/lit/ - Literature

read better books

>>18563610
You honestly think so? It's a tad repetitive to me. The main message is correct though.

>>18563612
>t. didn't read him
You can't deny that the prose is superb.

>>18563610
fallacious arguments and he's dead so he can't force anyone to believe that shite

>>18563688
That's not what the book is about. Why do people feel the need to talk about books they didn't read?

>A man's opportunities are never exhausted so long as other men (who are not his friends) possess millions of acres and thousands of tons of gold
>The guarded treasure halls and iron-clad temple of modern kings and presidents, high priests and millionaires, are positively the richest the world has ever know.
>Bulging are they with the vast hoards of silver and diamonds and gold.
>Here, then, is opportunity on a colossal scale. Here is the goal of Caesars, Nebuchadnezzar's and napoleons in the days that are coming.
>All is ready and prepared for them, even as in olden times. Caesar carried off the treasures of Egypt, Greece, Gaul and Rome. >Napoleon looted the money vaults of Venice, Vienna, Madrid, Berlin and Moscow. London only escaped him.
>Nebuchadnezzar plundered the Temple of Zion, where the Jews kept all their deposits and drank his beer and wine out of Jehovah's pots of gold.
>Napoleon Caesar, Nebuchadnezzar! There were three great men, were they not? And in this their greatness consisted--the seized their opportunities
The first thing that isn't his Mandeville-tier poetry. If you think this is good prose you really need to read more. This is garbage.

>>18564085
This isn't even the introduction, moron.

>>18563610
Back from the dead, eh, Thrasymachus? Ah, well, I shall engage you yet again. How many times is this, now?

>>18563688
/thread

>>18564233
His argument against Thrasymachus was wrong though.

If a notion of might not being right is spread by using might then this belief is just a facade, kind of how Athenian democracy was a facade for strengthening the Athenian state.

>>18564342
>His argument against Thrasymachus was wrong though.

It literally was not. Not in Thrasymachus' original form, not in the strengthened version of it that Glaucon and Adiemantus presented. The entire point of the Republic is to define what justice is. And the definition that Socrates and the interlocutors arrive at is that justice is a disposition. A right ordering, both of the polis and, most importantly, of the soul. That's the entire point of the Ring of Giges parable. The Ring of Giges makes Thrasymachus' argument that much more powerful, since it removes the external negative consequences of acting like a brute and merely using force to get your way.

But Socrates proves, instead, that justice is an internal disposition. As such, might will never make right, because even if it wins you external goods and lots of status, your soul will be a wreck, and you'll be miserable to your innermost depths, despite all the material comforts you may amass. And that is a thing that can't be dismissed. How many rich people commit suicide because they're miserable, despite all their power and wealth?

>>18564550
>most importantly, of the soul
So in the core of the argument stands something that doesn't even exist

>>18564550
>your soul will be a wreck, and you'll be miserable to your innermost depths, despite all the material comforts you may amass
I have never seen such a cope
>How many rich people commit suicide because they're miserable, despite all their power and wealth
Very little. I would say almost none.

>>18564561
>>18564567
Do you truly not think the disposition of the soul/mind matters? The state of organization of your innermost self?

>>18564594
Define soul

>>18564605
Call it the "mind," if you're a materialist. Your self. Your person. The "you" that you are.

>>18564614
Why would my self suffer if I get power and wealth? It doesn't make any sense.

>>18564629
If you get it through unjust means--that is, if you use force, as Thrasymachus contends. If you live as though justice is "the rule of the stronger."

>>18563610
"Might makes right" is ironically a defeatist cope for people with no might. It is a cuck's ideology.

>>18564632
Who decides what is just?

>>18564639
A cope would be the opposite

>>18564649
Not at all. It copes with one's own lack of might by self-defeatism, just as Stoicism is a cope with one's own lack of power over the grander context they exist within by self-defeatism.

>>18564658
What's the purpose? MiR is a very life-affirming philosophy, there is no place for self-defeatism

>>18564669
Sure it does. It affirms that those with might over you are justified in all actions and stances they might carry out by the simple virtue of having the capability to do so. It's pathetic, and the fact that ideologies like these often come from people with NO power to speak of themselves is quite telling, again, much like Stoicism and its creation.

>>18564643
That's literally what the point of the Republic is.

>>18564643
Everyone, yet nobody in particular.

>>18564682
The thing is, it doesn't matter what you or I say, if someone has might, he CAN do as he pleases and he DOES. That's literally what's happening in the world. Just to say that this isn't so doesn't change the fact. I seriously don't get it, why would you deny the reality and not state simple facts? Because it makes you feel uncomfortable? Because you want to live in a fantasy land?

>>18564727
See? That. That cucked outlook on life. That is precisely the self-defeatism I mentioned, and you literally acted it out for me. Just because someone has the capability of stomping on you to death doesn't mean they're in their moral right to do so, and you should lie down and accept it in submission to some """"universal truth"""" your ass made up.

A philosophy of "might makes right" applied on a national level only has two outcomes: a barbaric conglomerate of protean micro-nations with everyone slaughtering each other to assert their own might and their own moralities (much like the Warring States period of Japan but even worse), or a total submission to the power of the state, because the very possession of that power gives them some sort of divine-given right to do with the people as they please (Stoicism, the final cuck of philosophy).

>>18564745
>See? That. That cucked outlook on life. That is precisely the self-defeatism I mentioned, and you literally acted it out for me. Just because someone has the capability of stomping on you to death doesn't mean they're in their moral right to do so, and you should lie down and accept it in submission to some """"universal truth"""" your ass made up.
You took the wrong conclusion from it. It had the opposite effect on me. I don't accept any authority over me and I would defend myself, no matter who tried to stomp me to death. And before that I never really had the ambition becoming wealthy, but now I have it and work on it. It gives me a drive. I never felt so alive and just don't get it when people get to the opposite conclusion or try to distort the philosophy to something negative.
>A philosophy of "might makes right" applied on a national level only has two outcomes: a barbaric conglomerate of protean micro-nations with everyone slaughtering each other to assert their own might and their own moralities
You just made that up

>>18564772
>You just made that up
Are you stupid?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warring_States_period

>>18564782
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sengoku_period

>>18564782
>>18564789
Are you afraid of conflict or war? Fear of death is the first step of enslavement.

>>18564817
Don't deflect retard, why did you not at least have the basic dignity to look that up first before saying I made it up? Got assblasted too hard?

>>18563610
So does this make Christians right?

>>18564833
I misunderstood you faggot. I thought you meant everybody would try to push his personal morals and not different groups.
You're deflecting that you're a little sissy afraid of death.

>another might is right dim-wit thread
Oh god no.
Aren't you faggots ashamed of this?

>>18564882
Aren't you faggots ashamed of 2000 years of weak-minded doctrine?

>>18564888
Ohh so this is an atheist cry-baby angle then? Too butt-blasted by Christianity?
Looks like it was mighty enough to out-compete everything else so that makes it right enough.

>>18564904
B-B-BASED

>>18564882
>dim-wit thread
The prose is objectively well written in this book though.

>>18564904
>out-compete everything else
Christianity, Islam, and Judaism lasted a very "short" time if we're going to compare it to other religions. The "pagan" world lasted for uncountable thousands of years. Christianity in the West was forced to take on many pagan elements, and over half the holidays in all the Abrahamics are related solely to local pagan traditions.

>>18564904
Christianity is a religion for peasants and slaves. No mighty man ever took it seriously. It only lasted this long because it was used as a weapon against the masses. It's a very effective tool to control the minds of the people. But it will eventually collapse, because it's a highly unnatural doctrine.

>>18564233
>>18564550
Platos concept of justice was BTFOd by Aquinas long ago. This is what happens when niggers only read Plato and think they are the smarter than everyone else (just like that Greek faggot in the first place)

>>18564658
That sounds like the literal opposite of a cope.

Reminder that this is a board of limp-wristed homosexuals who make up excuses for not going to the gym and think anyone who does is somehow mentally ill or "insecure".

>>18564921
> 2000 years
> short time
> still make up 31% of the world’s population

Oh boy.

>>18564658
What is your life philosophy then?

>>18564956
>Platos concept of justice was BTFOd by Aquinas long ag
What is it?

>>18564946
> Christianity is a religion for peasants and slaves

Wouldn’t that be nazism? The anti-Christian Nazis genuinely thought peasants were the superior Germanic race and detested aristocrats as inferior and effeminate. On the other hand, German aristocrats were known to be pro-Christian in comparison. Wilhelm II’s last wish before he died was to forbid any Nazi symbols in his funeral because it was ‘pagan’ according to him.

>>18564919
I'm actually just calling the threads dim-witted because no one ever manages to bring forth anything of worth.
>>18564946
>>18564921
Now THIS is some serious cope. All you shitters can come up with is some veneration of artificial aesthetics that project power. Man on throne? Muh power, can't be Christian, must be crypto-pagan!!

>>18564971
I'm 99% sure I could beat you in single combat faggot.

>>18564921
It’s funny since it was mostly Saxon peasants who resisted Christianity while Saxon aristocrats quickly gave in and became pro-Charlemagne and pro-Christianity. As a reward Charlemagne even created a larger social gap between Saxon peasants and Saxon aristocrats than had previously existed before Christianity. Germanic aristocrats truly loved Christianity.

>>18563610
might makes right is the mantra of a defeated people, victim mentality.
Winners appeal to a higher cause, a higher standard, beyond their own opinions and their own strength.

>>18565026
>Wouldn’t that be nazism?
That too. Everytime the elite talks about how peasants are great and better than strong or wealthy people you know it's a trap.

>Now THIS is some serious cope.
No, your post is cope. See pic related. Your religion is just an instrument, always was. But ok, it will be hard to accept that you were brainwashed. I don't expect you to get it.

>>18565079
Forgot to quote
>>18565028

>>18565071
This doesn't make any sense

>>18565079
Based manlet. Is economics the modern religion?

>>18564921
>The "pagan" world lasted for uncountable thousands of years.
If you lump everything vaguely pagan together perhaps. Classical paganism lasted less than Islam now. You can easily read on it, see Dumezil on the Archaic Roman Religion or similar texts for Iranian, Indian or Greek traditions.
>over half the holidays in all the Abrahamics are related solely to local pagan traditions
Ah yes, Nativity, Resurrection, Pentecost, Assumption, etc. Are you one of the retard that think having a solemnity on the calendar day of some pagan feast mean that the solemnity is paganism? That what is celebrated at Christmas is the data of the Saturnalia and not the Incarnation?

>>18565025
Aquinas builds on Aristotle who was already against Plato's conception of justice. They believed in a much more empirical and naturalistic approach to justice. In Aquinas opinion Plato's attempts at establishing justice by grand declarations and definitions was as ridiculous as pretending to find the laws of physics from a priori considerations alone.
He (and Aristotle already) also saw justice in its strictly legal meaning of recognizing spheres of attribution in court. Plato muddies everything by pretending to explain everything back to the situation of the soul. Aquinas complains that is effectively destroys justice as its own thing, engulfing everything in a general morality. The very aim of legal art to Aquinas is to have a
independent, self contained sphere to consider. Plato's concept is a holistic mess that prevents analysis and separate treatment of different types of actions and consequences. If followed consistently it ends up in the most comical totalitarianism. Indeed Plato has always been an inspiration for retarded utopianism, while Aquinas wanted to make things work in practical business.

>>18565142
>They believed in a much more empirical and naturalistic approach to justice.
That still doesn't explain how they refuted it. I know Aquinas believed in natural law. The only thing is natural law is retarded and makes even less sense.

>>18565142
>>18565182
Nigger did you even read the whole post?? Anon clearly explained the refutation
Platofags are always blinded by the fact that they can't accept they have been tricked into reading 2000 pages of dialogues full of platos ego-masturbation >"I'm made out of gold because I'm cool and you are made out of bronze because you dumb hehee"
Really anon?

>>18564772
So you were a pathetic loser and now you've read this book and you're the Ubermench? Nah, you will die a worthless shitter like most everybody. Look at someone like Marcus Aurelius. He had the "cucked" stoic passive outlook, yet he was the last great Roman emperor and conquered several nations. By "Might is Right" standards he blows you out of the water. Actually philosophy doesn't matter. If you were destined to do anything more than be a worthlesss slave who will die alone, changing philosophies won't change that.

>>18565142
>everything that isn't abrahamism is one religion until it suits me for them to be different, and when that is the case there's really no such thing as religion at all because everyone has their own opinion!
lmfao you believe that any retard can just divine his own denomination out of the ether. Take your Jew nihilism and pound sand.

>>18565114
It's understandable, anon didn't read the book. It's not an advocacy for some kind of ooga-booga violencocracy or whatever, it's an aesthetic defense of Christian Anarcho-Socialism.

>>18565255
>Anon clearly explained the refutation
No he didn't, he explained why he didn't like Plato's justice. The whole merit of Plato's justice is that it isn't bogged down by particulars (which is what he considered to be its flaw), and thus doesn't fall prey to the normal (and valid) criticisms of natural law.

>>18565182
When you step down from the fantasy wonderland of platonopolis, you realize justice is about dealing with matters in court, not supposedly grand visions of the soul reflecting itself in society.
Those dealings involve the multitudes of empirical characteristics of men and their property. For instance the principles of land lease or building construction are not independent of the specific characteristics of agriculture or carpentry, not to mention the psychology of the people involved (the historical aspect of a community, its racial characteristics, difference between men and women, children, riches, aristocratic status, etc). Even the generic psychology of "humans" is an empirical consideration. It does not rest wholly on the concept of the soul (that angels would also be under).
In addition to being empirical (which already refutes the Platonist stance) legal advice involve myriads of small considerations, that must be taken into account in the informal synthesis of the judge or legislator. To Plato this is a "defect", to Aquinas it is the reality of court and even daily life, and it must be managed rationally. Plato would deny it and condemn judgement to take into account only a few aspects formalized in advance at the expense of everything else.
More importantly it is a denial of justice as its own sphere. Plato's vision of justice is inadequate in its methods and entirely useless to practice. It is a theory of non-justice, denying it any specific value and relegating all questions to ethics. The separation of law from (personal) ethics is one of the most important characteristics of western civilization, as embodied in the Roman codes, then in canon and common law.

>>18565321
>The whole merit of Plato's justice is that it isn't bogged down by particulars
Hence is completely useless.
>thus doesn't fall prey to the normal (and valid) criticisms of natural law.
Plato's is an idea of ideal law, which is also natural law as opposed to legal positivism.

>>18565376
>you realize justice is about dealing with matters in court
Sure, but courts are not philosophy. You go to law school for this. "Practice" is not something Plato is interested in, and rightly so. "Practical philosophy" is exactly why we've ended up with Marxism, Hegelianism, utilitarianism, and so forth, and why Aquinas was inevitably surpassed. You can whine all you want about how justified Aquinas' doctrine was, but it doesn't matter because you were the ones who set the stage for your own defeat via the "practicalization" of philosophy. Plato was one of the last true philosophers.
>which is also natural law
Not in its pure form, which is more an idealistic and abstract type of law free from all particulars of nature itself. Nor is it positivism.
>Hence is completely useless.
It's both completely useless and of supreme value. That's the culmination of philosophy. It depends on the person. This is why Plato's ruler was a philosopher, and not someone merely educated on "what is right", (à la natural law, or a lawyer).