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--- 21917432
Time for a meta thread:

How has /lit/ improved your life? More important, how are those improvements relevant to the specific goals of furthering your ambitions within the world of literature, whatever they may be?

For me, /lit/ has been useful for having stimulating conversation, both in good and bad faith. I also appreciate the couple of namefags who posit at length because their thoughts do generally have an academic basis. Also, /lit/ has been helpful in the maintenance of my interest to complete the Greeks before moving on.

One note of caution: there are some truly intelligent people here, but too many of you - whip-smart and less so - are content to mask your fears with shitposting and bad-faith arguments. This is not a productive exercise and you WILL regret it at the end of the road.
--- 21917441
>>21917432 (OP)
The board's diminishing quality has led me to spend much less time here. It's by far one of the worst quality to thread ratio and every thread is full of strawmen and bad faith (with excessive use of ! !! !!!)
--- 21917460
>>21917441
Where do you discuss literature if not here? My alternative is TheLibraryThing forum, which is honestly pretty great. It's mostly upper-class boomers who will actually write essays to get their thoughts across. It's a fairly small community, too, so most folks are on good terms.

However, I appreciate the faster pace and anonymity of /lit/ so I do wish anons would grow up. Despite "starting with the Greeks," too many are concerned with "winning" instead of progressing the dialogue to its logical conclusion.
--- 21917466
When I was a shithead high schooler it encouraged me to seriously get interested in the greatest works of Western literature and philosophy, not just for social clout (although probably at least subconsciously a bit of that), but out of authentic interest in it, how interesting recommendations and reading lists seemed, and how intelligent and insightful the minority of effortposts occasionally were.

After that (getting some good recommendations and a kick in the pants to be a “patrician” instead of a “pleb”), it’s diminishing returns, I’ve seriously downgraded how much time I’ve spent here over the past few years. /lit/ has always been shit, it’s just that when you’re new here and a plebeian, it seems relatively more intelligent and insightful than some other communities or dorks on Reddit, like you notice the shininess of the diamonds more than you realize the shit they’re mostly buried in, and they seem more impressive at first. But as you mature and learn more, you realize what at first impressed you was mostly just undergraduate-level pontifications.
--- 21917500
>>21917460
I still come here but I use filters and hide threads.
--- 21917502
>>21917432 (OP)
I will NOT regret shitposting. I WILL regret not shitposting enough.
--- 21917568
It’s quite a funny place - strangely one of the best places to get a solid education if you can filter out the shitposting and gleam recommendations of what to read. Sometimes also read some profound posts. I do not think I would have the deep interest in philosophy or have gotten into a top 3 university without this /lit/. 

The shitposting really does ruin it sometimes though. The Japanese lit thread that was up recently was without any shitposting and it made me realise how much better this place could be with a little more seriousness. But it is still 4chan after all.
--- 21918101
Younger Zoomers currently are entering their intellectualoid phase; soon, it will all be over.

At this point, I use this website/board primarily as a repository.
--- 21918140
>>21917432 (OP)
It is the only community I've found that seems to actually care about the quality of a book, which I have used to push my writing to a higher level. I'm not yet where I'd like to be, but I do think I'm notable at this point and I don't think I'm blowing air up my skirt when I say that.

That said, if I only went by /lit/s response I'd have killed myself or abandoned writing because a lot of the feedback is simply toxic, dismissive, or values something absurd to value. I get called a plotfag because I care about logical consistency in the story. I get called genre trash because people are able to identify what I'm doing instead of blindly chasing novelty.

I also learned this is a pathetically small community in the scale of trying to make it as an author. There's like a couple hundred people tops.
--- 21918157
>>21917432 (OP)
hmm I would like to talk to someone about a book I read
irl
>cuh that is so not bussin fr fr that's cap why you reading for?
online
>well while I think tolstoy was a gay jew you have to keep in mind there is three stories being told in parallel to compare to one another...

yeah /lit/ when shitposting or not is better than most people. unless you're in a reading club or something good luck finding someone else who read a book you read these days in your age group.
--- 21918169
Before I found /lit/ I never touched any classics
The most ambitious book I had read was 1984
Also Shakespeare which I only read for school but even then it was a abridged and simplified text
--- 21918340
>>21917432 (OP)
I don't like to admit it because it's pretty sad but /lit/ and 4chan as a whole unironically changed my life. It may be shit, it might be filled with retards and maybe the /pol/chuds break out of their containment boards but 4chan is the only large place left on the internet where you can actually get quality discussion. Reddit, Twitter, Hacker News, no matter where you turn you get the same shallow sanitised opinion that has been permitted by that community. 4chan made me engage with history, literature, technology and science. If I had never gone to 4chan I don't know what I'd be like but I know that I'd be worse.
--- 21918376
>>21918340
4chan as a concept is brilliant. The issue is that humanity has proven it is not ready for such freedom unless we accept a significant lowering of average discourse.
--- 21918419
>>21917432 (OP)
If I had to get rid of Harvard's humanities or /lit/ I would get rid of Harvard's. I have gotten into intellectual communities in Catholic, philosophical, literary, and pyschological domains and consistently /lit/ punches at the weight of the top 10-5% of an ivy league. This place saved me from the cultural Protestant wasteland of the Midwest America and allowed me to access intellectual material I would have never found without it. /lit/ isn't, however, better than the best professors at these institutions but they are as good as the best students so do with that what you will. That being said, I guarentee in heaven the realization will be that this was our Parisian cafe, this was our Athens, this was Alexandria. It's been an absolute pleasure and I love this place.
--- 21918425
>>21918419
I have an Ivy League PhD and /lit/ is miles better than any conversation I ever had in that fucking shithole. There is nothing special whatsoever about academia, it's just a good library card combined with mandatory membership in a club filled with midwit diversity hires.
--- 21918427
>>21918419
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8CB85C3DF82DF9EB
--- 21918455
>>21918425
>I have an Ivy League PhD and /lit/ is miles better than any conversation I ever had in that fucking shitho
Ouch. It hurts when the credentialed person says it (I'm bachelors state school)
--- 21918475
>>21918376
I disagree, the lows on 4chan are about as low as the lows on reddit and the average discourse on reddit is definitely worse than 4chan
--- 21919254
back in Germany I used to be part of a social club where we read books and discussed politics. It was run by this older communist guy who was so far left he had more in common with the fringe right that mostly attended these meetings. 
He was old and intransigent, and was always talking about how he hates trannies and how gay people should be executed on sight, while also being quite well versed in the intricacies of Russian literature and German poetry.
He was what the young people today would describe as 'based'. A fun guy for all his faults, and who I imagine writes most of these comments.
--- 21919258
>>21919254
Just add that's unlike most people here he was a fucking player and always swimming in 25 yo pussy despite being broke and close to 50
--- 21920280
/lit/ taught me four new words/concepts today:
>polysemy
>phonosemantic matching
>intransigent
>Flâneur
I also learned about the differences between sobriquet, epithet, appellation, nom de guerre and nom de plume.

I really appreciate this board and think there is a lot to gain if you ask the right questions or have the patience & wisdom to steer a conversation towards elucidation. 

Obviously the more learned you are, the more you can contribute to /lit/; and the more you contribute, the more chance that you add to your trove of knowledge through didacticism or questioning. 

As another anon put it, this is our agora (another new word!) in Athens. The Board is slow and small enough to profoundly impact the culture in lasting positive ways.
--- 21920304
i will never forget the analytic / synthetic a priori / posteriori distinction
--- 21920307
>>21920304
qrd?
--- 21920384
>>21918419
I hate the fact that I can have better conversations with illiterate retards, and I mean quite literally ESL people from other countries that cannot into grammar at any degree, and have better more thoughtful conversations with them on this website than going to any place built and centered on higher education.
--- 21920415
>>21920384
I must have been drunk when I wrote this. Because I actually love this fact. It's what makes this community more inviting and innovative than any other. Despite all the flaws and bigotry openly aired flagrantly in humor despite it's absolute seriousness there is no other place I can talk about having sex with a pokemon in one moment and then immediately pivot into a high context discussion about the taxes and social applications of a fictional society before bringing up some book or essay and being able to share it with people. Just the other day we were shitposting on /tv/ about how gay the office is before going into an essay about executive management and the types of people who get caught in the capitalist spiral. It was great. I shared the essay and then the other came back to talk about it unfortunately the thread 404'd before I could re-engage.
--- 21920464
I was always looking for something since I was a little but I was born in lower middle class 3rd world shithole so there wasn't much hope for me anyway. Me being a sensitive fag I got bullied and sexually harassed. Teachers and parents beat the shit out of me because I was bad at sciences and purged any love of books from my heart. Then internet happened and I got hooked. At 16 I discovered 4chan but didn't use it until I was 19 because again was a meek scared kid. Started with /pol/ I got bullied once again and pretty hard because of flag ids and being a shitskin. Then I started lurking on creative boards and finally for the second time in life felt true acceptance, nobody said why I am nerdy or skinny or weak or gay they just signified "welcome home faggot". 

I was always looking for knowledge and creative boards played a pretty big part to help me with that. It sort of ended here(at least normal understanding on knowledge) on /lit/ when you fags gave me the access to whole human endeavour. The world gave me no answers. But these funny little posts with funny numbers meant a lot, a lot to me. I feel like my only real growth happened on 4chan, I felt like an individual. This ain't no puritanical eden but it is truly human and more accepting than "real world" out there. 

Don't think I have ever recovered from the bullshit upbringing but I owe it to 4chan(nel) to quite a lot, actually everything whatever I am right now(at least artistically and philosophically). Sometimes it surprises me that how much I have learned when I consider my material circumstances, that's all because of /lit/ and other creative boards. Contrary to opinion this place is very "tolerant" and diverse and I don't care what anyone says. I had few of the most real and sincere and intelligent conversations with anons. And few of the extremely rude one and sometimes I also act as a dickhead. I don't know, I'll always have a tender spot of this shithole no matter how much I pretend to hate it. 

Thank you /lit/. Lots of love for my faggots.
--- 21920495
>>21920464
Where are you from, anon? Welcome home.
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>>21920495
Pakistan
--- 21920833
>>21920815
Damn, that's pretty cool. Stay safe, keep reading, and find yourself. That will produce good in the world. 

Salaam alaykum, brother.
--- 21920846
I used to be retarded; I'm still retarded, but now I have a personal library.
--- 21920852
>>21920833
So nice of you anon. I am trying.

>Salaam alaykum, brother.
Walaikum Assalam, fren.
--- 21920869
>>21920860
That was preplanned