Epicureanism or Stoicism /lit/?
You many only choose one.
the one that's more epic desu
Stoicism. The epicurean pursuit of pleasure requires a very particular set of circumstances to allow. For many the epicurean garden is an impossibility. It is also fickle since anything can disrupt or destroy the garden. It's an entirely circumstantial philosophy. If one is unable to pursue pleasure, whether they be active or state, positive or negative then one is living a bad life. Asides from that it's effectively egoistic because it requires a withdrawal from politics and general society with complete focus on ones own pleasure. Friends are only worth anything so long as they provide pleasure. While after time the maintaining of that friendship is itself a pleasure all forms of human contact come down to their ability to allow one to feel pleasure.
Since stoicism is grounded in virtue one can flourish even during unpleasant physical or mental states. Before people green text me on the unpleasant mental states part please take the time to read contemporary scholarship on stoicism. One of the big misunderstandings I see on lit and elsewhere (although there are many others) is derived from the Greek word often translated into English as emotion or something similar. The stoic lifestyle prevents passions, that's not the same thing as unpleasant mental states.
Anyhow this pursuit of virtue allows them to be good regardless of circumstance. It is not a philosophy about being mentally imperturbable in the way an epicurean is about this sort of tranquility. For a stoic to be good one must have a good character and do good actions. This concept of character blurs the lines between the inner life and action in a way that is foreign to modern people. It is not a good inner life if one does not act good because they both inform each other.
tldr
Epicurean = wish washy fate dependent, self orientated egoism.
Stoicism = robust, civic minded, externally directed flourishing.
>>7692915
>The epicurean pursuit of pleasure
Stopped reading there pleb.
Can someone here explain how joyce is NOT, in fact a talentless hack? I read this waste of wood pulp two years ago and I still cannot remember it without seething
The man scours thesauri for the most obscure possible synonym for every word and if he can't find one to his liking he makes it up. He seems to think that meaning can only come from big words and the whole world nods in agreement
The themes he works into his books are hardly complex or subversive. Steinbeck and Twain tell more engaging and thoughtful stories in a witty common tongue, while Fitzgerald weaves more layers of metaphor into vivid descriptions than any writer I've ever read.
Joyce isn't vivid, he isn't complicated, and the only thing he made me think when I read this book was how far up their own asses most fans of his books are
Bill Waterson could say more about society in three panels than Joyce could in an entire shelf of novels
>>7692069
no, i can't
>steinbeck
>twain
>fitzgerald
ahahahahaha
amerifats stay pleb
>>7692104
mad irishboy detected
French or Japanese?
German.
Spanish
what do you want to read?
What do you use, if anything? Why (not)?
What do you put in it? Poetry, short stories, metaphors/similes?
Happy with it? Why (not)?
Pen or pencil?
Are you prepared to have your controversial opinions on all of the above shit on?
.pmuB
>>7691296
I write notes or thoughts to myself. If an idea or experience is important enough I will write it down. It's a form of reflection for me. I find it useful to write down thoughts so if I ever need to remind myself of an experience or idea I just revisit it through my journal.
>>7691296
I do it before I go to sleep. I lie down in my bed, take off my glasses, use my phone's light, and just write whatever I feel at the time or that I told myself to write during the day. Usually it's philosophical stuff or questions to myself, what I'm doing with my life, or what I want to do with it. It's actually probably more questions to myself about what in the hell I'm doing with my life. Like how I'm wasting it. Shoot me.
What did /lit/ think of this movie?
Idris Elba should've played DFW
The hanging scene was a bit tasteless.
>no Harold Bloom cameo
They had one job... guess they weren't paid enough for it
Your plane crashes in the pacific somewhere and you are stranded on a remote tropical island. The island is big enough that it has a fresh water supply, but you are the only human inhabiting the island. Fortunately, you brought with you five books and you have successfully salvaged these books from the burning wreckage of your plane. These books are the key to you remaining sane during the duration of your stay on the island. What five books did you bring with you?
1. The Holy Bible
2. The Silmarillion
3. Plato's Republic
4. A History of Western Art
5. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
>>7693436
Ulysses
Gravity's Rainbow
Infinite Jest
Finnegans Wake
The Ego and His Own
>1. The Holy Bible
You could have stopped here
Don Quixote
Aurelius' Meditations
Robinson Crusoe (kind of fits the theme)
A River Runs Through It
Gibbon's Decline and Fall (some omnibus volume or something that contains at least the first three volumes)
what is the mac demarco of literature?
>>7683899
Inherent Vice
>>7683899
Tao Lin obviously
Slacker Rock is John von Dorf
Can you think of a situation that is DFWean, Wallacean, or Wallacesque?
*WalLean
>>7683835
I posted this one bit of flash fiction here in the summer about a guy killing the CEO of the Dr. Pepper Snapple group as revenge for marginalizing Mr. Pibb with Dr. Pepper. I'd post it again but I never saved it.
Dee-Eff-Dubwean
Am I a bad Christian if I've read Confessions but not the actual Bible all the way through?
>>7694636
Of course you are. You need to read it and learn from it. Then you can understand the essence of your religion.
>>7694636
Just go to your church. They give you easy summaries of the best and most important parts of the Bible, so you don't actually have to read it.
Read the Lego Bible (Brick Testament), it's pretty cool desu. It's the complete (I'm pretty sure they have every verse) Old and New Testament with accompanying Lego imagery. It's available online for free.
I am convinced that Poe is the best writer to come out of the United States. The sentiment which he implements is similar to what is seen within the Russians and the effect he produces is no less profound than what the works of Kafka are capable of. The extensive vocabulary he seems to have such a mastery over is used in a way that I have not seen and it colors his works so to read them and compare them to those of other Americans is like to look at a painting and compare it with a rough doodle. Why is it that you guys extol the likes of Faulkner and Pychon but say nothing of Poe who, I repeat, I consider to be the pinnacle of American literature?
>>7694029
Poe was a meme author, and had no discernible talent. He was shitposting, and is literally genre tier fiction. clearly a juvenile author.
>>7694056
I'm sure you've copied this from another thread you tried to cast your bait in. You've won my response, if only to say that you have obviously not read any of his short stories.
bait
Let's dispel this fiction once and for all that Robert Musil doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing; He knows exactly what he's doing. He was a meme author, and had no discernible talent. He was shitposting, and is literally genre tier fiction. clearly a juvenile author.
it's true, you know.
Well he didn't know what he was doing with Man w/o since it's unfinished. He didn't know how to finish it. He's not any of those things but I don't think he's particularly good. He doesn't know what he's doing, he's just stringing along random little tidbits of philosophy in an attempt at something grand but failing.
>>7693573
i couldnt get past the first 100 pages. the shit was so fucking boring.
Hey /lit/,
I have a paper due about which genre produces better fiction, science fiction or fantasy. Spare me the typical /lit/ commentary on genre fiction. I don't normally read it, so I'm having trouble.
Can anybody link me to some articles promoting or defending the merits of these genres?
It would be a great help, thanks.
>>7692902
SciFi
Fantasy, definitely
>>7692920
fite me
I found it very eye opening.
10/10 read desu lads.
Just a comfy read.
Best book ive ever read to be honest family.
>>7690815
the only book you'll ever need
Big news
>>7689943
Is he big enough to live off his books now, or does he still have to work part time as a starbucks barrista.
The state of literature has gotten this bad?
>>7689990
Just this board, if you cared you would be getting this kind of news from the NYRB
Ask me some questions about Nietzsche faggots. I've studied him for a long time, and I have to take my mind off something for a while.
>>7687729
Does it bother you that high school edge lords claim they love Nietzsche and are total nihilists even though all they've read of him is his wikipedia page?
>>7687729
Also, I've not read Nietzsche so this may be a foolish question, is the idea of the Ubermensch or Superman theoretical or does he believe it to be executable in life?
Additionally... What exactly is the Ubermensch.
>>7687734
No, the attention he gets increases chances of me getting hired in a couple years.Any self-respecting history of phil department needs a nietzschean, just like it needs a kant guy, an ancient guy, a modern analytic etc.
