Books with the worst morals/messages?

[CharlesEBrown]

Well, I haven't read it... just read the review. I think WH40K is a good fit for this thread. I mean, what do readers get from a completely nihilistic universe? There's not even peace after death. As a game, WH40K might be fun to play. As a story, readers might feel bad after closing the book. This is just my opinion

Games Workshop's original Warhammer game might be even more bleak - typical medieval setting, but with the same Chaos forces as WH40K, and adds in ratmen (Skaven), the original owners of the world (the Lizardmen and their Slann masters), and not just one but two types of Undead (Vampire Counts, and Tomb Kings, a "race" of chairiot using mummies) into the mix

How many people write your "fictions" for you? Do you crowdsource your personal achievements? Or do you achieve them hyper-individualistically?

Sheesh. I'm surrounded.


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You know, not for nothing, but this whole thread amuses and saddens me. The most amoral books ever, is the question. And just look at the responses. No one reads anymore.

120 Days of Sodom. Mein Kampf.

Never saw a copy that wasn't sealed under glass or a prop with just a leather cover.

Juliette. Clockwork Orange.

A Clockwork Orange is a disturbing but brilliant work. The movie did it a disservice by dropping the two lines at the end that suggest Alex just might be outgrowing his old lifestyle despite everything.

American Psycho. Cats Cradle.

The Vonnegut novel? Worst thing of his I ever read. Especially right after two of his lighter, sillier yet more thought provoking pieces, and right before his rather bleak but at least hopeful Hocus Pocus.

In Praise of Folly. The Virtues of Selfishness.

But no. No one's heard of any of those. I'm getting pulled into tedious nonsense over trite garbage about a slacker who lives vicariously through video games. And why? Because I charitably and piteously found something good to say about the trash.

Heard of In Praise, never seen either in person

 

[Bimbanana]

Ugh, i forgot the title but once i read a paperback telling why woman is inferior than woman using pseudoscience thingy he created himself.
The author was like from a century ago.
The worst book i ever read

 

[Peagreene]

I didn't say hyper-individualism.

And what the bleep is hyper-individualism? (I refuse to use Google.)

Hyper-individualism as opposed to what? The commune will provide? The village will provide? Mommy will provide?

Seriously. I'm honestly intrigued.

I was reminded of this just now because I'm watching a video essay about misery memoirs and the presenter makes a good point about how individualism played a huge part in the boom of misery lit because it frames suffering (especially in the context of child abuse) as something that the individual triumphs over through their own power. People enjoyed misery memoirs because they were easy to consume: a sad, abused child rises above their painful beginnings through sheer force of will and grit, pulling themselves up by their bootstraps to overcome their trauma. There's nothing in a misery memoir to critique the systems that created that situation of abuse, so although at one point misery memoirs were a huge presence and sold everywhere, there was no subsequent movement from readers to overhaul or improve things like childcare, poverty, mental health services, foster care services, child welfare, because those things were never held up as important to the narrative.

 

[CountVanBadger]

One has to go back further and examine the whole arc.

There were systems and institutions. For all of that. Here in the United States, there were institutions for mental health; thousands of 501(c)(3) charities for child welfare, foster services, poverty relief, all funded by individuals and corporations through donations and endowments (Save the Children, Habitat for Humanity, the Home for Little Wanderers, and countless others); the churches with their deep pockets took a direct hand in services for orphans, providing adoption services... and on, and on. There was a time, back in the time of evil capitalism through this country's ascendency, when corporations and individuals founded charities that grew into giant institutions, when they founded schools, with capital earned and saved through individual merit, by people and organizations that wanted to give back and improve civil comity. There was a time, at the height of the United States, when John F Kennedy said, ".... ask what you will do for your country." An entire nation rose up and answered. Individual effort, initiative, and capital, for the greater good.

And then we fell.

Since then, it has all fallen apart with breathtaking rapidity. Now, socialism, the Nanny State, Hillary Clinton's "village," are all we know. We don't found charities anymore. We don't open primary schools and colleges anymore. We expect the village to do it for us. It has devolved so rapidly that two generations know nothing different. But some are old enough to remember what came before, when individuals had a personal responsibility to pull their weight for the greater good.

Literally none of this has anything to do with why I made this thread. Go make your own thread if you want to talk about this. Or don't, I don't care. Just stop derailing my thread.

 

[VanVeleca]

13 Reasons Why.

I had a pretty confusing and often times awful childhood, the same goes for my teenage years, so I always had these thoughts about how it would be better for everyone including me if I would just die. After my autism diagnosis some of those feelings died down because now I finally understood many things about myself that many others told me was just because I'm a stupid lazy asshole.

13 Reasons Why made suicidal thoughts and depression seem like something only an asshole would do to mess with people, seriously it does such a bad job at portraying how real world issues can make someone spiral and instead just hammers in feelings of guilt within anyone who may be considering suicide.

I think the message WAS supposed to be hopeful, but instead it just makes anyone who may have or had these thoughts feel worse.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

I suppose the worst message seemed to be the one in Henry James "Portrait of the Lady" - as a template for soap operas, it was perfect. As anything else, it is a tedious, dreadful slog - a woman has two men approach her, one she cares for but thinks is poor, one she does not really like but he's very good looking and insanely rich. She goes with the rich guy, starts to actually care for him, and he gets abusive. She makes her decision around page 40 or 50, by the way. Around 200 the abusive part starts. She winds up running away, getting caught, and I think she accidentally kills him or just hurts him very badly before fleeing back to her childhood home...
Where she finds out the guy she threw him over for really was wealthier than the abusive jerk, but that he also may have a kind of a dark side. So, she's going with him now that she's a widow.
That last paragraph was the final, four or five page chapter of, IIRC, 450 pages. So ... 450 pages and it looks like she's making the same choice again for the same reason - about fifteen years later. She learned nothing and is chasing money still...