How come only the West has such an abdunance of literature and

west is best

>>9059592

because the west is civilized while people in the middle east and Africa are too busy hitting each other with sticks.

Funny if you consider that civilization started in those placed but never excelled there.

In the end it's because the Europe as a continent is hard to conquer, you need to be already civilized to a certain extent to do it, but if you manage to settle there it is the best geographic environment to create advanced civilizations. And as soon as a group of people managed to civilize it is able to produce art and culture.

>>9059592
Because the bourgeoise of the past wanted to look smart, so they paid actual geniuses to produce art. Do this for a few hundred years and you'll get a cultural tradition going on.

That said the WEST at large doesn't have an abundance of literature and philosophy, stop appropriating German, Italian, French and Spanish accomplishments, especially if you're American.

The west's secret is that they started with teh Greeks

>>9059592
academic institutions enabled by industrialization which was enabled by colonialism.

File: IMG_1888.jpg (79KB, 500x501px) Image search: [Google]

79KB, 500x501px

>>9059637
>the Africans couldn't start with the Greeks
>that's why they didn't produce anything of merit
Holy...

It's simple: oriental despotism is a thing, regardless of how much postmodern historians try to deny it.

>>9059621
so if communism rolls around and private capital isn't around to finance geniuses cultural tradition will stagnate, or perhaps even regress?

>>9059667
checks out

>>9059661
>industrialization which was enabled by colonialism.
nice meme

>>9059592
Africa is and always was a shithole.
Asia is infested with confucianism and other ideologies that turn their people into mindless working drones.
Middle east was pretty good at some point, but then religious cunts fucked it up and banned science and stuff.
American indians didn't even invent wheels lol.
Australia is full blown uga buga, just as bad as africa, maybe it's the climate.

>>9059592
East Asia has a great, very different, tradition. It's untranslatable though, you'll never understand it as a Westerner.

Art and philosophy really comes directly from language, which is why everybody speaking Indo-European thinks in approximately the same way (see Platonism and Vedanta developing independently in Greece and India). Change the language, change the genetics of the race, and you'll open up a new world.

For example, the Sub-Saharan Bantu people speak very primitive languages with very few words. Do you think they developed higher-order thinking? Of course not. The language reflects the race.

The Chinese think about things the West could never imagine, and vice versa.

But then, by physiological need, we're basically the same. See how the Mesoamericans independently developed pyramids.

the middle east literally saved philosophy before the middle ages

china and japan have incredibly rich histories of philosophy and literature

but i'm sure nothing will convince you otherwise

>>9059592
>Believes he can read an entire canon in a few years
>Less than 1% of it has been translated

>>9059912
>you'll never understand it as a Westerner

Typical eastern cop out.

Honestly, Western philosophy is understood by everyone with a bit of an IQ.
In Japan I saw tons of translations. Our philosophy is exportable. Yours is mystic poetry crap that claims to be too 'out there' but ends up saying the same "lol just chill" shit of the past 1000 years.

>>9059962
But that's wrong. How can you expect to understand the thought of such a different culture?

>>9059927
Not even the most zealous /pol/ user will deny the cultural achievements of the East Asians. It's just that they can't compete with those of the West.

>>9059972

How can you expect to understand the thought of Westerners then?

>>9059884
Not a commie, but a government that regulates the arts would be infinitely better than what free market is doing to our culture.
Free market works in lots of systems, but at this point I think it's fair to say that the general population is simply unable to promote good art.
As long as we stick with this system no new Dante or Beethoven will ever Join our tradition again.

>>9059912
Jesus christ you're fucking retarded. Sub-saharan africa isn't in east asia. East Asian philosophy and ideas IS translatable, maybe you've just never learned it because you're a blithering retard?

>>9060000
I never said that Sub-Saharan Africa was in Asia, you illiterate.

>>9059999
The solution is to have a permanent aristocratic class that rules over the stupid plebs.

>>9059986
Don't question the postmodern cop-out. All cultures are equally valid and you aren't allowed to judge them, even the really violent savage ones, because everyone has a different perspective or some bullshit like that. You need to decolonize your mind and check your western white supremacist capitalist cishet normative privilege. That's why non-westerners are allowed to judge your culture, because fuck you that's why, you white devil.

>>9060013
Nobody ever said that, faggot. Anybody who thinks that East Asia doesn't have great literature or philosophy is myopic. They're at least on par with the Greeks.

>>9060008

I wouldn't be that harsh, for a few monthly cents from every taxpayer you could have a cultural revolution in the foreseeable future. We're choosing not to do it.

>>9059884
The working classes have always had cultural traditions, they just couldn't afford paper. Thats why we only remember the music elites listened or stories elites read.

You're presumably western so there is that bias at the start.

The west composes a lot of different countries and languages and the whole tradition is interlinked. I could be wrong, but Eastern tradition isn't really the same. Most of it seems to be pretty insular to single countries with little overlap (or not nearly as much as compared to the west)

Poor distribution of resources results in slower societal and intellectual progress

>>9060029
Shut the fuck up, Jared Diamond

>>9059901
>Asia is infested with confucianism and other ideologies that turn their people into mindless working drones.
You could say the same thing about the West. Europe was under the spell of Platonism/Christianity for thousands of years..

>>9059869
Pretty sure that's just a result of the geography though, when you have a massive homogeneous rice farming land, you are likely to get power consolidated into one ruler

> Everyone is trying to justify a fake conception and nobody asked "how come you are thinking that the west is the only place of litterate history"
> They couldn't even name two books out of the west culture

/lit/ 2017 sucks

>>9059592
China has the longest running literary tradition in all of human civilization. Niggas used to have to be able to read and write poetry in order to hold public office.

>>9060078
This. China is a shithole now but their literary history is goat. Japanese and Chinese visual art is also very good. Chinese culture has such an untapped richness, it's like a second Greece.

The majority of Western philosophy is fucking garbage
>>9059901
Science is garbage, it should be wiped from existence.

>>9060082
>science is garbage
>posting on 4chot
really gives my brain a motif

>>9060119
Logical desu ne~~

>>9060081
Even today they still produce decent writers, Mo Yan being the premier example.

Only the west has true subjectivity in philosophy.

>>9059592
Because you consumed a lot of western philosophy you dumb doggo, there's a lot shitty western "philosophy".

How come only the East has an abundance of literature and philosophy? It seems like the West, and all the other parts of the world, is extremely overrated, because you can easily check out their most important writers in a few years if you want, but you'll need multiple incarnations to check out the Eastern canon.

>>9059592
Only the West did Enlightenment, though. The east never discovered logic, rationality or free market economics. To their credit, our Marxists and Regressives haven't either

>>9059869
Oriental Despotism is the GOAT aesthetic, tho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV4IjHz2yIo

>>9060046
PROVE ME WRONG NIGGA

>>9060243
wtf the East invented paper currency and free market economics, and had comprehensive logical systems that rivaled, if not surpassed, "the west". Read a fucking history textbook, you dolt.

Being ignorant to the wealth of art in other cultures is not the same as them lacking it.

>>9060000
nice quads