/lit/ - Literature

It means he's right, and all revolutionaries are inherently satanic.

As Samuel Johnson once said, the first Whig was the Devil.

>>23202217
This. Completely correct. Burke is perfect as the "father of conservatism" because he's a perfect example of how conservatives always cuck out. Burke was perfectly fine with the English Revolution and the American Revolution and it was only the French Revolution where he chimped out. This, despite the fact that the Jacobins were merely taking the ideas of America and England to their logical conclusion.

Burke wasn't right-wing, he was a progressive who wanted to drive under the speed limit. A perfect cuckservative.

Contrast him with Samuel Johnson, who DID have a problem with both the English Revolution AND the American Revolution. He actually wrote a pamphlet called "Taxation, No Tyranny" condemning the American rebels.

There's a fine line between a lolcow and a based retard, isn't there? There are some writers and thinkers that did plenty of ridiculous shit, but they carry it off in such a way that you find yourself enjoying it rather than mocking it.

Like, Samuel Johnson had a life full of ridiculous nonsense; Boswell wrote a whole book about it. But I wouldn't really consider him a "lolcow," he's more of a based retard. It's all in how you carry it off, I think. That and it helps if you actually DO have talent despite your ridiculous antics.

MY BOY SAMUEL JOHNSON VINDICATED AGAIN

OSSIANFAGS IN FUCKING SHAMBLES

Remember ot read Johnson, start with the Rambler essays.

>Boswell, in The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) says that he and Johnson were discussing George Berkeley’s view that matter was nonexistent and that everything in the universe is merely ideal, when ‘Johnson answered, striking his foot with force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, ‘I refute him thus’ .’

>>22463710
The Rambler is great, as is the Lives of the Poets.

I love how much he loves Homer. Johnson may be more responsible than almost anyone else for establishing Homer as a big deal in Western thought post-Renaissance. Sure, after he was rediscovered people loved him, but Johnson praised the Iliad and the Odyssey immensely. Crucially, he thought Homer was better than Virgil, which is a big deal because for basically 1000 years Virgil had been THE ancient epic poet of the West, in the minds of readers and thinkers.

OP why not read Burke's contemporary and very good friend, Samuel Johnson? He wasn't necessarily a politician or a political philosopher but he did put out some opinions, and unlike Burke, the Whig, Johnson was a staunch Tory, a firm supporter of the power of the King against Parliament and the merchants.

You should read Boswell's biography, Johnson makes several political statements that Boswell records. You could also read the pamphlet he wrote denouncing the American colonists one year before the American Revolution.

Fun fact, Johnson hated Americans the entire rest of his life as a result of the Revolution. He considered them traitors.

I

REFUTE

IT

THUS

Read Samuel Johnson.

Samuel Johnson makes the case, on multiple occasions, that the most valuable type of writing to read is biography, and everyone should read more biographies in general. Johnson says that one of the most important things we can read for is to learn how to live our lives well, and the most practical way to learn how to live life well is to read the lives of others, seeing what they did well and what they did poorly.

What do you think, /lit/? Is he right?

whats his best essays?

>Next morning I found him alone, and have preserved the following fragments of his conversation. Of a gentleman who was mentioned, he said, “I have not met with any man for a long time who has given me such general displeasure. He is totally unfixed in his principles, and wants to puzzle other people.” I said his principles had been poisoned by a noted infidel writer, but that he was, nevertheless, a benevolent good man. JOHNSON. “We can have no dependance upon that instinctive, that constitutional goodness which is not founded upon principle. I grant you that such a man may be a very amiable member of society. I can conceive him placed in such a situation that he is not much tempted to deviate from what is right; and as every man prefers virtue, when there is not some strong incitement to transgress its precepts, I can conceive him doing nothing wrong. But if such a man stood in need of money, I should not like to trust him; and I should certainly not trust him with young ladies, for there there is always temptation. Hume, and other sceptical innovators, are vain men, and will gratify themselves at any expence. Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken, themselves to errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull. If I could have allowed myself to gratify my vanity at the expence of truth, what fame might I have acquired. Every thing which Hume has advanced against Christianity had passed through my mind long before he wrote. Always remember this, that after a system is well settled upon positive evidence, a few partial objections ought not to shake it. The human mind is so limited, that it cannot take in all the parts of a subject, so that there may be objections raised against any thing. There are objections against a plenum, and objections against a vacuum; yet one of them must certainly be true.”

>>21866802
I tend to side with Johnson on this one. He thought that Pastoralism was naive and antiquated and had no justification in what was modern English poetry at the time he was writing. However, I don't completely agree with Johnson either, as I think the way that Milton's ironic and polemical pastoral poetry is very interesting and a world apart from any other pastoral poetry which had been written.

We could fix this board overnight if it became a requirement that OP's have to be at least thirty words.

Samuel Johnson - A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland

In "A Complete Vindication of the Licensers of the Stage," Samuel Johnson completely BTFOs the liberal protestants who did not support the monarchy.

>all books should be licensed by the government before publication
>licensing is a favor, not a right
>freedom of speech/press are only illusions
>reveals how the absence of book licensing lead to the fall of Rome
>suppression of liberal "forward-thinkers" will lead to a more tranquil nation
>those without rank or title are not entitled to free speech, and only desire it so they may undermine authority and tradition
>a less educated public is more peaceful and beneficial to the aristocratic state
>licensing will prevent the publication and popularity of lesser-than poets
>make it a felony to teach others to read with a license

Thoughts?

Does anyone else get melancholy when they read about how great education was in former times? Just look at John Stuart Mill's autobiography, or Samuel Johnson, or really any literary figure before c.1900. They all were raised to know literature, philosophy and history in and out, could read Greek and Latin, etc. Can self-education in adulthood really make up for the void left by poor education during childhood?

>>21626002
do UKers really

redpill me on Samuel Johnson

>Can't read Gaelic
>Hates Scottish people
>Travels to Scotland so he can examine Gaelic manuscripts he can't read
Any other famous faux intelectuals?

It takes a particular type of genius to be a truly great critic. Most critics are bad.

On the other hand, a great critic is special. Pic related, Yvor Winters claimed that Samuel Johnson was the only truly great critic in the English language.

>>20380931
Hitchens is basically the current incarnation of the English Man of Letters, a type which has cropped up more than once over the years in the history of the United Kingdom. Past examples included Samuel Johnson and G.K. Chesterton.

Also, can we please consider the details of the issue at hand? This isn't just "convert from one random thing to another random thing." Johnson was a pretty staunch High Church Anglican, and so of course he'd disapprove of someone converting to the Quakers. Do you guys know anything about the Quakers? They were the Pentecostals of their day. Absolutely batshit. Of course Johnson would disapprove of that.

Read Samuel Johnson.