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/lit/ - Literature

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1812512 No.1812512 [Reply] [Original]

ITT: recommend me some fascinating, mind-elevating, perspective expanding essays?

pic unrelated

>> No.1812515

Orwell's, Tolstoy's.

>> No.1812517

"once more to the lake" by e.b. white

http://www.moonstar.com/~acpjr/Blackboard/Common/Essays/OnceLake.html

>> No.1812525

>>1812517

or "one hundred thousand straightened nails" by donald hall

>> No.1812562
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1812562

Existentialism without the existentialism.

>> No.1812587

>fascinating, mind-elevating, perspective expanding essays

Okay faggot. Read some Emerson then become an hero.

>> No.1812620

"the etiquette of freedom" by gary snyder

>> No.1812748
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1812748

I appreciate the suggestions, faggots.

>> No.1812764

/lit/, where do you even FIND these essays?

>> No.1812783

>>1812515
This.
Orwell's "On Shooting An Elephant" is pretty good.

>>1812764
Many of them I read in textbooks even though the classes didn't really cover them, and the rest I've found in various magazines or in bookstores that have collections of essays organized either by topic or by author.
Also, the internet.

>> No.1812785 [DELETED] 

>>1812783
I always fuck up that title, it's just "Shooting an Elephant" and here's a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rite_of_passage

>> No.1812792

Within the Context of No Context by George W.S. Trow is one of the most brilliant discussions of our culture I've read.

>> No.1812796

on authorship and style - arthur schopenhauer

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/essays/chapter1.html

>> No.1812797

>>1812783
A couple derps and a herp there, here's the link to "Shooting an Elephant" by Orwell: http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/writing/Resources/essays/elephant.html

>> No.1812804

I personally really like the RSA channel on YouTube as well, here's a link to one of my favorites: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&feature=feedbul

>> No.1812806

Anything by Montaigne, but his best essay by far is "Of Practice". He is considered the first essay writer in history, cool to know.

>> No.1812811
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1812811

Donna Haraway's The Cyborg Manifesto

>> No.1812812

>>1812811

actually, you can read it right here.

www dot stanford dot edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto dot html

>> No.1812829

>>1812562
I second this.
Another good one: http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf

>> No.1812855

>>1812812
ohgodwhatthefuckamireading.jpg

This is the worst sort of irresponsible pseudo intellectual bullshit. It is contrived, pretentious, and lacking in any real substance as far as I can tell. This essay is bad and you should feel bad.

In answer to OP's inquiry, I just read several really good essays for a philosophy class on the Phenomenology of the Self. Daniel C Dennett, Owen Flannagan, William James, Franz Brentano. There is definitely some good mind expanding, thought provoking stuff from all of these guys available that will make you think a lot about what the "I" at the center of your conscious thoughts really is, what it is made of, and what it can do. Perhaps it will even disturb, unsettle, and confound you as it did me! I wound up questioning my previously unshakeable beleif in Free Will. Although in the end I found a way to satisfactorily reconcile it at least for myself.

>> No.1812862
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1812862

>>1812855

to some extent, i agree with you. to some extent, i don't.

let op read it, argue with it, and decide for himself. that's what i did. it made me think.

>> No.1812868

>>1812855

2deep4u

>> No.1812884

>>1812855
I guess you're just a stupid faggot who can't see how the figure of the cyborg is being used to deconstruct the categories of woman and human, the potential political strategy that goes along with it and the way in which collectives (think of the subaltern, if a clueless moron like yourself can manage it) can discover new ground from which to speak. It's very similar to the manner in which Cixous uses the medusa figure.

>> No.1812888

>>1812884
How do you type and wank at the same time?

>> No.1812895

>>1812888
He's a loser.

He's had years of practice.

>> No.1812919
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1812919

>>1812884

thanks for your enthusiasm.

the inanimate/animate issue and the concept of "information" i find particularly problematic/interesting. it's a great thought experiment.

>>1812888
>>1812895

very productive, gentlemen.

>> No.1812928

>>1812862
Fair enough. To be honest I didn't read the whole thing at all. I just couldn't keep going after a few passages that were particularly grating to me. Maybe it's just not my thing. Check it out OP; maybe it will make you think. It just made me rage personally.

>>1812884
Suck it asshat.

>> No.1812935

>>1812928
maybe you'll actually stick to talking about what you know and understand next time. And no, saying "as far as I can tell" doesn't make your opinion legitimate.

>> No.1812938
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1812938

>>1812935

you're very smart, but i think maybe people might listen to your ideas more if you were nicer.

>> No.1812942

>>1812884
the figure of the cyborg is being used to deconstruct the categories of woman and human, the potential political strategy that goes along with it and the way in which collectives (think of the subaltern) can discover new ground from which to speak. It's very similar to the manner in which Cixous uses the medusa figure.

>>1812888
>>1812895
You guys should try doing what I just did there. Really. Look up what you don't understand, disregard or respond to what you don't agree with. It's pretty easy as you practice.

>> No.1812948
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1812948

>>1812942

also, this. just act like he has tourette's or something.

>> No.1812955
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1812955

OP: also, i'm a big fan of Roland Barthe's work, esp. Mythologies, and Reality Hunger by David Sheilds.

>> No.1813350

Some very mind-expanding stuff here:

http://www.consciousdreaming.com/lucid-dreaming/how-to-lucid-dream.htm

>> No.1813464

>>1812938
the internet is a place so wild

>> No.1813490

>>1813350
i far from understand why would people want to be the "master" of their dreams when you are already, in some perverse way, the narrator.

and, to the watery-OP, i would suggest anything by Borges. even more fasctinating his reading his essays in parallel to his biography - or just bits of it.

to this day I still read and on again "Ragnarok". and fyi.: http://biotelemetrica.pbworks.com/w/page/14816000/Ragnarok

>> No.1813504

>>1813490
>i far from understand why would people want to be the "master" of their dreams when you are already, in some perverse way, the narrator.

would you rephraze this in a less obtuse way? how am i the narrator?

>> No.1813510

>>1812796
tell me, D&E, i still haven't read schopenhauer ("le monde comme volonté et comme représentation"). is it pleasant? i know its a vague question, but a vague answer from you would appreciated, given how I appreciate your particular style and such.

...i just did two things here, of which i aint particulary proud but oh well.

>> No.1813521

>>1813504
when you narrate it to yourself in the morning, or to that person /lying/ next to you, who might tell her own dreams as well.

>> No.1813522

http://mises.org/daily/2765

Very interesting essay on education from a professor in 1931. Even if you don't agree with him, he's a captivating writer and he really makes you think about why our views on education have changed so dramatically in the past 100 years.

>> No.1813528

>>1813521
what?!?

>> No.1813536

>>1812935
You.

You are the second type of writer Schopenhauer describes. I can literally hear you masturbating as you type with one hand and tickle your shaft with the other.

>> No.1813544

>>1813510
>is it pleasant?
The number one thing I encountered when I read his essays is that they're quite negative and very critical, old fart stuff through and through. The best means I have found to reading them is to try to find a middle ground as a reader in our particular historical context. I think it's a mistake to write him off as an cranky old coot merely echoing outdated values and methology, but it's clearly not acceptable to some degree to take what he says without some contemporary wisdom. So I don't think what I've read of schopenhauer is pleasant, it's often more of a bitter pill.

>> No.1813559

>>1813536
Oh, you. Schopenhauer as a brilliant wanker. I can still remember when I read his essay on "the art of writing" where he made a critic of the repetitive nature of some authors. Then he said this again. And againd. And again.
Fuck Schopenhauer is a first-class wanker.

>> No.1813564

>>1813544
thank you
>>1813559
ok. was not useful at all.

>> No.1813574

Schopenhauer held a mirror up to his society, and revealed an ass. He only became popular when society wanted to become self critical.

>> No.1813587

"Beyond Hope" by Derrick Jensen

>> No.1813595

Quantum leap strategies:

http://www.quantum-leap-strategies.com/quantum_leap_thinking.html

>> No.1813604

"Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization"

http://www.adbusters.. org/magazine/79/hipster.html