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/lit/ - Literature

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7060554 No.7060554 [Reply] [Original]

How long does it take to become cultured? Like from ground zero pleb

>> No.7060563

>>7060554
If you try really hard, five years

>> No.7060564

>thinks reading = becoming cultured
Cultural capital is meaningless

>> No.7060578

>>7060564
What do you mean.

>> No.7060579

>>7060563

This.

2 years or so of core canon novels.
1 year or so of poetry.
1 year or so of philosophy.
1 year of history.

>> No.7060584

>>7060554
25-30 years for most humans

>> No.7060593

>>7060578
Reading books just to say you read books so as to satisfy an imaginary criteria number to declare yourself 'cultured', even internally, is masturbatory and misses the point.

>> No.7060598

>>7060584
Let's say you cut out stuff like world history and wine knowledge

It would shave off a couple of years right?

>> No.7060602

wtf is "cultured"?

>> No.7060604

>>7060593
Who says I would ever talk to other people about the things I've read? This is for me, before I die I want to know about the world properly

>> No.7060605

a lifetime

>> No.7060611

>>7060602
When is a pile a pile?

>> No.7060614

>>7060611
always

>> No.7060621

>>7060554
it really depends what you mean by cultured

do you mean pop culture cultured? or liberal arts bachelors cultured?

the former, about 1 year, although it's a constant process. the later, about 4, although there's always more to learn.

>> No.7060638

>>7060621
>liberal arts bachelors cultured
you can do it literally in one month
>take express course in photography
>become obsessed with photography
>you are now obsessed with something artsy therefore you are a troubled and refined individual

>> No.7060702

"cultured" is a socially constructed concept, and it's going to differ greatly depending on what people you want to consider you cultured. if it's /lit/ - the meme trilogy is probably enough (alt answer: never). but please do not care what /lit/ thinks.

if it's some group of people you know, ask them

>> No.7060711
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7060711

How do people learn to quote stuff? I can barely remember the last sentence I read let alone a few I read years ago. Or is this just something wankers do to look smart without substance, just memorizing a few 'clever' passages and rattling them off when the opportunity comes?

>> No.7060722

>>7060598
I guess it all depends on what you deem "cultured" to be, and where the starting point is age- and education-wise.

>> No.7060731

>>7060711
You have answered your own question.

>> No.7060733

Where I come from I would say eight to ten years depending how fast you learn. Learn two European languages (Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, or French), master English, learn history (Greek cities, Roman republic and empire, birth of Christianism, history of England and western Europe, industrial era, American, French and Russian revolutions, elements on world history), geography (countries, English speaking countries subdivisions, mountains and rivers) and elements of geology, literature (English speaking literatures, Roman, Spain, Portugal, South America, Italy, Germany, Dutch speaking literatures, Scandinavia, Russia, France, China, Japan, Arabia, Jewish and African literatures), philosophy (from Greeks to Existensialists), religion and Bible, mathematics, biology and naturalism, physics, chemistry, economy (main schools of macroeconomics and microeconomics, signal theories and history of economy) and finance (history of finance and financial institutions, main financial products, markets and indexes), law (Roman law, civil law, constitution, elements of foreign constitutions, our institutions and some principle of philosophy of law), elements of linguistics, anatomy and few other subjects of your choice and I would consider you as really cultured.

>> No.7060758

>>7060711
most people don't actually remember quotes verbatim

but you're telling me that you don't think about passages from certain books you've read from time to time? nothing you've read has ever stuck with you like that?

>> No.7060764

>>7060711
Classical education emphasized memorization and recitation of various writings. It's a shame that fell by the wayside.

>> No.7060774

>>7060604
masturbatory and misses the point,
masturbatory and misses the point;
masturbatory and misses the point.

>> No.7060776

>>7060764
I went through such an education and it wasn't much about memorizing random things once we were 12.

>> No.7060789

>>7060774
/Thread tbh

>> No.7060797

>>7060776
I think it's likely more useful as a younger child anyway.

>> No.7060804

>>7060797
Sure, I agree but I don't think it's the issue he's addressing. As a child we mostly learnt poetry. I think he's referring to those weird cultured guys who can quote extended passages of Baudelaire or Flaubert without errors.

>> No.7060813

>>7060804
Well yeah. I'd imagine that's just dedication and practice, in that case.

>> No.7060818

>>7060813
I think they're just overly impassioned about their readings.

>> No.7060829

>>7060554
You don't "become" cultured by reading. Your perspective changes by reading. You become a different person.

With your mentality, you will fail. However if you truly read what you should then your perspective will shift.

Protip: seek the best philosophers and debaters who hold the stance opposite yours, and try to give it legitimacy. That's a good start.

>> No.7060838

>>7060829
I can hardly see how is this connected in any way with culture. Being able to defeat opponents in verbal fights is a skill, not a knowledge.

>> No.7061017

>>7060554

Three or four generations of individuals, if conditions are favorable and the initial plebs have something like intelligence, protestant work-ethic, and humility. Then the culture can begin (not co-terminous with money, but they are very, very closely related), people get bored, and everything goes to hell. Then the cycle repeats, for those who are genetically predisposed to intelligence. Those who aren't don't hit the high notes of culture to begin with.

Even the middle east had culture at one point, but that's something like a millenium ago. Africans (Egyptians don't count) never did.

You can become polite nouveau-riche in a lifetime, but you can't become cultured-as-such, that takes a few lifetimes.
The things in OP's pic, for example, are not cultured.

>> No.7061038

>>7061017
>protestant work-ethic
Care to develop?

>> No.7061069
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7061069

>>7060818
>overly impassioned
>there is a limit to how passionate someone should be

>> No.7061103

>>7061038
not that guy but read Weber or whatever. not that I agree with him but this isn't his original idea and he shouldn't be on the hook to explain a really basic and frequently used sociology term

>> No.7061114

>>7061103
Could you explain it instead? I'm not in the mood of borrow a book and reading it to address a minor point in a thread.

>> No.7061174

>>7060764
Recitation is a pretty piss-poor way of learning unless you're learning poetry. My grandma had to learn her history lessons by heart, and here I mean some faggot at the Ministry composed a paragraph on WWII and whatever and every child in the country had to learn it word for word and be able to read it aloud from memory and without error. The only way this can make sense is if all the paragraphs were written by great writers (hint: they weren't, the guys handling that were simply teachers).

Let's just say this didn't make my grandma into a historian.

>>7060838
What is effectively the difference between skill and knowledge (hint: it's not an easy question).
But you're missing the point, nobody said anything about winning verbal fights, it's about perspective and learning to consider an issue from various angles. Basically learning to read m8.

>>7061017
This post is a good illustration that "culture" in the usual sense is a decandent aristocrat's take on knowledge. Culture is the scavenge of creation.
Also the protestant work-ethic is a bit bull. Culture is absorbed through daily speech, walking and talking casually, and reading for pleasure or out of curiosity, as much as anything else.
Culture-oriented work-ethic is what the American Asian upstarts who force their kids through violin because it's classy do. Don't try it at home.

>> No.7061206

>>7060579
asinine.

>> No.7061256

>>7061114
no. try Wikipedia

>> No.7061257

>>7060733
I have a feeling you're autistic.

>> No.7061280

>>7061174
Effectively? Few to none yet it's not exactly what we talk about. I assume what the original poster meant by “cultured” is having the western, arbitrary basis whence you can start to read, understand, discuss and argue over barely every work produced in our culture. My own humanist interpretation of the word—made over Rousseau, Rabelais and Condorcet—is deeply tied with politics, which defines the culture as a mean to be enlighted and becoming a fully aware citizen able to question and take part in its nation's life. Culture not only shape one's mind into tasting and experiencing more and more exotic and unknown works, it's also a common shared knowledge we all need to comprehend our history and our civilisation. What is being from a Judaeo-Christian society if we don't even know what is Christianity, what the church did in our country, what was its impact on the arts? What is having a language born to Latin and Greek if we can't appreciate its roots? Plus, by using a word like “pleb” I can only suppose he never was taught properly and is willing to correct it. Grandiloquent sentences like “'culture' is a social construct” or “what 'culture' are you talking about?” are fine but in the dawn of the day, when he will sneak in his bed, he'll still feel like a garbage and wonder why he's ignorant.

>>7061257
That's not that much in ten years, not mentioning he doesn't literally start from zero.

>> No.7061283

i was reading a compilation of shit by borges the other day, it was basically banal observations mixed in with name drops of all kinds of semi obscure medieval lit and shit, apparently and unfortunately, you can read every piece of parchment produced in Europe between 500BC and 1900AD and still have nothing insightful to say.

>> No.7062959

>>7061283
Wasted his time then didn't he, could've been reading naruto

>> No.7062974

>>7060611
When it's ajar.

>> No.7062991

>>7061283
That's some wise use of “apparently” you made here.

>> No.7063075

I was a pretty big pleb three years ago, aged 17, and pass pretty well for cultured now. It's a relative term though, living in Melbourne it's pretty easy to pass as 'cultured'.

>> No.7063082

>>7063075
Being cultured and passing for are also two distinct ideas.

>> No.7063084

>>7060554
If you aren't born into the cultured class, you will never be "cultured", you will simply be a try-hard wannabe. Enjoy being laughed at by your betters, pleb.

>> No.7063085

>>7062959
Borges would have liked Naruto.

>> No.7063087

>>7063084
Don't listen to that faggot. With dedication you can be as cultured as anybody.

>>7063085
He would have wrote a fanfic about Naruto being trapped in a giant infinite library as a reflexion on the nindo.

>> No.7063131

>>7060774
>masturbation is bad

>> No.7063144

you're not gonna end up at the right parties even if you get well read and can hold the conversations, don't bother

>> No.7063147

>tfw only been reading a year but that was enough to read 90% of the books /lit/ talks about regularly

>> No.7063170

>>7063147
>thinks reading shitty meme books loved by retards here is some sort of accomplishment

>> No.7063194

>>7060554
It's too late for you. You have to be raised in it, so you're not even thinking about it.

>> No.7063198

>>7063087
>Don't listen to that faggot. With dedication you can be as cultured as anybody.
No. What happens is you think in pleb and then transpose it into culture.

>> No.7063221

>>7063198
I don't understand what you're saying. Anyway, he has a lifetime to recover from a poor education. Many brillant authors were anonymous. Hans Sachs was a shoemaker before being the most admired German poet of his generation Jacob Boehme was a cowkeeper and Hans von Grimmelshausen was an innkeeper son promised to an ordinary lowlife. He can do it with enough will and dedication.

>> No.7063355

>>7063194
>You have to be raised in it

That is complete bullshit.

Three or four years of serious reading are more than enough to acquire solid knowledge that's relevant for a lifetime.

>> No.7063361

>>7063355
You'll be more educated than plebs but it won't be enough to be “cultured”.

>> No.7063367

I have almost never read anything and want to start somewhere adventurous . I have no idea about classic of this sort, so I come here to seek for help and advice. I've heard a lottile bit about Hemingway and that is it, what do you recommend for a beginner? It could also be a novel or some sort, but I want it to captivate me instead of giving up after 10 pages, because I will think it is 'lame'.

Dude I went on sticky and got lost (inb4 retard) within few moments. It's easier to talk to people at first, since I don't even know if I'm correct at what I'm searching of, rather than going on sticky and finding 'search' button, while writting in it 'adventurous'. Seems a worse idea than to ask here for help to be honest.
However it is okay, you probablly have some anger problems and have to troll people, but if this happened in real life, you wouldn't even think of fucking up with people that genuinely seek for help. That's the problem.

>> No.7063387

>>7063361
It depends on how fast you read.

One book per day (say with an average of 300 pages per book), during four years = 1460 books. If you don't err too much and avoid reading 1000 or 1200 pleb books, that's enough to cover:

>all the masterpieces of poetry from several countries
>all the main religious texts
>the most important philosophical works since Antiquity
>the finest novels since 1500
>all Greek and Roman playwrights, plus a hefty selection of modern ones
>all the major historians
>encyclopedic texts on a wide variety of subjects, including things on etiquette, chemistry, law, economics, the art of dressing well, etc.

Frankly, even 1400 books is overkill.

>> No.7063399

>>7063387
One book per day is extreme even with no job aside. I listed on >>7060733 what I consider being “cultured” and I hardly thing of having it even partly done within four years. Also, language learning.

>>7063367
You're in the wrong thread.

>> No.7063422

>>7060554
If you haven't gotten the aesthetic sense for all periods of history as a child from encyclopedias and old Discovery/History/Animal Planet the you will not be up to the task. You were maimed from birth. Kant knew this in Treatise on Education.

>> No.7063425
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7063425

>>7060579
>1 year of philosophy
>1 year of history

>> No.7063438

>>7063399
I did that when I was a student. One book per day. But I'm a fast reader: three pages per minute in paperback.

I already knew 5 languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish) due to superior European education though.

>> No.7063452

>>7063438
Five languages because of education? Where do you come from?

>> No.7063455
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7063455

Nationalism and the Prussian Education system allow most europeans, even eastern euros to know a lot of the general Renaissance and Enlightenment themes and some names even in their teens. American and brits on the other hand have trash imperialist anglos and their public school system hasn't been founded on Nationalism, so that's why you are uncultured and it would be quite common a nip or a russian to know more european culture than an anglo.

>> No.7063494

>>7063452
France.

French = mother tongue.
English = from 6th to 12th grade.
German = from 6th to 7th grade.
Spanish = from 8th to 12th grade (switched from German as a second language).
Italian = from 10th to 12th grade (you can add a third language in 10th grade).

Also I could have learned a sixth language in 8th grade, but I chose Further English ("anglais renforcé") instead of Latin or Greek (which I regret now).

And remember I was in a half-shitty school from the hood, not in the top Parisian high schools.

>> No.7063499

>>7063494
How old are you? I know well the French system and even if the republican idea of instruction is indeed from my point of view the best system ever conceived, the current institution is on a complete breakdown.

>> No.7063501

>>7063455
Aight, mr. man, what about Sweden?

>> No.7063518

>>7063499
I am 30 years old. But I don't think it would be much different today...?

If your teachers are young (the old hags often have terrible accents and methods), you can be quite fluent in 5 languages before setting foot in college.

Other disciplines can be questionable though in the French system... especially history/geography (in 100% of cases), and French (sometimes). Also the teachers in hard sciences are often careless and won't help you if you fail.

>> No.7063528

>>7063501
I haven't spoken to nords who were over 30, so I can't make a good judgement. I imagine Denmarkfags are usually well cultured since they got to play in 19th century Nationalism and the Golden Age of Literature it brings to countries from that era. Sweden also has a bunch of big names of european culture(that biologist, Swedenborg and other natural scientists, Noble), so I imagine they are still having some influence from the Prussian Education System, altought they now(at least 20s uni students) pretend to have an understanding of non-white cultures, which is shallow at best.

>> No.7063543

>>7063518
Believe me: it is different today. So when you graduated, Claude Allègre was minister of education? The quality has heavily declined for—well.—nearly 30 years. English is badly taught—France ranks last in OCDE in English—bilinguals classes are on the verge of suppression (tell me you followed the middle school reform scandal), French, mathematics and other basic courses hours are cut (over 250 hours for French in something like 40 years) and history/geography is also less and less taught correctly. STEM survives but only because of teachers' will and prep schools requirements.

>> No.7063792

>>7063455
>>7063528
>I imagine

That is all these garbage posts are. You pull shit out of your ass and >imagine it having some kind of relation to the real world?

It doesn't matter where you are, what matters is your class and what schools you go to. Of course I'm sure you went to the best, no system is foolproof.

>> No.7063870

Maybe 4 years
It's a worthwhile investment for getting laid

I had a good taste in music by 6-7 months
Film took me about 2 years to master
but literature has been tricky. on year 3 currently still struggling

>> No.7063917

>>7063870
What is being cultured according to you?

>> No.7064201

>from the ground up
realise that the 'groud' is culture. you never leave culture.

does being cultured mean keeping an arsenal of opinions on literature most people haven't read?

does being cultured mean appearing to have a higher social or economic class than those around you?

read what you like and don't be a twat about it.

>> No.7064235

>>7061174
It's still a good way to get little kids to internalize beautiful poetry they would otherwise pay no attention to.

>> No.7064249

>>7064235
It's merely relevant to being cultured.

>>7064201
That's some point but in the end, he will still be an ignorant sobbing in his sleep.

>> No.7064847

>>7063422
>If you haven't...as a child
>You were maimed from birth.
This is what happens when an imbecile tries to sound intelligent on 4chan.

>> No.7065873

>>7063917
something that "gets him laid". I wouldn't ask for advice from this person.

>> No.7065897

If you don't understand modern physics up to at least Schrodinger's and Einstein's equations and mathematics up to at least basic abstract algebra then I'm afraid you can't call yourself cultured

>> No.7065917

>>7065873
>implying the only use for "culture" as most of you queers have described in this thread isn't posturing for vapid broads.

OP just read shit that seems cool. Tinker with ideas or things and ask other fools how they've thought about it. The extant stuff will come to you from that and you'll read it at your leisure and actually appreciate it.

>> No.7065919

>>7065917
This sounds like an awful idea.
>read whatever you want
>you will finally cover topics of interest

We don't have a life expectancy of 2,000,000 years. At this rate he will die with a copy of Eragon in its hands.

>> No.7065924

>>7065919
that seems a little judgmental. There's gotta be at least something in even YA crap that oughta make him wonder "why does this have appeal? what is the author conveying?" or at the very least he'll realize it's some type of wish fulfillment and learn to avoid it?

>> No.7065952

>>7065924
Of course, he might probably encounter such ideas but he will be merely skimming them. I don't disdain those who read for simple pleasure, or “enjoying the plot” but his request is clearly to be “cultured” and by this word he almost certainly refers to the Western classical culture. Is he going to learn another European language? Is he going to have the basic yet considerably wide knowledge in history or philosophy? Is he even going to go through any scientific subject? I don't think, not mentioning “how many time will it take” suggests he want it done right now and without spending more time idling. The path you draw here is simply not relevant to address the question he made. He will die with—at best—something like a fifth of what he could have learnt—at worst—by meticulously planning his study and readings.

>> No.7066061

>>7060579
>1 year or so of philosophy.
>1 year of history.

Hahhahahahahahaha what?

ffs /lit/ get it together