Convince me why I should dedicate hours of my life to reading the Greeks

True, just watch a season of some shit anime or play some mind numbing video game instead. If you can't see the benefit, just don't bother. Nobody here gives a shit if you see the point of the Greeks or not.

Reading comprehension of a 16 year old.

You're a close-minded pleb. I don't want you reading my Greeks. They don't need you; you need them. Why don't you read some nice Danielle Steele instead.

dude if you don't at least read Homer you deserve to be euthanized

So in other words, you got nothing. All I asked was ONE insight.

you only live once and you're robbing yourself if you don't at least give it a try. Not being able to understand them is one thing but being a lazy shit and just not giving a fuck is unforgivable.

Why though? If these Greeks really aren't just a meme you'd be able to articulate precisely why they are worth reading.

FUCK pseuds.

Yeah and there are literally trillions of other experiences I'm missing out on at this very moment.

>foundation of Western Canon
>fuck pseuds

really, just turn your computer off it's past your bedtime

I've never read the greeks but I'm going to, for no other reason than I want to learn. I know tha they're the forefathers of basically every school of philosophy, and thats enough for me to at least try them. put it down if it doesn't interest you but just dont be a giant faggot.

Literally not an argument.

>philosophy
>homer

The Greeks are the foundation of the entire Western canon. It's difficult to go on at length about their value because they're so fundamental that encapsulated statements are often enough to express it.

homer is good by any standard and hasn't aged a day. the characters are psychologically sophisticated, the aesthetic integrity of his style is incredibly impressive, and the story is FUN TO READ. the iliad and the odyssey are both works of genius and its an immense tragedy, perhaps the worst in all of literature, that we've lost the other books of the cycle

for gods sake, what's your problem? just read homer and stop wasting time making stupid threads like this

you are aware that Homer wasn't the only greek in existance right

there was, in fact, an entire civilization of Greeks, they even had their own culture and mythology and everything.

fun fact,
Some of them were evan philosophers

>the characters are psychologically sophisticated, the aesthetic integrity of his style is incredibly impressive, and the story is FUN TO READ.
wow we're you get these deep insights bro

I already said I don't want you reading my Greeks. I'm not trying to convince you to spend your time reading Aristotle and Homer and Epictetus. In fact I'd rather you didn't. Really just fuck off.

Why are you on Veeky Forums if you don't actually like reading literature? As says, Homer holds up.

OP here
I'm on Veeky Forums to spew my pseudo-intellectual nonsense and act pretentious all while memorizing the names of random authors I hear about on this board so I might regurgitate them in order to impress that qt in my algebra class.

ahh, you're one of those "regurgitate in my mouth like im a baby bird" types

stop being lazy, stop being a bitchy troll, go read homer

>OP here
Anytime someone says this you know they aren't the real OP.

If you don't care about philosophy don't bother with the Greeks. If you don't care about literature don't bother with the Greeks.

kek

because this is book board and Aquinas is book lol

I'm not so sure delusions can exist. It is, to put it bluntly, a different perspective of existence by existence.
What you consider a delusion, is it not another set of patterns in your map? I could see it as a spook to have people avoid pitfalls, like mirages in the desert. However, there we have the definition based on harmful outcomes perceived by all.
Feeling superior, experiencing superiority, seeing further... These are not illusions. They can be disagreements.

Read the Greeks and realize humanity hasn't changed one bit.

Pretty sure you're an inch and a half away from developing schizophrenia.

semantics. if you think youre a dinosaur youre deluded

hey when you go bicameral at least hypnotize yourself first so you can re-unify your consciousness and tell us what you found after

to meme bro, Start with the greeks.

Can you or someone send me that Start with the greeks chart?

delusions

It's on the Veeky Forums wiki. The Veeky Forums wiki is in the sticky.

thanks

Vikings took mushrooms to enter a 'beast' state. They acted accordingly. Snowniggers are subhumans, and there is no delusion there.
If "molecules" (the most blunt statement) claim to be something else, do they create something else or do they remain mere molecules? If they remain, there can be no error to be had there. Just another name for the same thing.

Thanks.

I love hypnosis. I'm probably a weird one, I start seeing fractals and anti-fractals in addition to completely separate patterns in the deeper levels.

Who is considered among the "Greeks"
Plato, Aristotle obviously but who else?

Zorba

Sure different perspective accord to existence, just some more so than others.

that counts?

That was your insight, champ. Can you not understand what you are being instructed in the simplest of terms?

If you're interested in literature, things relating to literature (theater, film), or philosophy, they had such a massive influence on the western schools of those things they're important to read, yet nothing is important to read before them. If you really want to take on western literature or philosophy as a hobby they're some place you should stop by and learn about.

Also, personally, I think a lot of the literature just reminds people of a time man was closer to nature and living in less splendor very authentically. Some of the stuff like Homer just still reads well.

The strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must.

Greeks are a meme
Start with the Bible instead

This one clearly didn't start with the Greeks. Now do you see what happens OP?

lindy effect

you need to have a foundation in greek philosophy to fully appreciate the patricians gospel of st John

Ancient Capeshit

increase cultural capital so that you can bed high-class pussy

You shouldn't.

You should spend years learning Ancient Greek and then spend the rest of your life reading the Greeks.

this

The Greeks are not the foundation of Anglo thought any more than The Mabinogion or the Icelandic Sagas.
The English language isn't even remotely related to the Greek language. Anglophones should start with the Beowulf.

>The Greeks are not the foundation of Anglo thought
are you retarded? graeco roman legacy is common to all of europe

You really need to read Ulysses my man.

You're a retard. To call them 'psychologically sophisticated' is a bunch of bull. Greeks had a fundamental different live-world than ours, to psychologically analyze them would be an anachronism. In modern culture we have no notion of their agonal power structures, their sense of honor and glory. These things lie in the realm of philosophy, not psychology. Secondly there is no such thing as 'his style'. The Illiad came into existence over centuries by bards singing about heroic tales of a time long ago. Third, to call it a 'fun story' is extremely superficial for obvious reasons.

This is the problem with a lot of people 'reading the Greeks'. They just delve in without any knowledge about history, values, or culture of early Greek society. They read it with a modern mind, with a modern conceptual understanding of what is happening in the text. One needs to understand Greek culture and some basic Homeric Greek first to grasp the translation of the two epics. Your retarded positions prove you have no idea what you read. Just watch the Hollywood movie instead.

What wd those same hours otherwise be 'dedicated' to? Cleaning /your apartment?

Simply put. It will change the way you think entirely and without reading it you cannot understand the western philosophy that came after.

OP is the blond guy with a pony tail in the bar on the movie good will hunting basically. lit is will

I will amend this by saying that if you want to understand western philosophy you should start with the Greeks but if you want to understand English literature you should start with what I said. Also philosophy thread

So in an earlier thread someone posted about W. Jaegers Paideia. Has anyone here read it and knows weather its good?

it's hilarious how all these enlightened pseuds who have read the Greeks can still never provide anything insightful and do nothing but throw around insults. i see the Greeks has really enhanced you lol or more like you all wasted your time and learned nothing. still just scum of the fucking earth and not that smart either

I read it, it's interesting but if you have half a brain you are better off reading the entire loeb library of the Greeks and then considering what he has to say. It's okay. Nothing life changing, sort of pretentious though it is good for a discussion about the potential of classically minded education

Thanks, I'm a native German speaker so I figured I'd read it in German but it's quite expensive so I'll probably only pick it up if I'll find somewhere cheap.
Do you know any similar works about the Greeks?

>weather

Fucking this. If you really that smart you would be able to understand advanced mathematics like calculus and linear algebra.

Just a quick reminder: if you didn't start with the Sumerians, you've already failed.

Sorry and thanks for correcting that. My english is a bit rusty.

the conflation of techne with episteme the pinnacle of the degeneration of what modern man considers "knowledge". you know what the greeks considered "techne"? fucking basket weaving that is fit only for a slave. does basket weaving engender any mastery of anything other than basket weaving? does it make you a better, smarter person? no. and yet we glorify things that are techne just because they are seemingly complex. the vilification of everything that is not "practical", that does not have a "use" is the modern worship of this slave mentality. "techne" then became "technology" which is considered as value neutral yet a good thing in spite of this, which is a contradiction unless we're speaking in a very specific sense of "good" which is not goodness at all. contrast this with the richness of episteme, phronesis, and arete where understanding itself is entangled with virtue.

here's another greek word for you: poiesis. it doesn't concern itself with production. it concerns itself with "making". if you don't get this and are like "lol but we have computers and stuff now" you're a pleb.

where should one start with the sumerians? aside from gilgamesh.

Because they are really fucking good. That's why you should read the whole western canon, actually. It's the stuff that is generally agreed upon to be the best of the best, the stuff that has survived time. It's all an acquired taste, though, because most of these texts are dense, historically contextual, and highly sophisticated. Don't read any of it if you don't want to. But if you like good books, I'd give it a shot and work through the steep learning curve it takes in the early stages.