/lit/ - Literature

It is a thing though. It's a complex and well defined philosophy developed by only the smartest minds in the world.

Because I have a mission on this Earth, plus life is fun.

I never knew why /g/ adored her. She rambles on about jack shit in almost all her videos.

I want you to do something, try to make a toaster from scratch. There goes your self sufficiency (unless you want to live like a caveman).

>>3264119
>Not even writers care about literary critics.
No, they do. Even bad writers care about literary critics... well not all of the bad writers.

>>3264073
That's a lot of assumptions, pal. Literary critics are just that, critics of literature. They analyze literature and attempt to deconstruct it to discover its worth. Nobody cared about Beowulf until Tolkien wrote about how Beowulf was actually a pretty decent epic. They don't exist to stroke their own egos or anything.

>>3264068
You don't have to have a degree, but you need to have an extensive knowledge of what you're talking about the academic discussion and you need to be involved in it. I guarantee you that Dawkins isn't involved in current philosophical discussion.

>>3264043
Exactly. You don't need a degree, but it certainly can help.

>>3264049
You don't exactly need a degree to become a programmer or mechanic though. However, you do need a degree in literature in almost every scenario to become a well-acknowledged literary critique in academics.

>>3263974
You might as well say studying anything gives you the opportunity to say anything because it can extend to other disciplines. I study economics, which is a branch of philosophy which means I can discuss theology. :3

It's outrageous. You're either engaged in the discipline or you're not, Sure you might have knowledge on a discipline that ends up being tied to another discipline in some way, but you can only talk about that other discipline completely in the context of the extended discipline that you know.

Being an evolutionary biologist doesn't make you an authority on philosophy or theology.

>>3263980
Nutrition and philosophy certainly is though.

>>3263957
From knowing your arguments. That means by having done a well prepared literature review, by understanding the history behind the discipline, by submitting peer-reviewed papers, and so on.

A degree doesn't make you an expert automatically, but it certainly gives you the tools and time to become one. Penn isn't exactly well known for his academic input into certain disciplines.

>>3263923
It allows you to discuss evolutionary biology, but that doesn't exactly jump to basic metaphysical and philosophical discussion. Plenty of philosophers (theistic and atheistic) dislike his childish attempt to write on theology.

>>3263858
He does make some entertaining stuff, but everyone should take anything he says with more than a grain of salt. Kind of like how an evolutionary biologist starts writing on philosophy. A specialist in one field does not make you a specialist in another.

>>3263752
This is kind of depressing. What's even more depressing is how media spins scientific studies to scare the shit out of people. Anyone remember the Harvard Nurse clinical study?

>They are not useful for human improvement/progress/development
They're a great medium to express thoughts in an entertaining way.

>They are not intellectually rigorous
What is academic literary theory of criticism?

>They are not economically valuable
They are economically valuable because people value them. Value is subjective and price is an objective measurement of all those subjective values. Whoever tells you literature isn't economically valuable (or anything that is sought after in society), tell him to take an introductory microeconomics course.

>>3263732
We should include "The Mystery of the Druids."

>The Brick Bible
Huehue.

>>3263671
Isn't it kind of a historical bias to describe them as Western Religions though? To be honest, Western religion was Greek, Roman, and some Germanic pagan religions. They didn't give birth to what we know today as monotheism. Just saying, it's kind of misleading.

>>3263662
The religion was born in the Near East and it was centered there for a good long while. Why would I be joking? I get it, Westerners adopted Judaism in a different form, but you can make the argument that even Christianity was originally an Eastern religion.

>>3263650
Now that I think about it, shouldn't Judaism be an Eastern religion?

Check out the Western Images part, I added Torah.

>>3263600
I'm not complaining to you, I'm just saying commentaries are super important and vital to Judaism at least. I just wanted to throw a word in, not become part of the discourse.

>>3262294
To be honest, I don't know the poem's title. I just don't want to bump the thread though.