monoxide_child
New Metal Member
- Jul 30, 2008
- 6,210
- 4
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The Books/Reading Thread
- Thread starter Matt
- Start date
Zephyrus
Tyrants and Slaves
Any of you literature nerds have opinions on Seneca's tragedies? Lots of people dismiss them as flagrantly melodramatic but I think they're marvelous. I'm planning to submit an abstract for a conference paper on his Trojan Women.
Einherjar86
Active Member
Unfortunately my knowledge of a lot of ancient literature is pretty slim. The majority of it lies with Sophocles' Antigone, and that's more or less because I wanted to understand what Slavoj Zizek and Jacques Lacan have written about it.
Dak
mentat
Finished Walden/Civil Disobedience. Thoreau's observations of man, society, and state (and to a lesser degree, Nature) are dead on with my own in nearly every case, although much more eloquently expressed.
I wish that I had read this years ago.
I wish that I had read this years ago.
HipnikDragomir
Il Greeco
- May 2, 2012
- 63
- 0
- 6
Since 6th grade, I've been passively reading Stephen King. I've amassed over a dozen of his books, but have only read Skeleton Crew, Night Shift, and (several years in the process) The Shining. I've also started The Divine Comedy and have read maybe half of The Kalevala. I did finally start reading the Harry Potter books (long story), and I gotta say, they are incredible. I devoured the first two and I'll wait a while until I start the third.
Zephyrus
Tyrants and Slaves
So glad I started reading this. It compellingly employs an anthropological and philological argument that illuminates the continuum between primitive cultural norms and the development of philosophical speculation in Greece.
Dak
mentat
Listening in the car to Roger Crowley's "Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World", read by John Lee.
This is a history book, but written and read so very well that it grabs and holds my attention like no other history I have read - and I have read a lot. Highly recommended!
Truly reading Steven Erikson's "Reaper's Gale" - Book 7 of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series.
Bar none the best epic fantasy series out there - and I have read Martin, Jordan, et al. Awesome. Beware if you have a short attention span - you will need to keep track of a huge number of characters - but is it ever worth it.
This is a history book, but written and read so very well that it grabs and holds my attention like no other history I have read - and I have read a lot. Highly recommended!
Truly reading Steven Erikson's "Reaper's Gale" - Book 7 of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series.
Bar none the best epic fantasy series out there - and I have read Martin, Jordan, et al. Awesome. Beware if you have a short attention span - you will need to keep track of a huge number of characters - but is it ever worth it.
Dak
mentat
viewerfromnihil
Vein-Marbled Tower
Hey Dak, you know about the Mises torrents, right?
http://blog.mises.org/21458/mises-torrents-4-0-available/
http://blog.mises.org/21458/mises-torrents-4-0-available/
Dak
mentat
viewerfromnihil
Vein-Marbled Tower
It's pretty awesome, too much to handle really. I'll be buying an e-reader pretty soon so that I can actually get some use out of it.
Dak
mentat
Zephyrus
Tyrants and Slaves
Not to be a Luddite, but I don't understand the appeal of those things. I hate reading things on a computer screen, and I love the feel of real books.
Dak
mentat
I completely agree. The problem is I can read much faster than I can afford to purchase, and the "ink" versions of E-readers is much better than staring at a monitor, which is how much of my reading occurs now. I don't like being tethered to my desktop.
For the cost of an E-reader, I can purchase 7-10 paperbacks. Or, I can have the portability of tens of thousands.
viewerfromnihil
Vein-Marbled Tower
I hate reading from a computer screen as well, not to mention that it is extremely hard on the eyes. The E-ink readers, such as the screens on the cheaper Kindles, are supposed to be the next best alternative to reading from paper. The main reason for me considering purchasing a Kindle is because 1000+ page books can be rather unwieldy and merely trying to hold the book can be distracting from the reading itself.
Dak
mentat
I'm over halfway done with Beyond Good and Evil. While Nietzsche has some excellent insights, his overt hypocrisy leaves me with a range of responses running the gamut of amusement to something a little less than disgust.
Rail against Platonism: Promote philosopher kings
Rail against Atavism: Promote superiority by blood/lineage
Rail against the arbitrary codes of morality: Create an arbitrary code of morality (or "immorality")
Rail against utilitarians: Promote the "common good", or more accurately, the "best order" coming through philosophers, also invoking No True Scotsman in the process (IE "True philosophers", alternately called the "new philosopher".)
There's more but that's a start. I could probably sum up his work so far in the phrase "Well if I were king.......!". A clear obsession with power by a person distinctly lacking in physical power and virility all his life, and most likely languishing in controlling environments. In the way some children channel their desire for equality or superiority into a love of things large and powerful, Nietzsche appears to have held tight to this obsession into adulthood, and being unable to physically exert power, chose to instead exert it in his writings, resorting to what would easily appear as thinly veiled whining.
Rail against Platonism: Promote philosopher kings
Rail against Atavism: Promote superiority by blood/lineage
Rail against the arbitrary codes of morality: Create an arbitrary code of morality (or "immorality")
Rail against utilitarians: Promote the "common good", or more accurately, the "best order" coming through philosophers, also invoking No True Scotsman in the process (IE "True philosophers", alternately called the "new philosopher".)
There's more but that's a start. I could probably sum up his work so far in the phrase "Well if I were king.......!". A clear obsession with power by a person distinctly lacking in physical power and virility all his life, and most likely languishing in controlling environments. In the way some children channel their desire for equality or superiority into a love of things large and powerful, Nietzsche appears to have held tight to this obsession into adulthood, and being unable to physically exert power, chose to instead exert it in his writings, resorting to what would easily appear as thinly veiled whining.
Dak
mentat
Zephyrus
Tyrants and Slaves
BG&E is such a complex and multifaceted work that you have to appreciate it for its insights and not for its construction of any coherent system (which is the whole point of his philosophy). The truths he puts forth are his truths, and he says that explicitly. Not your truths nor mine.
His refutations of the dogmatic philosophies of his predecessors have plenty of merit (such as the refutation of Kant I mentioned recently) and I think the key point of the book is that Philosophers are the ones who are supposed to be ahead of the curve and the ones inventing new values for society, but he's seeing the rise of science, nihilism and egalitarianism taking over this privilege and they're on their way to fucking everything up, degenerating humanity rather than advancing it.
