Am I the only one who thought that Submission was too shallow...

Am I the only one who thought that Submission was too shallow? In the sense that it posed no real deep and proper challanges for the main character to adopt islam and the new islamic culture.
It makes me htink that that was the point, a sort of joke about contemporary western culture?

What is wrong about contemporary western culture??

Yes one of the points was that what's left of western culture is so shit that even some old barbaric religion for low iq sandniggers is better.

Just make people respect a few rules, let them skip those they don't like, go back to a primitive state of society and things will improve.

It's basically make the women do house work instead of spending billions on their education and let the men do the useful jobs, since the workforce is reduced by half every one will have something more meaningfull to do.

That IS the point.

good thread

>since the workforce is reduced by half every one will have something more meaningfull to do.
Are you serious? Like what? Collecting stamps and reading novellas?

No, factory work, office work, teaching etc, jobs that are currently filled by women.

Women go back to house keeping and raising kids. He thinks it's more fullfilling for them.

The first part of the novel is about liberated womyn hitting the wall at 30-40 yo and being alone and undesired.

I don't believe so, first there would never be a coalition of the minorites, which would be stable. Secound, all the clans, in the arabic world don't accept central power, because of nepotism. You can't run a european first world country, ever whit such a backwards system. Islam lacks spiritual room and is much to worldly, to be accepted by a higher percentage of europeans. There is much evidence, of national states not being able to exist for a longer time together with islam. The book is there, to wake people up and make them think about their traditions. I don't believe he realy implies, that islam could be any kind of soultion.

>In the sense that it posed no real deep and proper challanges for the main character to adopt islam

IMO, he subtly criticizing Islam by equating Arab Muslims with white Liberals. Most people say Houellebecq is saying Islam is preferable to Liberalism, and there's some of that, but I think he's critiquing Nietzsche's view of Islam as 'saying yes to life.'

You are right he is mocking the absurdity of this alliance, because they both don't even remotly, understand each other. And in a way the right is still the most objective fraction, but he is also laughing about them, because many still think, their interpretation of tradicionalism to be more important than their extended families actual historical, metapysical and biological trajectory.

In fairness to Nietzsche, Islam was very much one of his weak points and it shows in how little he wrote about it.

His impression was some sort of idealized Moorish Spain.

>they don't [...] understand each other
In the book, the proponents of Islam seem to understand post-structural liberal humanism only too well, enough to understand that it poses no threat and can actually benefit them due to the lengths it will go to be inclusive.

They don't understand it, like you said they only know how to use it for their means.

Islam doesnt need to be accepted by europeans tho. We have low birth-rates while muslims have high birthrates + immigration. evne if there will never be a centralised government or a coalition of minorities it can still lead to the destruction of our way of life.

Yes, but unlike he tells this story, it will lead to a fragmentation, like we can see it in the middel east of today. Likley our way of live will exist, but more in small gated communities and certain parts of the country/ for those who can afford it.

but will we be able to afford it? globalisation and automation means more and more well-paying jobs are being exported overseas and the majority are stuck with shitty service jobs. i try to be optimistic and not fall into this entire Eurabia story, but with each passing year it really feels like a reality.

>It makes me htink that that was the point

no shit, Sherlock

What did the main character have to believe in before his conversion? Nothing. Everything we do is half-hearted. Atheism, islam - doesn't matter, we don't care about it. His conversion to Islam was pragmatic, not genuine, but who cares?

People have a natural need to submit to something (as an anecdote, the Swedish Church nominated the BDSM documentary The Ceremony for some movie award because of how it displayed people's need to submit to something higher), to have a "life lie" (as Ibsen talked about). In the modern west, we still feel this need, but we've deconstructed all our previous lies, and now we're facing nihilism without any Will to power, to sound like a 16yo nietzschefag.

You should look into Huysman's conversion to Catholicism too to see where Hollaback is coming from.

How is Islam not more life-affirming than Christianity?

>Sex for pleasure is permitted (within marriage)
>You're promised pretty boys and wine in heaven, not some metaphysical weirdo concept about fusing with god or whatever
>no "turn the other cheek" crap

The shipping away of high paid jobs has almost entirly failed, it is more the average secound/First sector industry job. I share your concerns i don't believe him, the violence level will be much higher than he predicted.

Platforme had better sex.

see you in the upcoming civil war senpai

As others have said, that was exactly the point. It's about as scathing a critique of the end state that secular humanism takes us to as we've seen in some time.

>I realized I was screaming
Hearty kek

reminder that occidental humanism is self destructive, even without islam.

any worthwhile culture is. Veeky Forums aint dying for nothing friend

Yes, there was no problem because he was already nothing. This is a central theme in Houellebecq's entire oeuvre.

>the Swedish Church nominated the BDSM documentary The Ceremony for some movie award because of how it displayed people's need to submit to something higher
Is Sweden even a real country?

The culture of the west is just hedonism.

Quite frankly it is a shambling meme zombie moreso than a country.

>>Is Sweden even a real country?
of course.

Of course. The Swedish Church, however, has fully understood what an obsolete meme it is and is gloriously shitposting itself out into the sunset.

That girl is hot for some paleass melanin deficient cracker. You do realize that any fool can have a party in Sweden, right, Ahmed?

I think the reason the main character did not get 'challenged' - either by himself or his environment - is used to illustrate the hypothetical ease with which something that seems to hold few to none bad consequences yet good benefits is to adopt for someone who has forsaken any form of ideology. The lack of struggle being offered represents the dread clearly present in the book, whereas the main character is just the eyes and ears, not a 'protagonist' in the classical sense. He is broken, lonely and tired: he'd take those little pleasures back by officially converting to Islam and teaching again with the benefits mentioned by the Head of Sorbonne.

It's one of my favourite books from the past two years, I must add, so I might be biased.

>the absurdity of this alliance, because they both don't even remotly, understand each other.

No, he's saying they understand each other perfectly because they are the same.

Stupid.

He's saying that's called "being a fucking Liberal."

Hence Muslims and Liberals being the same, hence no difference before and after conversion.

>missing the point
The whole liberal secular system is shown as being transient. The West pulls itself out of Christianity, then becomes a blank, cultureless civilisation with no purpose and hence declining reproductive ability, and becomes ripe for another religion to come along and inseminate it.

If anything, the point isn't that liberals and Muslims are the same, but that the traditionalists are trying and failing to revive a dead civilisation, while Islam is actually capable of reinvigorating it. You'll notice again that Francois' conversion parallels his father's change in personality, to the point where he was completely surprised his father would end up living the rest of his life that way. Francois' values aren't really changed in an exceptional way, but he's given just enough purpose to start "living" again. If anything, Houellebecq is saying conservatives have less to lose from Islamic dominance than liberals.

Can you tell us your other favorite books from the last two years? I am just curious what new literature is worth reading and could need som tips.

Don't women in their 30's and 40's have something to say about this? They're the authority on whether or not they're happy and fulfilled.

>They're the authority on whether or not they're happy and fulfilled.
Kek someone didn't read Lacan.

I don't think our culture is without a purpose. I just don't think common people such as you and I can understand the purpose. Further, this purpose being widely known and affirmed would jeopardize its success.

What's happening is that secret societies are working to corner world markets. What happens after this is accomplished is anyone's guess. It's probably going to be some great social engineering project that secures our species' continued existence on this planet. Maybe not.

But secular humanism has made such a project possible. The project transcends nation, race, class. It's a project dreamed of by people far more intelligent and capable of you and I. The only thing for us to do is contribute to the system as best we can and see what comes next.

I'm optimistic. If you read some of the rockerfeller/rothchild/whatever literature from the early 20th century, it's all very altruistic-sounding stuff. I don't see the elite as evil slavemasters, but as stewards that realize seven billion people with nuclear weapons needs someone in the driver seat.

Bringing it back to our topic, I think all these questions of future demographics and islam and feminism and black lives mattering is going to be seen by history as irrelevant cultural noise. The cacophony of a world divided. It just fucking sucks being caught in the middle of it. It feels like I'm living in a fish bowl.

Wealth is a survival mechanism designed to keep the elites safe. There's nothing smart of new about wanting to rule the world, they merely have the drive and the means to in this era.

They are going to try and widen the gulf of intellect between them and us enough so that we can be classified as two species at last, Slaves and Masters.

Your consolation that it will be a nice slavery is as submissive as the title of the book under discussion, which has also been sitting in my Amazon cart for a week or two now.

>I don't think our culture is without a purpose. I just don't think common people such as you and I can understand the purpose.

Spooky.

The reality is that Nietzsche touched upon this problem. The function of any state is, first and foremost, the preservation of the individual. As to why this is the case, you need look no further than etymology: an individual can exist without a state, but a state cannot exist without individuals. Hence, the individuals come first.

Function is not the same as aim, however. The function of a drill is to drill holes, for example: but that is not the be all and end all of why we use a drill. We drill holes for all sorts of reasons, the point being that we give a drill its purpose.

Modern society, however, exists entirely on the basis of its function. Marxism and Socialism, chiefly, are responsible for having (essentially) instituted Maslow's hierarchy of needs as the PURPOSE of society - which is self-defeating, as the preservation/care of individuals is merely the state's function. The function of a thing cannot be its purpose.

Let's say, nowadays, that we are (in the Western world) essentially free FROM our needs - this leaves the question of what we are free FOR? The answer, invariably, is that modern man is generally free to do whatever he likes - freedom, in the modern sense, is hedonism (or 'World-Laziness' in Nietzsche's terms) par excellence.