Literacy rates

Literacy rates are too high now. Notice how all the best literature was written when only a highly educated elite could read and write? Now that the masses can read and write, literature must be written to appeal to their vulgar tastes or cease to exist. If, however, we limit literacy again to a select group of men with good tastes, good literature will have to be written once more or literature will cease to exist as a whole.

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partially based. I mean literacy is good for the population, but the problem about books no longer good exists. We should work on what we can ie become patricians, convert some normies to true lit, write ourselves, demand good lit, etc. Because the limit literacy thing wont occur

Elitist pricks like both of you disgust me. You are no better than the average person for having good -in your opinion- literary tastes, nor more intelectually capable.

If a good amount of normies have god awful reading habits and tastes is not because they are inferior and you are, oh so coincidentally, a natural elite of humanity. Rather, it is because you got lucky in your life with things like the cultural capital of your family and surroundings, that someone created a reading habit in your early days, or someotherreasonrelated tochance, pure chance. In other words, that reading habit and literary taste both of you hold so dear about yourselves is basicallydue to favourable surroundings or chance.

The Soviet Union hadone of the most ambitious literacy programs in the world, specially at their beggining stages when they had todeal with the horrendous literacy situation the Russian Empire had left. The soviets taught the russians about their great auhors, developed alphabets for the languages inside the Union that didnt had a writing method, and in general were incredible patrons of culture, both popular and high.

Universalized literacy is one of the greatest achievements of our time, but I swear to god if I could rob both of you of that ability while making you keep your memories about it, just to make you suffer and wept about your loss, I would. You guys are regurgitating elitist dead ideology only fit either for noblemen during the Restoration after the Napoleonic Wars or for the decrepit remnants of those families. Unless your family name is Von Habsburg or youguys owna castle in Central Europe, you are basically eating the dick of a caste of society that has been dead and in the coffin for more than 250 years, I hope that putrid dick tastes good.

Simply pathetic to be defending any kind of "patrician" ideal on a fucking internet mongolian basket-weaving forum. You guys are way closer in terms of having things in common with those masses you disdain so much than with those imagined elites you preach so much.

>tankie
lmao
show me some great soviet era Yea Forums
(no Bulgakov is not on par with the earlier Russians)
It's not about normie vs patrician; It's just about mass appeal. When something is readily available with high demand and high supply, it's quality sinks because the only shit that gets made is made to appeal to the masses. Same reason smaller, dedicated forums are 99% of the time better than popular ones. The people on those forums aren't any smarter, but they have a higher level of care and selectivity towards what interests them, which breeds quality.

Btw, regarding our "elitist" ideology, how fair and democratic was that paragon patron of art and literacy, the Soviet Union?

>It's just about mass appeal
You are conflating mass appeal with lower quality just because you want to feel like you are better than the common folk, but you are not giving very convincing examples or reasons for your way of thinking. You are using logical fallacies andarguments that follow eachother withoutjustification for those conclusions.

Aalso, your reasoning is idiotic: since smaller hobby communities have better discussions and higher quality than the mass discourse and general conversation, and you like literature, your conclusions is, therefore, that the multigenerational project of mass literacy arround the world was a mistake and that we should go back to an Ancient Regime kind of situation where the populace lived in ignorance and the ability to read was a coveted ability. Just because you want your cool kids club. You are either copletely autistic, dumb, malicious with no limit, or a disgusnting combination of all these.

This is what happens when you let a vulgar peasant read a socialist pamphlet.

>If a good amount of normies have god awful reading habits and tastes is not because they are inferior and you are, oh so coincidentally, a natural elite of humanity. Rather, it is because you got lucky in your life with things like the cultural capital of your family and surroundings, that someone created a reading habit in your early days, or someotherreasonrelated tochance, pure chance. In other words, that reading habit and literary taste both of you hold so dear about yourselves is basicallydue to favourable surroundings or chance.
Nah, none of my relatives read books and I grew up in a working class family in a shitty town and when I went to the library there were never people there.

>"See this chart? Notice that all the good societies existed when GDP was almost at zero, now that 90% of the population actually live good lives until they are like 75 years old, society really sucks. We should go back to the palace economies of the Minoans where most people died of starvation and disease asap."

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No worries, it’s actually dropping now that it’s nearly decades after your chart ends

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Yeah, they acquire some fucking understanding of their situation, but i've done a bit more than reading a pamphlet.

kek this dude swallowed the progressive kool-aid in one gulp

Retarded nigger

If someone is very interested in something, they will care more about it and produce high quality. However, there is a limit too how many things you are interested in. Most people are not very interested in high quality literature. When most people get the ability to read, they will not buy or appreciate what those who are heavily invested and interested in would like, instead they will get something simpler and more understandable. The simpler product MAY be of high quality, but more often than not it will be bad because it is easy to get away with worse quality when those who are buying it do not have the time or interest to discern it's actual value.

This is basic logic. You, for some reason hold the childish notion that if everyone could do something, they should and it would be better.
Well. in the real world, not everyone can do everything as well. I am not very strong, or a charming person in social situations, and Brad at the frat house doesn't give two shits about RPG's or literature, or anything I like.
It is better for us to specialize, and grow our interests in our own areas than trying to make me an outgoing body-builder or Brad a well-read geek.
Some people do some things better than others, and while I don't think we should enforce barriers between interests and hobbies, I do believe most people, regardless of what they like, should have a higher bar regarding who and what they let affect their interests.

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No user, I'm merely demonstrating how OP's argument is absolute bottom of the barrel gutter trash.

that's pretty elitist dude

Having counterarguments isn't elitist.

>You are no better than the average person for having good -in your opinion- literary tastes, nor more intelectually capable
I didn't said I'm better that anyone for any reason, so I didn't said or implied my lit taste makes me anything.

>Rather, it is because you got lucky in your life with things like the cultural capital of your family and surroundings, that someone created a reading habit in your early days, or someotherreasonrelated tochance, pure chance. In other words, that reading habit and literary taste both of you hold so dear about yourselves is basicallydue to favourable surroundings or chance
How good it feels to read without knowing a dam thing? I hope it feels good. I moved from another country ie my family isn't rich as you stated and started to read in my prior twenties so it isn't true the other things you supposed. But obviously I can't prove it so this is nonsense. In fact idk why I'm answering to this shit.

So won't answer to the rest of assumptions based of nothing and misreading because you didn't understand anything I said (I won't speak for the op but probably you didn't understand him neither)

dw about it, most normies arent reading anyways

>This is basic logic. You, for some reason hold the childish notion that if everyone could do something, they should and it would be better.
You have misunderstood my point completely. My point is that OP's logic for shitting in the name of mass literacy is "we dont have cool literary elitist circles like we used to in the good ol times when people would die disentery and common cold :(", which is, in the best case is idiotic and a bad joke, and at worst a disgusting example of elitist ideology that should be contested with the sharpest of guillotines.

On the other hand I do agree that different individuals are better uited for different tasks ad abilities, and that people's interests are almost as diverse as people are in the world, but i do not agree wit your point that "It is better for us to specialize, and grow our interests in our own areas than trying to make me an outgoing body-builder or Brad a well-read geek. " Specialization is a consecuence of this absolutely dehumanizing social order that we call capitalism, a requirement form the market for us to be "useful" economically, useful tools ready for explotation. But the human experience is rich and immense, full of posibilities for enlightenment and enrichment of the soul, mind and body. I would love to see you become the best version of yourself by embracing bodbybuilding, reaching the full potential of prowess and beaty of your physique. I would love to see the Brad deepen his understanding of the world, interior and exterior, by broadening his intelectual horizons becoming a bit more of a wellread geek, as you said.

>"What a disgrace is for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strenght of which his body is capable" -Socrates

okay but how do we determine or >select a group of men with good tastes?

For the socialist guy: we, or at least me, like different opinions because they make us understand better the world but your way of conversate is repulsing in the literal meaning of the world. Please don't assume things that wasn't being said and answer to the others arguments with your bare arguments. I'm willing to debate this way but not your way, sorry.

I'll make my point briefly just in case you are willing to talk as a person not a chimpanzee:
The matter is that they've been years that the fresh literature is rotten. Why that happens? Surely there are a lot of reasons but one that is evident is that now, due to everyone can read and they are normies (not deprecating just describing them) and writers, editors, critics, etc only want to make money, they make books for them (the normal people) which aren't good but entertaining for them.
So we, as we like true lit, want this problem (it is for us although it isn't for you or normal people) to be resolved and (naturally) so we search for a solution. Is the solution of reiliterate people desirable? For some people could (not for me if it is avoidable). Is it feasible? Apparently no, it isn't.
So there it came (and hopefully will come) the other possible solutions. My opinion is that it is improbable that we (as society) solve the problem. But improbability isn't impossibility so we should try it

Farewell

>bottom barrel gutter trash
nice arguments

I simply cant take serious someone who complains about today not being good literature in comparision with other moments of history, because that argument is fallacious and weak af, frankly. Its on the same level of "there hasnt been good music since the (insert random decade), i was born in the wrong generation", its an appeal to history and the past as the only sources of quality, and that shit has been said since the beggining of fucking civilization.

In fact all you guys have been doing is claim, as if it was self evident for everyone too se, that there is simply "no good literature" nowadays. Without even touching on the fact that the argument is laughable, you guys havent put on the table a single proof of your claim, and the burden of proof lies on your field. You are simply making bullshit broad statements, jerking off eachother for having supposedly supreme tastes, while looking down on everything you dont like to feel better about yourselves. I dont know, it seems the one with a problem are you guys.

Also, dont think you can take the high moral ground now with your mellow tone when OP was calling for limiting literacy worldwide for the broad masses of the population. Im not the one here with a rotten moral code.

user, everyone can't do everything. this isn't a product of capitalism, it is a product of nature and reality. i do work out, but my point was meant more as an example - albeit a weak one.
really though, it's not capitalism's fault humans can't be perfect, it's just natural that humans can't be good at everything.

>Psssh... Nothing personal... Kid!

>it's not capitalism's fault humans can't be perfect, it's just natural that humans can't be good at everything.

I wasnt saying that, even thought I can understand how you got that conclusion from my post, I didnt express my thought fully. What i wanted to say was that the conditions of life today, product of our ways of organizing -which come, ultimately, form the needs and demands of the capitalist system-, forces us to lifes in which we cant fully develop our interests, passions, curiosity and abilities, it limits us to a few activities that are considered useful for the market. And after that, if we have free time, we can distract ourselves from the grueling continous exploitation of the market with some ammenities, which we are constantly bombarded to monetize and make them "hustles" or "side-jobs".

Obviously no person can be good at everything, if only. You are completely right on that.

i guess user, but the utopian idealism you seem to wish for is a bit far-fetched for me.

>Now that the masses can read and write, literature must be written to appeal to their vulgar tastes or cease to exist
Not necessarily disagreeing but what makes this the case? This is non-sequitur

see

Simpler answer: the Novel peaked with Ulysses, we're on to new forms of media now. Ulysses and other maximalist novels basically reached the limits of what can be done with language alone.

Mass literacy opened way for mass propaganda.

>great soviet era Yea Forums
Tfw some random Kyrgyz guy mogs hundreds of years of Russia tradition

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The supply/demand economics of capital don't apply to niche literature created for the sake of itself or for artistry and so on. The incentive to write high quality and nuanced or 'intellectual' literature is still the same as ever. The literacy rate of Europe has been high enough for the majority of the literary output to be pulp, comics, and assorted peasant entertainment for well over 200 years now. None of that stuff ever survives.
There is a case to be made however, that the culture amongst the elites and upper middle classes has shifted to accommodate for a different kind of person who no longer cares about the liberal arts or has any sort of refined taste whatsoever, just the same vulgar (not in the pejorative sense here) "striver" mentality throughout. I suppose the self-help genre is a natural by-product of a society whose primary values are atheistic and mercantile.

A lot of the classics were huge hits in their time (but not all, obviously). I think that, much like poetry, literature reached a point where to develop further as an art form, it had to be written primarily for the consumption of other literary types, as opposed to merely for a relatively educated Everyman, let alone the masses.

Didn't read lol

You conflate lack of validation by the mainstream with lack of quality. I doubt you would be able to appreciate high quality literature unless it were rubber-stamped and sold as such.

>it had to be written primarily for the consumption of other literary types, as opposed to merely for a relatively educated Everyman, let alone the masses
This in part also has to do with the massive and gradual decrease in quality of public school education. Maybe not so much in math or the hard sciences but in literature, history, languages, and drama the effect has been profound.

I'm not so sure: like I wrote in how much can you realistically improve upon Ulysses or Gravity's Rainbow? There's only so much farther one can push language. Like, what are you going to do, add more allusions? A bigger factor than declining standards in public education is every writer going through an MFA program or writers' workshop and using a similar prose style and coming from similar upper-middle class moderately affluent backgrounds. They don't have anything interesting to say.

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NTA, but is the maintenance of a system allowing for the appreciation of what you see as the peak(certainly very good, though language changes, as do values), even if it's in the past, not reason enough?

Don't get me wrong, you could do pretty well just teaching Antiquity, Shakespeare and the Bible in the English-speaking countries. But the most innately talented creators (and innate talent is all that matters) will intuitively start moving onto new media, this is the nature of peaks. The future for the Novel is a form of media for women.

Technology fucked our species really badly, we as a whole never had such low attention span, never had acess to this much addiction behavior.
So when you say that "this age art/lit/music sucks" was said since forever we have a lot of reasons to believe that this time is indeed true.
So when you are simply blind to the fact that we live in a unique era in the history or choose to ignore it, I simply can't take you serious.

People probably said the same thing when the printing press was invented

>Specialization is a consecuence of this absolutely dehumanizing social order that we call capitalism
Holly shit are commies really this retarded? I recommend your next read be a highschool history textbook.

literacy rates be bussin fr fr no cap shits 10x on god n shit

>Adam Smith literally praising and explaining this exact topic in The Wealth of Nations

Im not saying nothing capitalist economists havrnt already said.

The average american literally has the attention span of an aquarium fish. Dont compare the endless brain rotting scrolling through the feed of teenage girls twerking to 16th century urbanites reading raunchy pamphlets.
A majority of young people literally spend hours upon hours destroying their brain scrolling through social media every day. Not to mention porn, video games, netflix, and the cheap overproduced hiphop/pop music they listen to constantly.

literature as a medium has served it's purpose. film and other visual mediums have surpassed it in every way, we will never see a "classic" piece of literature again. infinite jest will be considered the last

Specialization of labour appeared after the Neolithic revolution, not in the 18th century. Also, are you denying its the most effective method of production? Should everything be made by artisans? Or are you some Ted K type who wants to go back to living in mudhuts?

don't worry senpai we zoomers be fixin dis frfr nocap ion even be readin yo lame ass dead ass wyboi goofy ass shit frfr lil pump str8 bussin my nigga

this but unironically.

Ayo based, these cringe boomer cucks be malding, they hate us cuz they aint us fr.

Whilst I agree with you, Soviet 'realist' literature is completely dead artistically.

I'm more concerned about hip-hop than anything else on that list.

Yeah

bruh fr these gay ass boomers need to touch some mf grass

I'm screensharing with my illiterate friend right now on Skype, and he made the point that all the separate line segments looks like they form a humpback whale

Ted lived in a cabin you fucking retard

Nobody cares about your chimp friend

the most obnoxious part of horseshit opinions like this is that you people never take into account that you'd never be part of this fantasy elite. You wouldn't be one of the renaissance men, no fucking way. You'd be one of the illiterate masses, kept stupid so your tastes wouldn't spoil the pot.

You dumbass, if you are relatively well read in certain areas these days, you already constitute some form of elite, which is also sad.

Hip hop and video games are the least harmful of those things listed.