/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13985248]

You will never do a PPE degree at Oxford.

You will never study with the world's future elite in small and lively tutorial sessions led by world renowned intellectuals.

You will never ever do a degree that gives such huge scope for the hardworking or lazy, intellectual or practical, idealist or realist.

You will never do a degree where the only exams that matter for your grade are 8 3 hour exams at the end of a three year degree. Pop quizzes are for proles. The elite are expected to synthesise information.

You will never do a degree that gives you so much free time, allowing you to choose between deep and intense study or taking part in student politics (in Oxford, all voters are part of the intellectual elite; it is like democracy in Athens when compared to grubby real world politics, which all Oxford graduates consider to be a joke) or the Oxford Union, the most famous debating society in the world.

You will always be considered an intellectual inferior, a bit of a joke.

You will never have the access to the highest echelons of publishing, academia, media, high finance, politics, and NGOs.

You will never see your past classmates on TV or on the covers of magazines.

You will never go to a formal dinner in a full suit and gown and walk back to your room after a raucous champagne drinking session with that qt Cheltenham Ladies College alumnus brown haired lacrosse playing English Literature studying girl, who was originally stuck up, and always is towards non-Oxbridgers and the poor, and most of all to try hard Oxbridge rejects, but who was taken in by your deep and witty knowledge of Keats and Yeats and Byron.

[Anonymous No.13985262]

Why would I want a degree in peepee lmao

[Anonymous No.13985274]

Sweet

[Anonymous No.13985300]

>>13985248
What has come from Oxford in the past decades? Freemasons, degenerate politicians, what more? What have the "intelectuales" done? Are they working on the novels that will change the course of the XXI century? Are they saving the world or dipping it into shit more and more?

[Anonymous No.13985312]

Most of the career benefits provided by Oxford are shared by fellow top universities (UCL, Edinburgh, Durham etc). Undergrad degrees, even from Oxford, are also practically meaningless for achieving high-end jobs too. You need an MA at the very least, and achieving an MA from Oxford isn’t even difficult. The only spell which Oxford still holds is the illusion of grandeur perpetuated by the traditions it upholds (not that I don’t enjoy them, I went to Oxford myself).

[Anonymous No.13985313]

The formerly prestigious universities are now cesspools for subversive antisocial politics.
The real important research and development these days being done by “””””lesser””””” institutions like well funded state universities and more open minded private institutions like U Chicago (which has always been prestigious but has a strict policy of political neutrality).
Oxford, Harvard, Yale....they’re hard to take seriously anymore.

[Anonymous No.13985339]

I’m trying to get into Cambridge

[Anonymous No.13985345]

I've been thinking of trying to get into those top university for a postgraduate study. I don't know how they are with accepting outsiders for master degrees, but for myself, I know I have the work-rate needed. I was a top student in my uni, but failed to create connections to give perspective to my career.

[Anonymous No.13985455]

>>13985313
This is objectively untrue - Oxford, Harvard and Yale all rank in the top 10 in the world for research

>>13985345
Oxford typically ask for a 2:1 for entry into any postgrad programs, if that helps

[Anonymous No.13985468]

>>13985248
>someone's got it better than you so you should be sad
is this the philosophical depth of /lit/?
be glad that you were born in the age of the fucking Internet and stfu

[Anonymous No.13985534]

PPE is for duffers not bright enough for a tough course you larping fool. The best sloane pussy is Roedean, but you don't know that

[Anonymous No.13985545]

I hope someday you find peace and contentment in your life

I hope someday the clouds open up and show you what freedom really feels like

I hope someday you are surrounded by people who know you and accept you flaws and all

I hope someday you can look over all that you’ve been through and know that there’s still so much more good things on the way

I hope someday the weight of the world and the rules they make don’t feel like eyes on you but hands to lift you up and make you stronger and smarter

I hope someday you can sit down with yourself and accept all that you are responsible for with resolve and steadfast dedication

I hope someday you realize that the meaning and worth and peak of life is right here inside of you and that, once earned, can never be taken away

[Anonymous No.13985557]

>>13985455
Harvard and Yale are rich, have tons of big name profs, and run prestigious presses, but my sense is that many academics think the English departments at those schools are a little behind the times (compared to really hip departments like Chicago).

[Anonymous No.13985573]

>>13985557
I'll be honest, I can't comment very well on American academia, I have very little knowledge of it - but at least it is the case for British universities that Oxford and Cambridge still run the show here, whether that's a good thing or not, I do not know.

[Anonymous No.13985594]

https://www.balliol.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate-admissions/philosophy-politics-and-economics-reading-list

ohnonononononono

[Anonymous No.13985599]

>>13985594

That's a reading list aimed at 17 year olds who are considering applying

[Anonymous No.13985603]

>>13985262
fpbp

[Anonymous No.13985604]

>>13985594
That's a very good intro reading list for those topics, what exactly did you want them to start with - Spinoza? Hegel?

[Anonymous No.13985607]

>>13985248
Ok. That's all fine and well but I'm still smarter than you and all of them too.

[Anonymous No.13985609]

>>13985594
omg
That list is a crime against humanity

[Anonymous No.13985610]

>>13985609
In what way? Is this bait?

[Anonymous No.13985617]

>>13985604
this desu. the politics section is fucking retarded neolib psyop propaganda, but commony accepted and not much you can expect from them.

[Anonymous No.13985621]

>>13985248
Getting a PPE degree is like being artificially spoonfed being well read. A real reader reads all that independently, and has also learned a real discipline besides.

[Anonymous No.13985623]

if i can get into oxbridge with my GRE, should i do a masters there

[Anonymous No.13985636]

>>13985604
No it’s not

>>13985610
I almost want to believe that list is a joke.

[Anonymous No.13985655]

>>13985594
>just read js mill bro it'll be epic

[Anonymous No.13985667]

>>13985636
Can you actually give a reason you massive pseud

[Anonymous No.13985675]

>>13985667
they are not starting with the greeks

[Anonymous No.13985681]

>>13985675
nigger

[Anonymous No.13985684]

>>13985675
epic :DD

[Anonymous No.13985685]

>>13985594
that’s what the oxford university is teaching in philosophy?!?!?

Holy fuck I feel like a fucking genius rn

[Anonymous No.13985693]

>>13985675
You know that’s a meme not taken seriously by almost any accredited institution? Literally no reason to read philosophy in such a linear fashion.

[Anonymous No.13985698]

>>13985685
Please tell me this is ironic
>>13985675
The fact that you assume one would wait until they are 17 and almost at University to start with the Greeks says a lot more about you than about the reading list. What makes you so sure that they haven't all already started with the Greeks?

[Anonymous No.13985704]

>>13985248
>You will never do a PPE degree at Oxford.

meme degree, nice libarires though, open to the public arent they?

[Anonymous No.13985706]

>>13985594
The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
>Paul Collier The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing and What Can Be Done About It

[Anonymous No.13985711]

>>13985312
>I went to Oxford myself).
prove it

[Anonymous No.13985712]

>>13985675
so obvious it need not be mentioned

isn’t the tuition like 12k/yr? And nothing on Thales, Gorgias, Protagoras, Democritus, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Xenophanes, Anaximander, Parmenides, Empedocles, Plato, Aristotle????
Absolutely fucking ridiculous

[Anonymous No.13985715]

>>13985706
Kek

[Anonymous No.13985731]

>>13985712
Be quiet you embarrassment. Why on Earth would you assume to know more about teaching PPE than Oxford scholars? Do you not see how massively you show yourself up by asking 17 year olds to study any of those beyond Plato and Aristotle (who are already covered in the A-level Philosophy course that is typically a pre-requisite for admittance onto an Oxford PPE degree)? What use are they, practically? Mill is far more relevant than fucking Pythagoras. What's next, I suppose you want them to move on to the Neo-Platonists, maybe? You make me cringe.

[Anonymous No.13985738]

>>13985712
There’s literally no point in learning the presocratics. Thales unironically believed everything was made out of fire or some shit like that. What would an oxford student in the 21st century get out of reading him?

[Anonymous No.13985742]

>>13985248
The univeristy intellectuals play an important role in carrying out the system’s trick. Though they like to fancy themselves as independent thinkers the intellectuals are the most oversocialized , the most conformist, the tamest and most domesticated ,the most pampered, dependent, and spineless group today. As a result their impulse to rebel is particulary strong. But because they are incapable of independent thought, real rebellion is impossible for them. Consequently they are suckers for the System trick which allows them to irritate people and enjoy the illusion of rebelling without ever having to challenge the System’s basic values.

[Anonymous No.13985756]

>>13985675
>https://www.balliol.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate-admissions/philosophy-politics-and-economics-reading-list
>>13985675
>>13985698
Well you see, the kind of people that are likely to be accepted into Oxbridge most likely will have been reading the Greeks since age 6-7.

[Anonymous No.13985770]

>>13985731
>>13985738

>Homer is new this morning, and perhaps nothing is as old as today's newspaper.

[Anonymous No.13985771]

>>13985731
>Mill is far more relevant than fucking Pythagora
This obviously true, and one can tell from looking at the state of English politics

[Anonymous No.13985773]

>>13985756
no one who has been reading the greeks since age 6-7 is picking up daniel dennet's intuition umps you absolute retard

[Anonymous No.13985786]

>>13985675
You do know about Oxford's translations of Homer's works, right?

[Anonymous No.13985792]

>>13985742
it’s how we got into this mess. all real scholars were driven out in the 60’s. Since then academia is a factory for the machine. Kids go and learn how we got in this mess, and then they are stuck in it, that’s all they will think and talk about. There was a time when a scholar could draw on thousands of years, now they scramble to make sense of yesterday

[Anonymous No.13985795]

Can somebody explain to me why people care about this so much? The degree is literally designed to help rich kids enter politics without having to actually try. The op's statement about what tests matter perfectly illustrates this
>>13985756
Everything else is far too introductory and basic for the Greeks to be considered a prerequisite

[Anonymous No.13985798]

>>13985786
I am applying to Penguin in the spring

[Anonymous No.13985801]

PPE at Oxford is a fucking joke degree. I don't expect non Brits to know this, but as somebody else in this thread mentioned it's produced nothing but degenerate politicians that have completely fucked the country up. PPE at Oxford insulates these people from the world. They mix with their own social class and at destestable student debating clubs and in their degrees are taught not to think critically, but to take an argument and defend it no matter what. They are neoliberal scumfucks who unironically should start with the Greeks.

[Anonymous No.13985811]

>>13985801
Yea but it must be nice drinking wine in insulated library houses in cardigans and corduroy and name dropping while you hold a ritz cracker with tuna as you think about rape

[Anonymous No.13985827]

>>13985248
obligatory reminder that Shakespeare was never educated past grammar school.

obligatory reminder that the last three "prime ministers" were "educated" at Oxford.

[Anonymous No.13985834]

>>13985827
Based

[Anonymous No.13985852]

>>13985811
That's a mirage and illusion. Those scenes don't really exist anymore beyond staged Instagram posts, all the genuine eccentrics got driven out of academia or died. Its all vacous nepotism now.

[Anonymous No.13985873]

>>13985742
Yeah, unlike you, the true independent intellectual that spends his entire day shitposting on 4chan.

[Anonymous No.13985909]

>>13985873
He copy and pasted Ted K, I doubt you've solved a field of math like he did.

[Anonymous No.13985930]

>wanting to spend your youth hanging out with pederasts, future op-ed writers and young conservatives

[Anonymous No.13985947]

>>13985873
>not recognizing teddy

[Anonymous No.13985948]

>>13985909
Oh, sorry, let me correct my post.

Yeah, unlike Ted K, the true independent intellectual that spends the rest of his life rotting in prison for murder.

[Anonymous No.13985993]

>>13985948
>Thinking you're a superior thinker to Teddy
Absolute state of oxfags

[Anonymous No.13986007]

>>13985993
Anyone with a sound state of mind is a better thinker than a lunatic murderer.

[Anonymous No.13986019]

>>13985742
>academics are spineless
>yet they have a strong impulse for rebellion
>but wait! it’s not an impulse for real rebellion!
>what is real rebellion i hear you ask? why! it’s simply whatever i want it to be!

Why the fuck do retards love Ted so much? Academia has always been heavily involved in cultural revolt, and still is today. Their incessant push for progressive values is directly rebellious against current conceptions of sex, gender and the family (and has been on a broadly similar path since the 60s). Only a fucking idiot would assume that because rebellion doesn’t take the form of direct mechanical revolt that it’s not there.

[Anonymous No.13986058]

>>13986007
>sound state of mind
>lunatic

This is why they don’t teach Foucault

[Anonymous No.13986060]

>>13986007
>Oxford grads go into politics
>Politicians routinely order the deaths of third world people
>Therefore, both are lunatic murderers
Guys like Ted K. have killed much less than someone like Obama

[Anonymous No.13986065]

>>13986019
It’s Revolt™

[Anonymous No.13986079]

>>13986058
>>13986060
>this guy hates a psychopath
>better project on him all my other beliefs that have nothing to do with the subject

[Anonymous No.13986085]

>>13985770
Underrated post

[Anonymous No.13986092]

>>13985545
based

>Precious angel, you believe me when I say / What God has given to us no man can take away / We are covered in blood girl, you know both our forefathers were slaves / Let us hope they've found mercy in their bone-filled graves.

[Anonymous No.13986094]

>>13985655
Kek

[Anonymous No.13986103]

>>13985248
All of that sounds p boring t.b.h.
Also look what kind of artistic and intellectual output Oxbridge's offsprings have produced in the past decade. They're mostly a meme, all-too-happy to ride the tide of England's circusification and intellectual pauperization.
Look Boris Johnson, and Oxford alumni, classically educated, can recite the beginning of the Illiad in greek (using overblown theatrics of course). His big idea is styling himself after a notoriously undereducated American president -not that it doesn't work, but what does he bring to the table apart from his antics and his all-too-common opportunism?

[Anonymous No.13986112]

>>13985545
>>13986092

you guys are the salt of the earth <3

[Anonymous No.13986120]

>You will never do a PPE degree at Oxford.
Thank God.

[Anonymous No.13986187]

>>13985731
>Mill is far more relevant than fucking Pythagoras.

lol you are beyond stupid

[Anonymous No.13986195]

>>13985731
>Mill is far more relevant than fucking Pythagoras.
that's the problem

[Anonymous No.13986202]

>>13985811
Seems boring and most of all soul-deadening. If I want socialization session that may me end up hesitating between joining ISIS or killing myself I can do that very easily by hanging with the dropouts who went to highschool with me ten years ago.

[Anonymous No.13986209]

>>13985948
I'm no fan of Uncle Ted, and I don't idolize the Oxford crowd either, but at least Ted has is contributions to mathematics going for him. He was pretty good at it even by the exacting standards of modern algebraic theory.

[Anonymous No.13986287]

>>13986019
In Ted's perpsective it does nothing to lessen the grip that technology has on our lifes. It's still technocratic in essence. That's like a Marxist saying socialists reforms are not revolutionary, because they're only pressure valve that help divert some of thd tension but don't change the fundamentally instable and inhuman nature of the system.

You might not agree with him but at least Kaczinsky is being self-consistent here. Same with his comment on the impulse for rebellion. People who are oversocialized, overly self-monitored will resent that monitoring as pressure and feel a need to get rid of it. You could say there own civility chafes at them. All the more so than they are more civil than most. Still the way they've been brought up, their own outlook and conditionsnof life doesn't allow that chafing to be translated into anything else than more technocratic reformism.
Keep in mind Kaczyinski used to be an academic himself.