/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19646098]

Why is it that we as a species tend to regard books with mental illnesses as better than the pile. Are we somewhat attracted to what the human mind can and cannot do as to study it’s limits?

[Anonymous No.19646111]

>>19646098
It's just more fascinating to read about a madman than about some boring well-adjusted family man.

[Anonymous No.19646115]

>>19646098
Huh?

[Anonymous No.19646128]

>>19646111
Why? It's not like you're familiar with the thoughts of a well-adjusted family man, is it?

[Anonymous No.19646138]

>>19646128
Personally I don't read literature to 'relate' to the characters or that kind of reddit faggotry. I read it to find new interesting perspectives and points of view.

[Anonymous No.19646154]

>>19646098
I tend to avoid books with mental illnesses. It is true that some speak lightly and loosely of insanity as in itself attractive. But a moment's thought will show that if disease is beautiful, it is generally some one else's disease. A blind man may be picturesque; but it requires two eyes to see the picture. And similarly even the wildest poetry of insanity can only be enjoyed by the sane. To the insane man his insanity is quite prosaic, because it is quite true. A man who thinks himself a chicken is to himself as ordinary as a chicken. A man who thinks he is a bit of glass is to himself as dull as a bit of glass. It is the homogeneity of his mind which makes him dull, and which makes him mad. It is only because we see the irony of his idea that we think him even amusing; it is only because he does not see the irony of his idea that he is put in Hanwell at all. In short, oddities only strike ordinary people. Oddities do not strike odd people. This is why ordinary people have a much more exciting time; while odd people are always complaining of the dulness of life. This is also why the new novels die so quickly, and why the old fairy tales endure for ever. The old fairy tale makes the hero a normal human boy; it is his adventures that are startling; they startle him because he is normal. But in the modern psychological novel the hero is abnormal; the centre is not central. Hence the fiercest adventures fail to affect him adequately, and the book is monotonous. You can make a story out of a hero among dragons; but not out of a dragon among dragons. The fairy tale discusses what a sane man will do in a mad world. The sober realistic novel of today discusses what an essential lunatic will do in a dull world.

[Anonymous No.19646311]

>>19646098
Mental illness is loaded as another outlet for lapses in reality. Escapism of another fold. Those here are particularly obsessed with it so much so that pretty much any thing one says could be met with immediate exclamation of "schizophrenia!" perfect for us as one cannot observe such affairs without being equally dilapidated so in the end all find what they seek

[Anonymous No.19646394]

>>19646154
That's a lot of words and it was worth it.

[Anonymous No.19646403]

>>19646154
>I tend to avoid books with mental illnesses.
So the implication is that you're insane?

[Anonymous No.19647426]

>>19646154
Excellent reply.

[Anonymous No.19648181]

Life begins on the other side of despair my friend

[Anonymous No.19649295]

Bump.

[Anonymous No.19649340]

>>19646098
There's no such thing as mental illness, it's all a spook. The people that are claimed as such dare to think differently than everyone else, thus evoking boundaries that had hithertofore not been touched; it's all the same as peering into the mind of a mad genius. Contemporary society would see just about any of the intellectuals of the past rot in a psychiatric ward before allowing them to dare question the validity of what truth had been prescribed for them to think.

>Are we somewhat attracted to what the human mind can and cannot do [so] as to study it’s limits?
I suppose that's a good way of putting it.

[Anonymous No.19649387]

>>19649340
>be me
>in psych ward
>screaming for blood and clawing my eyes out

anon

>uhm yeah sweety there is no such thing as mental illness you just think differently.

[Anonymous No.19649404]

>>19649387
>I'll take a thing that never happened for 200

[Anonymous No.19649420]

>>19649387
These are the exact kind of people that would say da Vinci were schizophrenic. Not really worth engaging.

[Anonymous No.19650294]

>>19646154
>You can make a story out of a hero among dragons; but not out of a dragon among dragons
stopped reading right there

[Anonymous No.19650307]

>>19646098
mental illness provides a conflict. nobody wants to read a book about someone who's perfectly well because there's no conflict there

[Anonymous No.19650681]

>>19646138
But you relate more to a mentally ill man than a well-adjusted family man, that's pretty clear. And you are by your own standards a reddit fag.

[Anonymous No.19650786]

>>19646128
Society is otherwise tailored explicitly to the needs and for the benefit of the normal, well-adjusted person. Leave art to us, normie. Your specific kind of lazy, incognizant greed for everything to be tailored to you is one I take sincere enjoyment in seeing left unfulfilled. The normie, who enjoys a world designed for his success, isn't happy with just that. He wants that and more, because his gluttony for everything extant is insatiable. Unfortunately for the normie, his happiness and stability and overall contentment are antagonists to the bubbling, seething catalysis at the heart of art. They're neutralizing forces. They reflect the mundanity of their possessors and relegate the hapless, archetypal normie to a lifelong mediocrity.

Get fucked, normies.

[Anonymous No.19650817]

>>19650786
>The normie, who enjoys a world designed for his success
Have you ever considered that a normie's idea of success is different from yours?
It seems like your idea of success for the normie is having many fake friends and a new superhero movie every year, but many normal people wants to establish a family and find a trustworthy partner, which the world definetely isn't designed to pave way for.

[Anonymous No.19650850]

>>19650817
>Have you ever considered that a normie's idea of success is different from yours?
I don't believe normies have ideas at all. At least not in the way I conceive it. I think they act according to convention with respect to their chosen ingroup. I believe most normies, if they exercise thought or possess ideas at all, are restricted by their programming as over-socialized untermenschen to those interpreting the ideologies of their fellow group members; to those contemplating congruence with what everyone else of their group—be they liberal, conservative, progressive, /pol/tards, whatever—is currently saying, always in search of that ingrouped sameness from which connections are forged, careers minted, "partners" found, and so on.

To answer your question directly: yes. I have considered the way normies choose to interact with life. In pretty fucking significant depth, if I do say so myself.

[Anonymous No.19650880]

>>19650850
>I have considered the way normies choose to interact with life.
But what experiences are your considerations build on? When I meet people it's very interesting to me, how different they all are from eachother. They like to differentiate themselves from eachother, even in small, meaningless ways, like favorite football team or the style of their clothes.
The fundamental belief of normies across all their groups seems to be that the majority are noone, and all true individuals belong to the minority. Even white women, whom in the west are the majority of normies, like to become minority, through i.e. buddhism.

[Anonymous No.19650890]

>>19650817
Don't engage him, he's terminally deluded.

[Anonymous No.19650899]

>>19650880
>They like to differentiate themselves from eachother, even in small, meaningless ways, like favorite football team or the style of their clothes.
>The fundamental belief of normies across all their groups seems to be that the majority are noone, and all true individuals belong to the minority. Even white women, whom in the west are the majority of normies, like to become minority, through i.e. buddhism.
They are only able to do what is acceptably transgressive to the larger group through an act of will. The rest of us fell into and don't really give a fuck what anyone thinks.

[Anonymous No.19650906]

>>19650899
Or, to phrase it differently, the most rebellious thing a teenager could do is not have a cell phone.

[Anonymous No.19650912]

>>19650890
>don't engage him, he's saying things i don't have an answer for!
>>19650880
>Even white women, whom in the west are the majority of normies, like to become minority, through i.e. buddhism.
And they do so in protest against the secret, inner knowledge that they are still just one among many roughly interchangeable, only superficially differentiable Citizens, Human. They express the same, superficial cunt-hair differences between one another because ultimately they all suckle at a series of sequentially arranged nipples on the teat of the Spectacle.

[Anonymous No.19650930]

>>19646098
TL;DR
will bump for Bateman

[Anonymous No.19651504]

>>19650850
>>19650912
>look at meeeeeee!!!!!
>i am so edgy and unique!!!!!!
*yawn*

[Anonymous No.19651723]

>>19651504
Who are you quoting?

[Anonymous No.19651795]

>>19651723
>Who are you quoting?

[Anonymous No.19652642]

>>19646128
Aspects of humanity can be emphasized in mentally ill characters. In some sense mental illness is an argument.