/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.5581187]

>be history student
>constantly astounded at the insight, depth, and originality of scholarly articles
>tfw I come to the realization I won't ever possess the same ability for critical analysis
>tfw I come to the realization I won't ever produce an original idea or thesis
>tfw I can only hope to remain familiar with current scholarly work without actually partaking in it
>tfw

Basically, I know I'll only ever have a bachelor's degree, and unless I have a doctorate or at least a masters, I feel I won't be able to be speak about my specific area of history with true authority. At best I will only ever be able to repeat the ideas of other, genuine scholars.

On top of this, I have lately become increasingly convinced that if someone doesn't hold a doctorate in any field, they aren't smart enough to talk about a related issue. Which means most people should never speak about most things that take place around them because they have only a basic and shallow grasp of them. How can you seriously ask for someone's opinion on international relations if all they know of the subject is what they see on the news? It's a discouraging and slightly depressing attitude that I can't shake.

[Anonymous No.5581194]

>>5581187

Very few scholars are genuine authorities, even the ones with doctorates are dilettantes who were resourceful enough to know how to play the game.

You aren't going to genius your way into pussy and societal respect, stop entertaining bullshit pipe dreams and work with what you have. You're probably brighter than most guys your age to begin with so be happy with that you conceited ass.

[Anonymous No.5581206]

>>5581194
Sucking someone's ego off does take skill.

[Anonymous No.5581625]

Are you usually expected to be at that level on finishing undergrad study, or is it something that develops with further experience?

[Anonymous No.5581629]

>>5581625
>Are you usually expected to be at that level on finishing undergrad study
Fuck no, and that goes for every field. Undergrad just means you're ready to become a worker drone in some capacity.

[Anonymous No.5581681]

This scares me too, anon-sama.

The best thing you can do is to start doing research in your field of study.

That's what I'm doing to prepare myself for grad school.

[Anonymous No.5581723]

>>5581681
>your field of study
But what if my field is liberal arts and/or fine art?

[Anonymous No.5581746]

>>5581723
Technically, my field of study-- economics master race-- is a liberal arts.

Make do, start doing research, and stop loathing in self pity, faggot.

[Anonymous No.5583207]

>>5581187
Have you considered being a coauthor on a local history study?

[Anonymous No.5583255]

Here's how I figured out to do it
>Write perfectly coherent, accessible essay
>Go through it again and cloak my arguments and findings in insular, esoteric, jargon
>Go through it again and cloak the insular jargon in insular jargon
>Roll around in piles of grant money which I have fraudulently obtained

[Anonymous No.5583261]

>>5583255
you're alright
i like you

[Anonymous No.5583273]

>>5583255
Doesn't meet the original contribution to knowledge criteria. Essays aren't dependent on original archival work either.

DOIs or it didn't happen.

[Anonymous No.5583285]

You simply need more practice. What seems like extraordinary insight at first read will sound like common sense after 5-6 years of work and having written some articles yourself.

Of course, the likelihood that you ever achieve the level of understanding and mastery of nationally or internationally recognized scholar is very low. But you can leave it at being a genuine professional.

>On top of this, I have lately become increasingly convinced that if someone doesn't hold a doctorate in any field, they aren't smart enough to talk about a related issue.

You're pushing it way too far. And intelligent and hardworking undergrad can talk with competence about real analysis after a couple of years. Of course his discourse won't nearly be on professor-level in quality and depth, but he will still have some interesting things to say. There's no end-of-the-matter insight, no person who has a definitive say on what is and will stay true (lord Kelvin was a genuinely important physicist, yet he said, among others things, that planes would never be able to carry people accross oceans).


The best you can keep at is relative expertise and, most importantly, curiosity and intellectual hygiene.

[Anonymous No.5584031]

>>5581194
>paralysing lack of confidence
>conceited

[Anonymous No.5584072]

>tfw sitting in mixed undergrad+graduate student history seminars full of people who cannot for the life of them say a single interesting thing in two hours
>facile comment after facile comment
>80% of the room is chicks and everything they say is ~feelings~
>those guys who pontificate for 9 minutes about something completely shallow because it was the one thing they could scry from the reading and they just want it to be a big deal so bad
>graduate students not only showing lack of familiarity with basic facts about the period/subject but revealing they didn't even skim the readings with every other word
>professor never calls them out
>that fucking dynamic where a student rambles about something totally non sequitur and amateurish that is trivially not a real thing, and the professor goes "right, right, exactly, also how about [actual thing he wants everyone to be getting]", and the student goes "yeah exactly exactly" as if they meant that all along
>look at the clock and there are still 2.5 hours to go
>can't play video games on laptop or professor will think you're an asshole

[Anonymous No.5584109]

Pro-tip: every single one of those articles is plagiarized from some obscure book which plagiarizes from some obscurer book which plagiarizes from a piece of paper the author found behind the walls of his house after the london bombings in WW2

[Anonymous No.5584111]

>>5584072
Or you could contribute insightful theoretically and historiographically meaningful contributions directly related to the readings?

No, you're going to be "that cunt" instead, the one who writes high C and low D papers Seppos cannot into the grading and has a hard on for nazis / war.

[Anonymous No.5584123]

>>5581187
In my experience getting a doctorate has a lot more to do with how that particular college deals with it than with your quality. No one has ever gotten a doctorate through my college in my particular area just because the people in charge don't really want to, there's a professor enrolled in the program that gets asked to give classes in many countries and any project she starts ends up being finished on the side since they never "feel" it's full enough for the title. Meanwhile another branch of the same university shits PhDs as if it getting one were just another obligatory part of the career.

[Anonymous No.5584135]

>>5584111
>all this projection

dilettante detected

[Anonymous No.5584136]

>>5581723
You can have a PhD in fine arts in most places in the world. It's absurdly hard and you'll probably have papers published around the world years before getting it, if you are so inclined.
Of course, it tends to go more with critic, philosophy or history more than with practical things, but it's part of the same thing in college terms.

[Anonymous No.5584144]

>>5584031
Scared to take the challenge, then.
Now go and write those damn papers, boy!

[Anonymous No.5584155]

>>5581187

I feel the same way. I gave up on an Honors Thesis and did some post-grad coursework instead because I knew I wasn't going to be able to contribute anything original to the field. I just want to learn.

[Anonymous No.5584178]

>This pervasive low confidence level all over 4chan

Why doesn't anyone advertise testosterone supplements on 4chan?

[Anonymous No.5584180]

>>5584072
I've been there, it sucks and here are some considerations.
>feelings
You shouldn't out right reject an emotional reading if you're dealing with "soft science" or whatever they call it, consider that student a test to what someone without education would think and try to take that in consideration as another point of view for your own superior and more complex reading.
>people not reading the text
People get mad in /lit/ about people talking without reading the material, but there's people like that everywhere all the time. It's healthy to learn how to detect them and ignore them.
>student rambling and professor just saying yes to go back to his point.
Professors are human beings like you and me, they are trying to do the best with what they have in front of them. I had a class in which the guy who did sort of helped to finish the discussion, he went so far out of the topic that no one could say anything after that so we kept quiet.

The important thing is what you do there, even more if the professor is okay and the students are the problem. Try to raise the quality of the class by speaking out and shaming those who think their previous knowledge is more important than what they were supposed to read for that class.
Don't let the context bum you down, there's no need. If you waste your time with vidja or reading something else you'll actually end up behind those who just sat there and listen to what the prof was saying without really analyzing the information.

[Anonymous No.5584200]

>>5584180
>a test
Stop phone posting.

[Anonymous No.5584210]

>>5584178
Because chemicals don't fix environmental issues.

[Anonymous No.5584215]

>>5584200
I don't see the issue, but english isn't my first language. I meant to say that you can use them to check how someone with a different background or way of seeing things would react to the material.

[Anonymous No.5584218]

>>5584210
The party can. But you don't see people becoming communists.

[Anonymous No.5584228]

>>5584215
>consider that student a test to what someone

You mean either
consider that student as evidence of what someone

OR

consider that that student attests to what someone

Also, history is formalistic. Historiography doesn't depend on personal perspective, but rather historiographical analytical positions.

Considering what some cunt says about it is more meaningless than reader reception theory.

[Anonymous No.5584270]

>>5584228
I like your first variant, if I ever re write that sentence in another context I'll try to go with that.

I was thinking in terms of democratic knowledge or something like that, just that you'll have to interact with far stupider people at some point (even if you don't ever take a teaching position maybe some friends or family member) and you need to be prepared to hear stuff way worse than that.

[Anonymous No.5584300]

>>5584270
Democratic knowledge is best learnt in a trade union, workers coop, or workers' party; where you actually have to decide in common and enact in common.

[Anonymous No.5584330]

>>5584300
>Wasn't thinking
sorry, I should stop posting

[Anonymous No.5584358]

>>5584330
>sorry, I should stop posting
Your posts are genuine contributions that display the requisite thought required. They're a 70-80% for participation.

[Anonymous No.5584364]

>>5584300
You're grammar is shit and you dare to criticize the people in your seminar?

What a huge, worthless, soon-to-be NEET faggot you are.

[Anonymous No.5584378]

>>5581187
You are afraid. That is good. Fear is motivating. Now use that fear and write with it. The more terrified your writing, the more powerful. Share your fear.

[Anonymous No.5584384]

>>5584378

[Anonymous No.5584389]

>>5584364
>You're

[Anonymous No.5584395]

>>5584364
I was defending the value of a mixed class
;__;

[Anonymous No.5584401]

>>5581187
Get a Ph.D. then. Even if you do that and you feel like you personally can't produce great insights, you know, that's not the prerequisite to living a good life. You love history and you love learning about its exciting contemporary topics, so TEACH and raise the foundations of the next great historical insight.

[Anonymous No.5584406]

>>5584395
To be honest, I'd rather teach 6 seminars of shit, just to get one seminar streamed with pre-honours majors only.

[Anonymous No.5584408]

>>5581187

OP, this is the same exact boat I'm in. I'm currently in a research and writing class, and we have to write a 25 page paper on a topic of our choice that adds something to the historical understanding of that topic.

Shit sucks. I don't know how pro historians do it.

[Anonymous No.5584425]

>>5584406
When 90% of a class is really interested it's such a nice experience, at least from the student position. I'm sure that the rare occasions that has happened have stopped dozens of suicides.

[Anonymous No.5584431]

>>5584408
>I don't know how pro historians do it.
AJP Taylor was a furry. Chris Hill got arse fingered by reserve WRENS. Silvia Federici has a known addiction to 100 year eggs. Zinn conducted dérives while stone cold sober.

[Anonymous No.5584434]

>>5584072

Here's the thing I hate.

>east asian class
>kid raises his hand after we learn anything and compares it to something else
>for example, let's say we learn about something related to ancient china
>"OH, SO THEY'RE KIND OF LIKE THE NAZIS IN THAT THEY BLAH BLAH BLAH"

No, they're not like the fucking nazis. Stop making comparisons! You can't compare two different things that happened at two completely different times in completely different locations!!!

[Anonymous No.5584448]

>>5584434
>You can't compare two different things that happened at two completely different times in completely different locations!
>!!!

Tell me your theory of complete and incomplete difference. How does it relate to differance? Is the construction of complete difference a stable one from a hermeneutic perspective: are the rules of conducting the reading sufficiently generalisable to allow everyone to agree on what complete difference is?

I should go buy groceries instead of teasing undergraduates.

[Anonymous No.5584464]

>>5581194
>You aren't going to genius your way into pussy and societal respect, stop entertaining bullshit pipe dreams and work with what you have.
>...you conceited ass.
Did you even read what you replied to?

[Anonymous No.5586331]

>>5581187
What you just wrote is the 1st step to becoming a true genuine scholar. Get your bacc. degree, shitpost, get your masters degree, shitpost more, based on the shitposting you have done get your doctorate, write something of value, profit.

[Anonymous No.5586336]

>>5586331
>tfw been studying shitposting for 7 years and still not a doctor

[Anonymous No.5586355]

>>5583273
>original contribution to knowledge
>2014
>Thinking any idea hasn't been had and articulated before

[Anonymous No.5586362]

>>5586336
Well you have to shitpost in a academical form and ofcourse present your shitposting as valuable.>>5586336

Well you have to shitpost in an academical form and of course present your shitposting as valuable.

[Anonymous No.5586365]

>>5586362
i.e. don't shitpost like this

[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Bagel !GSvnHfPd/2 No.5586378]

>>5584434
>Be taking Chinese philosophy class
>Learn about Confucianism
>Dumb cunts just say "Yeah, I kinda feel like this is just a way for the government to justify oppressing people"
>MFW

[Anonymous No.5587002]

>>5584072
I thought scry meant like gaze into a cyrstal ball, no?

[Anonymous No.5587087]

>>5587002
I would understand it in that context as something akin to 'glean', to dredge at length and with no small effort a modicum of knowledge. The oed has a few results, I guess the closest one would be the second verb form
>trans. To descry, see, perceive.

[Anonymous No.5587302]

>>5586355
>Thinking everything has been articulated already
I fucking hate you postmodernists that only know how to reuse the past. And then to feel better about your impotency of any thought you claim that history has ended. Bravo.

[Anonymous No.5587386]

>>5586378
What the fuck, the totalitarian Chinese philosophy is called 'legalism'. 'Confucianism' is the opposite, the liberal, feel-good Chinese political philosophy. Qin Shihuang buried hundreds of Confucian scholars alive.

[Anonymous No.5588248]

>>5586355
>>original contribution to knowledge

yes, they're very common

>>2014

All the time

>>Thinking any idea hasn't been had and articulated before

Which is not the criteria for an original contribution to knowledge. Thanks for playing. BA (Hons) take 4 years, a BA/MA(R) takes 5.

[Anonymous No.5588259]

>>5587386
wu wei

[Anonymous No.5588276]

>>5587386
it's probably a mistake to take Chinese political theories that developed over centuries (particularly in the case of Confucianism) and had a wide variety of theoretical variants and practical implementations, and to try to shove them neatly into specific Western categories that developed in the 19th and 20th centuries

I'm not trying to do some ancient wisdom of the Orient, 5000 years of civilization stuff here, but totalitarian and liberal as simple labels are not particularly good ways to understand many political theories

[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Bagel !GSvnHfPd/2 No.5588416]

>>5587386
Liberal American college students think any society that isn't a bloated multicultural welfare state in trillions of dollars of unpayable debt is oppressive in an unacceptable way that they can't quite elaborate on because it might be offensive to the people in that oppressive society.

They also don't understand the importance of maintaining a functioning state or trying to better yourself and become a Confucian gentleman. It's a very unfortunate sign of our times.

[Anonymous No.5588484]

>>5588416
Please don't raise red herrings like liberalism in /lit/. Either get to the meat of the proletariat's self-liberatory capacities, defend the existing order, or posit a totalising idealist term that offers humanity a way out of the enlightenment.

Kicking the dead horse of liberalism merely shows you as a prig here.

[Anonymous No.5588497]

Well you won't with attitude. Seriously, self-defeatism is one the most pathetic and tragic diseases of the mind.

[Anonymous No.5588550]

>>5588484
Liberalism isn't a dead horse, it's alive and well.
The proletariat is dead.
I suggest every American vote his or her current representative out of office and then go to the nearest banking institution and do something.
American students today don't care enough to do anything, anyway. As long as they have tumblr and can voice their support for gay marriage and multiculturalism, they think they're doing their best. You can't convince them that class struggle still exists. They care only about the race struggle, the woman's struggle, and the LGBT struggle. The working class is dead; and Communism has killed it.

[Anonymous No.5588564]

>>5588550
>The proletariat is dead
Yet everywhere people work for wages for capital.

>I suggest
Liberal bullshit

>Students
Oh fuck me, 1848 was 174 years ago

[Anonymous No.5588573]

>>5588564
>Oh fuck me, 1848 was 174 years ago
>1848 was 174 years ago
>174 years ago

eh

[Anonymous No.5588589]

>>5588564
When the workers rise I may join them.
Do you feel like starting a revolution, Comrade Anon, Oh Bravest of Neckbeard Marxists? If so, go do it already. If not, fuck off with your immature shit. Everyone knows the material conditions in the West aren't right for a worker's revolution.

[Anonymous No.5588590]

>>5586378
>what is ideology

[Anonymous No.5588595]

>>5588573
166. Serves me right for using mind fingers instead of a calculator.

[Anonymous No.5588601]

>>5588590
Pure, that's what.

[Anonymous No.5588610]

>>5588589
>When the workers rise I may join them.

And when the dough has risen you may bake? It doesn't work like that.

>Do you feel like starting a revolution, Comrade Anon, Oh Bravest of Neckbeard Marxists? If so, go do it already.

Given that you believe a revolution to be a momentary cataclysm, and you place emphasis on the role of students as decisive in society, I'm not sure why anyone would listen to you as opposed to the meaningful contributions to life made by day time talk back AM radio.

>If not, fuck off with your immature shit. Everyone knows the material conditions in the West aren't right for a worker's revolution.

And what "material conditions" are these? Wage labour, democratic organisation, and recurrent crises of production are all present. Feel free to give an incorrect exegesis of Lenin's Imperialism here.

[Anonymous No.5588662]

Jesus Communist are such whiny losers. Glad I'm an anarchist and don't part in this pathetic cult of victimhood the West has degenerated in.

[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Bagel !GSvnHfPd/2 No.5588769]

>>5588610
Fuck off, m8, we aren't all vulgar Marxists like you. I'm an anarcho-syndicalist but not to the point of violence. Why? Well, why are you so willing to fight for the Communist Party? And what will your fight consist of, O Idiot? I don't feel like risking my neck at the moment for a movement that will obviously fail the moment it starts (I don't think a revolution is a 'momentary cataclysm,' I think you're a shill) and I haven't even read Lenin.
The American people aren't going to start a Communist revolution, that's what I mean by 'the material conditions aren't right.' Wage labor, democratic organization, and recurrent crises of production have been present in America since America declared independence. It hasn't happened yet and I don't see any reason to think it'll happen now. Please fuck off.

[Anonymous No.5588793]

>>5588769
>Fuck off, m8, we aren't all vulgar Marxists like you.

I'm arguing for a continuous and processional account of revolution, and you're calling me vulgar?

>I'm an anarcho-syndicalist but not to the point of violence.

Time for you to read Black Flame until you get it. Or actually Dubofsky's IWW. Self-defence organs have been part of workers' industrial organisation since the coal mines.

>Why? Well, why are you so willing to fight for the Communist Party?

When did I ever say that? When, for that matter, did I ever given an opinion on the Party other than Lenin's manifest incorrectness.

>It hasn't happened yet and I don't see any reason to think it'll happen now

Read Dubofsky, and read about the Seattle "soviet".

[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Bagel !GSvnHfPd/2 No.5588806]

>>5588793
>I'm arguing for a continuous and processional account of revolution, and you're calling me vulgar?
Yes, because you used the terms 'wage labour, democratic organisation, and recurrent crises of production' as if they were all that's necessary and sufficient for a revolution to occur.
>Time for you to read Black Flame until you get it
I don't feel like becoming a radical at the moment, sorry.
>When did I ever say that?
I don't know, did I ever imply that I actually cared about the revolution? You were the one that got me into this stupid argument anyway. What exactly do you expect me to do?

[Anonymous No.5588818]

>>5588806
I'm sorry that you're functionally illiterate, cretinistic and
>>>/lit/
>I don't feel like reading

You bought into this mate, cash yourself out.

[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Bagel !GSvnHfPd/2 No.5588825]

>>5588818
I don't feel like reading radical literature because I'm too busy reading the rest of the books I'm currently in the middle of, not to mention all the shit I'm reading for school.
>He thinks not wanting to read anarchist literature is a sign of functional illiteracy
>MFW
Enjoy your revolution.

[Anonymous No.5588844]

>>5588825
I do.

Next time you want to make assertions regarding the history of the US labour movement, please have a solid fucking base in the literature.

[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Bagel !GSvnHfPd/2 No.5588850]

>>5588844
I didn't come here for a debate about the history of the US labor movement, I came here to make a comment about how my idiot liberal bourgeois classmates thought Confucianism was justification for oppression. I wouldn't have made assertions if you hadn't called liberalism a 'dead horse,' which it blatantly isn't.

[Anonymous No.5588859]

>>5588850
Tell me how liberalism will fulfil its enlightenment promises, go on, do it. It is a dead horse, and beating on it around here is like suggesting that the Frankfurt school made ungrounded assertions about culture without reference to the material relations then existing—trite and unnecessary.

[Anonymous No.5588865]

>former history student
>reading proust
>tfw proust references the schleiffen plan and liepzig in Guermantes Way

[Anonymous No.5588874]

>>5588859
>Tell me how liberalism will fulfil its enlightenment promises,
I think we define 'dead horse' differently.
To me a dead horse is something that isn't a problem.
Liberalism is exactly the problem I was complaining about.

[Anonymous No.5588878]

>>5588874
keep shooting those barrel fish as if it is impressive.

[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Bagel !GSvnHfPd/2 No.5588880]

>>5588878
What the fuck are you even talking about?

[Anonymous No.5588895]

>>5588880
Braindead mongoloid retards with no formal education literally cannot comprehend anything other than the shitty ayn rand they've read and shitty modern films they've watched. They find themselves completely unable to understand anything liberal because they cannot for the life of them imagine anything in an optimistic light.

They are also fucking morons who believe in the false political dichotomy.

[Anonymous No.5588909]

>>5588895
precisely not the point. The enlightenment project failed decisively in 1914, and ceased in 1945. Liberalism is nothing but a hollow and self-deceptive form of conservative instrumentalism. The real possibility of argument lying between idealist assertions of totalising cultures, and the possibility of a new class's organisation of society.

Beating liberalism is a waste of time, as it so obviously beats itself.

[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Bagel !GSvnHfPd/2 No.5588913]

>>5588895
I burned a copy of The Fountainhead when I was 16, so you clearly aren't talking about me.
I use the word 'liberal' outside of the American Liberal-Conservative/Democrat-Republican context, meaning economic and social liberalism, as opposed to ideologies like fascism, anarchism, communism, etc.
If you didn't catch onto that in the beginning, please, don't bother to respond to this post.

[Anonymous No.5588962]

>MFW someone was a Communist near me

[Anonymous No.5588971]

>>5588484
>a way out of the enlightenment
What exactly do you mean by this, by the way? Are you some kind of neoreactionary? If so I'd like to see you defend your incoherent ideology.

[Anonymous No.5588991]

>>5588971
>What exactly do you mean by this, by the way?
An end to the value form, and the bizarre subjectivity and governmentalities dependent thereon.

>Are you some kind of neoreactionary?
There is nothing reactionary in abolishing "the individual" as we know it, so as to allow the vast majority of working people express themselves.

[Anonymous No.5588998]

>>5588991
Are you a neoreactionary?

[Anonymous No.5589007]

>>5588998
>Are you a neoreactionary?
No. Do you believe that the liberal individual is the end of history, and that we must all bow down and worship it before discourse can proceed?

[Anonymous No.5589016]

>>5589007
No, I'm not a moron.

[Anonymous No.5589043]

>>5589016
So why would you think an impulse to end the enlightenment and the liberal subject is reactionary?

[Anonymous No.5589054]

>>5589043
There's a group of idiots who found their way into the chanosphere in the past few months who call themselves neoreactionaries. They consider themselves to be part of the 'dark enlightenment.' Your hostility to the project of enlightenment made me wonder if you were one of them.

[Anonymous No.5589063]

>>5589054
Fair enough gov. Generally its easier to assume that we're all some flavour of libertarian communist on /lit/.

[Anonymous No.5589295]

>>5587302
I know your pain

[Anonymous No.5589308]

>>5587302
>Implying history hasn't ended
Liberal democracy is the only acceptable form of government. Deal with it.

[Anonymous No.5589311]

>>5589308
>acceptable
normative import without demonstration (question begging).

[Anonymous No.5589328]

>>5589311
After the fall of the Berlin Wall it became obvious that liberal democracy had won out in the Hegelian conflict of ideologies embodied by the First and Second World Wars and the Cold War. Even Russia, the heart of Communism, is now, on paper, a liberal democracy, and even Communist China is essentially state capitalism. The same is true of every non-pariah state. It's obvious that only liberal democracy is acceptable in the 21st century, since it is structurally impossible for any other ideology to become universal like liberalism has.

[Anonymous No.5589331]

>>5589328
Fukuyama pls

[Anonymous No.5589334]

>>5589328
The first world war didn't embody a conflict of ideologies. If you're aware of the category of "state capitalism" you can't make the argument that the second or cold wars were ideological conflicts either.

Liberalism's ideology is only universal when states stand in for the societies they dominate, an argument that is an obvious failure.

Go eat the rotten cunt out of a man whore.

[Anonymous No.5589382]

>>5589334
The first World War was the beginning of the centennial conflict. The Russian Revolution gave birth to the Soviet Union (Communism) and the Weimar Republic gave way to the Third Reich (Fascism).
>Liberalism's ideology is only universal when states stand in for the societies they dominate, an argument that is an obvious failure.
Why is it an obvious failure?

[Anonymous No.5589397]

>>5589382
Too bad the USSR was just as much a state capitalist entity as China is now, you Mongoloid.

[Anonymous No.5589405]

>>5589382
>The first World War was the beginning of the centennial conflict. The Russian Revolution gave birth to the Soviet Union (Communism) and the Weimar Republic gave way to the Third Reich (Fascism).
Looks like the Greeks embodied the conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Great reasoning.

>Why is it an obvious failure?
You claim the qualities of A apply to B, no argument connecting A or B. Great reasoning.

[Anonymous No.5589409]

>>5589405
>Looks like the Greeks embodied the conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Great reasoning.
It was aristocracy and democracy, but the principle is the same.

[Anonymous No.5589414]

>>5589409
>It was aristocracy and democracy, but the principle is the same.
That's an amazing argument, in a history thread, conflating ideas 2500 years apart. Congratulations, you're a fucking idiot.

[Anonymous No.5589418]

>>5589414
>Talks about class conflict as if it were something that didn't exist before the emergence of industrial capitalism
>Calls another person an idiot

[Anonymous No.5589445]

>>5589418
Have never done that, chap. Keep on pumping out strawmen and the absence of arguments.

[Anonymous No.5589967]

>>5588601

Yeah, pure horseshit.People are what matters, not abstract belief systems.

[Anonymous No.5590071]

>>5588416
>being this fedora
Filtered

[Anonymous No.5590077]

>>5588895
>they cannot for the life of them imagine anything in an optimistic light.
The only people with insight to the future are pessimists and cynics, optimists are deluded.
Enjoy your disappointment .

[Anonymous No.5590090]

>>5588497
It really is, please just fucking kill me, I have happiness slapping me in the face yet I refuse to accept it due to my cynicism.

[Omnisexual Tyrannosaurus !!33slhp0V42i No.5590119]

>>5586378
Confucius validates authority and tradition in order for to authority to endorse his ideas, but at the same time he advocates authority being far more competent and just than it was in his time.

[Anonymous No.5591170]

>>5590119
What's your point, idiot?

[Anonymous No.5591172]

>>5589445
But you said the aristocracy-democracy dialectic in Greece wasn't an example of class struggle.

[Anonymous No.5591215]

>>5590071
>2014
>Using that meme

[Anonymous No.5591290]

>>5591215
>not liking this meme

[Anonymous No.5591292]

>have to do presentation about agonism
>some idiot asks me what about peoples feelings
>mfw

[Anonymous No.5592714]

>>5591172
>But you said the aristocracy-democracy dialectic in Greece wasn't an example of class struggle.
No, friend, you read that into what I actually said: that claiming that Greek class struggle is in anyway identical with modern class struggle, or that the ideas produced by these struggles are in any way comparable is a ludicrous claim.

Your conflation of the Greek demos with liberal democracy is absurd.

[Anonymous No.5592894]

>>5592714
That wasn't the comparison I was making. Congratulations on entirely missing the point.
Class struggle is not just between the proletariat and the capitalist class. It is now, but it wasn't always. Those classes are historical developments, and the Greek form of class struggle was entirely different from the modern form. All the same, it was class conflict.
I wasn't comparing Greek democracy to liberal democracy, you brought that into this yourself.

[Anonymous No.5592913]

>>5592894
>I wasn't comparing Greek democracy to liberal democracy
>>5589409
>It was aristocracy and democracy, but the principle is the same.

By your own mouth condemned.

[Anonymous No.5592945]

>>5592913
It was the aristocracy, i.e., the aristocratic class, versus the demos, the rest of the citizenry. Again, you're misreading something I said. I never claimed that Greek democracy was identical to modern democracy. I compared an international ideological struggle to an intranational class struggle, which I guess is a bad comparison.
Maybe a better example would have been the struggle for hegemony in the Peloponnesian war.

[Anonymous No.5592968]

>>5592945
>>The first World War was the beginning of the centennial conflict. The Russian Revolution gave birth to the Soviet Union (Communism) and the Weimar Republic gave way to the Third Reich (Fascism).
>Looks like the Greeks embodied the conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Great reasoning.

This is a generative fallacy, and you took my criticism and ran with it.

None of these conflicts were ideological when they commenced, no, not even the "different manners of running a greek society." Claiming that that which was birthed from them is that which produced the conflict is absurd.

It is as absurd as claiming that state agents are the embodiment of conflicts over governance and ideology.

[Anonymous No.5593283]

>>5584072
>>5584111
Holy fuck, you guys described my life, minus the vidya autism.

[Anonymous No.5593328]

>>5581187

OP, are you implying that people who hold a doctorate are somehow inherently more intelligent than those with a BA? Simply not true.

Some of the most ignorant, bigoted, selfish people I've met were professors with tenure. They became so entrenched in their own castles of intellectual diarrhea that anyone who suggested a contrasting idea would be cut down and cast out.

I have my BA, did a double major in history and criminology. I never had any interest in using my history degree for a profession, it was merely because I like history and I can write well. I figured if I'm spending four years at university I may as well earn a double major instead of a major/minor. Currently I'm studying law enforcement at college, as I'd like to work in policing.
But when I speak to people about historical subjects, most of them have no idea what I'm referring to. The people that do understand are those with a personal interest in history, and have studied similar topics. If they were to bring up economic theories or philosophers, I'd be lost. I have no interest in those subjects and haven't spent time reading about them.

Basically, your ability to intelligently discuss something isn't necessarily related to your degree. My grandfather never went to university and he could shame most historians with his level of information and insight, because he personally loved history. I'm willing to bet that most people who hold a PhD aren't as intelligent as you think they are. They may have pursued their doctorate because they were an ill-prepared man-child, fearful of entering the real world and competing for jobs with other people. So they nestled into a comfortable academic enclave, which they've never left, and regurgitated the thoughts and writings of others. Perhaps, on a handful of occasions, they were compelled to present truly original ideas to defend their MA or PhD, but once tenure is secured there's very little holding them to any kind of standard. Even the top research universities give unimaginable leeway to profs with tenure.
The academic community, especially with regard to history, is bitchy and clique-y. No doubt. But if you truly love history and wish to discuss it with others, there's no reason you can't find people who aren't fucking doctors to partake in your activities.

[Anonymous No.5593334]

>>5584072

Hahahahaha holy fuckin shit are you me?

10/10 post

[Anonymous No.5593373]

>>5584072

>second year of uni
>compulsory Medieval History course fulfills multiple degree requirements, so everyone takes it
>jammed tutorial components with 20 students per session
>should never be more than 8-10
>TA is some simpleton pencil-neck fuck from Manitoba
>completing his PhD in some bullshit related to the history of wheat in Canada
>openly, verbally tells us at the first meeting:
>"I'm not that interested in this course, it's not my field of study, and I have a lot of work on my hands this semester, just so you're all aware..."
>mfw I'm paying $6400/year for this lousy cunt to take attendance and twiddle his anemic thumbs

[Anonymous No.5593381]

>>5593373
you're paying 6400 for a course?

[Anonymous No.5593405]

>>5593381

That was my tuition for 2nd year of university. 5 courses per year. That was several years ago, and I've graduated since then.

God only knows what they're charging now.

[Anonymous No.5593439]

>>5593328

>OP, are you implying that people who hold a doctorate are somehow inherently more intelligent than those with a BA? Simply not true.

I guess you didn't take a basic critical thinking class. Nobody would make that claim but clearly if you have a PhD the chances are extremely fucking likely you are more intelligent than 95% of the mouth breathers that just have a BA.

I find it kind of insane that you think you and your Grandad come toe to toe with a professor of history who has been doing nothing but studying history for for 20 years or more.

I suspect you never really spoke to your professors or you went to a piece of shit school.

[Anonymous No.5593522]

>>5593439
>history who has been doing nothing but studying history for for 20 years or more.

Because isolation and specificity are the best ways to become a well-rounded individual, right?

I never said all of my professors were haughty, narrowminded douchebags. I didn't even imply that the majority were. I simply stated that some of the most close-minded, ignorant people I've ever met were those which broader society assumes to be the complete opposite.
My German history prof was amazing, she was both a great researcher and an amazing educator. My American history prof was a bitter old fuck who made a habit of shitting on anyone who didn't repeat exactly what he preached.

I assume you also know that a number of high ranking Nazi officials held PhDs, some even in literature (i.e. Goebbels)?

Attaining a particular title or reaching a designated academic benchmark, set by a community of like-minded individuals, is in no way an indicator of intelligence. There is a system you follow, and a formulaic rhythm that must be adhered to. So long as you do this, you'll be rewarded with title and privilege.

And then there are pieces of shit like Rushton who, while being mocked by many, still retain their status as an academic despite flouting everything academic integrity is meant to embody.

http://www.thestar.com/news/obituaries/2012/10/05/j_philippe_rushton_author_of_controversial_essay_on_race_and_brain_size_dies_at_68.html

I still remember when my profs told me about this piece of shit.

>sociology prof: "He has an office on the 7th floor, if anyone is inclined to visit the piece of garbage..."

And for the record, I went to one of the top research universities in the country, not a piece of shit school.

[Anonymous No.5593553]

>no college
feels good man, even if i go i'd be really quiet and never talk and just try to pass by

[Anonymous No.5593561]

>>5593522

I can't believe you put so much effort into such a dumb response. Nazis had PhDs!!!11 you have discredited doctors everywhere.

[Anonymous No.5593580]

>>5593561

>posts rational reply
>anecdotal and factual information
>negates pointing out that your poor reading comprehension is precisely why a second post was required
>any attempt to "refute" what was posted will only make you look like a bigger ass
>take the 15 year old swaggot approach of "hurr durrr TL;DR u stoopid i'm dun with uuuu"

By your rationale, I suppose we should all be thankful you're not representative of the entire human race.

[Anonymous No.5593587]

>>5593553

That's what I did and I sort of regret it. If you do go, just be yourself. Maybe try to talk to some people, but you can still enjoy college while being a loner.

>tfw sitting alone in library at midnight, gazing out big window at city all by myself
>reading with coffee for hours on end

Them feels bro. They won't last forever.

[Anonymous No.5593590]

>>5593561
shitposter pls go

[Anonymous No.5593603]

>>5593439
>I suspect you never really spoke to your professors or you went to a piece of shit school.

i bet you were an asskissing faggot, the kind who would run up to class at the end and start badgering the professor with your inane ramblings and trying to curry favor

[Anonymous No.5593608]

>>5593590
You are the shitposter, SJWSamefag.

[Anonymous No.5593615]

>>5593608
>>5593603
>>5593590
>>5593587
>>5593580
>>5593561
>>5593553
>>5593522
>>5593439

[Anonymous No.5593618]

>>5593608
yeah, no.

[Anonymous No.5593624]

>>5593608

>ur post is dumb
>omg samefag
>SJW!

Jesus settle down, I wasn't trying to hurt your feelings with my post.

[Anonymous No.5593684]

>>5593522
Other guy here
The whole position of PhDs having the same intelligence as a BA just doesn't sit well with me. Academia may be a sheltered world but God knows you have to earn your spurs through long, long hours of reading.

[Anonymous No.5593699]

>>5593684
"intelligence" is undefined. PhDs are more erudite than BAs, but the erudition amongst BAs and amongst PhDs vary greatly.

[Anonymous No.5593714]

>>5593684

Not having completed a PhD myself, I can only judge by what I've been told by others. My uncle and brother in law both hold PhDs, my sister has a MA, and my friend's dad has an LLB. When I've asked them about grad school and what it's like, you know what they all say?

>It's a ton of reading and memorization, but really not that different from undergrad

You write papers just as you would in undergrad, conduct independent research just as you would in undergrad, and submit your work for review just as you would in undergrad. Unless someone goes to an absolute shit-tier school where their undergrad education is a partytime joke, grad school should simply be a longer, more detailed version of it.

[Anonymous No.5593726]

>>5593714
>You write papers just as you would in undergrad, conduct independent research just as you would in undergrad, and submit your work for review just as you would in undergrad. Unless someone goes to an absolute shit-tier school where their undergrad education is a partytime joke, grad school should simply be a longer, more detailed version of it.

Your uncle and brother shouldn't hold PhDs then. What you say regarding MAs and LLBs is accurate.

[Anonymous No.5593739]

>>5593684
>The whole position of PhDs having the same intelligence as a BA just doesn't sit well with me.

of course not, it challenges your preconceptions about "earned status" and what society values.

it's partly why universities continue to spoon feed their undergrads, when they could realistically give them twice the responsibility and see positive results.

people are indoctrinated to doubt themselves, and to feel like they're incapable until someone with authority taps them on the shoulder and grants them position and worth.

plus our post-secondary institutions are now a business, and you can't just give your customers everything all at once. if they want the *really* good stuff they're gonna have to put in more time (oh and immense amounts of money, don't forget)

undergraduate education doesn't need to take 4 years. there are accelerated programs that can accomplish it in 3, and if people really wanted to they could absorb and project the required information in a little over 2.

but 4 years = 4 years of tuition, rather than 2.

[Anonymous No.5593741]

>>5593739
>they could absorb and project the required information
Looks like you bought the commodity and don't know what the university is for.

>information
>absorb
>project

You sicken me

[Anonymous No.5593746]

>>5593726
>Your uncle and brother shouldn't hold PhDs then.

And yet they do.

So either the system for attaining doctoral degrees doesn't function as you once assumed it does...or it's working precisely as it always has.

But no, you couldn't be incorrect. Not you.

[Anonymous No.5593749]

>>5593741

>2014
>thinking modern universities are anything but a business
>designed to take your money in exchange for hopes, dreams, and a crisp piece of paper

Get a load of this kid.

[Anonymous No.5593751]

>>5593746
Or more likely, your brother and uncle do have a valid right to possess their degrees and most likely you didn't listen to them describing the process of producing doctoral research or less likely that either chose not to explain to you or lack the capacity to adequately voice the process.

No, it couldn't be you. Not you.

[Anonymous No.5593754]

>>5593749
Some universities supply a commodity worth the price, which I do know what that is, but will leave unspecified so we can see if anyone else here actually teaches undergraduates.

[Anonymous No.5593763]

>>5593751

Perhaps.

Based on my graduating cumulative average of 88%, I would like to think I'm competitive with others looking at graduate studies.

But no, I must be too stupid and they realized this and spun some yarn to protect my delicate psyche from the inexplicable horrors of grad school.

That's the likely explanation. Definitely.

[Anonymous No.5593769]

>>5593751

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M98x-FLp7E

If I haven't sufficiently challenged your notions of what post-secondary education is, perhaps this will rustle those jimmies.

[Anonymous No.5593786]

>>5593522

An academic coming to conclusions that you don't want to hear doesn't make them a piece of shit, it just makes you an ideologically constrained moron.

[Anonymous No.5593844]

>>5593786

>using the exact same argument as holocaust deniers

[Anonymous No.5593869]

>>5593844

>Hitler was X. You don't want to be like Hitler, do you?

This rubbish brought to you courtesy of the American higher education system.

[Anonymous No.5593873]

>>5593763
Might be, you show no sign of a capacity for Doctoral work outside of a DEd or DJuris.

>>5593769
Yeah, you're talking about coursework. That's where we make all our money. The research track is more amusing.

[Anonymous No.5593881]

>>5593869
You do realise that this was the basis of the research programme of the US university system 1945-1984 anyway?

[Anonymous No.5593888]

>>5593844
Oh shut up, product-of-your-times, nothing Rushton published would be controversial pre-WWII, race-based science was banned for political reasons not because it has no basis in reality.

[Anonymous No.5593906]

>>5593881


the 20th century was just terrible in terms of almost every intellectual pursuit.

[Anonymous No.5593912]

git gud

[Anonymous No.5593915]

>>5593906
>the 20th century was just terrible in terms of almost every intellectual pursuit.

Physics, Philosophy of Science, Chemistry, Surgical medicine, Drug medicine, Psychiatric medicine, Micro economics, and revolutionary politics all did okay off the top of the head. Historiography came into its own. Film and film criticism were produced overnight. Non-representative art went gangbusters. Poetry did pretty good.

[Anonymous No.5593926]

>>5593888
>not because it has no basis in reality.

oh god

the ignorance

but...

dem trips...

they don't lie...

i don't know what to do anymore.

[Anonymous No.5593931]

>>5593926
They're 888 trips so they definitely lie.