/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.9027775]

How do I overcome the feeling of inherent superiority over people of the ancient past that stops me from reading classic works of literature?
I'd be more than happy to start with the greeks, or proceed with catholic theologians and victorian aristocrats, but I can't get over the fact that I would be reading something created by men who unironically belived in gods, thought the world was composed of four elements, had scintific knowledge worse than a grade schooler, and could probably never figure out an iPhone. As far as I'm concerned, anyone born before Newton is a brainlet, so how am I to take these men seriously?

[Anonymous No.9028299]

accept the fact that you will be thought of in the same manner in the future.

[Anonymous No.9028317]

>>9027775
The Greeks has the most entertaining lore
Read it for the fanfic aspect if nothing else

[Anonymous No.9028329]

>>9027775
You've got your order of reasoning all wrong, you're thinking wrong. Your brain isn't working truthfully

[Anonymous No.9028335]

>>9028299
No the wastelanders will think of us as the pinnacle of history

[Anonymous No.9028350]

>>9028299
>future
top kuk. We are the end game.
Humanity is practically guaranteed to self-destruct within a 100 years. I'm enjoying my priviledge of having seen the last century of humankind.

[Anonymous No.9028367]

>>9027775
read it objectively.

[Anonymous No.9028372]

>>9028350
Now that's the dream.

[Anonymous No.9028381]

>>9028372
You are consciousness experiencing itself. You have lived in every timespan. This is just one of infinite.

[Anonymous No.9028388]

>>9028381
Naturaly. Time isn't linear, it's a point.

[Anonymous No.9028391]

>>9027775
Realize that Greek art is the apex of human achievement. Read Homer and Sappho, and then go see Venus de Milo, and tell me that they're all just a bunch of retards.

[Anonymous No.9028395]

>>9028372
>natural resources depleted
>climate going haywire
>white people <1% of the population
>technology evolves to the point where every second allahuakbar wields a deathray gun capable of destroying city blocks
Future is bright senpai!

[Anonymous No.9028398]

You're already too far gone and there's no coming back. You have been broken by post modernism and this contemporary philosophy that says everything is relative and there's no fixing you. Your head is irretrievably implanted up your own ass and you can no longer recognize truth.

[Anonymous No.9028401]

>>9028395
Chaos isn't a pit it's a ladder

[Anonymous No.9028405]

>>9028391
>drawing pictures good and carving humanoids out of stone good
>or
>launching people into space and splitting the atom
Gee I fucking wonder what's more impressive to me

[Anonymous No.9028411]

>>9028391
With a 3D printer I can make a replica of the Venus de Milo and shove it up my ass

[Anonymous No.9028417]

>>9028395
I can't fucking wait.
>trees and plants turning concrete into topsoil
>garbage dumps slowly being covered by dirt
>animals living in the skeletons of cars
>the slash and burned rainforests slowly regrowing
>poisoned water systems gradually filtering themselves out
>slowly, inevitably, all traces of humanity is wiped off the face of the earth
I think about this when I'm stressed out. Calms me right down.

[Anonymous No.9029996]

>>9027775
You are an incurable pseud and there's no cure, why? Because virtue can't be taught. I'd go so far as to say that you, as a person, as an aggregation of all the values you have absorbed, has planted it's roots to make you, what you are the moment, a dead end where intellectualism goes to die and rot.

Fight against your own nature, start with the greeks, pick up a vapid surface level understanding of everyone that came before you so that you can throw them into the post-modern mixer that is your relativist brain and shit out another equally pretentious post in a couple of years when you've spent enough time glancing over words in the books you'll force yourself to read. You are the Jörmungandr of millenials, you'd stretch across the entire globe to feel the sweet embrace of your own canal walls, safe in the only home you know.

[Anonymous No.9030004]

>>9029996
>virtue

[Anonymous No.9030010]

>>9028391
>sappho
>good
Aegeans had better art, before the Greek barbarians decided to rape and pillage them at least.

[Anonymous No.9030011]

>>9030004
epic my friend
*teleports behind you*
but it's time to go back

[Anonymous No.9030073]

>>9027775
By realizing progress is a myth.

[Anonymous No.9031434]

Poop lel

[Anonymous No.9031436]

>>9028398
Savage af

[Anonymous No.9031444]

>>9027775
Nice bait, made me answer.

There is something about atheism that does this to people.

Please don't try to read anything before Newton. Those works are reserved for patricians who are capable of grasping them.

[Anonymous No.9031449]

>>9027775

"If i have seen far, it is only because i have stood on the shoulders of giants" -Newton

Thus, there must have been someone who was ignorant of all modern knowledge. You have to start somewhere.

[Anonymous No.9031901]

>>9027775
Read the works of math.

[Anonymous No.9031950]

>>9027775
Seems silly. Artists today are only "superior" because they started where artists of the past left off. The whole concept of progress is, by definition, dependent on past achievements. If you lived in the past, you would have been just as "inferior." Do you really not get that?

[Anonymous No.9031969]

>>9027775
pic seriously related

[Anonymous No.9033029]

>>9027775
Just learn from the mistakes and inexperience of others. Study their work under the aspect of how minds like theirs created stuff they did. Like we study chimps to understand humankind even better.

[Anonymous No.9033133]

>>9027775
Think about the way scientists use scientific models to help visualize, simulate and consider incredibly complex occurrences on infinitesimal scales of time and space. Think of outdated concepts like religion and misunderstandings about the philosophical substance of matter, and order of the cosmos, as being models for intrinsic, universally relevant human ideas that are similarly complex. Trust me, you still believe in these things, just under a different guise.

I am certain due to your pic related that this is bait, but for what it's worth, this is what helps me to not worry about lack of scientific knowledge in antiquity. Also, come on who the fuck are you to look down on them like you personally discovered every facet of modern scientific knowledge yourself, cunt.

[Anonymous No.9033239]

>>9027775
Literally start with the Greeks and realise that these dudes who lived thousands of years ago are 100x smarter than you are/will ever be.

[Anonymous No.9033256]

>>9028381

>>>Reddit