Let's talk about this fucking age we live in.
Specifically, our human institutions.
There's appears to be no place for genuine philosophy any more. Actually, I'll extend this and say that there's no place for genuine humanitarianism.
Maybe in the past there was a place where a person who's primary project in life is to uncover the truth about reality could go, and be at home. Maybe there wasn't. But that's what the medieval university appears to me to be anyhow.
I want to grab somebody on the street by the shoulders and say "what do you believe."
I feel that way because there's no place for this to happen, it's always an intrusion in society to ask about life, everybody lives performing all these works but the moment somebody whispers 'why' it's suddenly perceived as meta, not welcome in the workplace, or the library, or the schools. There's always some productive activity people are engaged in in their public lives to which real thought is an interruption. But to me everything else is an interruption. What worse is there than to pass through life not realizing what any of it was? I feel like philosophy is the most crucial, life-or-death struggle that it keeps me awake at night, a fact that means I will never not have bags under my eyes, and will never properly habitually settle into a sustainable, productive routine of daily living and working. Why is there no public space for my sorrows? I spend so much effort on it after all, modern science ought to be able to convert it into electricity at the very least. I want to be understood by other people, and not posthumously either.
The coming generations won't be able to fill the gap left by the baby boomers, the introspectives have no place in the society their fathers created. The internet augments this, by giving them a place, like here. And so we learn to be habitually docile, unpreductive. Although sometimes intelligent, intelligence can't benefit us if there's no place for it, and if there were we couldn't apply ourselves. What will happen to the world when every worker bee stops to ponder or sometimes when he feels crushed by these questions does not go out at all? We need a new basis for all these works we do, there has to be another paradigm shift, or another large historically significant dialectic like the french revolution. We can't go on in this way where the focus has been shifted from man and God to the world man created.
>>9196628
You sound like a self defeatist pussy. There are places to go be a true "humanitarian." You're just too much of a coward. That place is called outside btw.
You're probably young and too scared to talk to strangers, otherwise you'd realize that people are open books. People will incriminate themselves at any opportunity and all you've got to do is be their confession box. I dare you to go out and cold approach 10 strangers tomorrow and see what kind of crazy shit they'll tell you. You want to know why people do shit? Ask them.
>>9196663
You're retarded.
Just wanted to let you know, fella.
>>9196668
Kill yourself faggot, I bet you can't even read
I've never read a book in my life.
Where do I start?
Nothing too difficult but I want to made to think.
Page 1
>>9196441
Kek
really makes you think
I've never been more happy about a writer being dead
>shel silverstein
>Silverstein
>Shel
>Silver
>Stein
Why do Jews have names like this
The absurdity is almost comical
You guys are mean.
Hey /lit/
Starting a history major in a few months. Hope to do honours so that i can publish my ideas in a thesis and then continue through academia.
Do you guys have any ideas on books to read for information on the following areas:
1. historiography
2. napoleonic wars/french revolution
3. modern american history
4. australian history specifically ww1 and ww2.
5. modern europe
These are the areas of history that i
a) need to know more about for the subjects ill be taking and;
b) dont know enough about.
The sticky wasnt much help.
I've researched cambridge's history course and some good books for recommended reading are:
Asimov's 'history of the world'
Collingwoods 'the idea of history'
Foucault 'Madness of Civilisation'
Tully and Skinner 'meaning and context'
Diamond's 'Guns, Germs and Steel'
Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Carr's 'What is history?'
Taylor's 'The origins of the 2nd world war'
Thanks in advance
>>9196217
go to /his/ silly. We're gay and read poetry here
>>9196217
Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not sure why you'd be reading Gibbon for modern history. Guns germs and steel is largely considered a bad meme around here, but personally I haven't read it; at least do your research about it before reading.
Napoleon: Roberts "Napoleon: a life" and Chandler's "Campaigns of Napoleon" will cover, respectively, Napoleon as a man and as a commander. Read Chandler second, if at all; it assumes you're familiar with Napoleon, his story, his wars, etc., and focuses on the finer details of actual combat, with diagrams and the like. Might not be what you're looking for.
French revolution: Not sure how "correct" you need your sources to be, but Carlyle's book on the revolution is apparently considered a classic almost ranking alongside Gibbon.
Again I'm not sure exactly what you're looking to get out of this, but if you're looking to have a more substantial basis of understanding modern Europe, I'd recommend a very broad book first (literally spanning ancient to modern times). The Roberts "Penguin history of the world" is like 1200 pages and does a solid job. Might want a shorter book; might want to skip the china/india sections at least until they start contacting the West.
After that jump to wherever you want. If you're looking to hit some major historical hardpoints, consider at least a book on each of the following:
Classical Greece
Alexander the Great/hellenization of the east
Roman republic
Roman empire
Byzantium
Ottomans/general Arab history
Middle ages/Holy roman empire
Crusades
Renaissance
History of england to ~1800
History of france to ~1800
History of Russia to ~1800
After that it gets harder to read broadly, not least of all because we're inclined to care more about what happened relatively recently. You can still find general books (e.g., the "age of revolution" covering the french revolution and its ramifications throughout europe to 1848), but probably at that point you'll have to focus more specifically on nations and individuals, e.g., Napoleon, bismarck, queen victoria, etc. Late 19th c. is a lot of gearing up for wwi, so consider some accessible stuff like "the proud tower," but be warned that you can spend the rest of your life reading about military history, especially modern; learning to sift through sources to find those worth your time (depending on how much you really need to know) is just as important as actually reading them. If you love a specific era or nation or person, delve in more deeply; you'll find enough information repeated that you really can't read like that except for topics that are a labor of love for you.
Anyway I hope that helps. Let me know what your aim is and I'll see if I can be of any more use to you. Also be warned that lit is largely (though not formally) a board for fiction; there is very little history that gets read around here, at least comparatively speaking.
Start with the Greeks.
>you will never work on a ship
>you will never live by a lake in a tiny cabin on a small parcel of land that your friend owns
>>9195700
>you will never sniff an Asian girl's asshole
>>9195700
Do you mean to work on a ship, or to work on a ship?
>talking to some NYU grad girl
>says she's thinking of becoming an author
>"Yeah I love reading, stuff like 1Q84 and sci-fi like Eragon"
>>9195455
>grad student
>anything but STEM
found the problem
>expecting intelligent discourse with women
>>9195455
>Chatting up some ho at work
>"My sister just published her first book, here let me show you!"
>Harry Potter fanfic
>"You can borrow it, it's REALLY GOOD!"
what the hell was this guy's problem?
>>9195405
He was a spoiled, filthy rich sex addict.
i think yarn is growing out of his head
>>9195405
Romanticism
hi guys
how does one prove that certain artworks are objectively better than others?
You can't
beat the shit out of and facefuck anyone who disagrees with you
>>9195359
Experience as much arr as possible, and only then start trusting your intuitions.
Latin American Boom edition
post your favourite books and authors
>>9195037
>>9195050
>>9195055
Will publishers think my novel is too edgy if at one point the main character (a demure, female police cadet) is restrained and made to suck on the barrel of a gun like a cock by a threatening and potential murderous individual?
>>9195032
That isn't very safe anon, have you shot guns before? What if it went off, come on anon.
>>9195032
No but they will probably think you must be 17yo to think something like that is edgy and not some bonafide trite tarantiniesque writing. Also, stop ripping off scene's off of Korine, you are better than this
>restrained and made to suck on the barrel
>NO ONE HAS EVER DONE THAT
>NO ONE HAS EVER DONE THAT
>IN THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE
Why would my sister gift me a copy of Dorian Gray? Is she trying to tell me something?
Yes. She's trying to tell that you're a pathetic faggot who hasn't read the basic classics.
>>9194979
she's trying to tell you that you're a socially anxious little bitch
>>9194979
She's telling you she has good taste.
Stop living in houses
kek
start masturbating in public
I'M LOOKING FOR A MAN
>>9194832
>diogenes.gif
>it's not a gif
Typical
>forever virgin
>wrote about self-inserts getting married to her fantasy husbandos
>revealed herself to hate niggers in Mansfield Park
Why doesn't /lit/ like Jane Austen more? She was basically the 4chan poster of her time.
the nattering cadence
Lit likes her. Unfortunately, due to current state of the board any thread with woman writer will inevitably be turned into a shitfest by autistic pol posters and even more autistic imitators.
What? Fuck off. /lit/ loves her.
What exactly was their problem?
Were they just contrarian hedonists?
They didn't get to go to war and come back heroes.
>>9194075
They were anti-war though?
>>9194067
>GINSBERG the hate merchant
>(berg)
>merchant
What did the newspaper mean by this?
Also I suspect that beatnik is just some name to call young people and describe the dumb shit they are into at whatever time like hippie/hipster/yuppie or whatever
If the greeks were so gay, why are all there love stories about a man and a women?
because they weren't gay?
>>9193832
>he read Ovid's version of Hylas being raped
LATIN SCUM PLS GO
Girls are for lub, boys are for fug