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/lit/ - Literature

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File: 30 KB, 229x350, CormacMcCarthy_BloodMeridian.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
21690781 No.21690781 [Reply] [Original]

was the wild west really his bad?

>> No.21690826

>>21690781
John Sepich in 'Notes on Blood Meridian' suggests that McCarthy toned down the violence.

>> No.21690896 [DELETED] 

>>21690826
It's not just the violence its how depraved degenerate and retarded the characters it's like they're all semi retarded 70 iqs who want to do nothing but rape and murder

>> No.21690920

>>21690781
>crime rates were comparable to contemporary Japan; armed society is polite society
There's an intredasting film history book going into this, and the film genre as it was pursued by Soviet sympathizers in Hollywood (lawman as de-kulakifier), the name escapes me though.

>> No.21690925

It's not the violence itself but the retardation of the characters who commit them that is so terrifying. The complete indifference to it. Not in a Hannah Arendt "banality of evil" type way, they were intelligent men who knew what they were doing but just didn't care. But the way most of the characters seem so primitive they don't even realise how horrid what they're doing is. Like a bear eating a man alive, it doesn't even really conceive of what it's doing. The idea of men being literal animals is horrifying.

>> No.21691125

>>21690781
It was worse.

>> No.21691191
File: 113 KB, 179x282, Untitled.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
21691191

It was worse, the Comanches in real life were 100x more horrible than anything in the book. Read pic related, there's one story in there about comanche housewives casually torturing and mutilating young white slave girls their husbands had abducted by burning their flesh and cutting off their noses

You'll understand why they called them savages.

>> No.21691667

>>21690925
>missing the point so completely

If he loves games, let him play for stakes.

>> No.21691682

>>21690781
Yes, why do you think it was called the wild west?

>> No.21691693

>>21690920
>hey it wasn't so bad, most people weren't castrated and sodomized by comanche after all

>> No.21692609

>>21690781
There is only one way to find out, and it's probably impossible.

>> No.21693158

>>21690781
it was, and so is the current world. People have no idea how monsterious other people can be, how the simple existence of the police or even a strong government keep so many people in check. Our ancestors invented invisible sky magicians for a reason. Not because they were crazy, but because they were very, very sane. The lower iq a person is, the more suspectible they are to violence, and this goes both ways. You can control them with violence, and they are more willing to control others as well if not kept in check. Today we make fun of people for 'wanting to speak to the manager' as if that was some horrible thing, but if there wasnt law and order what those same people would be doing is shoving a gun in your face or beating you with a club. Why were murder rates so high in the 60s and 70s?

>because muh lead gasoline making people mean :((

no, because you could walk across county lines and get a clean fucking record. You could slaughter a person in their home and never be caught. Crime was so much easier in the past, and humans are lazy pieces of shit. They almost always do whatever is easy, and if that thing is killing, then they kill.

>> No.21693162

>>21693158
>invisible sky magician
Here we go...

>> No.21693408

>>21690781
Yes, and people really made their own gunpowder from bat guano and piss on a volcano while savages scrambled after them; McCarthy would never hyperbolize violence in a book conveying a message about war and human nature. Remember, basic morality doesn’t exist guys! Without cops, everyone would just be playing double-fisted infant-whack-a-mole!

>> No.21693420

If without duh cops and philosophy and law and order we are all just savages kill each other's forever than how did society ever stabilize to the point we could dream up these concepts to begin with

>> No.21693460

>>21693420
This, and any reading of Blood Meridian that boils down to “this is how life really is without modern law” isn’t fair to McCarthy. What about all those towns the gang passed through that were stable until the Judge killed 50% of the population? What about the fact the kid came away from the whole experience opting for violence only when necessary? The point is that humans can and will always chimp out, but that we’re not simply slaves to baser instincts, even if brutal violence is more effective in the end.

>> No.21693487

>>21693408
the line about "dashing infant heads on the rocks" is straight out of the book of joshua.

>> No.21693515

>>21690781
>was the Wild West really just a bunch of gay cowboys eating pudding?
Yes, anon.

>> No.21693519

>>21693515
Ram Ranch was much more faithful to the Wild West than any author could ever be

>> No.21693525

>>21693162
that poster is probably a leftist but what he said is 100% right

>> No.21693604
File: 127 KB, 950x672, Royal_Irish_Rifles_ration_party_Somme_July_1916.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
21693604

>>21693420
>how did society ever stabilize to the point we could dream up these concepts to begin with
violence. I haven't read that book but I don't know why wypipo are so stupefied by the thought of humans being violent assholes I mean for fuck sakes just over 100 years ago you fuckers were killing each other with industrial efficiency. The only reason you stopped is because your capitalist overlords convinced you that you could make more money and live a better life by not killing each other

>> No.21693752

>>21690781
I think the point is that it wasnt great or romantic

>> No.21693841

>>21693604
You didnt even respond to my post at all so why quote it

>> No.21693872

>>21693420
dialectics

>> No.21693989

>>21693420
>how did society ever stabilize to the point we could dream up these concepts to begin with

Historically, philosophy tends to come from one of two places: richfags, and religiousfags. Richfags get rich from being the biggest club carrying mf in the area, and religiousfags get really good at tricking people into believing that they represent the biggest club carrying GOD in the area.

Once they reach the top of the 'might makes right' pyramid they have lots of time to think about stuff and impose their will upon others. What made the west so dangerous is how empty it was. This let random people be the king of their respective hills and live out theirlives how they felt. Which included a lot of violence. Civilization is ultimately rules, and the power to enforce those rules.

>> No.21694005

>>21693989
That doesn't make any sense at all.

>> No.21694138
File: 253 KB, 1024x656, file.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
21694138

>>21693158
>Why were murder rates so high in the 60s and 70s?
Because of the leaded gasoline

>> No.21694285

>>21691191
Damn the commanches were really trying to compete with Southern white belles who raped and tortured their black slave children to death.

>> No.21694298

>>21694138
From that chart and the fact that the lead levels seem to trail rather than lead the violent crime rate, its apparent that violent crime leads to higher preschool blood lead levels.

>> No.21694299

>>21691191
>>21690781
None of these people were alive during that period

>> No.21694311

>>21693989

Funny that transcendentalists were writing about the a priori goodness of man meanwhile in the other coast...

>> No.21694582
File: 464 KB, 1059x594, 176.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
21694582

>>21691693
ESL fags here.

By sodomize does it mean the comanche stick some stick up someones arse or the dick?

>> No.21694775

>>21693460
>the fact the kid came away from the whole experience opting for violence only when necessary
The Kid didn't need to kill that boy by any means. The Kid didn't change one bit after the timeskip, he was still a bastard wandering to and from violent scummy western towns with no real reason

>> No.21694896

>>21691191
>You'll understand why they called them savages.
They didn't speak Greek?

>> No.21694917

>>21690781
there's a book called "Notes on Blood Meridian." I suggest you read it. It delves into the historical documents used as research for the book. Scalp hunters were real, and you could become filthy rich. A soldier in the US army would have gotten $7-15 a month. At $200 a scalp it was a very lucrative business. A large gang only had to turn in a few scalps a month. A scalp hunter, James Kirker, was once owed $30,000 by the city of Chihuahua.

Historically Indians dressed like clowns, taking clothing from white people they killed so McCarthy's detail of an Indian wearing a "pigeontailed coat backwards" isn't far off. Indians would wear women's clothing too, or carry women's parasols, like mentioned in Colonel Richard Irving Dodge's Our Wild Indians, which McCarthy probably used as a source. One Indian even wears a bloodstained wedding veil, which is probably a reference to Glanton's 17-year-old fiancee, who was murdered on their wedding day.

So yes, it really was that bad.

>> No.21694973

>>21694775
By "boy" you mean teenager who came to shoot him with a gun that would kill whether it was fired by a man or monkey right?

>> No.21694978

>>21694582
full on anal rape while the victim is bleeding to death

>> No.21694980

>>21694896
that's barbarians you savage

>> No.21694982

>>21693158
>humans are lazy pieces of shit
Speak for yourself you spastic teenager

>> No.21694990

>>21694775
>he's an evil chud because he didn't pussy out when someone said they wanted to kill him
whatever

>> No.21695007

>>21694299
The book is set exactley during that period, not during the real hayday of the 18th century, but Comanche and other plain indians were still active until after the civil war

>> No.21695178

>>21694973
Literally all he had to do was leave. He was looking for a fight, just like all his life before.

>> No.21695188

>>21695178
yeah just turn your back on a hotshot kid with a gun good idea

>> No.21695198

>>21695188
Before that, when he met the boy the first time. He knew he was riled up, The Kid was waiting gun in hand when the boy came to confront him.

>> No.21695217

>>21695198
it's been years since I read it but I believe that's coming back to me. you're right if I'm not mistaken, and I also recall "The Man" abandoning a traveling party in the wilderness. i guess the point is probably that he could be a hardened shepherd for the young and the helpless but he can't get over that lust for violence that brings him back to the judge.

>> No.21695323

>>21691191
I think that this was the book that redpilled me the most to all the "first-nation" content that is so prevalent now. Yes, they really were as bad as everyone else. No, I don't have to apologize for not being sad you can't do those things anymore.

>>21694285
The state of areas that were engaged in fighting these types was most comparable to revolution-era Haiti, not Nat Turner's Virginia. Did you read the book?

>> No.21695365

>>21695323
he learned his southern history from django unchained