Postmodernism destroyed literature
Naa. Literature just flowed on around it. How postmodern is our boy Cormac? You have to see the big picture. (Even if literature is dying, it wasn't postmodernism that dealt the blow.)

[Anonymous No.20441520]

>>20441443
Your either a insufferable person; or an great troll. Unironicaly, keatz lived a poets life by dyin yung

[Anonymous No.20441552]

>Poetry good
>Drama bad
How is it possible to hold these opinions at the same time lmao. You object to meter when it's in the form of a dialogue? What's the reasoning here

[Anonymous No.20441642]

>>20432041
I never get why people propogate this notion that Jesus got his wisdom from India. Is that really the only place that westerners see as a source of spiritual inspiration? If you have to locate the teachings somewhere other than in the Lord himself, can't you at least choose Egypt? They had an extremely old and rich spirituality themselves. Also it was a very syncretic environment at the time, multiple traditions in contact with one another. Bonus points for this theory since it's actually mentioned that they went to Egypt. on the other hand, he quotes the Scriptures so often, would you deny that the hebrew tradition has any transcendent message in it? I would be interested in your reply. I know these days all the hip kids meditate and do yoga, we often forget that there is also fertile ground on this side of the globe.

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.20441659]

>>20436111
Didn’t see this post, not sure if you’re the same anon or not but I wrote down my take here >>20436188

>>20436350

[Anonymous No.20441663]

>>20431652
>>There has not been a single good book ever that was not written by a white male.
True if by 'white' you mean 'White American' or 'general, derascinated anglophonic europid male'