/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3001707]

>That feel when nobody in my Lycée knows what is Bretton Woods.
>That feel when nobody in my Lycée knows who is Matejko or Kant.
>That feel when everybody in my Lycée considers me as an intelectual because I read Proust.
What happened to the world, /lit/ ? The bourgeois are iliterate, now ? I understand that proletarians don't know who Kant is... But not the people in my Lycée who are suppose to be Napoelon's elite.

[Anonymous No.3001729]

bump

[Anonymous No.3001738]

The middle class is too busy acquiring wealth and status and running around frantically. If you want well read people you probably need to spend time with lumpenproletariat bohemians or genuine old money types. Dedication to the arts or philosophy requires leisure time and that generally means welfare or trust-fund.

[Anonymous No.3001784]

>>3001707
Les nouveaux riches. The leading class is not anymore required to have intelectual skills.

[Anonymous No.3001788]

>>3001784

Completely agree with that.

[Anonymous No.3001807]

>>3001738
Princess Diana was old money and she left (a very expensive private) school with no o-levels.

[Anonymous No.3001810]

Bretton Woods, Mateljko, and Kant are all pretty esoteric and you shouldn't expect to strike up a conversation with people outside of a University, not in your fucking teens!

Then, use Proust to your advantage, you're the "smart kid"! Enjoy it, and don't be so demanding on other people. Hell, if they see you getting a kick out of Proust, they might be inclined to read it, themselves.

So many people on this board have such unrealistic expectations for being, supposedly, so well-read.

[Anonymous No.3001822]

>>3001784
That's why all us intellectuals who didn't sell-out to the university will one day have the upper-hand on those technocrats without interesting personalities or any emotional intelligence, whatsoever.

Yes, our world is frivolous, but that doesn't mean you have to be, too.

[Anonymous No.3001830]

The bourgeois were always illiterate, son. The bourgeois are why you don't know how to read Greek and Latin: because they were too lazy to, and declared it elitist and classist to have knowledge of your origins. They ruined art by creating the ideas of "soul" and "inspiration", so that anyone could be an artist. They turned music into folk songs, retooled the public education system for vernacular literacy rather than cultural awareness, and turned academic education into a daycare centre for middle class twentysomethings who think a lackadaisical 4 year high school course in French literature makes them a public intellectual.

[Anonymous No.3001831]

Ha, je me rappelle être un petit con hautain. Peut-être sauras-tu être meilleur que moi et grandir au-dessus de ta condition ? Je l'espère pour toi.

[Anonymous No.3001833]

>>3001830
>They turned music into folk songs
Nice revisionism.
>[...]
Your ideology is showing, dude.

[Anonymous No.3001860]

>>3001833
That's actually the truth though.

[Anonymous No.3001862]

The biggest problem is education and how little an impact it really has on your ability to get rich. People go from lower class to middle class or even upper class extremely easy these days and assume that education is either adequate or irrelevant. So when their kids go to school they assume that their kids will simply not suffer any real problems because they don't see how they themselves suffered any real problem.

I mean public schools and those school who follow the model of these are to be hated with good reason, they are like the McDonald's of education. They formulate a simple K-12 menu and then simplify them to the point of absurdity and then they act like the child has done something wrong because he doesn't like the mass produced garbage they give him.

Just think about the fact that western school system assumes that all 9 year old are equally intelligent and should be held by the same standards. Even when kids clearly don't understand key concepts in maths they are pushed forward under the assumption that if you just throw even more complicated math at them they'll eventually fill in the holes.

Seriously, fuck modern education. It's fucking garbage.

[Anonymous No.3001864]

>>3001860
Folk songs existed way, way, way before classical music.

[Anonymous No.3001870]

>>3001864
I think that's the point.

[Anonymous No.3001872]

>>3001862
I totally agree. Public education (at least in America, because that's all I've observed) is completely subservient to funding, and public education, alas, is of very little importance to the guys running the show nowadays. So don't completely blame the schools. It's a cliché, but the whole system's broken, no doubt. Aesthetics are of NO importance to that bureaucracy, too.

For instance, I was on a date with a very smart, very cute English major at a top-tier university who didn't know who Tolstoy was. I didn't want to seem snobbish, but I thought that was remarkable.

I had the strange fortune of attending private Catholic schools, who pretty much mirrored public education, but I had one English teacher who was a very old-school esthete and ripped into all of us for our apathy towards culture. So while I'm a recovering Catholic (a real set-back), I have the capacity to read the greatest works of world literature, which have been an enormous help in personal development.

So, fuck "the system", it's broken, no shit, but keep reading and don't be a snob or prick about your hobby. This encourages others to begin an auto-didactic education, in my experience.

[Anonymous No.3001876]

>>3001870
Then I don't understand what the beef is exactly.

[Anonymous No.3001878]

>>3001876
When the burgeois rose to power they exchanged Classical music, with their own preference and cultural background, Folk music.

[Anonymous No.3001887]

Un petit con hautain, c'est exactement ça.

[Anonymous No.3001890]

>>3001887
je mange le jambon. garcon, garcon, je voudrais prende jambon si vous plait

[Anonymous No.3001891]

>>3001878
But folk music predates classical by thousands of years. Classical music rised from folk music.

[Anonymous No.3001898]

>>3001891
Yes, if you want to hear what our folk music sounds like, I shall direct you to the oeuvre of Kraftwerk. Enjoy the future, audiophiles!

[Anonymous No.3001901]

>>3001807
I don't know what o-levels are. But I didn't mean to say that old money people are per definition well read, just that you have a better chance amongst them.

[Anonymous No.3001900]

Wake up, son.

Science is the new literacy.

[Anonymous No.3001904]

>>3001900
Scientists are barely literate. The smartest astrophysicists are basically technicians, or mechanics. They are functionally identical to a greasemonkeys, and just as cultured.

[Anonymous No.3001908]

>>3001900
A horrifying proposition, and not even very accurate. I think scientific illiteracy is probably way more prevalent than the traditional variety, at least in the good ol' U.S. of A.

We should have an understanding of both. I shamefully lack any understanding of all STEM fields, but I wouldn't say I'm lacking in purpose because I have a wider understanding of language and poetry and all those wonderful categories.

The problem with those folks with a superiority complex because of their chemical engineering degree, is that they often become useful tools for large corporations without any concern for the human being crunching the numbers or whatever task you've been assigned. All my friends whose fathers are engineers, for instance, HATE their lives and make sure everyone else knows it, too.

Yes, scientific literacy is very important for the next generation. But poetic, or aesthetic, literacy is important for the development of an individual's personality and moral code.

[Anonymous No.3001909]

>>3001904
>The smartest astrophysicists are basically technicians, or mechanics.

Ah no. You've never met any astrophysicists, have you?

You can level all sorts of accusations at astrophysics, but being 'technical' and 'mechanical' isn't one of them.

(Astrophysics is basically philosophy, except without the circlejerk and navelgazing.)

[Anonymous No.3001915]

>>3001909
>smallest particle you can see defies your predicting it
>therefore the fundamental nature of the universe is stochastic
>astrophysicists
>smart

I'll take the navelgazing circlejerkers who understand basic logic over the guys who are really good at math problems and can't into Metaphysics 101.

[Anonymous No.3001917]

>>3001909
The meaning of the adjectives 'technical' and 'mechanical' is not equal to the meaning of the words 'technician' and 'mechanic'.

>/sci/

[Anonymous No.3001918]

Simple, since all that philosophy and literature became accesible to everyone it just lost value.

>2012
>still thinking that things have an intrinsic value

lol you are worst that plebs.

[Anonymous No.3001922]

>>3001915
>smallest particle you can see defies your predicting it

We have Schrödingerian equations to explain why we are uncertain electron waveforms, but this doesn't mean we wont be able to describe this peculiar function in mathematical terms in the future. Not so long ago we couldn't even describe gravity in mathematical terms.

[Anonymous No.3001928]

>>3001918
Uhhh, we got over this conundrum during the Enlightenment. Yes, things don't have intrinsic value in the great scheme of things, but, to humans, yes, certain...we'll call them entities...have more value for human cultivation. You and all those French deconstructionists are not the smartest guys in the room, and are profoundly useless.

[Anonymous No.3001929]

>>3001922
>missing the point
>can't into Metaphysics 101

[Anonymous No.3001940]

>>3001928
>implying im a deconstructionist
>implying those jerks are not the best absolutist due to their inability to defend lack in intrinsic value
>entities

sure.

[Anonymous No.3001942]

>>3001898
Well, Kraftwerk is pretty good.

[Anonymous No.3001947]

>>3001922
>>3001915
Oh God, shut up. You make as much sense as me talking about Heidegger.

[Anonymous No.3001951]

>>3001942
They're great! I wasn't mocking them.

[Anonymous No.3001956]

>>3001940
lack of*

also, all that shit in the op has value only cause europe fucked everyone else making it impossible for them to live but just to exist. therefore these simple minded people we call enlightened revolutionaries could have done anything, it would still be worshiped anyway, not cause its greatness, but cause it was the only thing in the western picture.

sure things can have intrinsic value for humans, but europeans nly give value to their shit comparing it to others and despising them. they dont give a shit anyway.

[Anonymous No.3001957]

>>3001908
What I mean is that the role of literacy/philosophy in 18th century is now the role of science.

And by role I mean
>exploring the wild, exciting unknown that is truth
>interacting and communicating complex ideas with other smart people
>providing them a way to make a meaningful impact on the world, real progress
>money and social status

The point of my post was to help explain the downfall of literature/philosophy.
Most of smart people nowadays dedicate their life to science/engineering, not humanities.
I'm a proponent of going for both, but eh.

[Anonymous No.3001972]

>>3001957
I figured we're on the same page, most thoughtful people who aren't lazy nihilist would agree that both are necessary. And you're right, a science-focused education is way more valuable for worldly progress and stable income, but humans have an imaginative need that abstract numerical series doesn't necessarily fulfill. I mean, that interacting and communicating with other smart people must be a pretty small and insular conversation.

Take Pynchon, for instance, he's one of the most scientifically literate fiction writers alive, who also happens to have written some of the most significant works of literature in the past 50 years. The mythology and metaphysics of Gravity's Rainbow, I think, would greatly benefit a scientific mind in the same way The Brothers Karamazov or Spinoza did Einstein.

I'm very ashamed that I just couldn't think very effectively in scientific fields, but I don't discount a robust understanding of the best humanities has to offer.

[Anonymous No.3001995]

>>3001957
>>3001972
>the role of literacy/philosophy in 18th century is now the role of science

>believing in linear progress
>believing comfortable life is the good life
>believing scientists are anything but information-processing drones

>>3001972
>believing all of the above
>accusing me of (hear, hear!) being a "lazy nihilist"

These are the exemplary products of modern education. They have no idea of human greatness - they don´t even believe in human greatness - and so they come to the preposterous idea of being the pinnacle of mankind. Their claim is based on nothing more than having better gadgets than the previous ages. Of course, _they_ have not contributed a single thing to the creation of the said gadgets.

One should not be too harsh with them, though. They don´t know anything; they just repeat the flattery they are told.

[Anonymous No.3002003]

>>3001995
If you could explain whatever it is you're trying to say in a non-hysterical and coherent manner, I'd be happy to address it. Till then...

[Anonymous No.3002015]

>>3002003
the rationalist's telos is as arbitrary as any hebrew's

[Anonymous No.3002072]

>>3001900
>Science is the new literacy.

No. Mathematics is the new literacy. (Though you can't do science without being literate in math, that's true.)

[Anonymous No.3002124]

>>3001810
On the other hand, with limited information, and a keen sense for being disturbed by your penchant for correcting the manners and morals of your fellow posters, I would probably have you pinned for the worst and most insufferable kind of faggot. I prefer the elegiac whining to the 'STOP! YOU AREN'T BEING GRATEFUL! DON'T BE SUCH AN ENTITLED BRAT! THINK ABOUT THE POOR AFRICANS! OH, WHAT OF POOR AFRICA? THINK POSITIVE.'

[Anonymous No.3002150]

>>3001995
>>3002015
Well said.