A literary judgment

to The Guardian:

Notice seen recently in the window of the bookshop in Fowey, Cornwall: “The Post-Apocalyptic Fiction section has been moved to Current Affairs.”

Harry Cavill, Camberley, Surrey 

 

And an ancient complaint from an Epicurean:

At the end of the 4th Century A.D Ammianus complained that the Roman Empire had lost its cultural moorings and had descended into a state of triviality, where scholarship was no longer respected and fewer and fewer people read anything at all.  Sound familiar?

One Comment

  1. Nice website — I like your rationale for actually USING Epicurus to apply to modern life:

    “Websites about Epicureanism seem to proliferate, most of them saying the same things, with little new. The problem with Epicureanism in particular is that so many of the ancient writings were either lost or were deliberately destroyed by early Christians, but this does not deter people from regurgitating the fragments left ad nauseam. But to what end?”

    This is actually a very keen insight, as most E lists and blogs do indeed simply regurgitate and never seem to rethink Epicurean ideas in modern ways, and in fact, there seems to be distinct resistance to doing more than repeating the old fragments. Epicurus is our greatest ancient philosopher, and easily the most relevant today, yet is basically unknown.

    Keep up the good work.

    Wes

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