“notes from underground,” fyodor dostoevsky, e.p. dutton & co., inc., new york, 1960, pp.20-23.
“… the fact is, gentlemen, it seems that something that is dearer to almost every man than his greatest advantages must really exist, or (not to be illogical) there is one most advantageous advantage (the very one omitted of which we spoke just now) which is more important and more advantageous than all other advantages, of which, if necessary, a man is ready to act in opposition to all laws, that is, in opposition to reason, honor, peace, prosperity—in short, in opposition to all those wonderful and useful things if only he can attain that fundamental, most advantageous advantage which is dearer to him than all.
“ ‘well, but is still advantage just eh same,’ you will retort. but excuse me, I’ll make the point clear, and it is not a case of a play on words, but what really matter is that this advantage is remarkable for the very fact that it breaks down all our classifications, and continually shatters all the systems evolved by lovers of mankind for the happiness of mankind. in short, it interferes with everything. but before I mention this advantage to you, I want to compromise myself personally, and therefore I boldly declare that all these fine systems—all these theories for explaining to mankind its real normal interests, so that inevitably striving to obtain these interests, it may at once become good and noble—are, in my opinion, so far, mere logical exercises! yes, logical exercises. after all, to maintain even this theory of the regeneration of mankind by means of its own advantage, is, after all, to my mind almost the same thing as—as to claim, for instance, with buckle, that through civilization mankind becomes softer, and consequently less bloodthirsty, and less fitted for warfare. logically it does not seem to follow from his argument. but man is so fond of systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally, he is ready to deny what he can see and hear just to justify his logic. i take this example because it is the most glaring instance of it. only look about you: blood is being spilled in streams, and in the merriest ways, as though it were champagne. take the whole of the nineteenth century in which buckle lived. take napoleon—both the great and the present one. take north america—the eternal union. take farcical schleswig-holstein. and what is it that civilization softens in us? civilization only produces a greater variety of sensations in man—and absolutely nothing more. and through the development of this variety, man may even come to find enjoyment in bloodshed. after all, it has already happened to him. have you noticed that he subtlest slaughterers have almost always been the most civilized gentlemen, to whom the various attilas and stenka razins could never hold a candle, and if they are not so conspicuous as the attilas and stenka razins it is precisely because they are so often met with, are so ordinary and have become so familiar to us. in any case if civilization has not made man more bloodthirsty, it has at least made him more abominably, more loathsomely bloodthirsty than before. formerly he saw justice in bloodshed and with his conscience at peace exterminated whoever he thought he should. and now while we consider bloodshed an abomination, we nevertheless engage in this abomination and even more than ever before. which is worse? decide that for yourselves. it is said that cleopatra (pardon the example from roman history) was fond of sticking gold pins into her slave-girl’s breasts and derived enjoyment from their screams and writhing. you will say that that occurred in comparatively barbarous times; that these are barbarous times too, because (also comparatively speaking) pins are stuck in even now; that even though man has now learned to see more clearly occasionally than in barbarous times, he is still far from having accustomed himself to act as reason and science would dictate. but all the same you are fully convinced that he will inevitably accustom himself to it when he gets completely rid of certain old bad habits, and when common sense and science have completely re-educated human nature and turned it in a normal direction. you are confident that man will then refrain from erring intentionally, and will, so to say, willy-nilly, not want to set his will against his normal interests. more than that: then, you say, science itself will teach man (though to my mind that is a luxury) that he does not really have either caprice or will of his own and that he has never had it, and the he himself is something like a piano key or an organ stop, and that, moreover, laws of nature exist in this world, so that everything he does in not done by his will at all, but is done by itself, according to the laws of nature. consequently we have only to discover these laws of nature, and man will no longer be responsible for his actions and life will become exceedingly easy for him. all human actions will then, of course, be tabulated according to these laws, mathematically, like table of logarithms up to 108,000, and entered in a table; or, better still, there would be published certain edifying works like the present encyclopedic lexicons, in which everything will be so clearly calculated and designated that there will be no more incidents or adventures in the world.
“then—it is still you speaking—new economic relations will be established, all ready-made and computed with mathematical exactitude, so that every possible question will vanish in a twinkling, simply because every possible answer to it will be provided. then the crystal palace will be built. then—well, in short, those will be halcyon days. of course there is no guaranteeing (this is my comment now) that it will not be, for instance, terribly boring then (for what will one have to do when everything is calculated according to the table?) but on the other hand everything well be extraordinarily rational. of course boredom may lead you to anything. after all, boredom even sets on to sticking gold pins into people, but all that would not matter. what is bad (this is my comment again) is that for all I know people will be thankful for the gold pins then. after all, man is stupid, phenomenally stupid. or rather he is not stupid at all, but is so ungrateful that you could not find another like him in all creation. after all, it would not surprise me in the least, for instance, suddenly for no reason at all, general rationalism in the midst of the future, a gentleman with an ignoble, or rather with a reactionary and ironical, countenance were to arise and, putting his arms akimbo, say to us all: ‘what do you think, gentlemen, hadn’t we better kick over all that rationalism at one blow, scatter it to the winds, just to send these logarithms to the devil, and to let us live once more according to our own foolish will!” that again would not matter; but what is annoying is that after all he would be sure to find followers—such is the nature of man. and all that for the most foolish reason, which, one would think, was hardly worth mentioning: that is, that man everywhere and always, whoever he may be, has preferred to act as he wished and not in the least as his reason and advantage dictated. why, one may choose what is contrary to one’s own interests, and sometimes one positively ought (that is my idea). one’s own free unfettered choice, one’s own fancy, however wild it may be, one’s own fancy worked up at times to frenzy—why that is the very ‘most advantageous advantage’ which we have overlooked, which comes under no classification and through which all systems and theories are continually being sent to the devil. and how do these sages know that man must necessarily need a rationally advantageous choice? what man needs is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead. well, choice, after all, the devil only knows.”
i think it safe to assume that dostoevsky is not read much anymore, in college, or anywhere else, for that matter. not by democrats, anyway.
please see: http://wintersoldier2008.typepad.com/summer_patriot_winter_sol/2009/07/libwuhls-aint-the-new-aristocracy.html , for the other side of the looking glass. and, how do “… these sages know that man …” must live in conformity with their views, as to what constitutes a “rationally advantageous choice?” has anybody ever asked it better, or more succinctly?
john jay @ 08.04.2009
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