Hey /lit/
I am writing a short story where a journalist goes to an insane asylum to interview an ex-philosopher who turned 'crazy' after trying too hard to make sense of a universe that offers no answers. The main theme is: nobody is crazy as we cannot define crazy as their are no certainties (subjectivism). Therefore, I need to depict the journalist as a 'lover for logic' and someone who believes he has everything worked out to the extent that when he is confronted by the philosopher it prompts him to have an extreme crisis. The problem is, I'm struggling to mould this character, I need help thinking of ways in which I can illustrate that this journalist is a lover for logic and believes in absolute truth's. Suggestions much appreciated.
>>8072941
>lover for logic and believes in absolute truth's
????
>>8072963
He can't understand that which is foreign to him and believes he can make sense in everything. He always asks 'why' which is a pointless endeavour in the postmodern era. He believes there are still certainties and is very much behind the times; a staunch conservative.
>>8072963
can't find a real girl
sleeps with lady logic
pretty much like boethius whose lady was philosophy since no other lady was allowed to him in the prison
No respectable news organization would pay a reporter for that story.
>>8072987
So he's a grown-up journalist with the mind of a 17 year old sperg?
>>8073007
He was a really prominent philosopher who is now in an asylum. Would people wanna see an interview with Nietzche if he was admitted to an asylum?
>>8073013
This was a commonplace paradigm in the pre-ww2 era
>>8073015
No one cared about Nietzsche
>>8073013
Also thinks in line with Hegelianism.
Hegelianism vs Subjectivism/existentialism/
>>8073022
Aha, i thought it was supposed to be contemporary.
Either way, writing it now is passé and redundant.
>>8073015
No one wants to see an interview with a crazy person. When you "go crazy," you "lose your own meaning," by proxy. The only people who consume that kind of content are conspiracy theorists or watchers of daytime TV.
>>8073047
>this is not the demographic for a newspaper or magazine
>>8073053
True, any way around this?>>8073047
But the whole point is he is not crazy. Authorities just labeled him as such because they couldn't understand his actions. Here are some quotes relevant:
"a world so bereft of reason that the last sane men are the ones in the asylums".
“But religious dogmatists' problem is exactly the same as the story's unbeliever: blind certainty, a close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn't even know he's locked up.”
"And if my thought dreams, could be seen, they'd probably put my head, in a guillotine."
Also the fact that they put Van Gough in an asylum.
>>8073122
Well now you have a very challenging obatacle to write. How are you going to portray this "madman" as insane by common thought but have underlying, clear reasoning to his actions? It sounds like you should be focusing more on that.
>>8073122
chekhov already wrote ward number 6 like 100 years ago
>>8073151
yeah, this is pretty much a lesser thought out version of Ward No. 6 lmao
All philosophers are crazy, there is no such thing as an ex philosopher, and take it from someone who talks to crazy people every night, there is most certainly a quantifiable difference between crazy and not crazy.
I can appreciate that you're in your sophomore year of college with an eye on a philosophy major, but no one will appreciate this story. Philosophy students will write your ideas off as pedantic, no one else would pick up your story to begin with.
https://www.pastefs.com/pid/1887
IF someone could critique it that'd be great
IGnore the part about him taking a detour to the workplace, haven't added that in yet
>>8072941
Just stop
>>8073181
I don't argue that there isn't, but the system used to be dodgy and people without psychological defects were getting admitted, it's set in a bygone time
