A cis man at the midpoint of his life. Deeply interested in questions about life and attempts to create meaning in it. I used to teach philosophy and ethics for several years, but now I am searching for a new path in life.
Reasons I am here on this app are reading a bit of the wonderful prose that is produced on this website every day. I spend time looking at art, but am also fascinated by the broader expressions of human endeavors.
When I'm not stuck to a screen, I love tending to my plants, a big passion in my life, together with writing and painting. I am a metalhead and have spent much of my adult life at concerts and music festivals. I am married, and we are both polyamorous. Thus, open to experience life and people in it freely.
Open for questions about me or any philosophical subjects.
Some NSFW might occur when I'm consuming art and other ways people express themselves, so be at least 18+ to interact and ideally older.
“Classic Literature is just a bunch of boring old white guys?”
First of all, how dare you! Genuinely HATE this take because it’s not even close to being true.
For Pride Month, I present to you a short list of recommended (by me!) queer classic literature.
1. The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) - Oscar Wilde
You already knew this book was going to be on this list.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a Gothic novel about a beautiful, young man who remains forever youthful and leads a life of self-indulgence, whereas a portrait of him ages and reflects his sins. The original manuscript of the novel had 500 words deleted by the editor prior to publication including Basil's confession that he felt a "romance of feeling" towards Dorian and had never before loved a woman. So while the novel is not explicitly queer, the intention is definitely there. Also, Oscar Wilde himself was sent to prison for 2 years for "gross indecency with men". So....subtext is everything.
2. Giovanni's Room (1956) - James Baldwin
There's no subtext in Giovanni's Room. James Baldwin was an openly queer man and had relationships with both men and women. The main character in his novel does the same. David is a gay (or bi?) man who struggles with his sexual identity, outright denying it at times. He is engaged to a woman, but spends the majority of the book trying to come to terms with the fact that he is actually in love with Giovanni, a man he is having a sexual affair with. Very poignant novel about homosexuality, repression, and internalized homophobia in mid-century Paris.
3. The Well of Loneliness (1928) - Radclyffe Hall
When a book gets banned, I immediately have to read it. The Well of Loneliness was banned from publication in the UK for being "obscene" and only allowed to be published in the US after years in court. There is nothing sexually explicit in the book, but a novel about a butch lesbian written by a butch lesbian in 1928 is going to cause a little social panic. It's also a beautiful book. The main character, Stephen (a woman) falls in love with a nurse named Mary and though they start a happy relationship, they have to navigate the social rejections of their families, friends, and wider community.
4. Goodbye to Berlin (1934) - Christopher Isherwood
The inspiration to one of the greatest musicals of all time, Cabaret. And also semi-autobiographical as it was based on Isherwood's time in Berlin. Isherwood was a gay, American writer who spent much of his 20s exploring queer spaces in Berlin before the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. One of these spaces is the avant-garde, gender bending Kit Kat Club. Ultimately, Isherwood has to flee Germany when Hitler gains power, and we're left with a sad ambiguity about what happens to all of the friends he made in Germany.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Human, All-Too-Human
Part 3
In some ways, Human, All-Too-Human breaks with Nietzsche's earlier works. For one, Nietzsche does not focus on the genius in this book, but on the “free thinker”, or as the book's subtitle says, “free spirit”. The genius is the rare person who creates a unified style that expresses a culture; instead, the free thinker is someone who does not care about societal norms, in order to help society better produce these geniuses.
This is not the only subject where Nietzsche has developed or changed his views. In this book, Nietzsche argues that science might play a positive role, but at the same time shows us that we need to keep two minds. One for art and culture, the only domain where we can create purpose and meaning. The other for science, whose only role seems to be critical rational observations, and Nietzsche even goes so far as to say a few nice things about Socrates.
you think that you're so alone in the world then you read literature from hundreds of years ago and you realize that other people have always felt this way
“Truth is no harlot who throws her arms round the neck of him who does not desire her; on the contrary, she is so coy a beauty that even the man who sacrifices everything to her can still not be certain of her favors.”
— Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation
At the time of writing Human, All-Too-Human, Nietzsche had left his job as a professor in Basil due to illness and was moving around. For a long while, he lived with author Paul Rée and Lou Salomé, who might have influenced Nietzsche's writing. This can be seen in some of the book's themes, such as love and friendship, as well as other related subjects. It is on the topic of women and children where Nietzsche perhaps is at his least relevant, with few exceptions.
While Nietzsche's earlier books have had a frame, encapsulating his arguments within a system, this book moves away from any attempt to provide proof, references, or even clear reasons for many of his thoughts. From this book forward, we will see that Nietzsche presents us with a barrage of observations, some contradictory, others humorous, but rarely with any clear basis for why he argues as he does.
Nietzsche is here living out his rebellion against systemic thinking and science's attempt to reduce life to simple answers. Nietzsche lived his teaching as a “free thinker,” not concerned with others' opinions. Reading this, do you guys think that writing philosophy should be less reference-heavy and more purely philosophical reasoning?
In Nietzsche's fourth book, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, from 1878, we enter the midstage of his authorship. This is Nietzsche's longest book, and it turns its focus inwards onto ourselves. In this book, Nietzsche also introduces his well-known writing style that will come to define much of his later writings – aphorisms.
Aphorisms are short, well-structured, standalone arguments like a proverb or an idiom. The book thus reads more like a set of observations about the human condition, describing what Nietzsche thought about a variety of subjects. Some of his insights are keen comprehensions, others are more obvious observations, and a few are just provocative perceptions. Human, All-Too-Human is a book you can pick up, flip to any page, and start reading, and still be able to follow Nietzsche's thoughts.
It's hard to find a single aim with this book, but if there is one, it seems to be to expose humanity. Young Nietzsche was, as I have shown, focused on culture and art, but adolescent Nietzsche digs his claws into our very being. In this project, he begins to illuminate and demystify who we truly are. It is worth remembering that this book was published before psychology had become its own scientific field.
