Can a figure like him exist today?
God, I hope so
>>24818247A figure does exist in the form of President Donald J. Trump.
Any books on curtailing modern witchcraft?
Is there anything worse than a movie cover for a book?
I care more about the material quality of the cover than whatever's printed on it
>>24818307I do agree that it's bad...but timcham is soo cute
>>24818307Vidya cover
Who defines what words go in the dictionary? I just made a word to capture an idea>Dispiresomething that is supposedly that pushes things away in a non degrading yet still forceful manner wherein otherwise there would be interest or at least should be.Who has 'dictionary' duty?
>>24818000>I just made a wordYou have to also convince people to use it.
>>24818105>I'm failing to see the use case for this wordYou're dispiring the expansion of the english lexicon>Aren't you just describing what femoidal humans refer to as "an ick"?'To Dispire' would be a verb and would rather describe something akin to 'un-inspiring behavior' but in a more broad and also less degrading way to the user.>Any collection of noises becomes a word once large enough number of humans agree to use it for communication.The vast majority of words in every language are almost never used aren't they? I don't know the math on it, but it seems like a plausible induction.
>>24818125Use it. Use the word now.Do it.
>>24818000>Who defines what words go in the dictionary?The American Dialect Society named "rawdog" as its Word of the Year for 2024,they only document what people do, make fetch happen and get it in.
>>24818368>make fetch happen"Make fetch happen" is a phrase from the movie Mean Girls, where it refers to trying to make a slang term or trend popular, even if it doesn't catch on. It humorously highlights the effort to popularize something that may not be widely accepted.
I hate special editions. I hate sprayed edges. I hate soulless clipart decals on covers. Special editions are exclusively bought as social signifiers and glorified paperweights. If I see Penguin clothbound classics on someone's shelf they're either a woman or a pseud. Oftentimes both.
>>24817126Genuine idiot.
>>24817145>>24817792
>>24817082They make for great presents, fag.
>>24817082I hate book like this. I can imagine that the usual demographic will look at this on some popular bookstore on the popular literature section and screamed with those calarts ●○● expression about how 'cute' and 'aesthetic' looking these books are; and then the usual demographic will record herself entering the bookstore in portrait mode (with her iphone of course, not samsung or android but just iphone because that's what these people love) and put her stupid phone in one of the racks, filming herself taking one of those pastel colored, edge sprayed, pride and prejudice or whatever jane austen virginia woolf sense and sensibility novel in there and pretend to be shocked in front of camera - covering her gapped mouth (but not fully gapped, just half gapped because otherwise it'll ruin make up, hair, eyebrows et cetera) with her hand while showing her newly painted fingernails along the way. Then the usual demographic will took her phone, filming herself paying for these stupid pastel colored book on cashier (dont forget to film the fingernails!) and back to the her stupid excessive bedroom or apartment, and the usual demographic will 'unbox' it and make a little montage to appreciate the book cover aesthetic; tilting, panning, filming the sprayed edge, those glittery looking typography and that little house graphic, and the usual demographic will edit the video herself, trimming each clip, finding the best shot that could show her face, put her storytelling voice over about how she found this book 'randomly' but oh, oh! Before the usual demographic could press 'export' she will first post that thing on instagram so that people, her fellow 'usual demographic' friends, can look at her post about her newly pastel colored book -with some self-made cup of latte next to it- with envy, and then the usual demographic will post her video to tiktok and farm some internet likes from it to fuel her narcissistic peacock-like desireI know about this I ALWAYS knew
>>24818165hehheh
>The four arts of the Chinese scholar were the four main academic and artistic talents required of the aristocratic ancient Chinese scholar-gentleman. They were the mastery of the qin (the guqin, a stringed instrument, 琴), qi (the strategy game of Go, 棋), shu (Chinese calligraphy, 書) and hua (Chinese painting, 畫), and are also referred to by listing all four: 琴棋書畫; qínqíshūhuà. How much better would the world be if everyone in politics or working in the government had to study: a musical instrument, a visual art, a strategic board game, and literature[1]?It seems like now (at least in the US) people in politics are invariably law school graduates, former military, or from business/corporate world. I think this is only allowing a worldview where government and politics is only seen through lenses of law, military, and economics instead of how to further virtue and beauty within each person. Which is sad when you think about it.[1] replacing calligraphy
>>24814478>The sole known prototype was stored at Mergenthaler for over a decade until it was assumed lost when the company moved out of New York City.[21][22] Tai-yi attempted to recover the prototype during a trip to the United States in the 1960s, but was only able to make contact with a Mergenthaler engineer three months after the move. Unknown to the wider world, Mergenthaler toolmaker Douglas Jung had kept the typewriter in his home basement, where it remained after his death in 2004. On 23 January 2025, the typewriter resurfaced in a social media post by Nelson Felix, husband of Jung's granddaughter Jennifer Felix, who found the prototype while he was cleaning out the basement and was unaware of its significance.
>>24815452>The ones that actually take to that education don't go into politics or administration for the most part.It isn't a question of "taking to it", you don't take to oxygen or water. These kids are molded from birth in ways that you or I aren't. They're marinated in Western culture from a young age, it doesn't matter if they're bored when they're being forced to study Latin or English naval history. The young Bush jr was by all accounts an alcoholic frat bro and yet he spends his retirement oil painting and reading.
>>24811902> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EugfcGHVf1A&pp=0gcJCR4Bo7VqN5tDIt’s funny you want to learn these ancient Chinese arts, because I went to a school for “elites” (where you’d most expect students to receive some classical western education) and instead of learning shit like Latin or Greek the most common language taught by far is Mandarin. Since we in the West don’t teach our culture maybe we’ll be learning those arts pretty soon. Could be worse if I’m being honest.
>>24816735>you don't take to oxygen or waterthat's how life came about you know, I see it as the same thing on a much larger scale; "the blind striving of the will">molded from birth in ways that you or I aren'tspeak for yourself chud
>>24811902not really on topic, but how the fuck did the chinks paint something so beautiful in 10th century? it completely mogs everything else up tu the renaissance
About a year or more ago we had a reading group that went through Plotinus' Enneads. Was wondering if there would be any traction for a similar thing with Proclus. I figure we could do a chapter a day. https://archive.org/details/sixbooksproclus00unkngoog/page/n20/mode/1up
>>24799538no
>>24817657I thought the word 'pagan' was pejorative to anyone that was viewed as heretical to the christian framework of the time. Or am I confused?
>>24817687It was a term that basically meant country bumpkin to urban Christians, who were predominantly city dweller, who thought polytheists were backwards or unfashionable. So you're right. I don't feel bad about using it though. Polytheism is probably better though I guess as it's more accurate.
How many anons are in this thread readin at this level? It's makes me want to finish the early stuff so I can make it. Megamind action here.
Gotta read Euclid's elements to understand proclus
>threads up about blake, byron and keats>no thread about the greatest romanticWordsworth is severely underrated. Discuss his poetry.
>>24816911That's a minor poem, it would be ridiculous to judge his entire oeuvre based on it. It is quite perfectly written with its simple form and perhaps deceivingly simple subject matter, because it succeeds in at once giving real insight into the psychology of father and son, as well as revealing a great beauty in the mundane experience of life, the value of which may not be immediately apparent to those with a pubescent taste in poetry.>>24816919Blake and Wordsworth are so extremely different. You should be able to appreciate both. But IMO once you begin to analyse Blake, instead of just being superficially awed like many people are, you see that his mythological language is emptier of meaning, more vague and ephemeral, than Wordsworth's very real and substantial record of his experiences. But I don't mean to hate on Blake.
>>24817018 Anecdote for Fathers was the first poem I ever read by him and I felt it saccharine and simple, but I'm open to being wrong, what are some of Wordsworth's better works to check out?
>>24817217That's the thing, simplicity isn't necessarily bad. Wordsworth is toying with simplicity, playing on the difference between ballad-like fiction and the reality of his experiences and thoughts, going back and forth between them. Again, it's really very perfectly written. As for being saccharine, I can understand that being said of Wordsworth and the Romantics in general, but it's just something you have to get over if you want to appreciate the period. It's morally upright and idealistic, it may seem like a limited view of life to modern man, but it's not necessarily a wrong or false view of life either. I mean, do you think it's impossible for a father to ever have the happy emotions portrayed in the poem?If you want Wordsworth at his best see Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey and the Immortality Ode.
>>24817580Damn that's good, going to have to consider that one for awhile.https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45536/ode-intimations-of-immortality-from-recollections-of-early-childhood
>>24816830>Without Wordsworth there is no RomanticismDisagreeThe urge was there (as our resident 18th century proto romantic anon keeps pointing out), Wordsworth just embodied it.
You haven't read a book unless you've read it twice.
this only proves that the vast majority of literature is worthy of half-reading at best
>>24817615There're too many unread classics for me to consider rereading anything, unless i absolutely love it.It's funny, but with music I'll play an album on repeat for days and I'm not thinking "there's so many albums I haven't heard."
>>24817615does listening to Michael Sugrue's lectures count as reading a book?
>>24817715There is a human ability called "thinking". You are supposed to "think" about the book after you finish it, not just read the last letter and then immediatly start watching tiktoks.
You've read a book after reading it once, but you only understand a book sufficiently to make critical judgements worthy of being printed after reading it at least twice, ideally three. This is supremely obvious when it comes to poetry because no one would claim to understand a poem after reading it once, yet the pitiful laziness and defensiveness of people makes them think that this an absurd thing when it comes to even more complex and demanding works like long novels.
If pic related changed my life, what else would I like?
>>24816115How did it change your life?
>>24817288Um...a bit hard to explain, I guess. Just that I've had some misgivings about our more modern societal structures for a while and some things that I "felt" were not correct or that I felt were missing and, I don't know, just kinda made me feel that I wasn't a crazy person. How much of who I am is inherited and how much of who I am lives in a shadow of the sort of long, unbroken chain of hearth fires reaching back to the first fires of human faith and kinda reminded me to honor my family, my home, and the memory of all those that came before me. That every day is mysterious and meaningful. Sacred. Nothing too crazy. Just sort of helped recenter my philosophical or religious perspectives, I guess.
The Homeric Gods by Walter F. Otto. Which is as dubiously researched and as inspiring as OP. Interesting because it's almost trying to convert you into being Greek in the homeric mold. Then read >>24816140Followed by The Greeks and the irrational
>>24817224From Yahweh to Zion
>>24817421Will definitely check out this recommendation as, at a glance, it sounds interesting and seems to be even more detailed or focused on the actual religion itself. Thanks.>>24817515You can correct me if I’m wrong but don’t most argue that there was a distinct difference between the Ancient Greek (even earlier civilizations) through early Roman religions and that Judaism was an markedly Asian religion? Right now I’m mostly interested in the western religion and social philosophy rather than the eastern of the time. From before any of the syncretism took place, I mean.
>If the flights of Dryden therefore are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight.Do you think it's true? I thought his Aeneid was pretty mid compared to Pope's Iliad, and I didn't really feel that he has better highs.
>"If you crush a cockroach, you're a hero; if you crush a beautiful butterfly, you're a villain. Morality has aesthetic criteria."I think Nietzsche was a retard but this is actually an interesting point. How would you respond to it?
>>24816739True, Saladin was known for murdering Christians.
>>24817099>a religion is nothing but whatever its founders saidlol
>>24816704>How would you respond to it?"Yeah you probably right"What else am I supposed to say?
>>24816704It's not what you crush, but why.If you destroy a living being just for fun or to feel power then you are a villain.If you destroy a living being because it's a pest, then you are a hero.People hate cockroaches not because they are ugly, but because they are unsanitary. My grandma killed a shitton of beautiful butterflies, because these fuckers were eating the cabbage in her garden and I don't think anybody would call her evil for doing that.
>>24816708But in the same degree?
Should I read TBK? Is it a good book?
I don't read books
It’s a very good book, although Dostoevsky is one of those writers you either get into the feel of and adore or don’t understand the hype. I think Demons is very underrated as well.
>>24816189I finished Crime and Punishment just over a week ago and am reading some other stuff before my copy of TBK (Magarshack Tr.) arrives later this week. I'm looking forward to it immensely.
It's a great book.
>>24817867You should lower your expectatives, since Crime and Punishment is the better work.
have books changed your life before?
>>24817995Reading Chesterton legit help me relearn how to enjoy life. And that kinda made me a little better at everything.
Neitzche unironically pulled me out of a stupor and functioned the same as a high quality therapist.
>>24817995>>24818186Can you discord fetishists freaks stop spamming this shit everyday on /lit/ and go back to /tv/. I know exactly your game plan thinking this board is smaller and an easier target to brainwash but it's never going to work.
>>24818323What books specifically?
>>24818351I have read a lot of him, and the books kinda meld together in my mind. If I remember correctly, the main work was, and the one I would recommend reading, is:>OrthodoxyBut I also got a lot of value from:>The Napoleon of Notting Hill>The Innocence of Father Brown (detective stories)>The Wisdom of Father Brown (detective stories)>The Defendant (essay collection)>Tremendous Trifles (essay collection)They are all free on Project Gutenberg so do not hesitate to give them a try.
>Woman I like that goes to my church started seeing another man>End up crying myself to sleep over thisAny books to help cope? I've considered reading pic related for a while now.
>>24816962Damn straight, brother. We should be downing Rip Its and going on modern day crusades in the Middle East.
>>24817045Back then it was allowed, women were more respectable and mysterious. Now, there's absolutely no reason why a woman should hurt you to such an extent. What you need is experience with any modern woman to see how degenerate they've all become. That should be your goal, go to thailand or mexico, any country and find a cheap woman, see what your chivalry is worth these days, otherwise, keep pining for white women and suffer even more.
>>24817072I don’t think they were led by physiological curiosity. Fedeli d’Amore was a spiritual thing. Of course the average woman is retarded, but I think the point is not about any woman, but women who awaken love within you in a sincere way, if not deep. I get that OP is probably just simping any cute girl, but what those medieval poets expressed refers to a universal feeling, I mean, even the Romantics later would take Phaedrus and the Symposium as paradigms of their romantic love.
>>24817072>keep pining for white womenWhat's wrong with that?
>>24817072White women are the only femoids worth the struggle.
