Post essential lit lectures

post essential lit lectures

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youtube.com/watch?v=85FYtguoxEs

This should be standard viewing after starting with the Greeks

My favourite lecture is on Marcus Aurelius. This lecture is pure information given in a professional manner. No awkward 'redpill' pseudo-stoicism or watered down School of Life shit - just pure history and philosophy. Unfortunately it has a clickbaity title.

youtube.com/watch?v=5897dMWJiSM

>Marcus Aurelius

And yep, less than 30 seconds after posting.

Stay predictable.

>mfw watching lectures on stoicism

Nabokov bullied his gay brother. Tsundere freak.

are you mad because I called out your precious redpill?

He didn't know he was gay though until he stole his gay diary and ratted him out to his father and tutor

>are you mad because I called out your precious redpill?

...

What the fuck was his problem?
Compensating for his own sexual deviance by making his brother the black sheep?

>waaaah he made fun of my pseud beliefs

cry some more, /pol/tards. Keep being scared of whatever boogeyman you have made up today.

I don't think it was personal I think he was just an asshole to everyone because he found it amusing

What a beast...

>aurelius
>being someone's boogeyman, not just a cuck

>thinks I am talking about aurelius
wrong
>cuck
how's middle school?

>talking about anyone besides he whomst'd've initiated the reply chain

>getting baited this hard
get the fuck out

>Keep being scared of whatever boogeyman you have made up today.
No surprise that you're too dumb to understand what I am saying here.

you /pol/tards are scared of everything and everyone. That's why you complain about it on this message board behind a veil of anonymity.

And yet, you're so fickle that your opinions, beliefs, and even your language (e.g. cuck) change so you can match all the other sheep that are also scared. You have no mind of your own. You have literally saved redpill and soy memes on your PC and yet you still don't have the capacity to see how sad you are.

inb4 someone calls bait because they can't argue their side.

There's a bunch of recorded lectures and presentations by Heidegger floating around youtube. Dreyfus' lectures on Being and Time are also worth a listen

/pol/tards compromise a significant portion of Marcus Aurelius' bugman army. You have become incoherent and imperceptive in your narcissistic rage.

Like I said in my first post, I like the lecture because it's NOT redpill shit.

also, are Aurelius fans /pol/tards or soyboys, huh? You can't even decide yourselves. Pathetic.

You are going to blush deeply at remembering your behaviour in this thread when the rage and angst of being disobeyed and contradicted has simpered off.

>disobeyed and contradicted
?
all I have seen is dumb memes

Its hilarious how Stoics of all people get the most butthurt and defensive when pestered
Its almost as if their entire philosophy is overcompensation for being hormonal femboys

You should notice how I never claimed to be a stoic myself, just that it's one of my favourite lectures. Keep looking at the world through the lens of Veeky Forums, though, it'll really get you somewhere.

Aurelius is utterly irrelevant in philosophy outside of his little soyic cult following, if you promote learning about him it makes you one even if you don't identify with the nu-religion

If the memes strike any true chord then what's troubling you?

*don't strike any true chord

I just want to be able to discuss stuff on here as if Veeky Forums and reddit didn't exist, but everything comes back to redpill and soyboys.

Aurelius built a lot of his idea off the greeks. Have you read the meditations?

>Aurelius built a lot of his idea off the greeks.

Which means absolutely nothing if his own contributions are worthless

watch the lecture. he and Epictetus, despite being at opposite ends of the socio-economic spectrum, both came to very similar conclusions about handling adversity in life. To me that gives the ideas some clout alone.

Also, it's philosophy. Just because it is irrelevant to you, or you have associated a man that over a millenia and a half ago with a demographic Veeky Forums posters made up in the last couple years, doesn't mean it has no worth to other people. Some people can look at just the work without being influenced by the stereotypes of the fanbase.

The meditations is an insightful diary of a powerful man that tried his best to keep virtuous when he had the opportunity to be a tyrant. It's a deeply interesting take on life. It's sad that you can't see that.

*that lived over a millennia...

>he and Epictetus, despite being at opposite ends of the socio-economic spectrum, both came to very similar conclusions about handling adversity in life. To me that gives the ideas some clout alone.

Becuase he read Epicetetus and agreed with him you silly chucklefuck

Doesn't disregard the fact that Aurelius - a fucking roman emperor - had absolutely no reason to follow the doctrine of a slave. He saw truth within the words.

My other point still counts as well, meditations is an engaging insight in to a great man's life, and you don't need to read it with Veeky Forums ideals in the back of your mind.

>Doesn't disregard the fact that Aurelius - a fucking roman emperor - had absolutely no reason to follow the doctrine of a slave. He saw truth within the words.

And he ended up being the biggest literal cuck in the Empire before his non-biological bullborn son disregarded everything he ever said
If you want to use the man's biography to judge his work its pretty fucking damning stuff

El ogro de las americas...

In all fairness, Commodus was a disappointment to Marcus before he died.

>cuck
how's middle school?

>In all fairness, Commodus was a disappointment to Marcus before he died.

And whose fucking fault is that? The Cuck Emperor trying to teach the world how to live when he couldn't even raise a kid without him being a hilarious psychopath. The flimsiness of his father's """philosophy""" gave him the confidence he needed to know there was no better way to live

Nabokov liked Vera and nobody else. Also he was a pedo and always deflecting.

>cuck
You realise I can't take you seriously, right?

His wife was notorious for being the biggest whore in Rome, what should I call him. Leading an alternative sexual lifestyle?

>Also he was a pedo and always deflecting

No he wasn't. I mean he probably found some young girls attractive as we all do but he wasn't in anyway fixated on them

>His wife was notorious for being the biggest whore in Rome
wow, look, you just said the same thing without falling back on stupid buzzwords.

Commodus's lack of stoicism is not a criticism of the philosophy's integrity. A child rebelling against their parents ideals is actually pretty normal.

> A child rebelling against their parents ideals is actually pretty normal.

He once slit a fat man's guts out for a laugh. He renamed the entire city of Rome to his name. Why are you lying as if this is the behavior of a youthful rebellion, this was who he was and who Aurelius turned him into because he learned if there's one thing he was going to do in life it was not be a cuck like his fake dad

>cuck
bye

Pro-tip try going to reddit, they make sure you don't have to see hurtful words like that :'(

>shit, cuck failed...
>quick! let's try reddit!
try tumblr for the next one, maybe soyboy after that

or you can always try thinking for yourself.

I have been the one presenting arguments my man, the fact is Aurelius was in reality a cuck, his marriage and son were a lie and he was a laughing stock

>She was believed to have had innumerable lovers from all levels of society. The historian Sextus Aurelius Victor wrote that she shamelessly cruised for sexual partners among the sailors who worked naked on the beaches of Campania in Italy! Senators as well as gladiators and pantomime actors were said to have been seduced by the Empress. It was believed by many that Commodus, who fought publicly as a gladiator when emperor, was fathered by a gladiator rather than by the dignified Marcus Aurelius. Faustina was rumored to have had an affair with her son-in-law, Lucius Verus, and to have been guilty of his murder.

You might want to ban consideration of such gruesome facts of life in order to protect an unrealistic pseudo-religion but the fact is the lineage towards breeding people like Commodus is very clear. Philosophy has to actually be logicially structured and rigorous for it to hold weight and for all of Aurelius's posturing he ultimately said nothing

congrats, you have baited me

>Aurelius was in reality a cuck, his marriage and son were a lie and he was a laughing stock

There is still dispute to how much of this is rumours. In fact, in the next couple paragraphs after the quote you posted...

>There are other arguments in favor of Faustina, including the abundant and often distinctive honors paid to her by her husband and by the Senate and Roman people. There is no hint that she was denied the public credit due to an Empress who fulfilled her role with energy and dignity. The stories of her adulteries could easily have arisen after her death in response to the outrageous behavior as Emperor of her unpopular son Commodus. Also, if the stories of Faustina's debauchery were true, we might wonder how she found the time and opportunity to carry on such a frantic sex life while bearing and raising fifteen children! She was rarely parted from her husband, even choosing to share his hardships on the frontier when she did not have to. Furthermore, Fronto's letters to Marcus belie the stories that the Emperor's children were not his own. He goes on and on about Marcus' remarkable resemblance to them: "They are exactly like you in appearance; nothing could be more similar."

Commodus was also a teenager when he was given the power of co-emperor. If he is as psychopathic as you say (slitting the fat man's guts) then quite frankly nothing was going to help him, at that point, let alone a book. For all we know he may have had severe mental issues, in which case it's hardly a blemish on Aurelius's stoicism.

Meditations was also never meant to be read or published, we can't be completely sure that Commodus was exposed to it in its entirety.

>Also, if the stories of Faustina's debauchery were true, we might wonder how she found the time and opportunity to carry on such a frantic sex life while bearing and raising fifteen children!

Yes, because one is not likely to get pregnant while being a massive whore.

>I have been the one presenting arguments my man
retard, if your argument of "wife cheated on him, son was a nutjob" was applied to evry philosophical outlook (including yours) there wouldn't be a single one left standing

Ludicrous, name ONE other thinker that could apply to

I also love this line:
>Fronto's letters to Marcus belie the stories that the Emperor's children were not his own. He goes on and on about Marcus' remarkable resemblance to them: "They are exactly like you in appearance; nothing could be more similar."
Why the
fuck would someone "go on and on" about such a thing if it was not trying to cover up the insecurity of it OBVIOUSLY being the case. Christ what a pathetic man

I still don't understand how this is all a criticism against Aurelius. Let's assume this was all true, even despite his wife being a massive whore and his son (that may not be his) being a massive cunt, he was still focused on doing what was best for the Empire because that is of greater importance than his own personal discomfort. He acted for the greater good to the best of his ability.

Problem is, I just know that half of you idiots will conflate this to stoic = cuck. Which is why it's futile to engage with anyone that uses that word.

>lit lectures
>posts a popular sellout TV writer (i had to google who he was)
10 minutes in and he's rambling(very unfunnily and verbosely) about how much he drank, smoked and did acid and how WE "writers" like to be rebels.

Thanks for wasting my time, user.

Because its a legitimate point to be raised that Commodus may have been a decent human being if he didn't grow up with the constant humiliation of having a cuck for a father
And of course stoicism as a philosophy which preaches against emotion, revenge and paranoia naturally leads to one being a cuck.
Thus Aurelious may have been single handedly responsible for bringing down the Empire

>Yes, because one is not likely to get pregnant while being a massive whore.
How old are you? Are you 12?

Protip from non-virgins: a) it's physically uncomfortable to have sex while pregnant, and b) she won't have time for sex anyways with 15 kids.

>it's physically uncomfortable to have sex while pregnant

When you're a drunken whore you always find a way

>she won't have time for sex anyways with 15 kids.
She was the fucking Empress! She could afford an army of nannies to pawn them off to, what do you think she was struggling on foodstamps

Honest question, son: have you ever talked to a non-2D woman?

(That isn't your mom.)

You're correlating Commodus's personality to the validity of stoicism for some reason, even though I have said in previous posts that we don't even know if Commodus was exposed to Stoicism.

>And of course stoicism as a philosophy which preaches against emotion, revenge and paranoia naturally leads to one being a cuck.

Stoicism preaches to only care about things within your control. You cannot control your wife cheating on you, but you can control your reaction to it. He decided to stay with her. I would personally ditch her immediately. Neither are 'wrong' decisions to make within Stoicism. It's about clarity of the mind, and following your duty.

and for the umpteenth time, meditations was not meant to be read. The book wasn't even really known to exist until after Aurelius's death, and yet you are judging the events that happened during his life.

Let me guess this is the part where the nu-male accuses any negative statement of women to be from lack of reward from women, reward that can only be gained by being a good nu-male
Because whores don't exist in real life

Commodus wouldn't have even been born if his father wasn't a cuck. If Aurelious led a life philosophy that earned him respect then his wife wouldn't have been impregnated by the genes of a low impulse control gladiator

>You cannot control your wife cheating on you

AND THIS RIGHT HERE
Is the problem with Stoicism, what an absurd claim

>You cannot control your wife cheating on you
Of course you can, you stupid cuck.

How is that absurd? Short of locking her in the house, you cannot control another person's actions when you are not around.

You can choose a good partner, build trust, look at sexual history etc. to lower the odds but in the end if the person wants to cheat they will find a way to do it.

Like I said in my post (seriously, for a literature board you guys really can't read) I have zero tolerance for cheating of any sort - but you have to resign yourself to the fact that there is never a 100% confidence that your partner will not cheat.

Are you a human bean or a scripted robot?

Because scroll up a bit and read what I actually wrote.

Childbirth makes promiscuous whoresex really, really, really inconvenient. (That's why humanity invented birth control in the first place, to enable whoredom.)

She might have been a whore, but she wouldn't have had 15 kids if she were. Whores and kids don't mix.

It's not cheating if I'm friends with my wife's boyfriend

I'm 100% convinced that you're a schoolboy that learned about human relationships from anime, so lemme teach you the facts of life old-person style.

There are at least three things you can do:

a) Be a sexually attractive male so that cheating doesn't enter her mind.
b) Dump her ass so she's not your wife anymore.
c) Capital punishment for adultery. (Not so feasible in the age of feminism, but we're actually talking about a Roman emperor here, yah?)

Thanks guys. I know I've won the argument when memes and comments from a jaded perspective are all you have left.


Although I would probably vote for capital punishment for adultery desu

this thread went shit fast

Found the soyboy

Veeky Forums is full of /pol/ posters at the moment.

Thats what knowledge will do to you, they call it the red pill for a reason

As an impartial observer of this shitfest I declare the "Aurelius was a cuck" user to be the loser

Says the cuck, I declare myself the winner

Why did they migrate to Veeky Forums? They hardly read anything other than meme books and conservative blogs and news websites.

I'm the guy who has been calling the stoics cucks the entire thread and I actually have a degree in Philosophy and Literature from a good University

First then, you are acting like a child. I suspect that comes out of pure arrogance: is as if you did not even considered the people you are debating to be worthy of any respect (“they are just teenagers who have only started reading philosophy, it’s meaningless to engage in serious discussion”), so you hold back on all your knowledge and learning attack them with nothing but meme words, when you could be doing much better.

There is also the point that you clearly know that many information’s about Aurelius life form other sources might be polluted by rumors, propaganda and mere gossip, and yet you use them as weapons even though you know this is not entirely fair.

Also, since you have studied philosophy, I guess I can somehow see why the Stoics annoy you so much. One of your posts:

>Philosophy has to actually be logicially structured and rigorous for it to hold weight and for all of Aurelius's posturing he ultimately said nothing

Let us be honest, one of the few things that philosophy can still do is help one live a better life, to open our eyes on how we can be happier, to help us to face things with more tranquility, to help us to be more in peace with yourself and the world. With that in mind Stoicism is not that bad of an option: you don’t need to follow everything to the very end, but simply adopt those rules that make sense to you.

Many of your posts sound as if you confused Stoicism, taking it for a philosophy that teaches that one must bear everything - every affront, every offense, every evil, every pain - without doing nothing. However, you know yourself – having studied in University – that Stoicism is not like this, that Stoics teach patience and tolerance to things that are out of your control, not things that you can change with persistence and hard work.

1/2

2/2

But more important than that, you talk about philosophy needing to be “logically structured”, and that is simply unrealistic. Most philosophers don’t follow that norm – the fields they work on simply doesn’t work in that way - and the closest one can get to that ideal happens on fields like mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, etc.

The same disdain you present towards stoicism is to be found in many of the contemporary members of the scientific community. Sure, they found intellectually stimulating to read philosophical books, to see different views of life, just as one does when reading poetry, but when they really want to understand reality and nature they will never take the advice of philosophers. Would one take the ideas of a poet into consideration when trying to understand the anatomy of galaxies or the structure of black holes?

You also say:

>to protect an unrealistic pseudo-religion

Again, what is “realistic” and “logical” about many of the major branches of philosophy? Ethics, Politics, Aesthetics: none of them are debated with the utmost logical precision.

To be frank, one of the most meaningful and useful philosophical notions I have encountered are the teachings of Buddha. I don’t take all of them as tools for my life, but many of them have helped me to live more peacefully, to significantly diminish fear and anger and other self-hurting feelings. And yet when you consider this philosophy you will hardly see any logical rigor in it.

>Let us be honest, one of the few things that philosophy can still do is help one live a better life, to open our eyes on how we can be happier, to help us to face things with more tranquility, to help us to be more in peace with yourself and the world. With that in mind Stoicism is not that bad of an option: you don’t need to follow everything to the very end, but simply adopt those rules that make sense to you

Absolutely incorrect. Philosophy does not "do" anything, it is simply a question of what IS.
Indeed it may so happen that the act of philosophic investigation leads one to find that the truth of what IS makes one highly unhappy as many report to be.

This is why I refer to stoicism as a pseudo-religion, its pre-occupation with both wellbeing and its particular route towards it is philosophically unsound. Especially by the fact it totally relies on "virtues ethics" which is tantamount to religious dogma without the dignity of divine command.

Well, if philosophy’s main concearn is what is, then the philosophy is dead and the people who are carrying the torch are all physicists, mathematicians, chemists and so on.

>Philosophy does not "do" anything, it is simply a question of what IS.
Incorrect. Philosophy has always been also about how to live. This changed only recently, with Descartes.

>recently
>500 years ago

Anyway it changed for a reason, ethical primacists were silly mysticmen with nothing of substance to say

Perhaps, but if philosophy is dead we're all dead. Which may be the case

Relatively recently, yes.

Everything is relatively recent

Ok

Tons of great emperors had non-biological heirs. Do you know anything about Rome or are you just on wikipedia?

There's a difference between a non-biological heir and an unwitting cuck child