/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.7487333]

Men, listen to me! I implore you!! Do not allow the Amercian Star Wars destroy your spiritual soul!! Our generation will become an army of manchildren!!!

[Anonymous No.7487340]

We must build on the great cultures of the civilization of man! Do not be distracted by these hollow bread & circuses!!

[Anonymous No.7487355]

ching chong ping pong old man

[Anonymous No.7487360]

Do not allow them control you and turn you into infantile, materialistic consumers!!

[Anonymous No.7487364]

>>7487333
sage

[Anonymous No.7487381]

Gonna go see it today. Any real reason not to?

[Anonymous No.7487383]

I see you do not hear my words...

[Anonymous No.7487405]

>>7487381

It's really mediocre.
It's exactly how a rich guy with no talent but some technical finesse would do star wars.

[Anonymous No.7487409]

>>7487381

It's not avant-garde high-art for the selected few. E/lit/ists can't feel superior for consuming this particular piece of culture. This angers and confuses the e/lit/ist. Instead, he can berate it and everyone who watches it. This makes the e/lit/ist feel superior again.

[Anonymous No.7487411]

May the force... be with you... urrrgghhhhh

[Anonymous No.7487428]

>tfw you read that in his voice

[Anonymous No.7487448]

>>7487333
Chaos reigns

[Anonymous No.7487454]

>>7487428
I don't know his voice.

[Anonymous No.7487455]

Mishima actually did predict the infantilising of Japanese culture, & compared to the state of things in the 70s, it pretty much seems to have occurred. Witness Murakami's ascendance, not to mention anime, hentai, 'cray-zee' infantile sexuality etc etc. Now as Japan's standing among the tiger economies diminishes, they have become the hollow shell that Mishima railed against.

Those concerned of the outside, foreign forces somehow degenerating Western culture are mistaken. As Nietzsche emphasized; mixing culture can birth something new & vital. While the Athenians merged with the native cultures to produce something new, only Sparta resisted & of all the Greek states, produced no new or lasting culture. The decay that will destroy the West will come from within. The four horsemen will be Nostalgia, Materialism, Triviality, & Irrelevance. & the Greatest of these Shall be Irrelevance!

[Anonymous No.7487456]

>>7487454
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPAZQ6mhRcU

[Anonymous No.7487462]

>>7487448
Western culture feasts on itself!

[Anonymous No.7487466]

>>7487456
>decent
I expected some serious ching chong ping pong, looks like only modern asians can't give a fuck about learning how to speak English properly.

[Anonymous No.7487471]

>>7487381
The artistry is largely gone. A few small technicians might have put their heart and soul into their roles but the project's skipper, JJ Abrams, is no artist in any way.

Star Wars wasn't George Lucas' best work, but he still put passion and creativity into it and that's what endeared it to people, even if they don't realize it. George Lucas took the elements he loved from westerns, samurai movies and pulp science-fiction and threw them all together with a high level of polish and technical skill.

JJ took the elements that other people love from Star Wars and used them to make another Star Wars. Does that sound interesting to you? Because that's what you're going to get. The only outside influence I noticed was Guardians of the Galaxy. Some of the humour felt painfully contemporary and will age worse than the prequels.

[Anonymous No.7487475]

Mishima is cute!

[Anonymous No.7487481]

>>7487471
& this is entirely the point. Lucas merged Western ideas with Japanese ones & created something new. But at its heart was Nostalgia - nostalgia for Flash Gordon & the serials he & Spielberg had watched as children. The Star Wars machine has only preserved this sense of nostalgia & in the prequels, drawing from other cultures became empty appropriation. Now Abrams adds another level of simulacra & the West eats its tail.

[Anonymous No.7487500]

>>7487481
Please don't start sentences with "&".

[Anonymous No.7487503]

>>7487333
>Our generation will become an army of manchildren!!!
That already happened.

[Anonymous No.7487505]

>>7487500
Bite me.

[Anonymous No.7487511]

>>7487405
>>7487471
>>7487481
Keep going, guys. I'm interested. Consider this thread an outlet for these opinions.

I honestly have no problem going seeing it and continue to enjoy the older movies to this day, but it does stand as a bit of an exception in my overall stand towards mainstream culture, which I have almost without exception detached myself from completely (for both semi-political and artistic reasons).

The mythical elements as well as the general aura surrounding its place in our culture seems important to me. You don't have the same thing with the Avengers movie for example, and you didn't see threads like this about it either.

[Anonymous No.7487518]

>>7487481
>Lucas merged Western ideas with Japanese ones
I feel like the new movie made a huge nod to of that - those lightsaber fights in the snowy forests are pure chanbara, Lady Snowblood et al.

[Anonymous No.7487523]

>>7487511
>an exception in my overall stand towards mainstream culture
To quote Armond White "Love of Star Wars is not love of cinema, just consumerist habit."

He's banned from Rotten Tomatoes by the way.

[Anonymous No.7487550]

Even if the film is good, it's being held up as the unquestioned pinnacle of culture by a vast number of educated Western minds. And it leads... to nothing. Star Wars, Avengers, who's playing Batman... They may have replaced Greek, Norse or Judeo-Christian pantheons, but worse, they worship only consumerism. There are no Bacchanalian rites to experience, no Eleusinian mysteries to be revealed. They hook in your mind with their nostalgia, & draw you into isolating materialism. It is a temple built to Capitalism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kMZJSY32m8

[Anonymous No.7487554]

>>7487455
>"Japan will diappear, and in its stead, an impersonal, empty, neutral, intermediate, opulent, shrewd, economic giant will be left standing in a corner of the far east"

He was bang on the money

[Anonymous No.7487557]

>>7487523
>He's banned from Rotten Tomatoes by the way.

Banned for making TOO much sense.

[Anonymous No.7487560]

>>7487550
Nerd/Geek culture needs to be destroyed for the sake of humanity. It's so painfulfully obcessed with consumerism, even so called devout muslims are being bought in by it's pathetic westernised bullshit
@saladinahmed

[Anonymous No.7487563]

>>7487550
>There are no Bacchanalian rites to experience, no Eleusinian mysteries to be revealed.

Isn't this a big fallacy though? I never understood these sorts of (Baudrillardian) criticisms. What makes ancient traditions any less artificial in the end? Isn't this tied up with the whole idea of Star Wars (a long time ago...)? I would much rather be in a society that doesn't take mythologies literally than a society that does.

Also there's the issue of what it means to consume. If I download things for free online am I really a consumer? Also why would it be impossible for something good to come out of an industrial process by mere accident, say? You need to go further than just labeling one thing as something else. What is truly missing in the works you criticize?

[Anonymous No.7487577]

>>7487554
Top quote is top quote.

[Anonymous No.7487579]

>>7487554
how do we inject vitality into the Occident again?
praying for total collapse and civil war

[Anonymous No.7487584]

>>7487563
Artificial, but not isolating and alienating. Plus we are creating new, much more opaque, mythologies all the time.

By downloading you come into possession of (a copy of) something, paid or not, so that kind of answers your question.

[Anonymous No.7487587]

>>7487550
I see where you're coming from, but this is to essentially overlook the most compelling aspect of the star wars mythos - the jedi.

Beyond the aesthetics of the films, the jedi are the only exceptional feature about the star wars universe. What got me interested in star wars was their cultivated human potential - it's a sort of subtle breaking of the fourth wall which points directly back at the bodily experience of the viewer in a way that the fantastical visions of superhero movies or the technocentricity of the star trek mythos cannot.

That being said, it is essentially a homogenized blend of vaguely Eastern wisdom, and perhaps the harbinger of what Zizek refers to as Western Buddhism. Nonetheless I think the sublime mystical/somatic dimension of the jedi is not something to be overlooked. It's hard to square with the sort of marxist post-structural critiques I'm seeing here.

[Anonymous No.7487588]

>>7487579
Opposing Neo-liberal captialism for one thing that has replaced all diety with the dollar.

[Anonymous No.7487595]

>>7487587
For some reason, I was reminded of this when I read this post

>All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit.

[Anonymous No.7487596]

>>7487584
>Plus we are creating new, much more opaque, mythologies all the time.

Examples of this? I'm not getting it.

Also, why is a copy inherently inferior? This is the central issue, I think.

If you copy something that copy is an original in its own way. First because if you lose the original, you have no way of knowing whether or not it was a copy. Second because the things you take to be original could always imaginably be copies themselves. That's the indeterminacy in this concept.

[Anonymous No.7487602]

>>7487579
We're pretty much fucked.

[Anonymous No.7487611]

>>7487596
I was referring to the whole "consumer" thing. Even if you didn't pay for something (and it's a copy, which I didn't call 'inferior' btw), you're still "consuming". At least that's my idea of it, perhaps not compatible with actual economic nomenclature.

http://www.modernmythology.net/p/what-is-modern-myth.html or Barthes' "Mythologies"

The above will answer your question far better than I ever could.

[Anonymous No.7487612]

>>7487563
Finally a worthy challenger emerges!

Nietzsche indicates that it is the Herd; the vast majority of humanity who are near indistinguishable from animals who embrace these religions for the comfort they bring to their slave mentality. But if there can be any improvement it must come from the higher ones, the Creators. They don't lead towards some ultimate pinnacles, they are supra-historical figures, beyond time, but at the greatest heights of the achievements of culture. & our generation is not going to produce many of them if they're all buying fucking Star wars & worrying about the avengers.

I'm not prepared to put the product of such beings into the hands of 'an industrial accident'. Behold the poison of their comic book world has seeped into your mind already!!!

Yes, yes, downloading the films is the rational response.

[Anonymous No.7487617]

>>7487602
maybe I hope for war and collapse because the alternative is far worse

[Anonymous No.7487619]

>>7487596
It is an empty copy, not a rebirth;

Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion

[Anonymous No.7487635]

>>7487619
You're going to need a definition of what makes a copy empty. I'm all for the rhetoric but we need to stand on logic.

[Anonymous No.7487673]

>>7487635
I felt Eliot just did that pretty clearly for me already...

I would define a 'copy' in this context as that which emulates the form, but not the contents of the original. It is a cheap replica, inferior to the original, lacking & incomplete. It does not transcend its origins to create something new, but is simply a shadow. This 'copy' does not understand the original. It copies as a child copies, crudely, not as a an artist copies. It does not create.

Those who create such copies are obsessive reverse engineers & therefore technicians only. They are not inspired & they can only inspire further copies. Each copy is worse than the last, more degraded, because they reproduce only the form and outline of the original & cannot transmit its spirit or essence.

The Greek tragedians worked from the same stories, but because they were in competition, both in their society & literally for an annual prize, they were driven to ever more startling originality.

[Anonymous No.7487683]

>>7487587
>essentially overlook the most compelling aspect of the star wars mythos - the jedi

They were barely in the originals.

Again I say; it doesn't matter if the films themselves are any good or not, they have become an opiate to the minds of educated men. They are for children. If as a child the jedi led you into a wider interest which matured as you grew, that would be fine. But that is not what is happening, they are a nostalgic lure to the teat of materialism.

[Anonymous No.7487702]

>>7487673
Your claim ultimately rests on the following:

>Each copy is worse than the last, more degraded, because they reproduce only the form and outline of the original & cannot transmit . . .
Perhaps, but why? There are huge problems with a claim like this. Conditions for receiving copies are constantly changing. At any one time, whatever is here, copy or not, is functioning as some kind of original. There is no reason to compare a copy to original or even to know if it is a copy. A thing may be worse as one thing but better as another.

>. . . its spirit or essence.
Tell me what this is and you will have fully developed your view.

[Anonymous No.7487735]

>>7487683
>If as a child the jedi led you into a wider interest which matured as you grew, that would be fine. But that is not what is happening, they are a nostalgic lure to the teat of materialism.

To my mind the former part of that statement is precisely the function the jedi mythos has had on my own life. It was a view into a world outside the narrow metaphysic in which I was raised. It was what got me interested in philosophy and reading in the first place. On further reading I can see the world Lucas was writing from - he calls himself a Buddhist/Methodist, was really into Joseph Campbell - undeniably pleb-tier stuff there - but it opened the door.

To reduce to star wars to flow of capital, or to declare it's a nostalgic shell absent some vague notion of vitality, sure they're fine criticisms, valid in their own right, but they are in no way exhaustive of the phenomenon.

[Anonymous No.7487745]

>>7487456
He sounds REALLY similar to tricky dicky Dawkins 2bh

[Anonymous No.7487750]

>>7487702
I'm not developing the theme of 'why a copy is worst' any further & I'm glad I won't be a recipient of your Christmas gifts!

The spirit & essence of Star Wars is basically adventure, specifically adventure for children.

It also holds nostalgia for a more innocent time (sic).

To be generous; it carries in it elements of Kurosawa's cinematic vocabulary, Japanese sensibilities, the struggle against the Nazis (both real & in film) heroism, the hero myth as interpreted by Joseph Cambell & the personality of Harrision Ford. It 'can' act as a gateway for all these things.

But all of this is to little end or meaning, beyond the sense of adventure & coming of age that both Lucas & Spielberg pioneered.

[Anonymous No.7487755]

>>7487333
>>>/tv/

Not /lit/.

[Anonymous No.7487762]

>>7487755
My intention was to discuss this through the lens of literature, as it's a call to the path of literature & the culture which literature embodies & this has mostly happened. So fuck off.

[Anonymous No.7487935]

>>7487750
But what does have meaning to you? You haven't identified any method of differentiating between what is meaningful and what is not. What I see is a reaction to something that is currently popular. This is why you need to be logical. You can take cast aspersions on anything if you want to, but simply wanting to without any good reason is what is truly without meaning.

Don't get frustrated just yet. You've got a long way to go.

[Anonymous No.7487950]

>>7487333
> Do not allow the Amercian Star Wars destroy your spiritual soul!! Our generation will become an army of manchildren

then don't fucking create anime, the crystal meth of manchildness

[Anonymous No.7487955]

>>7487383
that jacket is so hilariously tight

he probably spent like 5 hours trying to find the jacket with the right kind of look and fit to satisfy his fashion sense

mishima is a proof that all is vanity

[Anonymous No.7487983]

>>7487935
You want me to define 'meaning'?! I see you want to drown us in semantics. I'm hesitant to play along, because this path rarely seems to lead to greater truth (ah! Define 'truth'! Define 'greater'! Define all the words!! More definitions!!!).

I mean exactly what I say; the end purpose of Star Wars is an adventure (for children). There is no deeper hidden meaning to be revealed.

Lucas could create a feeling of mystery around his Jedi, which seems to have so gripped people here, but that was it. Mystery only, a dead end. When he was finally painted into a corner years later , he rambled about midiclorines, and some sort of link to Taoism, which I would say was a demonstration that he had understood Campbell only as a set of instructions to follow.

If you want to really test the depths of Lucas' 'meaning' take any other /lit favorite as a plumb line. Stand it next to Dante, Aeschylus or Shakespeare, it is disingenuous to claim any parity.

[Anonymous No.7487992]

>>7487955
heh. Indeed. In fairness to the departed, he did make vanity & self ridicule one of his central themes. The uniforms were design by a fashion designer I believe...

[Anonymous No.7487999]

>>7487950
I tried to warn you!!!!

[Anonymous No.7488087]

>>7487381

It's quite amusing but it has that kind of humor the Marvel movies have that makes me feel uncomfy. The story, characters and everything is just ok, what people like the most is that you get to see again all the cool stuff from the previous movies again and again and again. Good fun to see with friends or kids, or high tho.

[Anonymous No.7488225]

>>7487983
First and foremost, you have to remain calm. I'm just waiting for someone in this thread to finally lose it. Don't let that person be yourself.

I'm not asking for anything unreasonable. There's no criterion here. Like, at all. I'm asking for anything to draw the line between what you think is so empty and shallow about Star Wars and what you think is deep and significant, which is the entire issue. I'm not asking for anything more than a good reason for me to think what you think. I see heavy reliance cultural stereotypes and hyperbolic rhetoric, but that's not enough. You can scare me into not liking Star Wars by shouting at me, but you can't convince me that way.

No one is saying it is one of the greatest work of art of all time, but few people outside of places like this would claim that it is somehow exemplary of something fake or shallow in our culture. Rather, they would say it was something significant and meaningful. This is why it is as popular as it is. People are not merely waiting to be entertained by it. They root for it. They want it to be more than just another action movie. And really this is what we're talking about here. Something that has mass appeal. That is the strength of cinema, really. Some of the greatest works of cinema have been universally loved.

All I'm doing is waiting for you to show me how there is something wrong with that.

[Anonymous No.7488297]

Don't patronize me you lower upper middle class yobo.

You know that Socratise wasn't executed because he was tedious right?

However, as you asked kindly, my response, in the pseudo-Socratic style you seem to demand in opposition to my preferred Nietzschean philosophizing with a hammer:

1. I don't ask you to agree with me, that was the japanese author Yukio Mishima.
2. I'm not asking you to not like Star Wars.
3. Just because lots of people like it, does not make it culturally significant. It could make it the exact opposite; trivial entertainment.
4. I clearly defined 'copy' in my terms, for the purpose of this discussion.
5. The latest film is a copy of the original three films, which themselves drew from the host of discussed sources.
6. The subsequent films failed to do this & therefore can be defined as a bad copy; they do not create anything new, only ape the form.
7. Objectively, they are designed & primarily marketed for & at children.
8. The new films heavily draw on nostalgia.

9. THEREFORE; I question their worth & fear that their hold over the minds of so many has become a distraction, separating us from any attempt to achieve a higher culture.

[Anonymous No.7488312]

>>7488297
Give me some works of higher culture.

[Anonymous No.7488322]

>>7488312
Anything for adults. In literature; Dante, Aeschylus or Shakespeare.

[Anonymous No.7488340]

>>7488225
Actually Camille Paglia has written several interesting articles about Star Wars as a great work of art.

In the Chronicle of Higher Education, largely lamenting the sterility of Pomo arts, she calls Lucas the greatest artist of the last 30 years.

http://chronicle.com/article/Why-George-Lucas-Is-the/134942

I'm with you in that most of the anti-star wars critiques represented here, a subject that really interests me, seem to be more based entirely on stereotypes and elementary marxist critique.

[Anonymous No.7488358]

>>7488322
Now tell me what makes each of these writers great.

[Anonymous No.7488391]

>>7488358
You strike me as this smug undergraduate with a basic understanding of the socratic method and a copy of "The Art of Being Right" on his bookshelf, sorry.

[Anonymous No.7488440]

What do you think of contemporary China?

[Anonymous No.7488469]

How to differentiate "poor escapism" book from non-escapism books?

[Anonymous No.7488497]

>>7487511
It's a Star Wars film. It's fun

[Anonymous No.7488504]

>>7488322
>I'm a sophisticated adult who reads books for adults like myself

[Anonymous No.7488538]

>>7487762
Actually, you are the one who is going to "fuck off", when your thread is deleted.

[Anonymous No.7488546]

>>7488538
You power is awesome. Go for it big man.

[Anonymous No.7488554]

>>7488546
But he's right and that's what I love about 4Chan. No matter what autistic sperg bullshit "nerds and geeks" spew on this board, it's going to be as short-lived as a fucking goldfish, senpai.

[Anonymous No.7488603]

>>7488358
Seriously?! Very well, in brief;
Dante, explores morality & the immortality of the soul.
Aeschylus, explores tragedy & provides catharsis.
Shakespeare, explores the human condition.

Seriously though, each have hundreds of books devoted to them. I would love to debate the merits of each in turn in detail, but if we've all read them, as I assume we have, then their aid here is to act as a shorthand to discuss ideas. I'm not sure how we can proceed if we now have to question the value of the entire Western cannon?! Again I say it's disingenuous to pretend they can be measured evenly to Star Wars. If you do want to be Socratic about this, perhaps it is your turn to explain how you see it...?

[Anonymous No.7488605]

>>7488554
That was my point... & I love it too.

[Anonymous No.7488622]

the original trilogy hit so hard because

-it was based on mythology aka the stories that have stood the test of time the longest
-it put that mythology into modern context(scifi)
-it is very good at hitting shit in the unconscious(for example the whole father & son thing)
-it was extremely fucking creative in terms of visual shit
-it was accessible for all ages

seriously I cannot understand how the hack who made the prequels could come up with that

lucas could have become a contemporary shakespeare had he progressed, but instead he regressed

[Anonymous No.7488639]

>>7488622
I'm more interested on the impact they're having on the decline of Western Civilization now, but if we're grading the original films, then I pretty much agree with this.

[Anonymous No.7488658]

>>7488639
it's less of an impact and more of a symptom desu imo

were becoming as a society ever increasingly jaded and cynical because we aren't exposed to real shit anymore

theres no peaks and valleys in life anymore, just a flat line. medicated flat line in most cases. thank god we have hard drugs that can create at least some spikes

western civ is the victim of its own success. its like when you play an RPG and at last your char gets so OP it curbstomps all challenges and the game gets fucking boring

[Anonymous No.7488677]

>>7488658
>its like when you play an RPG and at last your char gets so OP it curbstomps all challenges and the game gets fucking boring
Dear god you embodied your own point there anon...

I take it your in the pray for war camp then? But Shirley we can hope for something higher?

[Anonymous No.7488708]

It was a Star Wars action movie rather than what you expect a Star Wars movie to be. Barely a scene went by without lasers flying or explosions booming across the scene. There's very little dialogue in the movie, but I think that was the point. New Star Wars is trying to hit a global market, and lasers battles and explosions is something anyone can easily understand.
Without any context or understanding of the original trilogy, the new Star Wars is just an endless train of things blowing up. The new characters aren't particularly memorable or exciting, and the main villain is more pathetic than threatening.

[Anonymous No.7488717]

>>7488677
no I don't pray for war, war fucking sucks

but western civ has failed to provide replacements for our mammal drives

I mean we have capitalism but it doesn't quite cut it

free sex loses its novelty quickly

we need to move on and find shit that we can collectively strive towards but we got jack shit

not that you can even set shit like that anymore because muh authoritarian spooks. not that I'd trust any authority figure I know anyway

IDK, maybe we can hope that we irreparably fuck up our planet and we need to colonize mars asap, that would be a decent big picture goal for humanity

[Anonymous No.7488724]

>>7488717
a big picture goal,anon?
don't you know the big picture is wasting 1/3 of your life toiling away in some meaningless made-up job just so you can be 'productive'?
jeez

[Anonymous No.7488744]

>>7487409
You say this as it's a bad thing, it just means we have good taste.
I bet you find narcissm bad too, fucking pleb.

[Anonymous No.7488764]

I like having regular Mishima threads

[Anonymous No.7488775]

>>7488744
>we have good taste

I can assure you that everyone who says something like this doesn't have good taste

[Anonymous No.7488789]

>>7488497
It's like you plebs never learn, it's not "fun" it's so vapid and unengaging that it's pathetically boring; why do plebs seem to think that trash like SW is fun while high art isn't? Do they only read high lit and watch good cinema as some sort of chore so they can check it off the list and show off, like a typical pleb?

[Anonymous No.7488793]

So, where do you start with Mishima?
Sun and Steel or something?

[Anonymous No.7488801]

>>7488789

>autismo, the post.

[Anonymous No.7488802]

>>7488793
sea of fertility and temple of the golden pavillion

[Anonymous No.7488836]

>>7488802
aight, thanks senpai

[Anonymous No.7488840]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B5Hri0HR84

let's listen to some revolutionary music

[Anonymous No.7488869]

>>7488322
>implying star wars in 2015 isnt for adults
if thats the measuring stick here star wars is fine art being tailored for adults doesnt bring any new level of sophistication

[Anonymous No.7488883]

>>7488789
have fun being the smartest autist in the class

[Anonymous No.7488889]

>>7488789
>Do they only read high lit and watch good cinema as some sort of chore so they can check it off the list and show off, like a typical pleb?
Is this your first day on /lit/?

[Anonymous No.7488925]

Is Sun & Steel any good? I've only read The Sea of Fertility

[Anonymous No.7488937]

>>7488925
sun & steel is an essay, not fiction

IMO it doesn't have much value before you've read his fiction so you'll have an idea of what he's like, in it he basically explains why he writes fiction, among other things

[Anonymous No.7488944]

How does it feel that most people of your age no longer read anymore?
Congratulations /lit/, you are the smartest people in your age group. Give yourself a pat on your back and wash down that peppered sausage with vodka.

[Anonymous No.7488957]

>>7488944

Reading is for betacucks and NEETs

[Anonymous No.7488973]

>>7488944
>Congratulations /lit/, you are the smartest people in your age group

there is seriously nothing congratulatory about it

it's fucking suffering

it makes you incapable to function which is the opposite of what intelligence is supposed to be about, aka superior ability to adapt

instead you become a sleepwalker feeling that you're inhabiting an alien planet

the Weltschmerz gets so unbearable that your only options become alcohol-fueled readings of 200-year old books in a desperate search for a shared thought, and suicide

[Anonymous No.7488974]

>>7488944
It's incredibly lonely
>tfw you've been introduced to cool concepts and works
>tfw you realize how ignorant you are even though you have read more in a week than most do in a year
>tfw some cunt tries to talk to you about latest pleb music
>tfw some yob tries to talk to you about latest sportsball news
>tfw in college I have had less than 10 intellectual conversations in 4 years
>tfw I have given up on talking to people beyond small talk

[Anonymous No.7488999]

>>7488944
Don't feel anything about it. I don't care about others' reading habits at all, nor do I feel superior for reading a book.

[Anonymous No.7489003]

>>7487455
Your 1st paragraph: spot on
Your 2nd paragraph: oblivious to the fact that Japan's ruin was caused by the Westernization of their culture

[Anonymous No.7489004]

>>7488973
>>7488974
at least we have each other

[Anonymous No.7489005]

>>7488999
>nor do I feel superior for reading a book

youre doing it wrong

[Anonymous No.7489032]

>>7487381
All things must come to an end. Star wars is over

[Anonymous No.7489054]

>>7489005
Most difficulty in literature is due to vocabulary and allusion. Both can be overcome by reading more literature.

[Anonymous No.7489089]

>>7488973
Fag.

[Anonymous No.7489121]

>>7489054
yes, and when you acquire that skill you are, in some way, superior to others

[Anonymous No.7489136]

I agree with this nip completely. It's just consumerist shit made to play on your childhood, like a lot of other childish shit that somehow manchildren like.

[Anonymous No.7489156]

>>7487500
did you understand what he was saying? If not where does the problem arise?

[Anonymous No.7489175]

>>7489156
You're eight hours late to jump to his defense and he doesn't even need it.

[Anonymous No.7489209]

>>7488708
You win best gif in a mishima thread anon.

[Anonymous No.7489212]

>>7487735
>To reduce to star wars to flow of capital, or to declare it's a nostalgic shell absent some vague notion of vitality, sure they're fine criticisms, valid in their own right, but they are in no way exhaustive of the phenomenon.
It is exhaustive, it serves a simple and mass-marketable version of Buddhism, Oriental ideas, and mysteriousness, n ever actually deeply touching on these themes.

[Anonymous No.7489214]

>>7488764
You can never have enough Mishima, unless you are Mishima.

[Anonymous No.7489218]

>>7487935
>What I see is a reaction to something that is currently popular.
Literally nothing wrong with that, plebs be damned.

[Anonymous No.7489223]

>>7488802
Yeah this. I'd also add Confessions of a Mask. But start with Temple.

[Anonymous No.7489235]

>pop culture can't have any merit or meaning
>"high art" is not entertainment
>art isn't constantly ripping off everything else
This is what subvocalizers actually believe.

[Anonymous No.7489245]

>>7488840
Ahem, I think you mean this anon, an original Mishima composition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iYJrLf_xLE

[Anonymous No.7489248]

>>7487735
I can agree with this though for me it was lotr books, not star wars

you need to start with the simple shit anyway but have a drive towards complexity

as a meta comment, at some point you will then notice your individual threshold of meaningful complexity

everyone can understand finnegans wake if they try enough but its too complex to be meaningful for most which is perfectly fine because theres beauty in simplicity too

as time goes on the more I find myself attracted to the spirit behind a work, not its constructive merits

that said, in many things the constructive merits are the art and that is perfectly fine and "high art" as well

art is complex shit

[Anonymous No.7489251]

>>7488937
This. But it's excellent when you get to it.

[Anonymous No.7489253]

>>7488225
>but few people outside of places like this would claim that it is somehow exemplary of something fake or shallow in our culture.
Because places that aren't places like this are deluded and for pseuds. Academia rightfully points out how shallow Star Wars is, and /lit/ is merely an extension of academic thought, just look at how popular Joyce and DFW are here.

[Anonymous No.7489256]

>>7489003
Sadly no, I'm not. But I still feel they did much of it to themselves. Nobady made them listen to the fucking Beatles & collect school girl's knickers.

It's worth noting Mishima himself was fascinated by Western Culture and openly embraced its vulgarity, while at the same time rejecting it.

[Anonymous No.7489275]

This has gotten me thinking about my own life. I know I am not really 'cultured', but about 6 years back I made it a goal to try and be that way. If I, just another anon, got that urge, then more people must feel that urge to make themselves more cultured.

what are the odds of a kind of culture 'renaissance' were a sizable portion of people are trying to reclaim what it means to be cultured? IN a way that effort to improve would become a culture all in its own.

[Anonymous No.7489280]

>>7488504
See >>7488789
>>7488775
Then you're wrong, because I have impeccable taste.
>>7488801
>>7488883
Epic fucking memes.
Stay BTFo, pseuds.
>>7488889
It wasn't always like this.

[Anonymous No.7489292]

>>7487333
>not /lit/

fuck yourself faggot

[Anonymous No.7489300]

>>7489275
>what are the odds of a kind of culture 'renaissance' were a sizable portion of people are trying to reclaim what it means to be cultured?

it is happening and has been happening but its all broken across subcultures and you have this kind of haze of postmodern hipster educated culturalists who are mildly leftist feminist with absolute zero drive for action

[Anonymous No.7489313]

>>7489292
It's literally Yukio fucking Mishima & this whole thread has been about authors & philosophy. Also Mishima WAS a FAGGOT, so I'm all sorts of in the right place. You my friend however need to contribute or fuck off back to rrrrrredit.

[Anonymous No.7489317]

>>7489235
>pop culture can't have any merit or meaning
It can, but only in its cultural impact.
>"high art" is not entertainment
That's the point, to a non-pseud low and middle-brow garbage isn't entertaining anymore, and naturally find high-brow works fun.

[Anonymous No.7489324]

>>7488340
>unironically citing a career contrarian

[Anonymous No.7489334]

>>7488658
>he believes that hard drugs can create spikes and don't just create a new medicated flat line

[Anonymous No.7489344]

>>7489324
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZzDgU2-X4k

[Anonymous No.7489352]

>>7489313
>picture justifies obvious /tv/ bait

FUUUUUUUCCCCKKK YOUR OWN ASSHOLE FAGGOT

[Anonymous No.7489355]

>>7489317
>It can, but only in its cultural impact.
And this isn't the same for non-pop? Don't kid yourself.

>to a non-pseud low and middle-brow garbage isn't entertaining anymore, and naturally find high-brow works fun.
There's no reason why you can't find both of them fun.

[Anonymous No.7489368]

>>7489352
But yet you seem to be the one that's butthurt non-contributing anon...

[Anonymous No.7489371]

>>7489334
cocaine and meth are not flat lines, though I would say that chronic use will lower the median of your graph rather tremendously

[Anonymous No.7489404]

>>7489368
KILL YOURSELF FAGGOT

>I posted a book cover, so I did as much as faggot op

[Anonymous No.7489409]

>>7487745

He really does - made me chuckle.

[Anonymous No.7489415]

well IMO some works of art can cut across the brow spectrum

lotr did it for me, I find that I can find different things I like about it as I hit different stages of maturation

at first it was like "oh this shit is cool, elves and swords and shit"

then rereading it some time later I liked the characters and how they were so archetypal and well-realized

then I started noticing shit like how well thought out the story is, it's fucking long and with so many chapters but you can't find a hole in it

then recently I've started liking the thematical shit that tolkien weaved across all his middle-earth stuff. impermanence, inevitability of change, how destruction can lead to new fresh beauties, how contrasts are necessary in everything to appreciate them fully, self-wrought misery

in that he's similar to shakespeare, theres something for everyone, you don't need to be highly cultured and educated to appreciate his shit but it rewards deeper glance and has the ambition to go for the eternal themes

[Anonymous No.7489422]

>>7489371
The first use of meth is a spike. The rest is a medicated flat line in which you chase that spike but never again achieve it.
>pic related

Can't speak for cocaine, maybe you're right there.

[Anonymous No.7489433]

>>7489422
>The rest is a medicated flat line in which you chase that spike but never again achieve it

this is a myth. you dont stop getting high. theres no discernible difference really

[Anonymous No.7489436]

>>7489404
So.. what's your point, does it upset you THAT much that this thread is somehow in the wrong board or something. If it makes you feel better we can all pretend it doesn't exist or something. Do you feel less outraged now?

Actually was planning on reading this. Any good?

[Anonymous No.7489444]

>>7489433
>>7489422
to add and to continue the dubs, maybe you need more as you get used to it but no, the first high is in no way unreachable

the issues start when you get to the point where youve seen it all as far as effects go and your body is going to shit from sides but it keeps demanding it and you feel sick to your bone when youre deprived of it

[Anonymous No.7489452]

>>7489355
>And this isn't the same for non-pop?
It's not, an artwork's own merits i s what matters.
>There's no reason why you can't find both of them fun.
Once you've developed taste and become cultured such things just seem vapid and unengaging.

[Anonymous No.7489453]

>>7489433
>>7489422
>>7489444

ON FIRE

[Anonymous No.7489458]

>>7489422
>>7489433
>>7489444
meth addiction confirmed for blessing you with dubs

[Anonymous No.7489462]

>>7489422
>>7489433
>>7489444
CONSECUTIVELY CHECKED

[Anonymous No.7489466]

>tfw a tiny gay japanese man converts you to fascism
>tfw you resist at first but then just accept it

[Anonymous No.7489481]

>>7489466
Top kek. I know that feel anon. I probably shouldn't have used his song as my alarm ring tone for a year.

[Anonymous No.7489488]

>>7489452
>merit
>not determined by culture

*once you've become jaded
There's nothing cultured about not being capable of seeing artistry, even if it's badly executed.

[Anonymous No.7489500]

>>7489488
It's not, the masses wouldn't know culture if they saw it, it's up to the educated elite to be the arbiters of culture.

[Anonymous No.7489511]

>>7489500
But what happens when the educated elite are a bunch of filthy cluckolds?

[Anonymous No.7489516]

>>7487381
STAR WARS POWER LIST:
V > IV > VII > VI > III > II > I

[Anonymous No.7489521]

>>7489488
>>7489500
>>7489511

CANT STOP THE TRAIN

[Anonymous No.7489523]

>>7489500
>Pop-culture's only merit is in cultural impact.
>But the masses know nothing of culture.
Inbefore "it's not culture if I don't like it."

[Anonymous No.7489524]

>>7487471
I think after Empire Strikes Back what fueled George Lucas was toy sales

[Anonymous No.7489525]

>>7487563
I agree with everything you have said. However, I still have a problem with Star Wars and what we choose to make cultural canon in modern times because of the fact that the authors of the artistic pieces that we worship are still alive. It irritates me that these manchildren have serious arguments over which superhero would win in a fight, with total disregard for the fact that the hands that made said superheroes could make absolutely whatever they want happen in their worlds. They can write in anyone to win. In ancient civilizations, they were oblivious to the fact that there were authors to their religion, but due to circumstance and a romantic naivete. Nowadays, it's pure fuckery, and the elitism that comes with it is especially unwarranted due to that fact. It's less innocent and more insidious. It's ignorant.

[Anonymous No.7489529]

>>7489516
V > VI > IV > III > I > II

[Anonymous No.7489530]

>>7489511
when have they not been?

what if the smart commonsense people have always stayed quiet and we live in some intellectual perversion of a world?

[Anonymous No.7489531]

>>7489481
what song?

[Anonymous No.7489559]

>>7489523
None of those are contradictory, the previous post was talking about artistic merit, not cultural impact.

[Anonymous No.7489652]

>>7489531
Link above.

[Anonymous No.7489824]

Can anyone upload an epub of The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea pls?

[Anonymous No.7489842]

>>7489652
Where anon? I can't see it.

[Anonymous No.7489952]

>>7489842
https://youtu.be/-iYJrLf_xLE

[Anonymous No.7490039]

Has anyone seen that Yakuza flick that Mishima starred in? I kind of want to watch it for curiosity's sake.