What's the biggest problem in literature today?
What's holding authors back from creating masterpieces like our ancestors did?
memes, insincerity, political correctness, pop culture.
>>7472138
pic not related
>>7472149
>"political correctness"
what did he mean by this?
>>7472151
it is related, honey
>>7472192
But Mein Kampf is a horrible read. It's shit. Have you even read it?
I'm German and I tried to read it but it's utter garbage. You've fallen for a bad meme, anon. I'm sorry I have to tell you this here on /lit/.
>>7472138
This is what plebs of every generation say.
>>7472149
political correctness is basically just empathy. Empathy is a crucial quality for any great author, perhaps even more important than prose or narrative, hence it isnt the problem
>>7472192
what is the point of this picture? what is its relation to your post? why did you feel the need to post this particular picture? who is the girl? why is she making that face? why does she live in an attic? why did she feel the need to post a picture of the attic?
>>7472217
PC is empathy to its most dangerous level
>>7472138
there's just too much shit out there, man. any old cunt can be published now (present company notwithstanding.)
>>7472197
>Have you even read it?
one of my favorites. I also enjoy Hitler's Table Talk
>>7472226
I don't see how too much empathy is a problem. Do you think writers need to be more self-indulgent?
>>7472272
A lot of writers are largely self indulgent
>>7472272
Empathy gone to the point where you're disenfranchising yourself for the sake of Machiavellian agents taking advantage of your kind nature for their own benefit is clearly a problem.
>>7472245
You must be a masochist. Hitlers books have some of the worst prose I've ever read.
Not really, you can be as edgy as ever now. There are books about fucking animals, pedophilia, drugs, crazy sex shit, etc.
Hating on blacks or jews won't make a book great or even good.
>>7472227
This is the reason. There is genius out there it is just lost in the shitpile. And academic critics no longer function to recover such genius from the shitpile, so they'll probably stay in the shitpile for all of time.
>>7472314
what can we do about it?
>>7472331
read more, and promote the great literature you find (via internet, friends, writer gatherings, etc.).
>>7472138
Too many layers of irony and sincerity, nothing can be taken seriously anymore.
Political correctness is more than just empathy...It's censorship.
>>7472882
/thread
>>7472197
>I'm German and I tried to read it
Reported to the BND
>>7472297
This is the greatest problem with art now, I'd say. Stuff like Naked Lunch and Gravity's Rainbow had a bit of a punch back in the 50s and 70s, respectively, but now talking assholes and imagining the shit you are eating to be nigger dicks are just common things in popular fiction today
>>7472272
How can you be expected to change the world for the better when you can't write a single sentence without thinking about who it could potentially offend?
Protip: anything you write will offend at least one person, and ESPECIALLY so in this day and age.
>>7472875
>writer gatherings
We could do that here.
>>7472138
Less of a drive to write "good" literature, more to make it sell and become a movie.
>>7472217
>political correctness is basically just empathy
It's become a form of censorship.
>Empathy is a crucial quality for any great author, perhaps even more important than prose or narrative, hence it isnt the problem
Why would you post something so wrong?
>>7472272
Art is necessarily self-indulgent.
Literature nowadays is significantly better. You guys are just a bunch of nostalgiafags who fell for the Greek meme.
>>7472875
>friends
:'(
>>7472882
/thread
There are plenty of masterpieces still being written, OP. You're just not informed enough to discover them.
>>7472217
wrong. a lot of it is actaully self-righteousness, narcissism and hatred
>>7472138
Nothing really
Politics over aesthetics.
Radical defunding and elimination of arts programs because arts "don't matter", only sciences do
>>7473289
It's the industrialization of education that has led to the devaluing of the arts, allowing pop politics to creep in and ultimately have a monopoly over the discourse
>>7473296
Twain, Dostoyevsky, Rimbaud, Vonnegut, Camus, Joyce (i can keep listing others) were all not on some arts dole. You'd only get African negresses scribbling about their marginalization, identity and other lbgtbbq twinks.
>>7473200
Name one piece of contemporary fiction that's better than the Oresteia. You fell for the anti-Greek meme.
>implying mein kampf is a masterpiece
>implying there are no contemporary masterpieces
>implying classic literature is markedly better than contemporary literature
retarded and/or b8
>>7473536
this^
if anything, defunding the arts would vastly improve them and get rid of vapid social justice commentary masquerading as art
>>7473553
Social commentary can be art. It's worse I think. You have a whole intellectual and commercial later of writers whose work is simply minority ressentiment masquerading as social critique as art. True artists can't be bothered with subnational grievances, let alone any kind of bad conscience or guilt.
>>7473536
>>7473553
No one would care about any of those authors if there weren't an elite literary culture held in place by the ruling classes and/or government, though that culture is currently dying.
>You'd only get African negresses scribbling about their marginalization, identity and other lbgtbbq twinks.
>defunding the arts would vastly improve them and get rid of vapid social justice commentary masquerading as art
Total fucking bullshit, and your retarded ideology is what's destroying the arts. What you described is what happens when you NEGLECT the arts and allow them to be democratized, as is happening now. All that matters at that point is what's popular at the moment, such as identity politics.
>>7473536
Joyce's education was Catholic and the background in aesthetics he received from it was essential to everything he wrote. Don't pretend you've read Portrait of Ulysses.
>>7472138
Detachment from beauty and truth
Most novels simply concerned with "entertaining"
World enveloped in brainlessness.
People don't know how to think anymore.
>>7473670
also bureaucratization
>>7473669
so private catholic schools are "government arts funding" now? jesus you're stupid
>>7472138
>What's holding authors back from creating masterpieces like our ancestors did?
The temptation of success that shit like Hunger Games, Harry Potter, and Twilight brings
Also, the fact that the "human condition" is vastly different today, and is more often solitary confinement in a world full of people in the same solitary confinement
A masterpiece would just be a really long soliliquy about a cell phone dying or something
my unfinished work of poetry
>>7473704
>2015
>writing poetry
>>7473197
Empathy is absolutely crucial, otherwise you can only write about yourself, which is bound to be pretty boring, or be unable to write believable characters.
>>7473547
Orestia is kinda boring desu
It's good, don't get me wrong. But the Bacchae is infinitely more entertaining.
>>7473710
This is why I'm hot
>>7473759
hahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
>>7473307
Underrated post, adding this to what I said on >>7472882
Among most of today's 'average' people - the dominant ideology (thanks to industrialized education/propaganda) is that the most important thing is to follow a STEM related belief, to be useful and most importantly to be 'productive' - there's this idea that everyone I know has that the one capital T truth is that usefulness, productivity and tangibility are the only virtues. People believe that if one is not 'improving' themselves in some empirical way - a constructive hobby, becoming educated, consuming - that they're 'wasting' their life. You see it on Reddit /r/askmen lots, the hivemind believes that activities such as socializing, or simply enjoying existence are pointless. Western society desperately needs a resurgence of German Romanticism (Faustian, Hegelian).
Adding to this is pop-politics. In a "pre-postmodern/Ur-romantic" consumerist way (Not the modern 14-year-old edgy way but the (stupidly) romanticist way), everyone defines their sense of self to some objet A scale of political correctness, instead of to the ego. You see now (particularly upon 14-29 year old left-wings) a habit of basing their entire identity around what ideologies they subscribe to - it can be broken into categories of political, sexual, entertainment, and ironical.
- For political, just watch any stand up comedian, half of them that I see now simply show up, say "What's the deal with [Republicans/Homophobes]", and the entire audience bursts into applause. Talk to any teenager and they'll probably advocate Communism without even knowing who Marx is - there's this unfounded yet popular idea that by picking an alternative and edgy political belief they can all reassure each other that they fit into a collective state (communist) of thinking to rely upon, instead of understanding the Ego people are hiding instead the big Other. (cont.)
>>7473841
continued
- Sexuality, we're all familiar with the Tumblrina claiming to be an demigender allosexual queerfemme toiletkin with anxiety and bipolar and whatever else. These people are the biggest problem facing modern society. The entire movement is turning people into a trainwreck in which [the ego and the other], the [real and the idea], the [emotion and the materialistic], are all being synthesized into a state of stupid despair. These people, upon no reasonable foundation are claiming that a contingent part of their identity (sex) is somehow tied to any ideology. After claiming that being genderfluid or whatever is who they are, and is an important part of their sense of self - they find others sharing this belief and tie their 'unique' idea of self to the Big Other appearing material of an unreachable collective consciousness (the internet). They then perpetuate completely nonsensical ideas about what constitutes the materialistic/big other representation of their blind ego and then through the guise of progressivism, political correctness, and 'moral good' these people turn all of this ideology and the Big Other into some unknowable Wittgensteinian Beetle. And we're the box.
- Entertainment: another big problem on Reddit and Tumblr, and in all young people. Is again tying all of what I said in the previous post to consumerist entertainment. People bond primarily over a shared agreement over what certain pieces of media are good. And the scariest part is that there are these uncriticisable works of media being produced, and if you don't buy into the hype of the product, and gush over how great it is, how it's a part of who you are, and how you love this object - you get outcast and demeaned - just look at all the ideology surrounding the new Star Wars and 'nerd' culture in general.
- Ironical, kind of a continuiation of my first post. Irony and sincerity are the same thing nowadays. Just look at pepe the frog, Yeezus, and any other meme. After the new sincerity (a self aware yet sincere act) layers of irony and sincerity have been piled on everything, now it's all collapsing under the weight and now it's impossible to avoid any action free of both irony and sincerity. Even look here and you'll realise it's impossible to tell when someone ironically believes or sincerely believes something. This means that people can now just hide any action they perform behind this guise. When you can never tell if someone is being sincere, you can never know their true ideas (through irony they will show who they aren't, but never who they are). It's impossible to escape now.
Also this post might not make any sense, I'm very sleep deprived - and recovering from a DXM habit.
>>7473737
Art is an extension of the self: it is wholly based upon the emotions, beliefs, and interpretations of the artist. Pandering to others corrupts what is the most sincere thing a person can do. Please stop spouting bullshit about things you don't understand.
>>7472138
probably the fact that it's very difficult for even a successful writer to make a living out of writing
of course there are exceptions like jk rowling and there are people who can churn out werewolf romances and shit like that on Amazon but most writers can't survive on writing alone
>>7473847
You are seriously overestimating the impact tumblr has on the real world.
And I don't agree with your position about entertainment either: you are definately allowed to dislike big things in entertainment. See hipster culture.
Youth-nostalgia today has a bigger impact however, since our generation was one of the first to grow up with specific entertainment franchises (and have an information distribution device (internet) to remind each other of that stuff.)
I'd write a longer, more coherent post, but I'm on my phone on the bus.
>>7473966
>overestimating the impact tumblr has on the real world
I know it's affecting that, but it is affecting what used to be literary circles.
>>7473999
* i mean not affecting the real world
>>7473863
Empathy is not pandering and art definitely is not some big act of self-centeredness. Art is born from the artists emotions but it's not completely detached from thought. Especially literature. Literature is very thoughtful and probably the least emotional art. The inability to relate with people leads to poor depiction of any thoughts that are not your own and poor argumentation. Other people and ideas become illogical caricatures.
