What Book Are You Reading at the Moment?

[Hastur]

The times make the man. The man doesn't make the times.

Can you think of a time in history where in a time of prosperity society somehow decided to "enlighten" itself? You are more familiar with history than I am, but I personally cannot.

Rather when times got bad, men would improve their characters to cope. Or maybe the better ones just survived while the weak ones died. Either way, prosperity breeds entropy in my opinion. Crusades to improve morality always end badly man. Think about the Temperance movement. Prohibition. Think about the ways in which the Nazis tried to improve their youth. National annihilation.

You should also be careful how you define "enlightenment." 70 years ago, many wise people thought it meant collectivization and state planned economies. Today, if you ask the "wisest" people in our society what enlightenment is they will tell you its lady boy social justice.

I agree that much of our culture is shit, and I hate young people including myself and their ideas (though mine are all correct) I am just leery of any kind of calls for moral and social improvement. They are usually trojan horses for nanny state Stalinism that makes shit worse.

Enlightenment starts with the individual, not the collective. Better yourself, and do not worry about what your neighbor is up to. Chances are, he is probably a stupid asshole that can't be helped anyway.

Enlightenment is a fickle term. It can mean so many different things. I'm thinking more of what we Germanics call Bildung. I don't think there is an English word for it.

The era that comes to mind is the time of the Prussian reforms in the 1800s. Check out Wilhelm von Humboldt. He had new ideas about education. Back then education was mostly about vocational training. von Humbolt changed that.

Is this the whole Kultur vs. Zivilization (might be spelled wrong I forget) idea? I thought bildung came from Schiller. Like wasn't bildung and that idea kind of anti enlightenment? The French just had their revolution and it horrified the proto Germans so they felt like you had to have some kind of strongly bound national character (kultur) before you could build complicated and cosmopolitan ideas upon it (zivilization).They felt that you can't build a globalized hodgepodge of cafe homo ideas without having a mature culture.

It makes sense. I hate French society passionately. Always been a nasty effete culture. But that Kultur stuff took Germany down a meandering path to Totalitarianism. I wouldn't say it was Schiller or whoevers fault, but you can kind of see where it leads if one isn't careful.

I think it's more Hegel than Schiller. Bildung is the same word as Building. It's about self cultivating the individual by a balance of heart and mind. Culture and civilization hand in hand.

And you are right about the Franch.

What took down the Germans was the false phallic vision of the Nazis. A perfect example of an abject vision. Kill all the Jews and commies. Behind the pretty flags was just a simple doomsday cult, a collective suicide pact

[heydaralon]

Enlightenment is a fickle term. It can mean so many different things. I'm thinking more of what we Germanics call Bildung. I don't think there is an English word for it.

The era that comes to mind is the time of the Prussian reforms in the 1800s. Check out Wilhelm von Humboldt. He had new ideas about education. Back then education was mostly about vocational training. von Humbolt changed that.

Is this the whole Kultur vs. Zivilization (might be spelled wrong I forget) idea? I thought bildung came from Schiller. Like wasn't bildung and that idea kind of anti enlightenment? The French just had their revolution and it horrified the proto Germans so they felt like you had to have some kind of strongly bound national character (kultur) before you could build complicated and cosmopolitan ideas upon it (zivilization).They felt that you can't build a globalized hodgepodge of cafe homo ideas without having a mature culture.

It makes sense. I hate French society passionately. Always been a nasty effete culture. But that Kultur stuff took Germany down a meandering path to Totalitarianism. I wouldn't say it was Schiller or whoevers fault, but you can kind of see where it leads if one isn't careful.

I think it's more Hegel than Schiller. Bildung is the same word as Building. It's about self cultivating the individual by a balance of heart and mind. Culture and civilization hand in hand.

And you are right about the Franch.

What took down the Germans was the false phallic vision of the Nazis. A perfect example of an abject vision. Kill all the Jews and commies. Behind the pretty flags was just a simple doomsday cult, a collective suicide pact

When you keep saying Phallus or phallic is that Freudian for penis/masculine? A father figure?

[heydaralon]

As an aside, I consider Hegel to be the second worst philosopher who ever lived. Marx being the first. Of course, Hegel inspired him too. Rousseau actually might be tied for second honestly. They are all so bad.


Have you heard of Heinrich Heine? Friend of Nietzche. Saw the dangers of a lot of Kultur stuff you refer to with Nazism decades before when the Germans were getting really antsy. I think he had a mutual hatred relationship with heinrich von treitschke who was in some ways a proto type of Hitler.

I'm not super familiar with German philosophers but based on how their experiment turned out, I treat them with a degree of suspicion. Hindsight is 20/20 I guess.

[Hastur]

Is this the whole Kultur vs. Zivilization (might be spelled wrong I forget) idea? I thought bildung came from Schiller. Like wasn't bildung and that idea kind of anti enlightenment? The French just had their revolution and it horrified the proto Germans so they felt like you had to have some kind of strongly bound national character (kultur) before you could build complicated and cosmopolitan ideas upon it (zivilization).They felt that you can't build a globalized hodgepodge of cafe homo ideas without having a mature culture.

It makes sense. I hate French society passionately. Always been a nasty effete culture. But that Kultur stuff took Germany down a meandering path to Totalitarianism. I wouldn't say it was Schiller or whoevers fault, but you can kind of see where it leads if one isn't careful.

I think it's more Hegel than Schiller. Bildung is the same word as Building. It's about self cultivating the individual by a balance of heart and mind. Culture and civilization hand in hand.

And you are right about the Franch.

What took down the Germans was the false phallic vision of the Nazis. A perfect example of an abject vision. Kill all the Jews and commies. Behind the pretty flags was just a simple doomsday cult, a collective suicide pact

When you keep saying Phallus or phallic is that Freudian for penis/masculine? A father figure?

It's the archetypical masculine goal.

[StCapps]

You can fuck right off with that "there is no individual, only the collective" crap. Shut up, dirty filthy Borg.

[Hastur]

[StCapps]

[heydaralon]

If you are interested in a well-written general history of the Vietnam war, you will enjoy Stanley Karnow's Vietnam. Am about 100 pages in. Great so far. Discusses the history of IndoChina, French involvement etc.


I am not an expert on the war by any means, so this book is perfect. It is written with the general audience in mind.


I am also reading The Emperor by Ryszard Kapuscinski.

[heydaralon]

I am reading Shadow of the Winter Palace now. It is about Russia in the 19th century. Crankshaw covers the events that lead to the Revolution and Lenin. I never read The Great War for Civilization by Robert Fisk, so I am reading it slowly. Fisk is a bolshie faggot, but I do respect his journalism. That being said, it takes me longer to read his prose than many other authors.

[Montegriffo]

My sister gave me a copy of ''The body'' by Bill Bryson for Christmas.
I've not read anything by him before but have heard good things from those who have.