/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13399416]

So I read this piece of shit and while it was enjoyable and fun, it made me depressed as fuck when I finished it. I'm not exactly super ugly but I'm not much attractive either. I almost regret reading it but not quite. I can't stop picturing myself ending like the protagonist: alone, jaded, unhappy and most of all: uncaring. Regardless, what was the aim of the author? To portray the alienation and despair of woke men living in this late capitalism nightmare or.. What else?

[Anonymous No.13399430]

>>13399416
Say what you want about him, but WELLBECK is a fucking blackpill prophet and if it hurt to hear what he had to say then that shows just why you needed to

[Anonymous No.13399482]

>>13399416
Wasn’t the aim pretty obvious? He wanted to portray the modern state of commodified human relations and how it affects those particularly towards the bottom of the pyramid. Just look at the original title, extension of the domain of struggle, he’s mocking the student activists of the 60s with their free love and socialism, because their actions ironically enough led to the opposite of free love but instead the extension of the capitalistic domain of struggle and commodification into the realm of sexuality. And with it comes the losers, Tisserand especially is akin to those displaced workers in the wake of globalization, displaced and alienated with nowhere to go.

[Anonymous No.13399612]

>tfw the nightmare is real life

[Anonymous No.13399629]

>>13399430

He is happy, rich, married to a cute asian, and lives well. He is full of shit. He is mocking us.

[Anonymous No.13399645]

>>13399629
>cute

Dunno about that one

[Anonymous No.13399651]

>>13399416
It's over

[Anonymous No.13399705]

>>13399629
He's only any of those things because he's a famous writer, and he's a famous writer because his books are both good and prophetic. Houllebecq fucking made it, he's a goal toward which all current writers should aspire. If he were still obscure, he wouldn't be happy or rich or married, especially because if you actually look at him he's an ugly bastard.

[Anonymous No.13400097]

Still, a question is: why is the protagonist so woke about it and is surrounded by people who seem not to suffer and understand as much? Even the psychologist and the psychiatrist don't seem to acknowledge what's going on. Not to talk about the other characters. The protagonist is sensible, he even feels pity for the female colleague who is basically not as successful as the others.

[Anonymous No.13400146]

Misogynistic incel trash.

Do yourself a favor, OP, and read some Wollstonecraft.

[Anonymous No.13400189]

>>13399416
Man I feel really sorry for young people today. The shit in this book has been amped upexponentially in recent years. Literally like 15% percent of you young guys are ever going to fuck.

[Anonymous No.13400214]

>>13399416
If Whatever made you depressed, don't read Elementary Particles.

[Anonymous No.13400270]

>>13399645
I mean I guess it might be biased because he is pretty ugly himself, but she has a cute "I'm sweet" air about her.
>>13400097
It's a mix of this being how the average man in that condition feels, which I think most chan users can relate to, but also because largely this is only happening to "ugly" people.
You think big company owners give a shit about the existential musings of third world shoe making children? Those problems don't exist to them, much like "sexual market dynamics" don't exist to a normal looking person.
Believe me I've had that exact conversation with a psychologist once, long before reading Houllebecq. He hits it pretty spot on.

[Anonymous No.13400279]

>>13400270
Damn did he meet her sex-tourisming like in platform?

[Anonymous No.13400294]

>>13400214
Isn't the character in elementary particles even "luckier" in the sense that he gets laid and things go well for him in the long run?

[Anonymous No.13400300]

>>13399416
What makes you think that we are in late stage capitalism?

[Anonymous No.13400374]

It's influenced by The Stranger, with a clear nod in the form of the beach scene where Tisserand almost stabs the black. Unlike Sartre, whose novella doesn't really provide a clear reason why Mersault shoots the Arab, Houellebecq's work makes it obvious.

His use of symbolism is what makes the book so unique in its atmosphere and internal logic. In 30,000 words he doesn't waste much time in providing superfluous description, dialogue etc - instead he focuses only on that which has overall relevance. It is a closed system.

Think about the role cars play in the story. First, the narrator admits he has "lost his car" early on in the book, shortly after watching with indifference as his female co-worker strips in front of him at the party. He acknowledges that losing one's car is symptomatic of something more worrying, and refuses to tell his co-workers. What he has really lost here is his drive or libido. He goes to a party as a single man, feels nothing as various women undress and cavort around him in hollow displays of sexuality, and then starts his decline (most obvious at the novel's end) as he realizes he has lost his car / drive. Why have a car anyway? the narrator asks. It's a hassle to maintain, etc - Houellebecq's love of Schopenhauer is no coincidence.

In another scene the protagonist is speaking to his female co-worker, who hates living in a city. The narrator briefly describes another co-worker nearby, a guy in a hawaii shirt who talks loudly about a mutual friend (male) who went out driving recklessly with some girl he was having sex with and ended up crashing the car, killing her. Nothing more is said, and the narrative continues. But within a space of ~75 words we are again confronted by the notion that sexual liberation is embedded in the culture (casual dating), that formality is on the decline (hawaiian shirt, Americanized dialogue), and introduced again to the symbol of the car. This story foreshadows the sinister reality of an unbridled libido witnessed in Atomised, but is also a reminder that with no love involved there is no duty of care, and so the death is not even that tragic as neither party really felt anything for each other beyond lust.


And then finally we learn that Tisserand, driving back to Paris alone after coming to terms with the fact he is a romantic loser, undesired and fated to loneliness, ends up dying with his car being the cause of death. He has not lot his car, as has the narrator; and cannot therefore detach himself from romantic and sexual longing. Nor are any passengers ever present in his car, a car powerful enough to shield him should he crash; as with the Lothario who presumably is on to his next girl. Tisserand's drive eventually becomes too much to handle, and yet exists within a body too ugly for it to find a girl to want to go joyriding with it. He dies angry and alone, full of frustration and bitterness, losing control (perhaps voluntarily) of his drive and crashing on the highway.

[Anonymous No.13400398]

>>13400294
Did you even read the book?

[Anonymous No.13400403]

>>13400398

No, that's why I'm asking. I read Whatever and I don't wanna read some book about someone doing better than the MC of that book.

[Anonymous No.13400416]

>>13400189
Bullshit. Nobody cares about the bottom of the barrel.

[Anonymous No.13400420]

>>13400374
>The Stranger
> Unlike Sartre,

Stopped reading there

[Anonymous No.13400435]

>>13400189
And the worst thing is, is that we are most likely going to date, but even if that happens we would always feel like we are on the verge of fucking, but never getting it.

[Anonymous No.13400439]

>>13400097
So woke about what?

Every character in the story finds themselves within the closed system Houellebecq insists there is no escape from. It is why things are so bleak, and why the protagonist's final act is to cycle aimlessly into the wilderness; it's an attempted escape from an ideological system which makes the novella a prison of sorts.

The woman he works with, who leaves the city every weekend to visit her distant rural hometown, and who he imagines crying to herself alone every morning, is locked in the system which has denied her the traditional life of her female ancestors. The escape she sees is to worker harder and harder and burn herself out by spending hours every weekend briefly escaping Paris.

The priest friend of the narrator attempts to escape the irreligious, crime-ridden, isolated life of 21st century Paris by having sex with some girl who seduces him for a joke, but finds himself disappointed by what is revealed again to be a failed escape attempt.

Tisserand attempts to escape inceldom by hitting on various women, all of whom reject him; another failed attempt of his own ideological prison cell. His final escape can only come in the form of suicide. For Tisserand, as the narrator makes clear in the nightclub, there is no escape now. The domain of the struggle has extended to every aspect of life, and in this domain there is no room for losers like Tisserand.

The narrator is more detached, his prison cell less more spacious yet equally as oppressive. As he points out, a monkey who knows he is locked in a cage will smash his head on the bars in protest, yet a monkey in a cage with a deep hole in it will sit quietly by that hole knowing it can kill itself at any point. The narrator spends the entire story sitting by this hole, looking around only to remark on how airtight the cell appears to be. Computers disgust him, advertising disgusts him, immigration disgusts him, psychoanalysis disgusts him, modern dating disgusts him, economic ambition disgusts him, atomizing ideologies disgust him, naive nostalgic people disgust him, etc. Yet he doesn't want to die, and remembers himself as a child when he was unaware of the prison being built around him. Finally he makes the best attempt he can to escape, but how that ends we don't know, though likely he just rots away like Bartleby in some French forest alone like some religious ascetic.

[Anonymous No.13400443]

>>13400420
Oh shit, haha. Well, can't blame ya.

[Anonymous No.13400473]

>>13400435
>And the worst thing is, is that we are most likely going to date

lololol

>but even if that happens we would always feel like we are on the verge of fucking, but never getting it

I would much rather be annoyed by knowing that she has shown her sexual side to more attractive men, but she's making me jump through hoops to even get a glimpe of her sexuality, not to mention knowing that she wouldn't care about me in the least unless she think my extrinsic value ( social status, money ) make it profitable for her to associate herself with me.

A woman's "love" for her man < A man's love for his woman < A mother's love for her children.

That's how I see it.

[Anonymous No.13400487]

>>13400439
Haven't read the book, but

>The priest friend of the narrator attempts to escape the irreligious, crime-ridden, isolated life of 21st century Paris by having sex with some girl

This doesn't sound like it makes sense from the priest's perspective.

[Anonymous No.13400511]

>>13400403
The book is almost pure misery for all the characters involved. Their brief flickers of happiness are just there to make the subsequent falls even worse.

In fact, the whole theme of the book seems to be that humans are biologically predestined to be miserable.

[Anonymous No.13400513]

>>13400270
>Believe me I've had that exact conversation with a psychologist once, long before reading Houllebecq. He hits it pretty spot on.

What did he say?

[Anonymous No.13400523]

>>13400439
What if one is Tisserand in real life?

[Anonymous No.13400531]

Just wanna let you guys know the movie adaptation is fantastic.

[Anonymous No.13400538]

>>13400513
He told me to have sex and prescribed me SSRIs.

[Anonymous No.13400549]

>>13400523
You either die or start hitting the gym.

[Anonymous No.13400558]

>>13400549
Jacked incels are still repulsive. You can't outlift a bad face or height.

Not that it's an excuse not to exercise, but let's be real.

[Anonymous No.13400578]

>>13400487
Yes I agree, just read it over and I expressed it poorly.

The priest lives in an Arab-filled council block, and finds that almost nobody in the rough area of Paris cares about Christianity, despite his efforts. He now gets drunk alone watching TV. The last French Christian in the area was an elderly lady from Breton, who we learn has been viciously attacked and dies soon after. His first appearance, at the start of the novel, is used to propose the theory that a health society is one in which the appetite to live is great but where virtue is emphasized in humility and repression. We can assume that at this point in the novel he himself has yet to give in to what he describes as the exhaustion defining the modern world. He argues that Jesus is the solution, and advises the narrator to find God.

However, at the novel's end he himself is isolated, exhausted, purposeless, apathetic just as the narrator was when they meet earlier on in the story. The domain of the struggle has extended to his own life, and with nobody willing to be converted and his final parishioner murdered by some savage locals, he sees no way to escape the malaise he perceives in his friend (the narrator) but to do what Tisserand does and channel his drive into physical temptation. He fucks a girl who then tells him she doesn't care about him and just enjoys fucking a lot of guys. Now he is truly locked inside Houllebecq's ideological prison. He cannot even pretend that his surroundings are limited only by his religious convictions, but sees the prison walls for what they are. He only has sex, and gives up on his Christian beliefs, when he realizes they are now only condemning him to loneliness. His desire to bond with others then, and escape the isolation he warns the narrator against, comes in the form of an attempted romance which leaves him burned by a callous cock jockey.

[Anonymous No.13400580]

>>13400558
Hey, if it raises your chances from 0% to 1%, at least you have a chance now.

[Anonymous No.13400592]

>>13400523
Here's where Houellebecq goes a bit overboard IMO. Realistically the system still allows for romance to exist, without economic and erotic potential (as Houellebecq puts it in his study of Lovecraft's work) playing the central role in determining one's eligibility for such romance.

[Anonymous No.13400595]

>>13400443
Lol was being facetious; actually really enjoyed reading your observation on the role of cars in the story.

[Anonymous No.13400611]

>>13400595
Thanks mate. Maybe I'm reading a bit too much into it, but I also doubt that Houellebecq is as casual about things as his prose suggests. He is a poet after all, and they rarely focus on anything which isn't symbolically bound to the context of the poem.

[Anonymous No.13400612]

>>13400374
>>13400439

great write-ups

[Anonymous No.13400621]

>>13400523
honestly find something to fill the vacuum that was reserved for human relationships

so either kill yourself or pursue enlightenment because there's really nothing else

[Anonymous No.13400623]

>>13400592
Cope.

[Anonymous No.13400632]

>>13400578
>>13400439
>>13400374
>all this comfy houellebecq chat

please recommend more despaircore pls

[Anonymous No.13400635]

>>13400632
Watch the film if you haven't, it's in my despaircore movie pantheon.

[Anonymous No.13400639]

>>13400623
To be fair, Bruno could be seen as an alternative route for Tisserand.

He starts off as a cliche incel but loses weight and eventually finds a woman who genuinely likes him.

[Anonymous No.13400642]

>>13400632
I definitely recommend Mars by Fritz Zorn. It's not as detached and cerebral as Houellebecq, but basically reads like something Tisserand would write just before committing suicide. It is a very brutal read from the perspective of a guy who learns he has cancer and realizes (or believes) he has wasted his entire life as an incel.

[Anonymous No.13400655]

>>13400639
Bruno and Michel are rehashings of Tisserand and the Narrator. IIRC Houellebecq said in an interview that both Michel and Bruno are aspects of himself, but that he is probably more like Michel (lol).

It's hard to tell whether Bruno actually finds love, as their attachment, although touching at times, is still bound to their having sex with strangers on a regular basis. I think they just give each other all the love they have left in them, which in the end doesn't amount to much.

[Anonymous No.13400677]

>>13400642
Where can I read this in English online?

[Anonymous No.13400686]

>>13400632
>>13400642
Would also recommend Pessoa as a remedy to despair. Houellebecq is a fan of his, and in his manifesto describes (and argues against) the "Pessoa method" of trying to get published as consisting of writing in isolation and hoping someone finds your stuff after you're dead. Pessoa is the narrator of Whatever stripped of his anger, bitterness, regret and care. Needless to say, Pessoa's narrator lost his car a long time ago but doesn't even care to go looking for it.

[Anonymous No.13400691]

>>13400677
Don't think it's online to read, I had to buy a second-hand copy from some online bookstore. Are you in Europe?

[Anonymous No.13400704]

>>13400513
>He
It was a female psychologist. She said it's not that hard to find a partner and that I was just letting my depression get the best of me. That if men are just true to themselves and treat women well eventually a partner comes along.

I mentioned I couldn't in all honesty imagine a more doomed group of people than ugly white men, as they are expected to perform better than every other men on earth while being abjectly despised by ever single other ethnicity for their privileges, and for women because of their ugliness.
I told her beautiful white men could treat women like shit and have a very active and fulfilling sex life with those same women, and an ugly white man could be the greatest scholar of the female psyche and still not get laid once in 10 years.
She told me my time was up.

[Anonymous No.13400712]

>>13400704
lol, houellebecq is that you?

i love her advice

>just b urself :^)
>btw that'll be 40/hr

[Anonymous No.13400716]

>>13400704
I think you're being too pessimistic. As long as you have a sense of humour, are financially independent, have some semblance of a career, are kind and confident, chances are you can find a girl to date you if you're in a small town or small city.

[Anonymous No.13400719]

>>13399482
This is because ironically socialism became a hierarchal and these people embraced it. They decided rather than admit they were wrong, that the people who lost in their system deserved to lose and they abandoned their save every worker mantra.

[Anonymous No.13400732]

I guess what really did Tisserand in, and also hurt the narrator quite a lot, is the fact that women don't really love or desire them. The narrator admits he managed to have sex but also adds that it was due to his money that he gets it, and that women don't gladly open their legs to him because he's not attractive. But if we consider the fact that houellebecq considers sex another dominion of struggle, can we really think that this is something new in humanity's history? I mean, not everyone found a partner. Incels are not a news of this time we live in.

[Anonymous No.13400745]

>>13400732

Incels are more common now. Before even a pretty unnatractive man could have a wife because women depended on them financially and other factors.

Compare the average grandfater, whether yours or from friends, to the average good looking guy fucking a lot and getting married today.

[Anonymous No.13400746]

>>13400704
This is why you don't go to a female psychologist as a man.

[Anonymous No.13400750]

>>13399430
>if it hurts it's true

This is exactly the kind of masochistic cuck thinking that made eunuchs like Schopenhauer die a virgin. Stop choosing your own eradication. It is a Death Drive as self infantilism. The Big Sleep is not another womb. You've had security. Now it's your turn to live and create Paradise on Earth for future generations.

[Anonymous No.13400757]

>>13400746
I have deep insecurities about my malehood and probably a ton of mommy issues. I have to go to female psychologists. They also tend to be more motherly and understanding.
Going to a male psychologist feels like explaining to your uncle why you don't have a girlfriend yet when you're a kid.

[Anonymous No.13400761]

>>13400746
I'm unitonically a male clinical psych student (I'm graduating my masters degree in 10 days) and I wouldn't know what to tell him either

[Anonymous No.13400776]

>>13400750
>This is exactly the kind of masochistic cuck thinking that made eunuchs like Schopenhauer die a virgin

Didn't he get prime Universität Fotze in his younger years? I don't know which anecdote to believe.

[Anonymous No.13400781]

>>13400757
They're neither motherly nor understanding, they're being paid.

[Anonymous No.13400786]

>>13400732
The narrator does experience love and mutual sexual desire early on in his life, before his wife found psychoanalysis (and presumably feminism) and was encouraged to interpret their relationship as an abusive one and him as the abuser. Psychoanalysis, one of the tools used by the proponents of liberation etc to overcome repression and become more healthier psychologically, has in fact poisoned those who turn to it for guidance.

Houellebecq said an interview that at the time of writing his genuine ambition was to write a novel that would encourage French women to give the average guy a chance again. He finds it a deluded ambition in retrospect, but it reveals a lot about what the intention is in setting the narrative up in such a way. I think the point about incels is that French culture today is heavily erotic, sex becomes an ever-present temptation yet, due in part to neoliberalism (and its emphasis on competition, consumption, the erasing of traditional culture, anything contra-profit, the pooling of profit by a minority etc) the only arena in which one's value can be judged today is in the economic and erotic arenas. Only a minority of people are winners in each of those fields, and with any rules erased preventing free market libidinism the winners will pool the profits while the losers will masturbate themselves silly in lonely apartment blocks.

[Anonymous No.13400790]

>>13400750
>The Big Sleep is not another womb

Nice.

[Anonymous No.13400791]

>>13400781
They are all unhappy women in their middle ages who have led unfulfilling lives trying to fix their shit so they try to fix someone else's shit to feel validated and more at ease that they are worth something.
And yes, paid.
But the first part is important.

[Anonymous No.13400799]

Another book you guys might enjoy is Doctor Glas by Hjalmar Soderberg. Short read.

[Anonymous No.13400807]

>>13400791
So they're ( for the most part ) childless spinsters?

[Anonymous No.13400819]

>>13400750
I couldn't care less about the future generations. Why should I when nobody cared about me, either?

[Anonymous No.13400820]

the problem with all this weepy deselected male shit is that even though it's logically true (people don't care about men, especially average men, and *especially* ugly/exceptional men) nothing can possibly come of it because it's logically true

organise and take back control or kill yourself or some shit but please shut the fuck up, these sorts of threads are pathetic

[Anonymous No.13400827]

>>13400820
fuck off

[Anonymous No.13400832]

>>13400819
They did, you're just too thick to see it.

[Anonymous No.13400841]

>>13400786
Good reply bro

[Anonymous No.13400845]

>>13400832
help me see it then m8, give some examples

[Anonymous No.13400852]

>>13400820
>thread discussing what a book is about
>please don't make these threads on /lit/ - literature

[Anonymous No.13400858]

>>13400832
You think that people who say that are just ungrateful little shits, don't you? Think again.

>>13400820
And then one day, for no reason at all, people voted Hitler into power.

[Anonymous No.13400862]

A final book to recommend is what Houellebecq describes as his debut novel, "H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life". It's funny to read negative reviews by Lovecraft fans who accuse Houellebecq of imposing his own depressing worldview and obsession with sex onto Lovecraft's life story, but either way it covers, in non-fiction writing, much of the themes and arguments Houellebecq later covers in his fiction.

[Anonymous No.13400863]

>>13400820
How are they supposed to organize if they can't even discuss the issues they're facing?

[Anonymous No.13400864]

>>13400832
being a passive beneficiary of the system hardly counts

[Anonymous No.13400891]

>>13400862
>who accuse Houellebecq of imposing his own depressing worldview and obsession with sex onto Lovecraft's life story

Well, does he? Is he like the male equivalent of the dime-a-dozen feminist "critics" who read their worldview into everything? Does he give good reasons to believe him?

[Anonymous No.13400943]

>>13400891
Well Houellebecq is a man, and so is Lovecraft, so that by default makes him more capable of an accurate interpretation of Lovecraft's life than any feminist.

[Anonymous No.13400954]

>>13399416
you could say the book was simply whatever ecksdee

[Anonymous No.13402048]

>>13400558
>he thinks women care about features
Women like confidence. Lifting gives you that.

[Anonymous No.13402322]

>>13400146
You do realise that incel is an Internet terminology you fucking retard, holy shit

[Anonymous No.13402390]

>>13400558
Hey, I know a guy who's an ugly motherfucker. Looks like a shark with fetal alcohol syndrome. Then he lost a ton of weight and started getting big and he looks fine now. Went from a 3 to a solid 6. Sure he won't be getting modeling gigs anytime soon but he jumped up a few notches at least.

[Anonymous No.13402407]

>>13400791
This pretty much nails it. All the female therapists I've been to have been even more pathetic than me. But it honestly helps me be honest with them. I tend to lie to male therapists to make myself look better because for whatever reason I feel more pressure to be liked by them. I don't feel I've ever trusted anyone enough to show them how horrid I really am.

[Anonymous No.13402423]

>>13400862
>imposing his own depressing worldview

Don't see an issue with this so long as the intent is clear from the beginning that it won't be a 1:1 historically accurate depiction of someone's life and it brings up at least interesting interpretations and ideas. The second point is really the most important.

[Anonymous No.13402820]

>>13399416
The dude who wrote this is extremely ugly

Thinking no one wants your average ass because of "neoliberalism" is pure cope

[Anonymous No.13402832]

>>13400374
>unlike sartre

please dont write long paragraphs comparing books to things you havent read

[Anonymous No.13402846]

friendly reminder that incel whinging about how life sucks because no girls will fuck you is the 4chan version of self-victimizing a la SJW culture.

Get a fucking grip. You're not a victim and you're not doomed to a life without love. Anyone, LITERALLY ANYONE (even deformed autists) can find love if they learn to be presentable, manage social interactions, and stop treating women like shit.

Wake up.

[Anonymous No.13402850]

>>13402846
>just b urself bro works every time

[Anonymous No.13402855]

>>13400558
Even if you could work out to get women it still shows that there’s more selection pressure on men. There’s so little on women right now that they’re all getting fat, and the models are just average girls and the beautiful do freaky things with their body. As opposed to chads, who are all cut and clean and composed. They might dress the part of female and we might dress like men but visually women are performing much more masculinely than men.

Our species is becoming like birds of paradise in our urban environment, with plain brown females who all look the same and males sporting vibrant colors and plumage.

[Anonymous No.13402864]

>>13402846
>posts a bunch of feel good/everything is okay ideas and tells you to wake up
The absolute state of 2019

[Anonymous No.13403382]

>>13402846
lmao come on man

[Anonymous No.13403400]

>>13402048
Delusional

[Anonymous No.13403462]

>You have funny ideas because you don't have sex. Have sex.
>You don't have sex because you have funny ideas. Change your attitude.

Are these legit lines of flight from inceldom, or are incels making the true dialectical move in saying these ideas aren't funny at all?

[Anonymous No.13403485]

>>13403462
You're not going to get an honest answer to that question no matter where you ask, but statistics point to the latter

[Anonymous No.13403570]

I was just rejected by a women who accepted my advances, only to cancel within the week. Only afterward did I discover she's also the campus bicycle.
Will I end up smeared across the nearest rail line if I read this now? I'm intrigued by both the themes of the novel and the discussion in this thread, but I already feel so fucking undesirable.

[Anonymous No.13403591]

>>13400704
the female psychologist had trash advice but I still don't agree with your analysis, the obsession with surface beauty and disparity between the ugly and the beautiful in terms of sexual fulfillment reveals a mind preoccupied with vanity, she should have told you to fix that instead of blowing smoke up your ass about finding a gf.

[Anonymous No.13403598]

>>13400891
He really doesn't. The worst you can accuse him of is of focusing too much on the alienation aspect of Lovecraft's work.

[Anonymous No.13403617]

>>13403570
realise that you have worth beyond who does and doesn't want to bounce on your dick and then go have a good time reading an interesting novel, and by interesting novel I mean Atomised not Whatever because Atomised is Houllebecq's greatest work.

[Anonymous No.13403618]

>>13403570
Don't read it. This book made me feel depressed and utterly crushed when I read it a few years ago. I don't think any other piece of non-Houellebecq media has ever made me feel so empty and hopeless, aside from maybe Punpun.

The fact that this is more realistic than Punpun makes it even more crushing.

[Anonymous No.13403638]

>>13399705
He got married at like 19 though

[Anonymous No.13403650]

>>13403617
I'm at the point where I'm reading anything and everything, so I won't discriminate. I do realize that, or perhaps I don't. I'll feel better once I'm back working out instead of spending hours binge reading underground every day.

>>13403618
>Punpun
Don't really read manga, but I'll add it to the short list. Not completely despairing about love, but I feel lost and want something that mirrors that.

[Anonymous No.13403659]

>>13403650
I'm glad you at least acknowledge it on some level. I've been friends with a lot of socially/sexually succesful men as well as permavirgins and the one observation I've made is that casual sex as a habit, alongside a desire to lose one's virginity for the sake of losing it or for base gratification, does not make men happy. I used to always think women were the suckers of the sexual revolution, seeking security in beds with strange men while they got their rocks off for minimal effort, but from what I've seen now I'm convinced it's a travesty for both sexes, regardless of whether you're """winning""" or losing in the sexual marketplace.

Have you noticed that the protagonists of Houllebecq's novels lack any substantial relationship? The world of the platonic, of close bonds between humans free from sexual attraction, is curiously absent in all of his work. I think that's something people should take some time to think about.

[Anonymous No.13403667]

>>13403659
>Platonic, close bonds
I'm one of those unfortunate men who's felt more comfortable in friendships with women than with men, and my feelings are reversing for this reason. The ambiguity of relationships with the opposite of sex is increasingly obnoxious to me, and I feel much safer opening up emotionally to either men or non-binary people who I'm incompatible with. There's much more room for deeper, meaningful relationships when you're not constantly wondering whether you're transgressing some vaguely defined "line" that may or may not exist in one or both parties' minds, and there's only so much you can do to steel yourself against the chemical element of human attraction.

The whole affair seems dismal from the outside, though. Regarding casual sex, the women I know getting laid aren't happy, the men I know getting laid aren't happy, no one wins but they keep playing the game they're playing as if the rules will organically change.

[Anonymous No.13403678]

>>13403570
>I was just rejected by a women who accepted my advances, only to cancel within the week. Only afterward did I discover she's also the campus bicycle.

Hah, one time I got ghosted by a girl who basically asked me out because she hadn't gotten laid in months. And I still got ghosted.

[Anonymous No.13403684]

I was part of the "system" for a little bit after I got over my incel phase (mostly because Im not ugly) but now was that a vapid phase of my life, once you learn that women like you all you want to do is try and get all of them too. Eventually it doesnt matter, even if all you are good at is getting laid youre still not doing anything with your life. I dont even like sex that much anymore. Its a shit currency

[Anonymous No.13403700]

>>13403684
>tfw trying to get laid so i can dismiss the spook of getting laid

[Anonymous No.13403705]

>>13403667
>non-binary
Fuck off.

[Anonymous No.13403721]

>>13403667
While it's unfortunate that you're feeling more distance between you and your female friends, is the obvious solution not to segue into more emotionally fulfilling relationships with men? I can understand your difficulties in this matter, sexual insecurities are patently awkward to discuss with the sex you're attracted to, and some women may also feel threatened by a man criticising sexual freedom, given how closely tied it is to the rights of women in modern day social politics. I'm actually a homosexual but I've always felt comfortable in close friendships with men, I feel if you reach a certain level of friendship worries about sexual attraction seem to fade into the background. I've had some close friendships with women too, although if I were to generalise my experience I'd say I have an easier time getting closer to men. I've always felt "safer" around them for some reason, but I've befriended women who have been an exception to this rule also.
>no one wins but they keep playing the game they're playing as if the rules will organically change.
I'm not sure people are even cogniscent of "the rules" so to speak, modern day sexual relations seem to be a result of the expectations placed on people, especially young people, to freely engage in casual sex. If most thoughtful people stop to really observe what's going on, they seem to realise it's not doing them any favours. My hope is that over the next few decades people begin to more openly understand and appreciate the importance of monogamy.
>>13403705
quality contribution to the discussion anon thanks

[Anonymous No.13403777]

>>13400473
That's a bit of a self-defeating mentality, isn"t it ? And on grounded on facile generalizations to boot. Why not try looking at every situation for what it is instead ? And I don't mean it in an unequivocally optimistic way. Just try asking social workers what they think of "a mother's love for her child" for instance.

[Anonymous No.13403791]

>>13403667
>non-binary people
Stop acknowledging the delusions of the mentally ill.

[Anonymous No.13403813]

>>13400611
Not who you're answering to, I like your analysis, but I would dispute Houellebecq is a poet. He wrote some poems, perhaps even before writing his novels, but from those I've read he's not much of a poet really.
Then again I might be biased as I find his whole schtick a tad boring.

[Anonymous No.13403834]

>>13400632
Read Céline. Also Schopenhaur who is pretty much the philosophical ground for Houellebecq's worldview. Try also Zola, Maupassant, Huysmans, all inspired by Shcopenhauer and who probably inspired Houellebecq (for HuysmansHoullebecq admitted it himself) as well as Flaubert for a more ironic and laughing kind of depsair.

[Anonymous No.13403836]

>>13400270

your brain is too shallow to even consider anything other than appearances, just like any every other retard that got their cynicism from a pill. who cares if he's married to that ugly creature? there's no way in hell that a goblin like him is happy, and even if he was, how does that stop you from changing your own life?

[Anonymous No.13403850]

>>13403836
>your brain is too shallow to even consider anything other than appearances,
>who cares if he's married to that ugly creature? there's no way in hell that a goblin like him is happy,

the fuck am I reading

[Anonymous No.13403859]

>>13403850

i'm saying that you have no idea why or how he got married, or what their relationship is like. saying a man is happy because he's married of all things is retarded

[Anonymous No.13403869]

>>13403859
okay, that's true

im an incel but ive also had sex, yeah it didnt cure me

[Anonymous No.13403877]

>>13400704
She probably wasn't wrong about depression tho. That whole idea that you have squared up the entirety of modern human existence in a neat formula where there is no room for ugly white men (a kind of reasoning you find in many pessimistic writers since 300 years if not 2000) is grounded on the delusion that you have essentially understood everything (the general logic of it if not the particular).

It does sound excessive, and it is exactly on that excessive and misleading kind of pseudo-understanding that depression feeds on ("I will never be happy" - that sounds inescapable until you realize the depressive part of your brain is basically pretending it can predict the future).

A simple counter is to reason in term of objective opportunities (that doesn't cure depression, but it helps). You may feel that being white is an liability but let's be real, that's an internet echo chamber talking point, in practical life and in 80% of the first world nobody gives a fuck. To a lesser extent it's true in the third world (and the second world is barely aware nonwhite exist). The only major institutional area where you'll be discriminated against in the US as a white is college admissions, which is a good thing because the contemporary college system in the US is now essentially a Ponzi scheme. Save money and go abroad, study there. If you're not American you don't even have to leave the country.

[Anonymous No.13403902]

>>13403877
Just let people feel their crushing inferiority without these reddit-isms, honestly I think telling people any kind of negative self-assessment must always the product of disordered thinking does more harm than good.

Maybe if we convince people the social and sexual inferiority they experience as plainly as the sky is blue is all in their head, based on extrapolations from incomplete data (haha, can u tell I majored in psych? ;)), and uh, yap yap fucking yap, they'll sit down and shut up.

Some people can see the writing on the wall. Some people aren't so easily fooled by a handshake and a smile from the "just b urself :^)" industry. Just stop it.

[Anonymous No.13403936]

>>13400745
>Incels are more common now.
I hear that a lot but is that true? Virgins were hardly rare in earlier times, and Christianity even incentivized for it. There were monks, priests, even scholars could often stay virgins (see: Kant, Newton). Lack of money was more likely to convert into celibacy if you were a bit puritain because the link between sex and marriage was stronger, and marriage often came with monetary requirements.

To me it seems it's more the "in" that the "cel" part that is new. It's not that people are more celibate, rather that more people resent it, because we have lost much of the ancient respect for celibacy.

That's where you realize that despairing because you're not getting laid is caving in to a slavish enthrallment to a form of consumerist mindset. It's essentially cucking yourself. There's nothing wrong with not getting laid, it was never that rare, the problem is not being to build your life around anything else than getting laid. Look at married people with children: there are often times in their lives when they are too busy for sex. Same for many dedicated scholars and artists. Even the newlyweds didn't build their relationships mostly on sex, some wait for years, some even disregard most sexual considerations when looking for a partner.

On the other hand, if sex is really the most important thing for you...then truly make it the center of your life. Conform yourself to beauty standards, practice pick up, make money to attract bitches, pay for prostitues (if you don't have enough money for that your problem is not sex but money).

I'm not saying being a fuckboy is admirable, but half-assing things never gets you anywhere. If you want to get laid, work yourself into the kind of guy that gets laid. If you can't bring yourself to do it, perhaps sex is not what you wanted in the first place.

The same applies for relationships and not merely sex. Physical attraction matter less for relationships than for sex in the long term.

TL;DR: Stop cucking yourself, if sex is secondary, find what is primary for you, and you'll either end up having sex or not caring. If sex is not secondary, work on becoming a sex machine. It's hard but so is maintaining a job or a marriage.

[Anonymous No.13403937]

>>13403667
>non-binary people
you have to go back

[Anonymous No.13403945]

>>13400781
They're paid to be motherly. The point of going to a psychologist is you're ready to pay a professional to sort your problems. Not so different for paying a prostitute. When you do that you're past the "I just want stranger to be kind to me for no reason" phase.

[Anonymous No.13403952]

>>13400776
He did, but he never married, and perhaps that has to do with that hyperdeterministic mindset.

[Anonymous No.13403957]

>>13399416
Sulking is for women.

[Anonymous No.13403970]

>>13403902
That anon never claimed that all negative self-assesment is the product of disordered thinking, he claimed that a totality of pessimism in which you have convinced yourself it is entirely inconcievable in every possible scenario for you to one day be happy is disordered thinking, because it is. It's patently irrational. To experience things as they are in the now and to read that into every possible projection of the future you can possibly draft is ludicrous, and if you think such a totality of bleak future outcomes is self evident due to an applied logic, it is most likely your logic is flawed because, as that anon pointed out, we are not beings who can readily predict the future.

Pointing out flawed logic charged with an unproductive fatalism is not "reddit" anon.

[Anonymous No.13403972]

>>13403936
>>I hear that a lot but is that true?
Obviously. The only thing to consider is monogamy, which has declined, it's purely a question of logistics.
> Virgins were hardly rare in earlier times, and Christianity even incentivized for it.
What does the I in incel stand for, you fool.

[Anonymous No.13403998]

I don't understand why they gave it such a crude title in english. The original is beautiful.

[Anonymous No.13404033]

>>13400791
My therapist is a well-adjusted qt and probably even younger than me tbhqfam.

[Anonymous No.13404037]

>>13400819
I care about you anon. You remind me of my younger self, for which I have a lot of endearment.

[Anonymous No.13404041]

>>13400819
Don't you care about yourself? That's only one person, but it far outweights an army of strangers.

[Anonymous No.13404071]

>>13402820
And he was married twice to boot.

[Anonymous No.13404073]

>>13399430
His prose is also shit.

[Anonymous No.13404083]

>>13402832
That's a lot of assblast for a simple misstep.

>>13402850
He's saying the opposite
>just don't be a piece of shit
Which implies, if you're a piece of shit, work on stop being one.

[Anonymous No.13404087]

>>13402855
>and the models are just average girls
Have we be seeing the same advertising? They have sneaked a couple of "average" girls in but it's still photoshopped half-elvish beauties for the most part.

[Anonymous No.13404107]

>>13402855
>the models are just average girls
lol wat?

>but visually women are performing much more masculinely than men.
You are gay.

>>13402850
'Be yourself' (and 'Follow your dreams') are actually useful pieces of advice when you're young (before 25).

[Anonymous No.13404210]

>>13403902
>reddit-isms
>any kind of advice must be reddit
>trying to help people as someone who had depression himself is necessarily NPC normie behavior
>I guess the Stoic, the Epicureans and the Buddhist were also reddit too

Not against you in particular but I've seen way too much of this itt (and elsewhere on /lit/). It's like people don't bother to actually read a post and assume that if it sounds vaguely positive it's normie cope. That's actually worrying for the reasoning capacities of people on this board, /lit/ was never that good but people used to actually engage with argument sometimes.

> I think telling people any kind of negative self-assessment must always the product of disordered thinking does more harm than good

I never said that, and the anon I was answering to wasn't doing negative self-assessment, but universal, apodictic negative assessment. This is precisely the point of my post, how can you know so much about the universe that you've determined your own life with such certainty? I've met dozen of scientists and none of them was ever as confident about the result of their own research as anon itt are about the unfolding of a live that in all likelihood is still in its first third.

And that's precisely how depression operates, fake certainty about apparently inescapable conditions. It happens to millions of people, and hundred of thousand of them get out of it and have their conclusions proven wrong. This much is simple and rather factual.

>Maybe if we convince people the social and sexual inferiority they experience as plainly as the sky is blue is all in their head

Sexual inferiority is not the point, the point is the misery. Plenty of "sexually inferior" people have led fulfilling lives.

> (haha, can u tell I majored in psych? ;))

You certainly didn't major in reading comprehension. But I would expect hasty inferences from a psych major, yes.

>Some people can see the writing on the wall.
You're using a English saying taken from the Bible and referring to the prophet Daniel. Is that what the incels itt are? Prophets? If you were talking about the certainty of death I could agree, but here you're talking about what? Sexual satisfaction over a lifetime? The kinds of people you'll meet in 15 years? General fulfillment with life? If you can predict that with so much certainty 30 years down the line I suggest you start selling your insight, you'll soon be a billionaire.

>Some people aren't so easily fooled by a handshake and a smile from the "just b urself :^)" industry.
Again the low-effort platitude. This kind of laziness is the thing most likely to do those people in btw. Did you even bother to think about this? Tell me: has it never happened that people who tried suicide regretted it or stopped at the last minute, only to start working on their life afterwards? Hasn't it happened to dozen of thousands of people? And those people where must more certain of never enjoying life than anyone itt.

[Anonymous No.13404225]

>>13403972
Apparently you didn't bother to read more than two line of my post. As a consequence you made an answer that's already half-contained in the post you answered.

[Anonymous No.13404237]

>>13400750
t. Brainlet

[Anonymous No.13404400]

>>13404041
I care about myself of course, but I can't bring myself to care about a world full of nobodies and whatshisnames. Who's going to care about me if I don't?

[Anonymous No.13404407]

>>13404037
Don't patronize me.

[Anonymous No.13404426]

>>13400214
That one got me bedbound depression for a week after I finished it

[Anonymous No.13404447]

>woke
>blackpill
>incel
>yikes
>cringe
>boomer zoomer
>late stage capitalism
>psychologists
>non binary
>brainlet
>etc etc
If this thread is proof of anything it's that you all deserve your suffering, if not worse.

[Anonymous No.13404457]

>>13404447
>jordan peterson reaction image
nice brainlet "woke" incel zoomer pandering boomer psychologist you've got there, yikes and also cringe.

[Anonymous No.13404470]

>>13404447
This is medium tier bait. Shame you didn't get the four quads.

[Anonymous No.13404537]

>>13400632
The Loser, Bernhard

[Anonymous No.13404600]

>>13400374
>Unlike Sartre

[Anonymous No.13404614]

>>13404400
If you care for someone else who is young enough to not be jaded yet they'll probably care back right at you. Works with old people also. Generally helpless people.
If you think you're that much fucked help people not become like you.

[Anonymous No.13404622]

>>13404407
I'm not patronizing, just endeared.

[Anonymous No.13404718]

>>13403998
>The original is beautiful.

Yeah, in French.

>>13404107
>'Be yourself' (and 'Follow your dreams') are actually useful pieces of advice when you're young (before 25).

Fuck outta here with that dumb Reddit shit.

[Anonymous No.13404810]

>>13403902
What disgusts me about those types nowadays is that they're still clinging to hope in the absence of God. They're always scuttling between psych 101, eastern mysticism, and all sorts of self-help claptrap as a pacifier. Then they pat themselves on the head for being both enlightened and optimistic. "Haha, yes, we've abandoned such silly religious nonsense, yet here we are, happy and able to confront the universe without the lens of superstition."

Then someone like you comes around, and they squirm.

>Just let people feel their crushing inferiority without these reddit-isms
They literally cannot leave it alone though. It's the nature of the human animal. We derive our sense of reality from those around us, so when a normal person sees a sexually inferior male shrugging his shoulders and giving up, that person feels as if their sense of reality is being attacked.

Just look at >>13404210 and tell me that it's not a defensive spasm.

In reality though, you have to accept that some people are just middle of the road: they're comfortable, and when you shake the Tree of Acceptable Thoughts, you are disturbing their sleep.

[Anonymous No.13404836]

>>13404810
Do you not see the irony in accusing so called "optimists" of acting in a "defensive spasm" while simultaneously deriding them for relying on "psych 101"? Re-read the content of your post. There's no substantial attempt at refutation here. All you've done is pathologise your opponent and affirm the views of your fellow true believer without attempting to deal with the underlying logic.

[Anonymous No.13404895]

>>13404836
This is a Houellebecq thread, you silly bitch. You walk in here and get into a tizzy when people echo Houellebecq's conclusions about intersexual affairs in post-industrial societies. I really don't know what you expected when you strutted in here with your armload of Tony Robbins pap.

Take your platitudes and slink back to /adv/ where you'll at least get people kissing you on the ass for your hackneyed advice and cliche neoliberal worldview where everyone gets to be a winner.

[Anonymous No.13404926]

>>13404895
>This is a Houellebecq thread, you silly bitch.
it would be fucking boring if everyone just agreed on every single premise the author made, this is a Houllebecq discussion thread, not a Houllebecq fanboy hugbox. Christ I like Houllebecq, Atomised is one of my favourite novels of all time. Grow a thicker set of skin you fragile pussy.

[Anonymous No.13404931]

>>13404810
I'm >>13404210 and I wonder if you have ever read my post. A spasm as you known is a fast, unthinking movement. My earlier post was detailed. You might not like my argument or think it wrong, but it's an argument, not a spasm, and it certainly took more than a minute to write.

Indeed you seem to fall under what I've described: inability or unwillingness to engage with arguments, leading to strawmen, and faux-pessimistic platitude like
>Tree of Acceptable Thoughts
which sound like it comes from an episode of American Rick and the Simpsons or some other edgy cartoon.

Your post is dripping with self-satisfied haughtiness but what have you brought to the argument? Your remark about God is laughable, a lot of the normal optimistic kind that you decry (and to which I don't belong despite your assumptions) are actually religious. I have a few in my own family (of course they have their secular counterparts, but they're not essentially different). Going back to the original topic, Hollameme himself seems to have failed to understand the religious mindset, in typical Schopenhauerian fashion.

Think of his character who went to see the black virgin of Rocamadour to have a religious revelation and who felt nothing, and stopped trying. It's telling that he had to go see a relic that is an artistic curiosity in itself, as if an icon in a random church wasn't enough. Yet for the purpose of a desperate godless man the symbol should matter more than the artistry. This show his characteristic lack of humility.

Back to you: you even failed to pick up the logical implication of my post which would have helped your argument (to the extent you have one). If you can't know in advance how your life will be, you can't know it won't be worse. It's indeed possible that for many of your "blackpill" type (a ridiculous term but useful for the purposes of this debate) life will be much worse in ten years.

And then you might even think "I was actually fine back then, it was nothing compared to what I'm going through right now, I could have done something back then". Anyway, the point is it can go worse or better, you don't know. Your error lie in presuming to know, and in holding everyone who disagrees in contempt, as if you were their teachers and they were bad student unable to grasp your wisdom.

But you have very little wisdom my friend, you're just a random guy on 4chan like me. That I'm not ready to throw all hopes out of the window don't make me less evolved or lucid than you (confusing harshness and difficulty for veracity, the classical mistake), nor does it make me a normie reddit NPC copeman (again to borrow hallowed 4chan terminology).

Just do yourself a favor and go read Diary of a Country Priest, to see a priest struggle with pessimism and despair and still come out on top. Nothing about that book is "reddit", there's no sex in it, yet this thread could really benefit to be viewed in light of it. And it blows Hollaback out of the water.

[Anonymous No.13404959]

>>13404931
He's going to tell you your book reccomendation is normie and reddit because it was adapted into a film or because the NYT spoke well of it, or he'll just call you a christc*ck.

[Anonymous No.13405032]

>>13404210
That's great and all, but my life isn't a lab report I'm writing for class, why don't you waltz into reddit and tell the people posting gumball marshmallow tripe that you see get flung around in threads like this that they have no leg to assume their own success is axiomatic, and their positivity is just an extrapolation from incomplete data? Go on, I dare you.

Some people are inferior, some people are inherently unlovable, and some people die without anyone to mourn them. I volunteered at my local church and they told me one of the things they do is hold funerals for people who die alone. Imagine having strangers attend your funeral because no one else will. And i thought to myself "there but for the grace of God go I".

And im not even talking about sex necessarily, ive had it and I'm not obese and still into video games in my 20s either.

The impression I get from your types is a complete and utter aversion to the possibility that some despair is absolute

[Anonymous No.13405057]

>>13402048
No it doesn't.

[Anonymous No.13405067]

>>13400750
>create Paradise on Earth for future generations
Yeah, like the one past generations created for us. I say let us burn trough remaining resources and let future generations go fuck themselves

[Anonymous No.13405154]

>looking for more reviews on Houellebecq after enjoying Atomised
>stumbled upon a Houellebecq thread on reddit
>Entire thread is filled with people whining that he's an incel and an islamophobe, and not the fact that he's exposing the wounds in Western society.
I hate redditors so fucking much

[Anonymous No.13405159]

>>13405154
Reddit is a minefield anon. Take care.

[Anonymous No.13405161]

>>13399416
https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/05/houellebecqs-unfinished-critique-of-liberal-modernity/

behold op

[Anonymous No.13405172]

>>13399416
Terrible translation of the original title which is le extension de domaine de la lutte (extension of the domain of struggle). I though the Dutch title (the world as market and struggle) was also very well put

[Anonymous No.13405249]

>>13405172
I love the spanish one "Amplificación del campo de batalla" whose meaning is something like "Amplification of the battlefield".

[Anonymous No.13405293]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtiJQZTqu9M

[Anonymous No.13405297]

>>13405154
it still baffles me that Submission was interpreted as Islamophobic, it seemed much more like he was positing it as a solution to the "metaphysical mutation" of the West that he grappled with in Atomised.

[Anonymous No.13405304]

>>13405297
it's interesting to me we're slowly, slowly seeing people warm up to Islam, at least here on /lit/. I think people are realizing we have a common enemy

[Anonymous No.13405312]

>>13405304
A bit fast off the mark there, I don't like Islam and I don't want it to come to fill the secular vacuum in the west, I just viewed Submission as not Islamophobic. It seemed like critics were still stuck in the past, raging at him calling it "the stupidest religion", a remark which he later retracted.

[Anonymous No.13405318]

>>13405304
You're mistaken if you think Islam isnt rotten through as well. Take the Spenglerpill and recognize that it is just its second ossified religiosity. The collapse of the West will be unique since the West is now ubiquitous, and it will drag everything with it into the abyss.

[Anonymous No.13405340]

>>13405312
No I'm not trying to implement Sharia Law, but at least people are waking up to the real enemy instead of its agitators

>>13405318
Sure it is, and most of it is fueled by a frustrated Western appetite for women and sex, but it is getting some people to recognize the problem isn't economic or even religious but spiritual to the root

[Anonymous No.13405345]

>>13405304
Islamic terrorism and ISIS are Islam's death throes, it cannot resist modernity.

[Anonymous No.13405361]

>>13405154
Imagine when one of the most promising rising conservative politicians in Europe writes a review of Houellebecq's work and the entire media goes into a frenzy about how he is a misogynist who wants women to go back to the kitchen and wants a ban on abortion. (https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2019/05/houellebecqs-unfinished-critique-of-liberal-modernity/))

Houellebecq explains the current predicament that we're in. That neoliberalism has extended into every domain of (social) life. And Houellebecq revisits this theme time and time again in his novels. Indeed, he does a wonderful job. But he never explains what is to be done. Why wallow in self-pity, for what? Houellebecq does not address these answers. In interviews he argued that (only) the Catholic Church can save the West. But it will require a second Apple for us to sink our teeth in. I think there is no grand social solution to our current predicament. What we can do best is to escape the cities and rebuild from the bottom-up. Perhaps we will end up like Aymeric, but it could definitely be worse.

[Anonymous No.13405365]

>>13405159
Porn subs are genuinely good, but everything else is a no-go zone

[Anonymous No.13405367]

>>13405361
Three choices, as I see it, and three choices only for the "Houellebecqian" man: death, ascetism, or violence. There is nothing else.

[Anonymous No.13405408]

>>13405297
I fully agree. Submission is an excellent satire about the increasingly decandent and apathetic West, notably its intellectuals. Houellebecq himself remarked that we can make arrangemnents (with Islam), but that the feminists will not be able too. Because feminism is demographically doomed we will have to deal with the increasing Islamization of Western society. Houellebecq does a thorough job of explaining that such a situation won't be as horrible as it may seem.

(On the Identitarians and islam)

[B]ut the whole article was one long appeal to his old comrades, the traditional nativists. It was a passionate plea. He called it tragic that their irrational hostility to Islam should blind them to the obvious: on every question that really mattered, the nativists and the Muslims were in perfect agreement.

When it came to rejecting atheism and humanism, or the necessary submission of women, or the return of patriarchy, they were fighting exactly the same fight. And today this fight, to establish a new organic phase of civilisation, could no longer be waged in the name of Christianity.

Islam, its sister faith, was newer, simpler and more true (why had Guénon, for example, converted to Islam? he was above all a man of science, and he had chosen Islam on scientific grounds, both for its conceptual economy and to avoid certain marginal, irrational doctrines such as the real presence of Christ in the eucharist), which is why Islam had taken up the torch.

Thanks to the simpering seductions and the lewd enticements of the progressives, the Church had lost its ability to oppose moral decadence, to renounce homosexual marriage, abortion rights and women in the workplace. he facts were plain: Europe had reached a point of such putrid decomposition that it could no longer save itself, any more than fifth-century Rome could have done.

This wave of new immigrants, with their traditional culture – of natural hierarchies, the submission of women and respect for elders – offered a historic opportunity for the moral and familial rearmament of Europe. These immigrants held out the hope of a new golden age for the old continent. Some were Christian; but there was no denying that the vast majority were Muslim.

[Anonymous No.13405523]

>>13405367
Is there anything else, really? Nietzsche already talked extensively about the Ascetic Ideal. What is left will likely be vacuous hedonism, which seems to work for an awful lot of people.

[Anonymous No.13405536]

I have a hard time understanding what is the problem Houellebecq and his proponents raise.

Is it lack of sex for less attractive single men? Any man can achieve sex if he makes it his chief goal.

Is it lack of everlasting romantic love? Did this ever exist? Isn't the point of romance that it is temporary and has conditions? Haven't there been unhappy marriages for all human history?

Is it lack of a broader community ethos? I feel this may be a primary plague of the 21st century. I personally find myself happiest when I take steps to build a community in my own life.

[Anonymous No.13405542]

>>13405523
Hey, that's what I'm asking. I don't see anything else at all.

What does a childless man with no prospects of ever having a family do with the flat horizon that will be the remaining 20, 30, 40 years of his life? Die, go to God, or lash out.

[Anonymous No.13405547]

>>13405536
the complete atomization of the self and society engineered by our corporate nanny overlords

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtiJQZTqu9M

[Anonymous No.13405590]

>>13405547
Astounding, I didn't know Tocqueville was this insightful. Also it's really cute to see Houellebecq admire his writing, it's very human and it reveals the guy beyond his ideology.

This is a world scale problem but I would like to argue there's a lot we can do in our own lives about it.

[Anonymous No.13405615]

>>13405547
>>13405293
>The elemental myth of modern democracy is that of a "metaphysical" freedom - the notion that the individual must be the autonomous author of his own passion as of his true self, the source of his own being, if not biologically at least morally and psychically. This myth of freedom is the constitutive conceit of democratic culture. It is not to be confused with ordinary liberty or responsibility. Modern man is afflicted with a craving to see himself as the origin of his own being. As Freud remarked, the neurotic wants to be his own father - that is, to father himself. Freud's theory of desire is calculated to preserve this illusion by abandoning all the others, the secondary or tertiary fantasies, the crudely neurotic ones, that must be strategically surrendered as to preserve this, the motherlode of democratic myths, the crux of modern "self-esteem". I must at all costs be able to believe in my own originality.

>If Freud insists upon the primacy of sexual passion in the economy of psychic life and human relations, it is because this confirms the Romantic and democratic myth of freedom, the spontaneity of the individual. If he folds ambition (social desire) back into eros (erotic desire), it is not because the empirical evidence supports this (it doesn't and couldn't), but because romanticism demands it. Eros must be raised to the level of a religious cult in modern society, not because we really are that obsessed with it, but because the myth of freedom demands it. It is in carnal desire that the modern individual believes he affirms his "individuality." The body must be the true "subject" of desire, because the individual must be the author of his own desire.

[Anonymous No.13405629]

>>13405615
>democracy as the final debasement of an onanistic Logos

Checks out

[Anonymous No.13405642]

>>13404457
I understand the exact meaning of this post and its words and suddenly I wonder what I'm doing with my life

[Anonymous No.13405678]

>>13405297
>it seemed much more like he was positing it as a solution to the "metaphysical mutation" of the West

No, he said that in the long term, Islam is even more doomed than Christianity.

Islam is an immensely retarded religion that will crumble under modernity even faster than Christianity did.

[Anonymous No.13405691]

>>13405615
>The sixties were as much effect as cause; they registered deep cultural shifts well underway long before that particular denouement. These appear to be unstoppable as what Alexis de Tocqueville called the "social power" of democracy. As Tocqueville profoundly understood, the collective force of a "society" is unleashed, paradoxically, by the rise of individualism and a culture founded on choice. Social power - the anonymous and irresisitible pressure of "society" over and against the individuals who make it up - results not from the suppression of liberty but from its emancipation. The collective product of individual freedom produces a "mechanism" beyond any human power to abrogate. It transcends the partisan divide of our political culture, both wings of which, each in their own unique libertarian ways, have contributed to its acceleration. This essentially antitraditional, anticonservative revolution of democratic modernity penetrates everywhere. Even conservatism has succumbed to it, as the rise of "neoconservatism" demonstrates.

>Contrary to Marx, this revolution is deeper than politics and economics; it operates on the level of culture, in Rieff's terms the "symbolic order" of "interdicts" and "remissions", the prohibitions and permissions that intimately structure the self-image of human beings, their inner and outer lives. And in any case, this cultural transformation is the very "bourgeois revolution" Marx feared and despised - and to which he thought, absurdly, the fiction of the Proletarian Revolution was an antidote. As Rieff points out, psychological man presupposes his immediate predecessor, Economic Man, and is his historical consequence. And as Rieff also suggests, Marx and his Communist progeny were a perverse sort of "conservative" reaction against this bourgeois revolution.

>Consumerism radicalizes democracy by contagiously insinuating certain ideas, including the legitimacy of desire and the fallacy of limits.

[Anonymous No.13405714]

>>13400279
She is an academic who wrote about his work, apparently.

[Anonymous No.13405726]

>>13405691
this thread is rough

[Anonymous No.13405782]

>>13404931
>all this false humbleness sizzling with anger

Now I *know* you're from Reddit.

Anyway, quit trying to play the role of a philosopher priest. You're not. You're an angry little man who wants people to slob his knob for dispensing giblets of holy wisdom in these dark times.

>But you have very little wisdom my friend, you're just a random guy on 4chan like me.

How truly modest of you.

[Anonymous No.13405825]

>>13405615
>>13405691
This is cool and not usually shared in Huellebecq threads, thank you guy.

>Modern man is afflicted with a craving to see himself as the origin of his own being
Is this not classical hubris though? Oedipus, Icarus, Lucifer, etc?

[Anonymous No.13405826]

>>13405825
Yes.

[Anonymous No.13405842]

>>13405714
Nice, he scored with a groupie.

[Anonymous No.13405857]

>>13405782
>that pic

[Anonymous No.13405899]

I genuinely have no fucking clue what women find attractive anymore. It honestly seems to be based around some indecipherable, ineffable aura that certain guys seem to have, and if your molecules don't vibrate with that same frequency then you're fucked. The frequency with which girls talk about "vibes" seems to confirm this.

It's just fucking bullshit. I've done all the hollow pieces of advice people throw out and it never changes anything. I'm not even resentful of women in particular, they can't help what they're attracted to, but the way people discuss these things as if they're so fucking easy to attain as long as you attain this set number of qualities is bullshit. It's clearly something beyond that and if you don't have that "attractive" gene then you're doomed.

[Anonymous No.13405951]

>>13405899
of course it is, sensitive men are never valued for their sensitivity, but only for the contrast between that sensitivity (an "unattractive", feminine trait) and their actual raw sex appeal.

it's less about being emotionally sensitive as it is about that raw sex appeal, as in, oh gee this man is so attractive he can even sublimate and make unattractive traits attractive. hence why "nerdy" guys are basically bros who wear glasses and read the Alchemist once

if you don't have that X factor you're fucked, that's why I have nothing but scorn for these faggots who treat something as intangible as "sexual market value" like a check list, it's like they're the ones who are completely blind to sexual dynamics. yes you can always improve your chances but like an eye that can only perceive certain wavelengths no matter how good your glasses are, you're restricted within a certain range that is basically consubstantial with everything you are

[Anonymous No.13405960]

>>13402846
>Anyone, LITERALLY ANYONE
People have less friends and worse relationships now than in the past

[Anonymous No.13406002]

>>13405842
It rarely works out, though. Pic very related

[Anonymous No.13406068]

What do you think Houllebecq would say if he say this thread and this imageboard.

[Anonymous No.13406076]

>>13405899
One fact that most people leave out of the discussion is that woman's choice had not matter for basically eons. Almost all mates were chosen for her. Now that that pressure has subsided, women really don't know what they want, because that is a choice they've never had before, one that that I believe is only temporary in the grand scheme of things

[Anonymous No.13406081]

>>13406076
Sorry, autocorrect always fucks my posts up for some reason

[Anonymous No.13406091]

>>13405899
>>13406076

What are both of you talking about? Even the book discussed in OP goes on about this.
Very good looking. That's it.

Being rich, well spoken, from an appealing ethnicity and whatever other shit is secondary. Being good looking and looking or being known to have had sex with many people.

[Anonymous No.13406108]

>>13406068
mon dieu~ probably , or something else that's french

[Anonymous No.13406111]

>>13406068
hon hon hon hoooon hon hon

[Anonymous No.13406116]

>>13404073
justify this statement

[Anonymous No.13406130]

>>13406091
Basically, there are selective pressures on men's sexualities that are recent and entirely culturally dependent that haven't been a factor before

[Anonymous No.13406137]

>>13405899
Themselves desu

[Anonymous No.13406167]

>>13406068
He spent his early adulthood in Paris involved in quite radical left-wing cultural groups who enjoyed poking fun at authority, but who ultimately denounced him for his attack on the 68ers. So he would appreciate the fact that 4chan is an energetic, passionate meeting place (similar to the cafes of old times) where young socially conscious men come to both debate the state of society and culture and also to poke fun at figures of power who are contributing to the general malaise.

On the other hand, the fact we are all anonymous, almost all young men and many of us isolated and upset about that fact, would lead him to see 4chan as another example of the atomization of society. Instead of spending time with friends, or family, or with a lover, we sit in our rented rooms or parents' spare bedrooms viciously condemning the culture we find ourselves in. It reminds me of Bruno in Elementary Particles who gets an erection by writing racist essays all night on his computer, completely alone, utterly unwanted by anyone, superfluous to society.

[Anonymous No.13406175]

>>13406167
g-good post

[Anonymous No.13406295]

>>13406091
I've been told I'm fairly handsome by several people and yet I've never detected any sense of attraction from a woman.

Now my manlet status (5'4") might be the primary factor here but i still think there's something else beyond just aesthetics (though it's just as unchangeable).

[Anonymous No.13406301]

>>13406295
it's the total package, I've been called cute by both girls and fags but no dice

[Anonymous No.13406403]

>>13406295
>yet I've never detected any sense of attraction from a woman.
its probably autism

[Anonymous No.13406414]

>>13406403
I asked my psychiatrist if she thought I was autistic and she said probably not.

[Anonymous No.13406440]

>>13399416
I only needed one thing to pick up girls. I've been through hell and back to figure this one out, because I haven't heard it from anyone. I usually got the cliche bullshit advice when I talked to people about it and my older brother is the king of the geeks, so no help from that side either.

I remember that once an older lady told me that I need to think about my sexuality, or define my sexuality or think about what sex means to me. She said it in passing, it wasn't even a direct advice, it was more like a remark.

I naturally stumbled upon these topics in literature, sometimes I would target literature that had something to do with it. If I had to name two important ones, it would be Heller's Something Happened and Kerouac. I also combined that with asking myself why I liked certain girls and I would even remember some from way back. Mix in some getting the cold shoulder and giving the cold shoulder and the answer was that I needed to become less sexually insecure.

At least I didn't end up becoming a homo by exploring my sexuality.

[Anonymous No.13406472]

>>13405304
Birthrates in Islamic nations like Iran are as low as Europe's. They're following closely behind the west in practical nihilism.

[Anonymous No.13406473]

>>13404931
This post is pure cope

[Anonymous No.13406489]

>>13406167
Far be it from me to stroke our own dicks, but I feel like 4chan is what the cafés of old were back in the day. At least, the cafés of today are certainly not the same, and I'm not aware of other IRL places where people meet to clash their ideologies and discuss whatever like we do here on the rare occasion we're not shitposting.

You can't just go out and discuss something that goes against the status quo nowadays without it biting you in the ass sooner or later, due to the proliferation of the internet, ironically enough.

[Anonymous No.13406546]

>>13406440
so what does this even mean??

[Anonymous No.13406563]

>>13405899
What women find attractive constantly changes. A woman's attraction isn't a constant or a switch, it's a flow that constantly changes direction and speed, relative to her own life experience and what is going on in her life.

What a woman will find attractive in a man is a reflection of how she feels about herself and her place in life. It's not that women are incapable of love, but that most men are confused about what a woman's love for man is like. We tend to project how our mother loved us onto women as a whole, but women love their children differently than they love men. So forget about that. As a man, she will love you for providing her the tools (ranging from tangible like money, food, shelter to more abstract like a sense of protection, intelligence, wisdom etc.) she needs to feel fulfilled. A woman is always a sort of an attachment to a man and you are always going to be some fundamental rock she latches on to in order to feel secure and fulfilled. The real problem is what kind of rock she needs doesn't necessarily stay the same throughout her life and while there are some basic general overalps, most women will be different in what specifically they need from their man. Or rather it would be better to say, it will be different how they want their man to manifest certain things they all need.

Your job as a man, is not to trick her with some PUA bullshit or read a checklist, but to communicate with her. The better you get at communicating with women, the easier will be to know not only which woman likes you but what you need to do, or not to do to make her like you. You will decipher what kind of rock she needs just based on your experience. "Oh, she's that kind of chick. Oh, she needs me to be that."

Of course, you could like a PUA manipulate your knowledge of what she needs but that's not going to be make anyone happy in the long-term. Your best bet is just to present yourself as you are and hope you get a match and then hope she remains more or less consistent. That's all there is to it. Now, the reason why some guys seem to be chick magnets for no reason, is just because they play into the chick's fantasy of what she wants the guy to be without interupting her with stupid shit that crashes that fantasy. This is by far the biggest mistake if you want to score some girl, she's basically desperate to tell you what she wants you to be and all you have to do is not fuck it up, but guys today put up this huge gay performance for her that kills the image she had of you in her mind, which was much much better.

I miss the days when having a girl used to be a big priority. Now, I just wish I could earn enough money to buy a small apartment for myself to live and pay the bills and have some privacy after work. Still pretty far off from making that happen with my wageslave salary and that's far more depressing than something as retarded as having girls not like you, I wish in retrospect I could go back to my r9k years.

[Anonymous No.13406587]

>>13405899
Looks.

Money.

Social status.

You can make up for a deficiency in one with the other two, but you can't miss two things out of three unless those two things are money and social status, but not your looks ( face, height, dick size, musculature, etc. )

A woman's attraction to a man's looks is "true" attraction, attraction to the other two is considered to be below "true" attraction, but it's attraction nevertheless.

Keep in mind that "true" attraction is nothing like the way a man loves a woman, though.

[Anonymous No.13406596]

>>13406563
How exactly can you not afford an apartment if you work full time? I live in one of the most expensive cities in North America and I can afford an apartment easily literally working manual labor. It's not a nice apartment, and it's overpriced, but I can afford it.

[Anonymous No.13406624]

>>13406596
i can afford to rent it but i wont be able to buy property any time soon, no matter how small. i dont want to rent to the end of my life, but that might end up being the case anyways.

[Anonymous No.13406636]

>>13406624
also im in europe. to rent an apartment here on minimum wage and make it through the month not starving is a small miracle here. more doable if you want to be in a shit-tier apartment with 3-4 other wageslaves.

[Anonymous No.13406637]

>>13406563
I think this is the first time I've seen an anon on 4chan write a big explanation of female attraction that is actually accurate. Most men have this almost autistic notion of female attraction where they try and pin it down to one or a small selection of unitary and consistent factors like wealth, fame, confidence, looks etc. This is the only post I've seen that actually speaks the truth on the matter

[Anonymous No.13406659]

>>13406637
>explanation of female attraction that is actually accurate

Women are irrational, that's all there is to that!
Their heads are full of cotton, hay, and rags!
They're nothing but exasperating, irritating,
vacillating, calculating, agitating,
Maddening and infuriating hags!

https://youtu.be/BfIFEV24OtE

[Anonymous No.13406662]

>>13406636
fyi minimum wage is 600€ and within the radius of 50 miles, shit-tier apartments at 20-30m2 for rent go for 300€ without utilities. add phone, gas, insurance, electricity, water.... and you'll be eating on a tight tight budget if at all

[Anonymous No.13406667]

>>13406637
Nah, you're just coping with these wishy-washy Coelho-tier bullshit theories. Human reproduction is not as complex at its core as you think.

[Anonymous No.13406668]

>>13406624
>buy
Fuck I'm retarded. My mistake. I'm in the exact same situation then.

[Anonymous No.13406680]

>>13406667
>conflating reproduction with attraction
this is more the autistic single mindedness I've come to expect from guys, congrats on being consistent anon

[Anonymous No.13406697]

>>13406680
>attraction not being a part of human reproductive behavior

[Anonymous No.13406715]

>>13406697
>reducing the social dyamics of attraction to reproduction
>calling someone capable of explainign why men can rarely understand what women are attracted to "cope tier bullshit" because reproduction is simple
lol

[Anonymous No.13406717]

>>13406697
You're the only retard talking about reproduction

[Anonymous No.13406736]

>>13406717
>>13406715

Samefag. Fuck off.

[Anonymous No.13406738]

>>13406680
>>13406715
You do not have free will, sexual attraction and 'love' are both manifestations of an underlying biological imperative.

[Anonymous No.13406747]

>>13406738
this answers nothing because it can't account for why "love" emerges in the first place, except that it does

[Anonymous No.13406752]

>>13406747
Why don't you stop playing dumb?

[Anonymous No.13406753]

>>13406747
'Love' emerges as a rationalization for your sexual desires which in turn serve the biological imperative of fruitful reproduction.

[Anonymous No.13406760]

>>13406753
>'Love' emerges as a rationalization for your sexual desires
>everything is a sublimation of base biological motives

Houellebecq was right about everything. We need to be cleansed with holy fire.

[Anonymous No.13406763]

>>13406760
What were you thinking? Did you think it was some divine force?

[Anonymous No.13406781]

>>13406760
Anon you're replying to.

Just because there is no such thing as authentic love does not mean that you cannot find joy in a relationship. You just have to treat it as an aesthetic endeavor and not involve yourself emotionally. Adopt a solipsistic attitude towards those around you and act as you will. The world is your stage to play upon.

[Anonymous No.13406798]

>>13406781
>inauthentic, "real" love vs. authentic love

in a world where the love is "actually" authentic, how would you distinguish it from what we're already experiencing? much like free will, if the (subjective) freedom I experience is an illusion, how could it possibly be "more" free?

this is just another one of those meaningless semantics arguments

[Anonymous No.13406810]

>>13406738
that's fucking retarded, what about platonic love between friends of the same sex? your autist theory can't account for that

[Anonymous No.13406821]

>>13406798
The closest you'd get to authentic love is a couple in which both parts subscribe to the same aesthetic sensibilities and choose to play their part to the bitter end (whether through conviction or delusion).

>>13406810
It surely can account. Friendship is based upon the satisfaction of needs coming from both parties involved. Take a friend and treat him as a tyrant and sooner or later you'd be renounced.

'True' friendship such as the comradeship born in war is a matter of a pragmatic conditioning that outlives its purpose, same as a victim of Stockholm Syndrome in the case of love.

[Anonymous No.13406823]

>>13406810
φιλία ≠ ἔρως

[Anonymous No.13406828]

>>13406821
>The closest you'd get to authentic love is a couple in which both parts subscribe to the same aesthetic sensibilities and choose to play their part to the bitter end (whether through conviction or delusion).

fair enough

[Anonymous No.13407369]

>>13400531
This. It's fucking great, although you've got to read the book first, otherwise I could understand finding it boring, maybe, or nonsensical.

[Anonymous No.13407554]

How are the translations of Houellebecq?

[Anonymous No.13408749]

bump

[Anonymous No.13408935]

>>13403570
I read it. I'll re-read if I'm good for my word. Not as painfully hopeless as I believed it would be, but hopeless nonetheless. The conversation with the female psychologist - particularly the comment regarding mirrors - made me cry. I'm reminded of Pelevin's Sacred Book of the Werewolf, where as the protagonist realizes that the key to enlightenment is love, her lover leaves her because he didn't realize she's 3,000 years old. Except the Houllebecq's protagonist is dashed against the rocks in a way that's simultaneously devoid of pain and full of suffering.

I don't think it depresses me, it makes me feel manic, desperate. I feel like I've felt love, or the illusion of love, for the wrong people for years. Why do I feel it so strongly if it's wrong? I don't understand either side of this system.

[Anonymous No.13409056]

>>13402407
I see your problem. You've yet to realize that most people are indifferent to your existence. This is initially depressing for people but you'll find that it's actually very liberating. You become free from expectations you've imposed on yourself because you believe that other people are waiting for you to 'measure up'.

additionally, you seem to think that your problems are too far beyond the realm of normal human experience to risk sharing with others. Your mantra should be "I am not special". Embrace the idea that you're normal and you might be able to cultivate some exceptional qualities.

[Anonymous No.13409066]

>>13405361
Could you say this in a more fart sniffing way?

[Anonymous No.13409072]

>>13403570
These kinds of girls have specific taste in men just like any other. Sluts have troubling habits and other issues in their private lives so you should focus on finding normal women to date

[Anonymous No.13409091]

>>13405536
It's the seemingly hopeless perpetuity of the neoliberal, Mars-Venus systems characterizing contemporary Western society, as described within the novel. Both romantic and platonic human relationships are increasingly cheapened by the pervasiveness of hyper-individuation of identity and capitalistic competitiveness. These processes produce nothing but hierarchical stratification - and misery for the "pauperized".

It's the same as millennials whining about capitalism, at least in that it's inescapable.

[Anonymous No.13409156]

>>13405825
>>Modern man is afflicted with a craving to see himself as the origin of his own being
>Is this not classical hubris though? Oedipus, Icarus, Lucifer, etc?

It's also the locus of René Girard's mimetic theory.

[Anonymous No.13409209]

>>13406738
wrong. atheists need to get out of this Christian board. all these retarded isms and theories are attacked and attached to here, but if you all would simply drop your fake intellectual elitism and submitted to Christ, you would find freedom.

[Anonymous No.13409213]

>>13407554
His prose is nothing special to begin with so reading it in English or something is fine

[Anonymous No.13409217]

>>13409209
Imagine preaching at people and proselytising. You mus confuse it for substance. It is you who should leave, Christian, or not. Not a very good Christian either might I add.

[Anonymous No.13409250]

>>13409209
Take your Jew drivel elsewhere

[Anonymous No.13409300]

>>13406489
It's because the notion of "local" has now expired. In previous centuries and decades you'd have a Parisian left-bank cafe culture, or an area of London where people would flock to meet fellow literary enthusiasts, and the same in Berlin and New York and even smaller cities. But for a number of different reasons this no longer exists, and so people just form similar communities online which, lacking any physical intimacy, also mean that no real friendships are formed and no chance meeting with a girl takes place.

[Anonymous No.13409390]

>>13405293
Based son of a gun.

[Anonymous No.13409429]

>>13402048
Face is the only thing that matters. Go back to r/theredpill.