/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14484449]

Now that I've seen behind the veil I can't view human beings as anything but mechanisms or animals. I will never love anybody.

[Anonymous No.14484458]

Example #1

[Anonymous No.14484465]

Example #2

[Anonymous No.14485060]

>>14484449
we don’t care

[Anonymous No.14485121]

>>14484458
what about this book ?
where to get it ?

[Anonymous No.14485144]

Try an experiment for me. Do not eat any carbs for breakfast or lunch for 2 weeks straight. Supplement your hunger with fatty foods. This book will likely be a meme after those 2 weeks.

[Anonymous No.14485217]

>>14485144
bullshit

[Anonymous No.14485237]

>>14484449
Is this book legit or a meme full of shit? I've seen nothing but contradictory opinions on it. Apparently the author is a retard as well.

[Anonymous No.14485257]

>>14485144
Just do intermittent fasting. Carbs are ok as long as they're complex carbs.

[Anonymous No.14485272]

>>14485237
It's fragmented and polemical. It gathers together eclectic reflections on pessimism and offers a nice sampler platter of edginess. You'll get some thoughts on Benetar, Metzinger, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Mainländer, Zapffe without much philosophical-critical rigor or argumentation.

Still, Ligotti presents some major, no-bullshit challenges to everyday 'optimistic' ideology. Why is life something valuable? Why should we continue to live? Is reproducing morally reprehensible? Are we biased in favor of optimism? Do we actually have a self? Do we actually have free will?

They are great questions to ask, and it's an interesting effort to ontologize horror themes without fantasy elements. I think it can be done better from someone more philosophically trained, but it's a fun read. I used to teach it to my students, but I found it made many react poorly and irrationally, others suicidal and gloomy. Some students even came out and spoke about their past abuse. I had some intense classes come to think of it. I was a bit in a dip myself, and I climbed out of it through these reflections.

[Anonymous No.14485277]

>>14485272
so much effort answering a fuckwit

[Anonymous No.14485282]

>>14485277
I've been on 4chan for about 13 years now. I prefer sincere answers, even in the face of trolls, when I have the energy and feel I have something to offer.

[Anonymous No.14485290]

>>14485282
I'm not a troll and I appreciate your elaborated answer.

[Anonymous No.14485292]

>>14485272
Yeah yeah, now let me surmise how ligotti answers those questions and spare other people's time:

>Why is life something valuable?
it isnt.

>Why should we continue to live?
we shouldnt.

>Is reproducing morally reprehensible?
yes.

>Are we biased in favor of optimism?
yes.

>Do we actually have a self?
no.

>Do we actually have free will?
no.

[Anonymous No.14485308]

>>14485282
I'm terrified to think that in 3 years I will have been on this site for 13 years too. I spent huge most of that time on /int/ and then /lit/, and I've probably never browsed for more than an hour a day, but... It's a terrible number. Thank God I have some hobbies that also shaped my worldview during that time.

[Anonymous No.14485311]

>>14485292
Yep, Ligotti really shouldn't be taken seriously, he is after all a horror fiction writer not a philosopher, the book was probably written to depress and scare people rather than actually give you a cogent philosophy.

[Anonymous No.14485328]

>>14485292
Yes, that's correct. Still, contrary to what >>14485308 says, while Ligotti himself might be a philosopher, the ideas he presents are consistent responses to some very hard problems within philosophy.

The notion, for instance, that we have free will is very, very difficult to demonstrate, and determinism seems like a much more consistent and obvious position to take.

[Anonymous No.14485342]

>>14485237
As others have said the book is more polemic than rigorous entry to the philosophical tradition, but it's a great polemic.

[Anonymous No.14485345]

>>14485328
Is Ligotti even a realist, metaphysically ? Some of his stories seem like some dark kind of idealism.

[Anonymous No.14485374]

>>14485345
He seems to be somewhere between a reductivist or eliminativist with regard to subjectivity. He makes the anlogy at one point that our consciousness is akin to a immune-response to the world as it really exists. The reasoning goes that just as we developed an immune system to respond to the filth of the world, so have to developed consciousness to respond to the horror of life. Our thoughts and actions are not really in our control.

This would make him clearly not an idealist, though I think the question gives him too much credit or misuses the terms, if we're speaking of idealism in a Kantian sense.

[Anonymous No.14486015]

>>14485272
>>14485342

>As for my Unabomber-style essay The Conspiracy against the Human Race, this is by no means a philosophical work, let alone a magnum opus. It’s a synthesis of ideas I’ve formed over my life and of other people’s ideas that rhyme with mine. The disconnect that anyone may perceive in this work between what I think and the way I’ve articulated it is something they can know nothing about. To me, there is no disconnection. I couldn’t possibly write something that would reflect the true depths of my aversion to everything that exists. As far as putting words into other people’s mouths, as if what seems true to me is what is really true, this is just a commonly used device in writing personal essays. Everyone preaches to the converted. If I didn’t believe my thoughts were superior to and truer than the thoughts of people who disagree with me, then I would think something else

>The wonderful thing is that he [Thomas Bernhard] never makes the mistake of trying to argue a case against anyone or anything. He and his narrators just spit bile — for example at Heidegger for being a complacent moron or the relatives of his narrators for being complacent morons — and then moves on to another target. You’re either with him on a specific point or you’re not. He knows that arguments are useless and pathetic. If you’re not fortunate enough to be above having opinions, and almost no one has this luxury, then the only course available to you, the only source of satisfaction, is to attack what inspires hate in you. You could also celebrate what inspires admiration or even love, but this doesn’t happen very much in Bernhard.

Ligotti is pretty based even if I don't agree with his worldview.

[Anonymous No.14486053]

>>14485272
>Why is life something valuable?
It is, I have my own nuanced metaphysical arguments.
>Why should we continue to live?
It can help achieve a positive rebirth or an end to palingenesis. You can secure higher rebirth.
>Is reproducing morally reprehensible?
It is ill-advised to those who seek salvation, but it does not necessarily curse one depending on his or her conditions and goals in life. Regardless, it does serve as a burden in many instances, for if you have kids, you are responsible for their well-being and cannot focus as much on enlightenment/gnosis/purification or whatever you want to call it. I am not overtly antinatalist, just think there is no more benefit to being child free for the genuine religious life though people are free to disagree. I think there are serious issues in promoting antinatalism on a cultural and social level.
>Are we biased in favor of optimism?
On average, human beings are biased in favor of optimism, yes, but it works more in terms of ignoring risks and probabilities of conflicts. Some are biased towards nihilism, which is even worse.
>Do we actually have a self?
It depends on how the self is defined.
>Do we actually have free will?
Something like compatibilism is true, so we have some degree of free will in being able to direct or change habits.

[Anonymous No.14486063]

Reptilians did nothing wrong.

[Anonymous No.14486133]

literally a book written for 15 year olds