Does Great Literature Make Us Better?

[PeterL]

What is your evidence that we live in a pre-determined world?

I won't be so rude as to answer that, but it sums up the problem that I have been facing on this thread, which I will no longer visit.

[astrum]

I won't be so rude as to answer that, but it sums up the problem that I have been facing on this thread, which I will no longer visit.

PeterL, you are a veritable pessimist. Just reading your posts depresses me.


Here's a movie that I'd like you to watch someday; perhaps it will brighten your worldview and put a smile on your face:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIBaKrRnbLM

[Ecurb]

Yes, Peter, a philosopher writing a general definition of "causation" might very well beg your particular questions, since he was not intending to address them. However, if you (rudely) suggest that others participating in this thread don't understand "cause and effect", and then dismiss the normal meanings of "cause" as "begging the question", we can hardly take you seriously. It is you (evidently) who don't understand what "cause" means. We say germs "cause" disease, because we can use that theory to create sterile hospitals, antibiotics and vaccines that save lives. I'll grant that this is irrelevant to the question of whether our ability to deal with germs was "predetermined". Nonetheless, what we mean when we say germs "cause" disease (using definition 2 in my post above) is that they are a handle that can be manipulated to ameliorate diseases. Of course, germs alone are insufficient to create diseases. A conjunction of circumstances is necessary for diseases to occur.

Saying that the Big Bang caused disease isn’t particularly helpful. The poker player who says the odds of filling the inside straight are either 0% or 100% is correct (from one perspective) but will probably lose his money.

[Drkshadow03]

Your choice. Well, actually according to your worldview I suppose it was always inevitable that you would no longer visit this thread!

Anyway, it seems to me the problem in the thread is you're dismissing others' statements for containing supposedly poor logic and lack of evidence for ideas that contradict your worldview ("everything is predetermined"), but you're not really offering much in return besides equally poor logic and lack of evidence to support your counter-argument.

[stlukesguild]

Ah... but I believe it was Peter who informed us all that he was a member of Mensa, thus is is only logical he looks down upon the rest of us mere mortals. Maybe he should read Voltaire?

[Phocion]

Ah... but I believe it was Peter who informed us all that he was a member of Mensa, thus is is only logical he looks down upon the rest of us mere mortals. Maybe he should read Voltaire?

Dear god...

Then why is he in here propounding non sequiturs such as:

'Great literature does not make us better... The world is predetermined; we are what we were born to be'


Such wisdom. Though i cannot personally see the relevance, maybe it is beyond my the reaches of my IQ-level?

[cacian]

Ah... but I believe it was Peter who informed us all that he was a member of Mensa, thus is is only logical he looks down upon the rest of us mere mortals. Maybe he should read Voltaire?

He is what he is if you believe in Mensa. I don't. I think intelligence cannot be measured myself but that is a personal view on it.

I personally do not believe in giving titles to distinguish one literature from another. Literature should just be literature none of the great or poor or whatever else one wish to describe it.

[Scheherazade]

~

W a r n i n g

Please do not personalise your arguments.

If you think a discussion is "waste of time",

feel free to ignore it and leave the ground to those who do NOT find it a "waste of time".

~

PS: I was not pre-destined to word this message like that; on the spur of the moment, I decided to stray from my usual drone.

PPS: I am pretty sure no animals have been harmed in the posting of this message either.

[mande2013]

Perhaps not related directly to the thread topic, but is the notion of Shakespeare as the greatest of them all a somewhat Anglo-centric phenomenon? I wonder if perhaps in say Germany and France he's merely seen as a great amongst many the way Cervantes, Tolstoy and Goethe, for instance, are seen as greats amongst many within the Anglosphere.

[stlukesguild]

Cacian... there are few people who impress me in terms of intelligence, achievement, or knowledge on the internet... here or elsewhere. JBI, Petrarch's Love, Virgil, Jcamilo, mortal terror and a handful of others all have earned my deepest respect... whatever that is worth.

[mortalterror]

Thanks dude, likewise.

[Ecurb]

In this study, students who read short stories were more comfortable with ambiguity:

http://www.salon.com/2013/06/15/book...sions_partner/

Whether these students could impress stlukesguild with their intelligence, achievement or knowledge is not, of course, for me to say. Many are called but few are chosen for that exalted privilege.

[ennison]

I believe in predestination but I hope I ain't too dull. I also believe in resurrection - of old threads

[Jack of Hearts]

Lots of junk in here.

Literature does something nobody here has mentioned yet. Literature teaches complex verbal expression. And people use this complexity to mask ignorance.

There's a ton of highly literate people in the world. They write oodles of words that are designed to seem insightful, or clever, or challenging. Whatever intelligence is, being able to assume the authorial voice of a textbook is not that.







J

[stacy55]

Only holy books can make you a better person, not just literature.


I know a few stupids who have read almost every novel out there, but still they don't know how to give respect!