/lit/ - Literature★

There used to be a time when reading was the number one leisure activity for most people. Granted, shitty books have always been popular but at least they aid attention span and at least the ratio of Good Books being read was higher than today. We are so proud of our technology but Culture herself have fallen.

Our attention spans have diminished, our ability for clear, rational thinking have faltered. People sit with their eyes locked to the mobile phone and everything is fast, fast, fast but reading can be a time consuming process and thinking can too.

It's just that that is how it is. Contrary to what the idiotbox is telling us, contrary to how our education system says it is; the world is a very complex & interesting place(that is why Plato said: "I don't know anything", because he realized the world is a fucking complex place!) and if you want to be a learned man, you have to put in the effort. That is not to say that you should force yourself to read huge "important" volumes if you don't really want to, but that you should follow your Passion and read exiting Works. Many people, having grown up with Hollywood may think reading is boring but at least me think reading is the second most exiting thing in the world(next to having an interesting experience with other people for example) and I think this has much to do with The Common Hollywood film which -- although it has a shitty script – is very fancy.

We've come to expect this bombardment of our senses when we think "Entertainment" and to pick up a dreary old book when we could be bathing in light-sensations and sounds can seem, well, boring. However, this is just apparent. If you are like me(and perhaps you are not) your very soul bleeds for some Real Meat. If you're like me you are just yearning for that one good line while watching -- well, you'll never get it, Hollywood movies are specifically made to appeal to that common bond we all share – our animality. Hollywood, is of course, a business and as long as Humans never realize there's something Higher they will keep raking in the dollars. Since values like for example Enlightening People are out of fashion and the only value left is Money, this is the state of our "entertainment". I do not think it is out of place to get a bit political here and remark that this "value"; making money at all costs – moral and societal, is perhaps something the Jews have brought with them, as they do not care about the goyim as we all know.

Reading is also a more creative process in that you create images in your head in stead of having them fed into your neural circuitry 100 frames per second(or whatever the refreshrate is now, i haven't kept up). And i suppose it bears to be said that the Greeks considered Art to be a part of a good education -- this was back in the days when a Good Education wasn't just considered to be something that would enable the child to do rote work.

I hope I haven't overstepped my bounds here; that this may be of some use to someone. After all, if one cannot think, one cannot be political. And as some wise fellow said: "Everything is political". Please leave comments.

>>10732 (OP)

>This book does not demand continuous reading; but at whatever place one opens it, one will find matter for reflection. The most useful books are those of which readers themselves compose half; they extend the thoughts of which the germ is presented to them; they correct what seems defective to them, and they fortify by their reflections what seems to them weak.

>It is only really by enlightened people that this book can be read; the ordinary man is not made for such knowledge; philosophy will never be his lot. Those who say that there are truths which must be hidden from the people, need not be alarmed; the people do not read; they work six days of the week, and on the seventh go to the inn. In a word, philosophical works are made only for philosophers, and every honest man must try to be a philosopher, without pluming himself on being one.

https://ia801405.us.archive.org/14/items/voltairesphiloso18569gut/18569-h/18569-h.htm

from the preface of voltaire philosophical dictionary.

people are likely always been like that.

otherwise libraries would always be packed.

keep in mind that people in the west, work and labour far less and have far more comfortable lives than common people at voltaire's times. and we have so much more free time. what's our excuse?

and regarding thinking and reading. i'd say that the two core skills you need are a little of formal logic and a the ability to sum up things a little bit, not just in the making a story short, but in the evaluating pieces of information and understanding which ones are the most important in a given context or according to given parameters.

>>10734

>There used to be a time when reading was the number one leisure activity for most people. Granted, shitty books have always been popular but at least they aid attention span and at least the ratio of Good Books being read was higher than today. We are so proud of our technology but Culture herself have fallen.

i'd say you should read orwell's short essay about working in a used books shop.

>>10734

have to go now. will finish responding to your post later…

>>10734

>that is why Plato said: "I don't know anything", because he realized the world is a fucking complex place!)

wasn't that socrates?

even though most of what we know about him comes from plato, i think he talked about his relationship with knowledge in the apology, on which also xenophon wrote about, but i haven't read his version, but i'd say that it's safe to say that was actually socrates who said that.

>>10750

I will read it

>>10768

Mea culpa. I suppose it was Socrates, even though some theorists say Plato and Socrates are the same, even though i dont ascribe to this theory. From remembering Plato's dialogues(as it is called) he mentions somesuch in at least 3 dialogues i remember.

>>10768

>>10878

it was socrates, or at least something that socrates said often, as xenophon has him saying it as well in the apology.

>>10732 (OP)

so did you want to know how to do these things you are discussing or just proselytize?

>>10885

>but extreme working hours was not one of them.

agreed. but you should also take in account the amount of things, not work related that, required time and effort and that today even the common man gives for granted. do you make your own bread daily? do you go the well to get your drinking water? and so on, but in your post you take that in account as well. and you're right.

but honestly, i could say that this statement of yours

>. And with stupid expectations loaded onto we moderners of taking children to football training, and having spotlessly clean homes, our domestic work and caregiving has certainly not decreased for all our improved technologies and may have increased.

is kinda the proof that what voltaire said still stands.

isn't falling for consumerism, having badly thought priorities the mark of not having a "philosopher's soul"( i don't like this expression, it really sounds smug and elitist, but i trust you'll see what i mean)?

>>10890

You neglect literacy rates, which only rise as the civilizations do. Post-Roman collapse, illiteracy increased dramatically and reading in general was expensive, so obtaining something that serfs couldn't comprehend would be pointless.

Moreover, most of your post comes off as over-intellectualized, which is due to you, and many others, being born during the Age of Intellect.

>>10885

is generally correct. I work, and when I get home, I'm overall tired and reading is futile when tired because a person tends not to retain the material (at least for me); additionally, I have to make a meal and eat, which I have to do before work too. When I wake up later, I tend to do something other than reading (as of right now) which obstructs me from reading. I also like to keep up with /pol/ threads for news and a few laughs too. Considering you're a /pol/ack, then you are also aware of a number of /pol/acks' encouragement in getting /fit/, which would also consume time. Finally, you have to factor in varying reading speeds.

>And as some wise fellow said: "Everything is political".

No, it's not. That's the most retarded idea anyone has ever conceived. And I'm serious: nothing could be more retarded than that statement. There are inherently apolitical works, and don't give me that canned line of "if it aims to be apolitical, then it's political"; it's not if you are writing unconsciously of politics

>>10917

>You neglect literacy rates, which only rise as the civilizations do. Post-Roman collapse, illiteracy increased dramatically and reading in general was expensive, so obtaining something that serfs couldn't comprehend would be pointless.

actually i take them in account and it's precisely because we have far far less illiterate people than those in voltaire's time (in my country in some areas they were the 90+%) and that i don't see appreciable differences in certain aspects that make me stay that his statement still stands.

>Moreover, most of your post comes off as over-intellectualized

nah, it's probably just me overcompesating since i'm not a native english speaker.

sometimes i'm not sure i'm expressing what i want to express unless i take a longer way.

>>10969

I'm calling the idea retarded as it is false. Everyone has ideal duds.

>>10931

I say you're over-intellectualized because you say these people can't think well when you haven't defined what thinking well is; furthermore, you haven't corroborated that society's ills are caused by this lack of thinking well; your point has, however, been contradicted by Voltaire's quote that the people have always acted this way. You think that thinking well is equivalent to "naval gazing", e.g., "What is a good city?". There is a time and place for it, but to say that it is all there is to thinking well is ludicrous.

You ignore the more significant practical application of ideas, which philosophers like Voltaire tend to do.

Lastly, people have reading as the main leisure in the past but that doesn't mean they could think well. For all you know, the majority could have been reading trash. And, although some parts are false, Proust's characters in In Search of Lost Time do not seem any different than those that you'd find today.

It is undeniably true that crappy literature has always existed. For as long as storytelling has existed people have been telling shitty stories. But the illiteracy rate is rather unexpected, because in reality people are doing a lot more reading than they ever have been; they just haven't been reading as many books. Between Facebook posts, text messages, Twitter, the chans, and the Internet in general, there's a lot of reading to be done, and an increasing percentage of the global and local population are getting in on it.

One could argue that people don't have as much diction as they used to because now we have so many leisure activities other than reading that people enjoy doing. Going to see a movie, playing video games, restoring that classic car you saved up for so long to get… people have a lot of leisure activities aside from their work and keeping up their homes. The problem, I think, is that if you really want to get into a good book you need to devote a lot of time to it, and that cuts into other activities as other anons have pointed out. You could be an extremely prolific reader, but at some point you want to get out of the house and, I dunno, see a move or play a level in Call of Duty or something, and that takes up a lot less of your leisure time than reading five chapters of The Lord of the Rings.

This is me speaking from personal experience, but while I have higher-than-average diction because of my love for reading, I wouldn't attribute reading to helping me learn how to think, and I've read a decent variety of books. The way that I think I mostly learned from learning how to program and do math. Programming and math are all about problem-solving… it's great for helping you learn critical thinking skills. Simply reading can help you learn how to think, but in different ways, and unlike more active forms of learning reading is generally more set in stone, which is why books are such a popular form of propaganda. In my experience, simply reading does very little but help you hone the thinking ability you already had, so I think the hypothesis that reading and critical thinking are inextricably linked is a little flawed.

Remember that while reading as a national passtime is going down the average IQ is still rising all around the world as civilization advances.

>>10978

That was Thomas Mann, a favorite of /pol/ which you seem to be so fond of.

You are answering to someone who isn't me(i am op), why id's are not implemented i do not know. It leads to these misunderstandings and doesn't aid discussion; which makes it even more important to try and discover who exactly is it im answering to now.

Oh well, to get back on topic, i did google reading statistics but could only find back to the 50's which show it has been a steady decline; especially in the number of books read each year. I also found a quote by the publisher of Harper's magazine which agrees with me but i suppose he could be wrong too.

For the idea that internet and facebook posts constitute good-enough reading; i do not agree, books are simply superior in every respect. Very few people take the time to write quality content and also they might simply not be able to produce it compared to an illustrious author.

For me the internet is the fast-food of information and knowledge. It's just that any kind of knowledge that are worth it's salt takes more time to indulge. This idea that youll be able to become as smart as a rennaisance man while sipping a coffe and googling "interesting subjects" and reading "interesting posts" is completely flawed. Everything takes time, even in the 21st century.

>>10987

Just to elaborate, both for myself and others;

If one is to delve deeply into a subject one needs that calm that is conducive to deep learning. If reading a book this mostly comes of it self; because you don't have the kind of noise that is present with a pc.

In other words, with a book it's just you, the book and your imagination.

With a computer it is you, various notifications, various desires, more screen-noise; less calm.

>>10978

>I say you're over-intellectualized because you say these people can't think well when you haven't defined what thinking well is;

i'm not saying that people don't think well.

i'm saying they don't care. it's different.

if' i've read your previous post correctly you browse /pol/.

so you know as a fact that there are plenty of easily verifiable and available informations that

have huge implications but that for some reason seem to be eluded by most people.

since i don't think i'm supersmart. i must conclude that the reason is that most people don't care.

>ou think that thinking well is equivalent to "naval gazing", e.g., "What is a good city?". There is a time and place for it, but to say that it is all there is to thinking well is ludicrous.

>You ignore the more significant practical application of ideas, which philosophers like Voltaire tend to do.

absolutely not the case. i'm a very prosaic kind of person.>Lastly, people have reading as the main leisure in the past but that doesn't mean they could think well. For all you know, the majority could have been reading trash.

i know that for a fact.

you should read that brief orwell essay about his experience while working in a used book shop.

i greentexted wrong.

>>10987

>This idea that youll be able to become as smart as a rennaisance man while sipping a coffe and googling "interesting subjects" and reading "interesting posts" is completely flawed.

That's because you're a snobby prick who thinks he's better than everyone else. People learn in different ways than reading, and people are unimaginably smarter now than they were in the Renaissance. It's just that we're less good at carving naked men out of marble nowadays and better at finding cures for diseases and exploring deep space. It sounds like we're doing just fine to me.

>>10995

That's because youre an ignorant buffoon. Why are you even here if you don't read books? No, that one time you read those books is not good enough.

You haven't even understood the gist of the discussion. We are not talking about how /technologically advanced/ society is now. You idiot hasnt even understood what /culture/ means, and perhaps you never shall. Hint; it is not how many spaceships we create -- it is how we treat eachother as human beings.

>>10997

… how we interact with eachother, how we view certain topics like sex, race, etc and what we value as important.

>>10987

>For the idea that internet and facebook posts constitute good-enough reading

That's an interesting thing that I never said.

>This idea that youll be able to become as smart as a rennaisance man while sipping a coffe and googling "interesting subjects" and reading "interesting posts" is completely flawed. Everything takes time, even in the 21st century.

You make the assumption that a) everyone wants to be a Renaissance man, and b) that it is even obtainable at this stage of society.

>>10993

>i'm saying they don't care. it's different.

Yes, generally, most people tend not to care.

>you should read that brief orwell essay about his experience while working in a used book shop.

What's its title?

>>10994

It happens.

>>10997

>You idiot hasnt even understood what /culture/ means, and perhaps you never shall.

It seems you haven't either. Culture exists regardless of the existence of books or a written language. What you're insinuating is culture is only high culture.

> how we interact with eachother, how we view certain topics like sex, race, etc and what we value as important.

You've missed how people express and represent themselves politically, artistically, etc.

>>10999

If you don't read books, don't come here!

>>11000

>>10995

You should stop getting booty-blasted over someone else calling you a snobby prick. He must have struck a nerve.

>>10997

I do read books. I have piles of books on my desk right now, many of which I have read and many others which I picked up at random because they interested me while I was wandering through a book store. I have collections of stories from my favorite authors. I'm currently compiling a list of classics that I've missed and making it a point to go to my local library and ask about them. I go out of my way to read books. I just do something more productive with my time once in a while, like mess with source code or write something.

That's the point that I'm making. Our culture is defined by so much more than the media we consume or create; it's defined by what we do besides consuming or creating media. Many of the philosophical discussions we have as a society, including the one you've sparked, wouldn't have been possible during the Renaissance. Hell, many of us probably wouldn't even be alive were it not for the advances that we've made in science. I'm certain that my significant other wouldn't be, because I can only communicate with him through the Internet. If you're going to tell me that the sciences and what we do for work aren't part of what you consider "culture," then you are not an intellectually engaging person and I have absolutely no interest in interacting with you further. Good day, anon.

>>11003

Would you like help with compiling classical works, anon? I wouldn't mind helping as I've found a lot of Roman and Greek texts not comprised in /lit/'s infographs.

>>11007

Gimme your top five books in that list which are currently available for reading in English.

>>10999

>What's its title?

here

http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/bookshop/english/e_shop

it's a short read.

>>11008

not him nor do i know exactly which list youre talking about but ima give my top five anyway

in no particular order:

1. Platos republic

2. Thucydides' history of the peloponnesian war. starts off as a chore to read but gets really good around book three, and dont get intimidated by the term book, its only ~500 pages long.

3. the Discourses of Epictetus

4. Iliad

5. Odyssey

6. the bible

>>11014

Thank you very much, I've written these down. I'm intrigued by your choices, so I'll try and pick these up as soon as I can. Odyssey was already something I was curious to check out given its cultural impact, so I think I'll have fun with this list.

I did at one point try to read the Bible cover to cover and amazingly managed to muscle my way through the millions of begats but only made it about halfway through the Song of Solomon before ultimately giving up. It's a sit. Very funny at some points, though.

>>11019

> I'm intrigued by your choices

the first two are to provide a basic understanding for the foundations of western civilization, the third to show how different philosophy is from now. 2 & 3 also to show how things back then arent that different from the war they are now; the cold war wasnt as unique as we make it out to be, and students are just as lazy as they ever were, to a teachers eye. 4 & 5 are the foundations of the western tradition, and honestly should be required reading even though i havent read them myself. in my defense, i havent read them because i want to read them in greek. i do kinda regret not putting aristotles politcs on there for reasons similar to the first three and not putting homer in one slot, but now ive mentioned it so w/e.

most old books are a chore to read. you have to come at books like that with a x pages per day mentality until you get a feel for the vernacular. but yeah i wouldnt bother with the old testament stuff, and plan on skipping it myself when i get around to reading it, which will be after i am sufficiently versed in koine.

>>11010

Thanks, anon. I'll try to get to it in a reasonable time.

>>11008

That's rather difficult as I've not read all those classical books, and there are a lot. But I'll throw out a few:

Livy, Xenophon, Menander, Juvenal (the reason for his inclusion is that he is a satirist and there aren't many satirist, esp. Roman, included in /lit/'s infographs), Horace, Seneca.

I've started Livy, but none of the others.

>>11136

*satirists

>>11021

>i havent read them because i want to read them in greek

You're in for a treat when do you achieve that level of understanding. Homer has the best Ancient Greek prose I've ever read. I myself haven't read the entirety of either epic yet but just reading a few books or two from either one will give a feel for the Homeric style, which is extremely visual

>>11136

>xenophon

word to the rise; i found a book on amazon that contains his entire collected works, but the damn thing has no page numbers! 676 pages and no reference system for them, other than the chapter and book system works of that time are usually given. also the translation was sub-par imo, but i may just be spoiled from Oxford's modernized translations.

>>11180

nah, i try not to review stuf before i read it. its only fair that way.