Will the proliferation of free Public Domain ebooks through things like Project Gutenberg and Librivox result in a future where the poor are better read and educated (having only had the classics available to them) than their more bourgeois counterparts (who could afford to indulge in the latest YA, werewolf erotica, """graphic novels""", and self-help bullshit?)
Obviously not, but that's an interesting idea
>the poor are better read and educated
I heard in North Korea there is 9% of analphabets
plus, every country already has a website with pirated ebooks
You need to liquidate reading classic canon in schools. People hate reading when they're obliged. Just forbid it and everyone will read it.
The poor are bourgeois in 2017
They rather spend there $$$ on shoes and weed instead of books
Can I have some recommendations for books on Catholic/Orthodox mysticism. Preferably if they dwell into some philosophy as well.
L A V R
A
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>>9961912
What is this
Should I hold verge for maybe a few years or sell it now ?
>>9961876
Buy bitbean!
I think he is a moral absolutist, so no
>>9961866
>there's only absolutism or objectivism
>everything is either/or
>there's no other way
Why was Plato so goddamn sexist pig?
>>9961807
Because he was right.
He never knew Judith Butler
>>9961807
>sophist insults
Why are this demographic's books predominantly shit. It's not just a problem of teen girl romance being a huge genre, books aimed at guys (Like Maze Runner) suck as well.
Don't say it's because it's aimed at younger readers, I've read plenty of children's books and enjoyed them, it's not a reading outside of my demographic thing.
Those books are just entertainment for stupid people
>>9961882
So are children's books and they are actually entertaining, these aren't and I can't figure out why.
>>9961956
because you used to read them and are now hating them more to try to distance yourself from it?
modern YA is fine for early teenagers. if you deny that you're just being annoying
https://thebaffler.com/latest/accidental-elitism-alvarez
Behold the quintessential modern literary / humanities intellectual in all its glory. A pretentiously long and drawn out article about mistrust of academia. And at no point does he talk about the possibilities that some or all humanities academics' work could be based on false or unrealistic premises; or contain deductions based on faulty reasoning; or the work makes no unfalsifiable conjectures get the academic still claims to have expertise. It seems the last thing this guy will ever attempt is making a falsifiable prediction by using his mountains and mountains of theory. Nope, just add more theory and hope you fool people with the BS!
>inb4 he's dumb
It says at the bottom he went to UChicago and then UMichigan, both better than your universities. And at the bottom is an article by Laurie penny who went to Oxford and Harvard. Yet still /lit/ will claim humanities academia is worthwhile
>>9961789
>Yet still /lit/ will claim humanities academia is worthwhile
aka you barely lurk /lit/
>>9961789
> phoneposting
There's a stop sign on my captcha.
>Article is the average length of a NYer article.
>Pretentiously long.
What's the meaning of life?
great memes and civic nationalism fellow pede. Praise KEK and le god emperor
>>9961785
I thought that said "what is the memeing of life?" and I had an existential crisis.
>>9961891
U should then read Memeories, Dreams and Reflections by Carl G. Jung
"Don't you see and feel these things more acutely than you used to? The perils and warnings? Something gathering, no matter how safe you may feel in your wearable technology. All the voice commands and hyper-connections that allow you to become disembodied...Do you think about the technovirus, all systems down, global implosion? Or is it more personal? Do you feel steeped in some horrific digital panic that's everywhere and nowhere?"
>>9961770
"Ok grandpa, whatever you say. Can you quiet down? I'm trying to watch Youtube."
>>9961809
>>9961770
fucking loved this novel. Probably not his best, but I have a feeling it will become more and more relevant as time goes on.
Do you always read all footnotes of a philosophical text?
I read the footnotes of all texts
>>9961763
>9961763
Stop reading in itself.
>>9961763
Yes1.
*1 but only if it expands my reading experience or knowledge on the text
Can anyone help a brainlet understand a paragraf? I just bought The Flowers of Evil, and on the cover-fold (when you open the first page) there is a paragraf about something, that Baudelaire wrote. I have a danish translation of the book, and I couldn't find an english pdf, cuz the paragraf is from a whole other work of his, so it may not be 100% accurate, if I try to translate it to english, but here it is.
"To sell your soul to the Devil, what does that mean/suggest?. What is more absurd, than the progress, when mankind, as fact shows from day to day, still in one and all/in all things is mankind equal, i.e. is still standing on the wild stage/state. What is the jungle's and the praire's dangers against the daily agitations and conflicts of our civilization? Wether mankind stands vulgar/crude on the boulevard or pierces its prey in unknown forests, it isn't the everlasting human, i.e. the most complete predator?"
I can't wrap my head about any of this. The paragraf is apparently from his own diary, "Journaux Intimes".
Halp
please search some articles or companions to french 19th century literature or Baudelaire himself to better understand the context.
One of the main Baudelaire's opinions is that boredom will kill us all, that's why we should find some occupation. We are dangerous to ourselves and others. We need something we can concentrate on instead of fully delight life and its opportunities.
>>9961694
spleen
>>9961722
of course not regular boredom, but rather "existential boredom"
I just received pic related as a gift so I feel obligated to read it but I'm really wary of post-colonial "woe is me" "fuck whitey" shit. I see that it's won a bunch of prizes so is it at least well-written enough that it somewhat transcends the oppression porn genre or am I in for a frustrating read?
HOL UP
Read it and come up with your own opinion.
>>9961693
I'm going to read it regardless as it was a gift, I guess I was just sort of hoping you might dispel my negative predisposition. /lit/ is the only place I can trust to be honest about these sort of issues. Critics and prize bodies are compromised by agenda
Recommend me sci-fi & fantasy books with pro-authoritarian/pro-collectivist themes.
Specifically, I'd like to read some books that feature a powerful STATE with a lot of control over citizen's lives, as opposed to just pro-monarchy (pretty much all epic fantasy) or pro-militarist (pretty much all military sci-fi) message.
I'm bored with all the liberal/libertarian/anarchist messages everywhere.
Pic related, the only example I can think of right now.
>>9961664
Alternate history where Stalin's parents emigrated to the West and he becomes President instead of FDR
>>9961673
What THE FUCK
>>9961664
Warhammer 4000000
books
>tfw your depression comes back just after you thought everything was getting better
>tfw this inevitably draws you back to 4chan after not posting for months
>tfw the usual method of reading philosophy isn't working as therapy anymore
literature for this feel?
Beckett's Trilogy. Real dark shit but it gives a strange sense of solace.
On the book The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, he includes a chapters called "Speaking of courage" and "notes"
For those of you that have read it, at the end he mentions that the story about Norman Bowker getting the silver star was not true, thus becoming a great question and symbol
What does /lit/ thin the symbol behind the silver star is?
I don't care, I wrote this off as BS in high school, and then I fought two wars and figured out exactly why it was bullshit: O'Brien is not telling you about his stories. He is repackaging the life of others and selling it as his own, and when caught he only admits to not having first hand experience with a majority of the ideas he presents. He tries to sell his bullshit as genuine by arguing that soldiers and war are some kind of absurdist construct that is open to interpretation and intrinsically comprised of falsehoods.
Write your essay about how much bullshit this story is by using O'Brien's own logic against him, and then forget you were forced to read this for whatever AP course you're taking.
>>9961600
My creative writing prof is buddies with Tim O'Brien. I've never read The Things They Carried. I just wanted to mention that.
>Reading this book
>It ain't me starts playing in the background.