/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19820352]

My dear Wormwood,

I was already pleased to hear that your patient has begun browsing 4chan, but when I learned he now visits /lit/ regularly my elation grew. This is no small victory for Our Father Below, though I note with displeasure that you have failed to recognize it. On the contrary, your last letter was full of disappointment that he had stopped posting on /pol/ every day and checking /gif/ each night. I grow weary of repeating the same lessons, but it is clear you have not been paying attention. As always, you young devils can think only of the obvious temptations. If only you would realize that it is subtle sins that taste the sweetest!

So I trust there will be no more talk of redirecting his attention to those boards concerned with nothing cleverer than pornography and race-hatred. Let the cruder sort of tempter worry about those (and they will!), and you and I will focus on your patient’s new interests. Now, browsing /lit/ implies that he is one of two kinds of men: either a true scholar, no matter how halting and amateurish his thought may yet be, or else a dilettante who might as easily be posting about that man Bane on /tv/ as our good friend Stirner on /lit/. Both possibilities are tantalizing.

If he is a dilettante, then you must above all keep him from realizing it. Let him think he is discussing moral philosophy or Romantic poetry, let him think that the picture he has just attached is somehow relevant to the discussion. You might ask how he could believe that the image of a frog is relevant to any intellectual discussion, but here you must trust in my greater experience. Human beings are such selfish creatures that they are always predisposed to believe in their own importance, and they are also social creatures not too far off from ants. The latter fact will ensure his continued participation in any discussion, even when he must on some level understand that he is bringing no joy or knowledge to anyone. The mere feeling of community, which men prize above almost anything else, will sustain him through literally weeks of wasted life. And if you are lax and he does realize that he only goes on /lit/ to post memes, derail threads, and insult other commenters, there is still hope. Convince him that he is being “ironic,” and that will usually take care of the problem. Our Father Below has made great strides in associating irony in the humans’ minds with intelligence and intellectualism, particularly in the last century, and the fruits of this labor are felt daily across 4chan.

[Anonymous No.19820355]

Once your man believes himself ironic, there is no limit to the amount of time and energy he will spend. He will amass thousands of images of Pepe and hundreds of greentexts. He will congratulate himself each time he recognizes some allusion to a meme he once saw. These are your chances, Wormwood, to turn those inchoate feelings into beautiful and rich sources of greed and pride. How much tastier will these be than his pitiful little adolescent lusts!

But if your patient is an intellectual at heart, if you find he really does enjoy the fragmentary kind of discourse they do get up to, then your course must be different. As soon as possible you must convince him that he is different and special. When he begins to discuss a poem of Keats or the philosophy of Heidegger, by all means encourage him! But here you must be very careful. In all these things, in philosophy and literature and music, there is something of the Enemy’s sickening touch. His stain is on them all, even on those works that bring the most glory to Our Father Below. Our scientists are working round the clock to remove the stain, to produce philosophy and poetry worthy of the regal dignity of Our Father’s House, but as of yet without success. This means you must be cautious and attentive. Always make sure your patient’s focus is on his own analysis of the subject and never on the subject itself. Let him ponder whether his understanding of Hamlet is correct (or even better, if it is more correct than the OP’s), but never let him think on Hamlet itself. It is not an easy way of gaining a soul, but the reward is sweet enough to be well-worth your efforts.

And for the intellectual, you must keep his mind on the abstract, never on anything concrete. Let him think about the canon and the Western literary tradition, never let him think (I mean truly think) on any individual book. Let him meditate on utilitarianism, never let him actually read Mill. This is an excellent way of rearing up pride inside him. Soon he will imagine that he is better than other men because he reads, then that he is better than other readers because he reads Melville and David Foster Wallace. Meanwhile you may feed him on a steady diet of clickbait articles about Harry Potter and critical theory, and so keep him in a constant mixed state of fear and self-superiority that is quite intoxicating.

[Anonymous No.19820360]

I have found particular pleasure in using the Enemy’s own words and the works of his vilest servants to bring men to Our Father’s House. This method is ideally suited to /lit/. Let him browse a thread on that wretched man Augustine, or on the Book of Job, and let him post whatever rudimentary knowledge or opinions he wants. Perhaps he is even a Christian, in which case you may be able to persuade him to write polemics on his faith. Nothing could be more favorable to your eventual triumph. Soon others will respond to him, calling his ideas into doubt, raising objections from the Enemy’s Scriptures, or simply insulting him and his faith. Now, unless your man is remarkable indeed, he will respond with insults and pride, and (what joy!) he will think himself very pious for having done so. And all the while, you can whisper in his ear. I am sure you know better than I what sort of things might best encourage him, from “This proves my sect of Christianity is the only true one,” to “I really am brave for defending the Cross.” You may laugh, Wormwood, but this is what the humans really think! They have swallowed so much bile from the Enemy about persecution and evangelism that they believe any mention of his name is enough to make them martyrs! This has the added benefit of dulling any nascent impulse he might have towards actually spreading the Gospel or attending to the beam in his own eye.

I will not go into detail on all the other avenues you may take; I will only say that /lit/ is a fertile field for your work. Perhaps your patient is weaker and simpler than I thought, and a few well-placed Jezebels will be enough to bring him safely to Our Father’s House. Or perhaps, if he is stupider than I supposed, he can actually be reasoned out of his faith by some earnest atheist or advocate of eastern religions. Even better, is there a chance he could be seduced to the “Deus Vult” heresy and come to believe that the Enemy wants nothing more than for him to hate his fellow man? You have so many enticing options before you, and now you only need choose. I look forward to hearing of your progress.

Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape

[Anonymous No.19820362]

fuck
i'm outta here

[Anonymous No.19820443]

>The mere feeling of community, which men prize above almost anything else, will sustain him through literally weeks of wasted life.

[Anonymous No.19820686]

>Always make sure your patient’s focus is on his own analysis of the subject and never on the subject itself. Let him ponder whether his understanding of Hamlet is correct (or even better, if it is more correct than the OP’s), but never let him think on Hamlet itself.
>Let him meditate on utilitarianism, never let him actually read Mill.

Very insightful and well-written OP. I've never read it and I can tell it's a loving homage. You convinced me to read it finally.

[Anonymous No.19820734]

Thoroughly enjoyed

[Anonymous No.19820744]

>>19820352
>I have found particular pleasure in using the Enemy’s own words and the works of his vilest servants to bring men to Our Father’s House. This method is ideally suited to /lit/. Let him browse a thread on that wretched man Augustine, or on the Book of Job, and let him post whatever rudimentary knowledge or opinions he wants. Perhaps he is even a Christian, in which case you may be able to persuade him to write polemics on his faith. Nothing could be more favorable to your eventual triumph.
This. So much this.

[Anonymous No.19820806]

decent pasta OP

[Anonymous No.19820816]

>>19820362
>>19820443
>>19820686
>>19820734
>>19820744
>>19820806
Hello newfags

[Anonymous No.19820831]

>>19820816
Hello grandpap

[Anonymous No.19820843]

>>19820816
explain yourself

[Anonymous No.19820852]

>>19820352

[Anonymous No.19820956]

>>19820843
He thinks he is the only one who knows OP just copy and pasted C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters and made 4chan lingo replacements.

[Anonymous No.19821757]

My dear Wormwood,

I am extremely disappointed to hear that your patient has actually begun to read. This reflects very poorly on you, especially given that his habit of posting on /lit/ has not diminished. I had a word with our colleague Rothslop, who informed me that fewer than ten percent of the users of that board read with any regularity. Ten percent, and your patient is one of them! It is enough to make me ashamed of our connection, as are your feverish attempts to stave off the blame by insisting he is not reading anything too sympathetic to the Enemy’s cause. For your own sake, I advise you stop making excuses and redouble your efforts.

How often must I remind you that it makes very little difference at this stage whether your patient is reading Turtledove or Tolstoy, Koontz or Kierkegaard? I do not say that it makes no difference at all, but it is his reading in general you ought to be concerned with. Each time he picks up a book, there is the chance that some passage will stir his heart and break him out of the torpor of everyday life. I should not need to explain that this is what you must avoid above all else; it is the same reason he should never be allowed to go wandering about in the wilderness, at least not without some clearly-defined goal. Something similar may be effective with your patient’s reading. Never let him read for pleasure, never let him lose track of time in a book. Give him a Purpose, something towards which his disgusting urge to read may be directed, and you will soon find it is of no danger to you. The Purpose can be anything, so long as it, and not the work in question, becomes the focus of your patient’s attention. Perhaps he is an ideologue who can be persuaded to look for political value in everything he reads, or he thinks himself very clever and so can be convinced that hunting for symbolism is the point of literature. Anytime he forgets the Purpose and instead begins to simply enjoy the book, bring it back to his mind with force. Remind him that serious people only read for political purposes (or symbolism, or historical knowledge, or what have you), and that reading for fun is what children do. In this way it is quite easy to quash any enjoyment he might get out of literature, which will block the efforts of the Enemy, and feed his pride besides.

[Anonymous No.19821767]

If your patient is already quite proud, you may be able to convince him that only certain books are worthy of his time. The high-minded reader of fantasy, for instance, can be quickly converted to read only classics, particularly if he has absorbed the delicious elitism of /lit/. This is a dangerous game, because there is always a chance he will actually enjoy the classics, but if you are careful there is no cause for concern. The point, as with directing him towards a Purpose, is to keep all pleasure out of reading. Why should he enjoy himself reading Tolkien and Martin when we might make him miserable reading Alexander Pope? To make reading a duty, one that he does with less and less relish each time he sits down to do it, that should be your goal. Not only does this open up the possibility that he will simply quit, it will make him dull and insensitive to the works he is reading. They may be foul and steeped in the Enemy’s nonsense, but if he barely pays attention, then there is no harm. You may even be able to make everything about the Enemy repellent to him, just by the constant connection between the feeling of boredom, which he will come to associate with reading, and the ideas in the classics themselves. This would be a true triumph, and one that would turn the Enemy’s natural advantage in literature to the side of Our Father Below.

But you must never forget that you are working on the Enemy’s ground, even when there is a great deal of room for you to maneuver. Of course, you know that it is very difficult (but by no means impossible! Pride is a marvelous tool.) to turn his Scriptures against him, but many young tempters foolishly think that other works are different. Do not make the all-too-common mistake of believing that the books of the twentieth-century atheists, let alone the old pagan epics, are anything but fundamentally on the Enemy’s side. In all of them, there are traces of his hated Spirit, even those that seem most amenable to our noble cause. I do not need to tell you that there are no libraries in Our Father’s House.

[Anonymous No.19821775]

The other profitable avenue is turning his literary interests from reading to writing. It is not difficult to see why this approach may be successful. Reading is by nature dangerous to our efforts: it binds men to one another across time and space, humbles their hearts and minds, and breaks them out of their own skulls, if only for a few hours. Writing, while not without its own risks, does the opposite. It tends to focus a man in upon himself, feed his pride, and reinforce his own sense of self-importance. If you can convince your patient to write, he will likely begin to suspect he is quite good at it. He will come to believe his thoughts are profound; do not be surprised if he extends this new high-opinion of himself to the other aspects of his life. He will wallow in self-pity or rage at not receiving the success and accolades he believes are his due. He will grow envious of other writers, whom he will begin to suspect are not nearly as talented as he is. He may even give up hope, which is most delicious of all. But do not allow these tasty morsels to distract you from your higher purpose. These things should have the more important effects of keeping him from reading (because he believes his own works are superior), from relationships with other human beings (because they cannot, or will not, appreciate his talent), and most of all from the Enemy (because the man of genius has no use for him). In this way, Wormwood, you may see your patient come, as so many artists have come before him, to dwell in Our Father’s House.

The risks of writing are easy enough to manage, so long as you remain vigilant. If you begin to notice ideas about love or truth creeping in, for instance, remind him that those kind of things are old-fashioned, and that real literature does not deal with them, at least not without irony (here again you are fortunate that he posts on /lit/). It also cannot hurt to encourage his vanity. Let him develop a romantic idea of the author as a mysterious hero (I say a romantic idea, but here you must be very careful; nothing is so dangerous to your goal as real Romance) and convince him to devote time to consciously acting more and more like the moody, ironic, smoking picture he has in his head. In this way, he can be led away from dangerous creativity and towards a kind of dutifully rebellious conventionality. Above all, just as he must never read for pleasure, never let your patient write merely for its own sake. One slack evening on your part may see his pen wander off and get captured by the Enemy, and then all your efforts will be for nothing. Even worse, his book may be published, and then imagine how many men will read it and be lost forever! I do not need to tell you what punishments would be yours if you let such a thing happen.

Still, these risks are well-worth the delightful reward. I look forward to learning more of your patient’s development.

Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape

[Anonymous No.19822497]

>>19821775
>Let him develop a romantic idea of the author as a mysterious hero (I say a romantic idea, but here you must be very careful; nothing is so dangerous to your goal as real Romance) and convince him to devote time to consciously acting more and more like the moody, ironic, smoking picture he has in his head. In this way, he can be led away from dangerous creativity and towards a kind of dutifully rebellious conventionality.

[Anonymous No.19822506]

>>19820352
I just finished this book. It's really good, though I wish it took longer for the client to start going to church. I liked hearing screwtape talk about materialism and stuff like that.

[Anonymous No.19823251]

>>19820352
Did I get in a debate with you last night about JBP saying he didn't believe Christ was a historical figure.

Regardless - great work, OP!

[Anonymous No.19823290]

>>19820352
Fine, I'll go read Chesterton