/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3228359]

I don't want to make a science vs literature debate.

But what are the merits and values that literature offers beyond entertainment and relaxation?

[Anonymous No.3228362]

Education and enlightenment

[Anonymous No.3228363]

learnin stuff
though primarily it's all just to entertain

[Anonymous No.3228372]

fiction can teach you shit but not as much as people claim, it's just art, art obviously have value but it's not like it's some didactic or pedagogical experience.

i read a shitload of fictional literature shit last couple months and felt all self-important about it lik "woo look at me reading all these famous name brand authors aren't i cool!" then i read a non-fiction book and got more useful important knowledge about how the world works in like 300 pages than the whole pile of literary shit.

[Anonymous No.3228390]

A lot of it is the deconstruction of writing; what makes ecriture good/ bad. Much of it is historicist research. Most of it is stylistic criticism.

The average English BA, for the most part, is essentially an exercise in research. Those who finish it with good marks display that they are highly literate and are capable of research and archiving in almost any topic. Many lit grads go onto do research in computing and often the sciences, assuming they have minimal scientific experience. Those who wish to go into the more literary side tend to edit literary editions or go into publishing.

In summary, it's not the study of literature itself that a lot of people find attractive, but the subsidiary, practical, lexical skills it offers in the long run. You'd be surprised how illiterate a lot of scientists are.

[Anonymous No.3228392]

>>3228372
>i read a shitload of fictional literature shit last couple months and felt all self-important about it lik "woo look at me reading all these famous name brand authors aren't i cool!" then i read a non-fiction book and got more useful important knowledge about how the world works in like 300 pages than the whole pile of literary shit.


I can relate to this. Fiction eventually has great diminishing returns in terms of improving your mind. It's great for teens and young-adults, but after a while it really just is entertainment

[Anonymous No.3228397]

Beauty. Most people from /sci/ don't get it. It has absolutely nothing to do with entertainment or relaxation, and nothing to do with science as well, for science is about truth.

[Anonymous No.3228406]

I really don't like the false dichotomy between art and the sciences. I don't think scientists realise how terrible the world would be without the inception of art.

[Anonymous No.3228412]

It opens up the mind and makes you think about things. It opens you up to new ideas.

[Anonymous No.3228416]

>>3228397
>Beauty.
> Most people from /sci/ don't get it

Serious scientists find "beauty" in the workings of nature and understanding it.

Mathematicians find beauty in proofs and number stuff.

The caveat is, their studies also educate them beyond the obvious and banal.

[Anonymous No.3228433]

>>3228397
>for science is about truth.

Modern science is not concerned with "truth."

[Anonymous No.3228444]

>>3228416
Please do not equate "scientists" with the 4chan "/sci/".

[Anonymous No.3228486]

>>3228416
I know what you mean, because I study physics (some mathematics is inevitable) myself. I also know what my fellow physicist and mathemtaticians mean when they say they see beauty in the workings of nature. They confuse truth and beauty, obviously. They have a very materialistic outlook on life. When looking at things phenomenologically, books are the things that teach us the most on things. The workings of atoms are meaningless to my Erlebnis (sorry there is no English word for it, experience might do).

>>3228433
Surley you mean post-modern science. Modern science was all (literally 100%) about truth. Even today, most natural sciences are concerned with truth. Studies like law and psychology don't care too much anymore, being more focused on providing students with some job-training.

[Anonymous No.3228502]

>>3228390
he didn't ask you the value of a literature degree you fucker he axed whats the value of literature itself, way to avoid the question bitch

[Anonymous No.3228512]

it reveals the human experience in a way that is directly relateable therefore giving it a place beside the human sciences which can only reveal the human experience through facts

[demiurge No.3228525]

think about it like reverse science, instead of you studying x, x tells you about itself. x is human experience.

[Anonymous No.3228529]

>>3228512
but does it really reveal the human experience? wasn't that the main criticism of naturalism, that it tried to represent "real life" except if you wrote a book about "real life" it would be boring and no one would read it so there's some hero who has some conflict and some villain is stopping him from resolving the conflict and then he does stuff to resolve it and then the book ends...too bad that has nothing to do with real life actually.

[demiurge No.3228544]

>>3228529
>he thinks the plot is relevant

[Anonymous No.3229074]

>>3228529

The biggest critique of naturalism imo was that it was sympathy porn for the middle class.

My theory of (serious) fiction is that it always centralized on a dramatization of events which happen in real life. Events can ad should be exaggerated, but the reality of the conflict must be tangible in some way or they book as a whole is absolutely worthless.

[Anonymous No.3229161]

PROGRESS and CONTRIBUTION TO HUMAN UNDERSTANDING, CULTURE, AND SOCIETY

[Anonymous No.3229171]

>>3229161

be specific, how?

[Anonymous No.3229172]

>>3228416
no they don't. they claim it is beautiful to undermine the legitimacy of the arts, while at the same time basing their identity around the sciences because they are autistic and want to be considered an outstanding genius

[Anonymous No.3229173]

Literature leads to religion which has damaged mankind more than anything.

[Anonymous No.3229192]

>>3229171
it's purposely vague because those are often reasons for why there is value in science

[Anonymous No.3229197]

>>3229173
i think industrialisation has damaged mankind more than anything. religion builds civilisation

[Anonymous No.3229202]

>>3229172
>they claim it is beautiful to undermine the legitimacy of the arts

hue hue

[Anonymous No.3229230]

It offers the coin collecting badge and a 50% off value meal.

[Anonymous No.3229253]

Literature is meant to communicate with the reader, the form may very but literature is humanity in it's purest essence.
“Chaos can be one means of arriving at a definable possibility, but if we look back at the works of Blake's youth chaos must be understood as something impossible, as a poetic violence and not as a calculated order. The chaos of the mind cannot constitute a reply to the providence of the universe. All it can be is an awakening in the night, where all that can be heard is anguished poetry let loose.”
― Georges Bataille, Literature and Evil

[Anonymous No.3229260]

>>3229253

You're a troglodyte. Language is at its least interesting when it's used for communication.

[Anonymous No.3229262]

>>3229173

>Literature leads to religion
>mfw

[Anonymous No.3229270]

>>3229173
>Literature leads to religion which has damaged mankind more than anything.
Every soulless, technocratic /sci/ automaton ever.

[Anonymous No.3229305]

>>3229260
Gtfo Please.

[Anonymous No.3229356]

>>3228397
Science and Mathematics are about FACTS

Literature and Spirituality are about TRUTH

Get your facts straight and your truth in order. HOMO

[Anonymous No.3229361]

Catharsis