Episode 220 - Transcript
So today we’re talking about the book Demons…it’s one of the five great novels people say you just HAVE to read if you’re gonna be reading some Dostoevsky.
And as USUAL this podcast is gonna be covering the philosophical THEMES of this book, you know, what Dostoevsky was GOING for in the context of the thought of his time.
What I mean is this is NOT intended to be like a BOOK club where I’m telling you what I think about the book…this isn’t MY opinion about how THIS character reminds me of my Uncle Murray or something. And more than that this episode ISN’T intended to be a REPLACEMENT for actually reading the book.
Just feel the need to SAY that every time as we get STARTED with one of these. ANOTHER important thing to say here: is that this is now the THIRD book from Dostoevsky that we’ve covered. And Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishment WILL be referenced throughout this entire episode. Just heads up.
But that said: how do you begin to DESCRIBE a book like Demons…that’s one of the most COMPLEX books that Dostoevsky ever wrote in his lifetime? I mean there’s a LOT TO this book: it’s about 750 pages long. FULL of symbolism. For whatever it’s worth: it’s the book Nietzsche stumbled upon in a book store one day that made him a fan of Dostoevsky as a thinker.
I guess I’ll try to start this way: remember how I said that Crime and Punishment… may LOOK like one kind of book on the surface, but that is ACTUALLY something deeper than that for Dostoevsky?
That Crime and Punishment…kind of masquerades as a book that’s about a guy that murders a couple people…but that the TRUE drama of the book… is in his internal experience and his slow, painful coming to terms with his relationship to something greater than himself, and then FURTHER finding a way to CONSENT to that fact.
Well if THAT’S what crime and punishment is…then DEMONS by Dostoevksy…is a book that masquerades…as a political novel. It’s a book that SEEMS to be about a group of revolutionaries, buncha people UPSET about the state of russian society, the book then shows them planning and executing acts of political violence where they’re ultimately trying to bring about revolution– that may be what the book LOOKS like on the SURFACE…
But in fact what the book is MORE about to Dostoevsky, and he wrote this later in a PERSONAL letter to a friend ABOUT the book…one of the BIGGEST points he says… is to explore maybe the thing that he’s wrestled with the MOST in his ENTIRE LIFETIME…belief, or NON-belief…in the existence of God. And the way that connects to the POLITICAL philosophy that’s laid out in this book…will make a lot more sense by the end of this episode.
See if part of the BEAUTY of Crime and Punishment was that it went DEEP into the EMOTIONAL experience of someone like Raskolnikov…if IN that book Dostoevksy NEVER IDEALIZES him as a totally good or bad person, and then he presents him in a way that REVEALS just how many moving parts there are to his thinking in a way that is incredibly RELATABLE…
Then if Crime and Punishment and Notes from Underground… were Dostoevsky doing this at an INDIVIDUAL level…then DEMONS is a book by him…where he tries to show an example of this at a LARGER scale: the CHAOS that often comes along with COLLECTIVE psychology. And that IDEAS…when they find expression in the world at THIS SCALE…are PARTICULARLY dangerous.
To understand what I mean by this…all you gotta do is consider the ENTIRE first PART… of this book. Alright, by the way: the book is separated into THREE different, big parts…and part ONE of this book has become something of a LEGEND in literature…as something that CONFUSES basically everybody that just jumps into the book and tries to start READING it.
Cause if you just OPENED the book up and STARTED…Part one introduces to the reader… about ten different characters–and ALL of them are PRETTY complex in their own unique ways.
Just to give you a FEEL of what it’s like to READ this thing: MOST of the first part of the book is made up of ARGUMENTS between people…and MOST of those arguments take place on a GIANT estate that’s OWNED by a woman named Varvara. Now, Varvara… is the employer of a very smart, HIGHLY respected intellectual by the name of Stepan… she PAYS this guy to be a tutor… to come over to her house and teach her son from time to time.
Stepan has a son named Pyotr, who’s gonna be the LEADER of this little revolutionary cell we’ve already mentioned…and Pyotr, wants to USE Varvara’s son, whose name is Stavrogin, as the FACE of this revolutionary MOVEMENT he wants to kick off. Stavrogin apparently is very handsome, he’s very articulate…I mean if you NEEDED a messiah like figure that people can RALLY behind…to Pyotr: this Stavrogin guy is EXACTLY the sort of person you would wanna pick.
Now while THESE four characters… are all going back and forth about their OWN complex business, you know, Varvara’s trying to get Stepan to MARRY someone that’ll help her out politically…all of a sudden: a disabled woman named Marya appears into the room… who just by listening to her speak we can tell: that she CLEARLY has SOME kind of connection to Stavrogin, Varvara’s son… but everybody DENIES that anything is going on between them, so the reader is MOSTLY just left to wonder about it. Then a drunken CAPTAIN enters the room staggering around, turns out it’s Marya’s brother… and then HE starts yammering on about all HIS OWN stuff. Then we swap over to ANOTHER conversation ENTIRELY…where three, four OTHER characters we just met we come to find out…they’re all in their OWN conflicts with each of these original people we just talked about as well.
And Dostoevsky…at NO POINT throughout this ENTIRE scene, which goes on for many, many pages…he never lays out ANY of the details of these characters in a straightforward way: he NEVER introduces them fully, he NEVER TELLS you exactly who they are, and ALL of this conversation is referencing TONS of events that have happened obviously before the book even started.
All the CHARACTERS seem to know each other, but the READER doesn’t…the READER is left just to INFER certain things... and try to piece together the best picture they can with the information they have.
The whole thing, Part one, ends with Stavrogin…getting PUNCHED in the face by ANOTHER character named Shatov…who in the moment of punching him REALLY needed to let him know he USED to respect him, but now he no LONGER respects him, NOW I gotta PUNCH you in the face and let you KNOW how I don’t respect you anymore…the WHOLE thing can seem like a totally dramatic, confusing, chaotic MESS to be in the middle of as you’re READING it. And by the way: this was EXACTLY…what Dostoevsky was GOING for as an author when he was WRITING it.
Now WHY would any writer…WANT to make a reader feel a little DISORIENTED like this? Well it can ONLY be understood… if you know the PHILOSOPHY Dostoevsky was putting on display over the COURSE of these last couple hundred pages.
EVERY SINGLE ONE of these CHARACTERS…is a DEEP reference to a REAL PERSON in Russian CULTURE at the time. Sometimes its a BLEND between a couple DIFFERENT people…sometimes it just embodies a common TYPE of person: but this WHOLE opening PART of the book has been DESCRIBED…as a kind of ENCYCLOPEDIA…of the ideas that were in CONFLICT during this period of Russian History.
And if the WHOLE scene feels a bit CHAOTIC or DISORIENTING to you…well to Dostoevksy: ISN’T that sometimes EXACTLY how it is… when we try to get to know the state of the ideas that MAKE UP the world we LIVE in? Collective psychology… IS chaotic and disorienting at times.
You know we’re BORN into the world, where conversations have been going on politically, philosophically, LONG BEFORE we were ever here…and we’re FORCED to just get DROPPED into the middle of it, not HAVING perfect information about all the complex characters and their histories… and UNLESS you’re willing to become a political moron…you know to SACRIFICE your self-respect to some ideology…then we’re FORCED as honest people to DO the best we can, FEEL a bit disoriented, and try to PIECE together the most EDUCATED picture of what’s going on that we possibly can. And again: EVERY CHARACTER, in this novel…represents SOMETHING, or SOMEONE…in the political or philosophical space that Dostoevsky is LIVING in at the time.
Now the good news is you don’t need to be a Russian Historian to RELATE to the people he’s talking about here. Turns out 1870’s Russia…has some surprising similarities to 2025.
For example: Varvara, the wealthy OWNER of the estate…SHE represents for Dostoevsky the existing, aristocratic ORDER that’s STILL in power in Russia at the time.
But look: YOU may have seen somebody in your OWN time that RESEMBLES the kind of role she plays for Dostoevsky here: cause REGARDLESS of time period she represents the KIND of government ELITE or CULTURAL elite…that has the POWER to choose and fund CERTAIN intellectuals over OTHERS…that THEY think are going to save the WORLD for them… and keep them in power. And to Dostoevsky these e;ites who FUND the ideas of these people they choose…well, they OFTEN do it without understanding the full CONSEQUENCES… of where the ideas they’re supporting will eventually LEAD society.
So the highly respected intellectual then, Stepan, you know, the guy that’s been tutoring her son, the one she’s trying to get to MARRY someone else for the sake of her political benefit…Stepan is going to represent someone in the REAL world…that’s the kind of intellectual who’s bought and PAID for.
Now during Dostoevsky’s time this was unmistakably…the Western Liberal Intelligentsia, spreading from Europe…that was dominating the thought in Russia at the time– and by THIS point in the series we’ll all be WELL AWARE of the kind of IDEAS he has an issue with here.
This is a type of intellectual that thinks we should be moving AWAY from people having a RELIGIOUS connection to the world… and moving MORE towards things like rational utilitarianism. That rational utilitarianism is a BETTER way for people to organize their lives, or their relationships, and that it’s a BETTER way for us to plan how we COORDINATE society more generally. Well this is a fitting description of the character of Stepan…. in the book.
And along the lines of what we’ve been talking about on this podcast since episode 211…Dostoevsky, when it comes to collective psychology, HE might want to weigh in here on this discussion as well: that when utilitarianism…becomes the PRIMARY way we FRAME our reality, and you COUPLE that with a decline in people’s religious connection to the things AROUND them…well it leads to GREAT results when it comes to CERTAIN things like the infant mortality rate, it’s great for making electricity more widely available and cheaper to people…it’s great at making iPhones for people to listen to podcasts on. In fact it’s SO great at doing these things you might think it’s capable of predicting and coordinating EVERY problem a human being could ever possibly run INTO in their lives.
But Dostoevsky predicts if you SET society UP in this way…WITHOUT replacing that connection people have to something BIGGER than themselves…what you ALSO might start to see…are people that have a hard time seeing the world… NOT from within that box of utilitarianism.
You might see SEVERAL things start to happen: people in that society would tend to see themselves as SEPARATE from every thing and everyone else. Their relationships would become instrumental, transactional, antagonistic. Social norms and traditions would become arbitrary and pointless. Even something like TRUTH or social UNITY…well THAT becomes a thing of the past as well.
See because this type of western liberalism, to Dostoevsky: is an impressive achievement in our ability to rationally CRITIQUE things, to break them down into parts and to try to understand them. But it is absolutely HORRIBLE… at putting these things back together in ANY sort of enduring way. It LACKS any coherent moral foundation. So moral pluralism becomes not only a reasonable possibility…but the ONLY true REALITY at the scale of society.
So what you GET… is what we’ve seen over and over again in Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishiment…you get people whose LIVES become to ENDLESSLY rationalize their own BEHAVIOR based on a limited framing of reality…rather than aiming for ANY sort of feeling of CONNECTION to the world around them. You get people feeling COMPLETELY ALONE…while simultaneously being embedded in a network that they always, already CARE about and are a part of. What I mean is: the level of CONDITIONING that goes ON from birth to be able to SEE things in such a third person way all the time, is REAL here.
And the assumption by western liberals he says often… is that if ANYBODY FEELS this way, if ANYBODY feels BAD…well then that must be SOME type of inefficiency… in the ways our societies are set up. In other words: if anybody has a problem…it’s JUST because we’re not rationally coordinating our societies in a perfect enough WAY…we can FIX IT!
And if we come up with a BETTER way to produce the RIGHT outcomes out there…then we can SOLVE most of people’s problems.
But Dostoevsky would say EVEN if you gave people EVERY material thing they could possibly WANT…they would STILL just suffer in OTHER areas. Maybe they’d suffer from BOREDOM now. Or from alienation. Maybe MATERIAL envy… just turns into envy for another person’s NATURAL advantages.
Anyway the POINT is: for every evermore complex SOLUTION to the problems you come UP with…the NEW problems you create by SOLVING those problems…will JUST become more complex THEMSELVES to solve.
Once again: suffering just IS a part of the human experience to him…and trying to rationally coordinate it away ENTIRELY… is ALWAYS going to be a losing battle.
Now you might be saying…okay but come ON…what is this guy saying? That we shouldn’t even TRY? What just consult the Ouija board or the giant WHEEL of FORTUNE in the town square whenever election season comes around?
Well no: it’s NOT that we SHOULDN’T be trying to coordinate our societies to aim for outcomes we think are GOOD, that’s fine: the QUESTION is for him… is THAT…TRULY…where ENDURING moral or social progress…really COMES from?
Like when you say: I want the world to become a better place…for us to make PROGRESS in it.
Does that progress lie in the POLICIES or in the rational PROTOCOLS we come up with?
Or does it lie in the CARRYING OUT of those policies by PEOPLE…the inner VIRTUE of those people and the WAYS they feel CONNECTED to the people around them? WHICH of those two is more ENDURING?
See because WHAT Dostoevsky would no doubt say is if you HAD a society that wasn’t very well ordered from a RATIONAL perspective… but it was FILLED with people that felt CONNECTED to each other, filled with genuine love, where VIRTUE was something that people truly CARED about CULTIVATING every day…then despite any rational utilitarian DEFECTS there may be…that likely is STILL gonna be a society that would be great to LIVE in.
On the OTHER hand you could have a society where TONS of rational progress has been made in it…it is MATERIALLY ABUNDANT, you could have a society where people are supposedly given EVERYTHING…but STILL have high levels of drug addiction, mental illness, suicide, alienation, CONSTANT distraction: because without the connection and the moral foundation…people can HAVE EVERYTHING…but still FEEL like they have nothing.
And to Dostoevsky: the removal of things like religion, you know, the tools people have historically had to find a connection to this NETWORK that they’re a part of…the COSTS to him of doing that… are OBVIOUS…and western liberalism, DESPITE being a great CRITICAL endeavor…does NOT offer a sufficient REPLACEMENT… for these things. What we’re LEFT with on the other side of FRAMING reality only in this way is NO TRUE moral LEADERSHIP…and people…that are left just holding the bag living in a meaningless universe.
So this is why Dostoevksy writes IN a character like Stepan into the book…its to REPRESENT these ideas that are so HIGHLY RESPECTED by people at the time…and this is why his relationship to Varvara, to the aristocratic order… is so important in the book. It’s Dostoevsky pointing out what he thinks is an obvious HYPOCRISY that’s going on.
That western liberal ideas, RATIONAL utilitarianism…to EVEN get them off the GROUND, they REQUIRE the social stability that the former ARISTOCRATIC ways of thinking guaranteed…but yet the ENTIRE SALES pitch of western liberalism…is that it’s somehow TRANSCENDING these older, outdated forms of thinking… by getting RID of the religious nonsense we USED to need to CONTROL people. Well which IS it? Are we moving PAST them? Or are we still BENEFITTING from what they PROVIDE to people, are we STILL living off the RESIDUAL moral leadership that’s EMBEDDED into norms that are barely clinging on?
Cause ANY society he thinks…that makes rational utilitarianism their PRIMARY framing above all else…THAT will be a society… that’s IN a state of moral decline…NOT ONLY will the society slowly consume itself because the ENTIRE OPERATION is built around pluralistic argument and people rationalizing their OWN worldview…but what he ALSO would predict… is that societies that ORGANIZE in this way…will find ways to rationally justify VIOLENCE and the horrible treatment of people…in the name of some utilitarian OUTCOME that they supposedly have collectively AGREED upon.
JUST like Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment, but NOW on the scale of SOCIETY…they will say this utilitarian OUTCOME we’re shooting for…this is ULTIMATELY for the greater good of EVERYONE…I mean it’s unfortunate what we have to DO… but this is just what HAS to be DONE sometimes.
Dostoevsky is saying that this is the ENTIRE, rationalizing GAME that’s played OVER and OVER again when this is your moral foundation.
And when this is DONE by an individual…well THAT person just turns into an egomaniac, CONSUMED by their own agendas. But what happens… when these ideas find expression at this far more DANGEROUS scale…of being an ENTIRE SOCIETY…that’s centered around a utilitarian PROJECT.
Just as a quick side note: keep in mind that Dostoevsky is saying all this stuff…years BEFORE the Bolsheviks, before Lenin, before the assassination of Tsar Alexander BEFORE that…I mean in MANY ways this is a man who sees EXACTLY what is coming in his society…on a Miss Cleo level of clairvoyance here.
He is foreshadowing to a DAY…where our understanding of how we CONNECT to the world around us in a vast network of EXISTENCE…will be REPLACED by some CHEAP connection… to a utilitarian GOAL were trying to carry out, as a PEOPLE.
Now OF COURSE one way that can look is Leninism or Stalinism…where the PEOPLE…just become rational COGS in a giant ego driven PROJECT. Their experience gets reduced to something as though they’re MERELY these rational cogs.
And OF COURSE he’d have a problem with this going on…when it’s being done in a monolithic way at the level of government…with millions of people dead, and ALL of it being rationally, morally justified along the way to the bitter end.
But should be SAID: his point would be DEEPER than just: the Soviet Union was BAD because look at all the PEOPLE who died! He’s talking about the very rational PREMISES, the CLIMATE of IDEAS…that made it POSSIBLE for that horror scene to ever become a thing in the FIRST place, remember HE’S the harbinger of the STORY here, he’s old man withers saying don’t go up to that old mansion on the hill!
See because to get back to the symbolism of the characters in the book for a second: if Stepan and Varvara in the book represent western liberalism and the aristocratic ORDER of things…THINK of what Dostoevsky means for each of their CHILDREN to symbolize.
For example, Stepan has a son named Pyotr…which if you remember: he is the LEADER of this revolutionary cell that’s planning to do something violent to bring about their worldview.
Well what is Dostoevsky DOING there with that character? He’s making into a PERSON…something that USUALLY goes on at the level of ideas. See it’s SO MUCH EASIER… to see how certain ideas create a climate for OTHER ideas to SPREAD…when we can VISUALIZE the whole thing… like it’s a relationship between FATHER and SON. This is what Dostoevsky is going for.
Stepan, as a father…creates a climate… that a nihilist committed to destruction, like his son Pyotr, can justify himself in.
Put ANOTHER way this is the CYCLE…that liberalism lives and dies in: in the name of open-mindedness and progress…western liberalism will allow for TRULY toxic behavior to be justified, which then LEADS to social decay, when then leads to an inability to RECOGNIZE the moral decay AS moral decay, which then makes the leaders and intellectuals incapable of SOLVING the problems, which then creates a NEED for SOME kind, or ANY kind…of revolutionary response from a group.
This is the CYCLE: it’s the open-mindedness of a father…that allows for dangerous ideas to flourish in the son. It’s the IDEALISM of a father…where all his BIG TALK… allows him to IGNORE how his ideas have FAILED the very son he is raising.
Because to Dostoevsky: it’s not like Stepan, or western liberalism, LEADS with the idea that morality and connection should be slowly disintegrated. It just ends up WORKING OUT that way… after a ton of very well-intentioned, rational discussions… that end up REMOVING the moral leadership.
So western liberalism isn’t so bad on the surface…it’s the OFFSPRING of western liberalism that you have to be worried about.
And you’ll SEE it with Pyotr's actions all throughout the book: from manipulating people, SELLING people on VIOLENCE, to bribery, to the outright killing of people because they’re a political threat to him; it’s bad enough when these ideas are embodied by a single person.
But his LARGER point here is that: at the SCALE that we’re TALKING about…these ideas are NOT always embodied by a single person.
I mean at LEAST when it's a single ego-obsessed PERSON who’s rationalizing their behavior…at LEAST THAT’S a person…that can take a step back and reflect on themselves. They can confess like Raskolnikov did. They can HUMBLE themselves…find the LIMITATIONS of their own EGO.
But WHEN this goes on at the level of IDEAS…at the level of the things that end in “ISM”... that so many people build their IDENTITIES around in the modern world…there ISN’T a similar TRIBUNAL…to HOLD these sorts of ideas ACCOUNTABLE at that SCALE.
This is what makes them so dangerous: IDEAS alone… can’t be HUMBLED, they can’t take accountability…and how VISIBLE they are in the WORLD…JUST often comes down to whether or not enough people manage to BELIEVE in them–or how AGGRESSIVELY these ideas are being SOLD by people like Pyotr.
COUPLE this with the fact that often times IDEAS when they take on the form of an ISM…almost ALWAYS evolve into something ELSE that moves away from the ORIGINAL intent of the people that PIONEERED the ideas.
Point is: without SOME kind of moral foundation to GROUND these things and hold people accountable at the level of the INDIVIDUAL…how can we EVER hope to hold the ideas THEMSELVES accountable? And more than that: IS THIS the scale we want to trust to bring about our social progress anyway?
Well, Dostoevsky thinks IF we do…we will INEVITABLY create “PROGRESS”...in the form of people like Pyotr in the book.. where the character was based on an ACTUAL murderous, revolutionary figure in RUSSIA at the time, Sergey Nechayev…that Dostoevsky became fascinated by.
In FACT…if we’re TALKING about these ISMs…that people BUILD themselves around…and REALLY take a second here to think of some things that end in ISM that you think cause HARM to people in the world…well this BRINGS us to the title of the book.
Dostoevsky would say when ideas GO ON at this SCALE, and POSSESS people like this…they start to operate more like Demons… than they do ideas.
Now this is obviously…in reference to the title but it’s ALSO a reference to a story in the BIBLE. It’s a story told in Matthew, it’s told in Mark, it’s also told in the book of Luke chapter 8 verse 26-39, that's the one Dostoevsky mentions in a letter when he’s writing to someone later about it.
The story’s about a man… who gets possessed by demons in the bible…so the guy’s NOT doing very well apparently. And then Jesus comes along… and he EXORCISES the demons from this man, expecto patronum…at which point the demons are released from the man, they go up into the air, they fly around for a bit, turns out there’s a herd of pigs nearby, the demons then go INSIDE of the pigs, they start squealing, freaking out, the pigs run on down to the river that’s nearby and proceed to DROWN themselves. The pigs are gone.
Now the DEMONS in this story…are the ISMs that possess people’s THINKING in a demonic sort of way. And the PIGS in this story…are US. They REPRESENT us… when we BELIEVE in these utilitarian constructions, build our lives and RELATIONSHIPS around them…and then when TRYING to PROVE how POWERFUL we are to ourselves LIVING alongside these things that end in ISM…we often end up DESTROYING ourselves in the process.
Now MUCH more on this here in a second, but there’s ANOTHER character from the book that can help make this point here a little better.
If you remember from before: Pyotr’s character in the book… wanted to make Stavrogin, Varvara’s son, into the MESSIAH figure, of the revolutionary movement he was the head of. Well…what could the symbolism be THERE? What does Stavrogin represent to Dostoevsky…that exists in the REAL world?
Well if Varvara represents the aristocratic ORDER…then Stavrogin represents the next generation of would be LEADERS…that are absolutely CRIPPLED by the moral and spiritual BANKRUPTCY that his mom, or the existing order, has CREATED for him to LIVE in.
See remember: Stavrogin’s described in the book as a very HANDSOME man. He was smart. He was articulate. In fact: MULTIPLE characters in the book… look UP to him as the person whose NEXT UP to LEAD…and to Dostoevsky: HE’S the kind of person that’s CAPABLE, in this generation, to BRING about what we would NO doubt call POSITIVE CHANGE.
But BECAUSE he is a PRODUCT… of a world that is SO MORALLY DIRECTIONLESS, the one we’ve described this whole episode…ALL of those CAPABILITIES he has, ALL THAT TALENT he’s developed…DOESN’T end up doing good in the world, at ALL…it JUST ends up TURNING Stavrogin… into maybe the most HORRIBLE character that Dostoevsky ever WROTE about in ANY novel.
I mean there’s some bad characters he brings to life in his writing…but Stavrogin’s on a different level: he’s a character… where he confesses to a crime in the book…that was SO bad it got CENSORED by the publisher, like they wouldn’t even let Dostoevsky RELEASE the BOOK originally with this confession IN it. He tried to edit out some of the more graphic parts of it, reword it a bit…they STILL wouldn’t let him publish it.
The gruesome details aren’t really the point of what we’re doing here: I’ll let you look it up or read the book if you want them. The point here TODAY is: this guy Stavrogin is capable of SO MUCH in this world…and yet he can’t bring himself to truly care… about ANYTHING. He DOESN’T become the messiah figure for the revolutionary movement…he takes interest for a bit, and then ULTIMATELY sees the whole revolutionary effort as being made up by a bunch of morons.
See for Dostoevksy: Stavrogin is the HUMAN EMBODIMENT…of the PROMISES of Nihilism… and then the disappointment that comes soon after trying to LIVE OUT… all those promises.
ON the ONE hand: he’s someone that SEEMS to have a TON of FREEDOM from the traditions of the past… and this is often marked as a SELLING point of steering IN to Nihilism more in your life or in our policies…if you can get RID of the arbitrary traditions and the religion…then you’re going to be unencumbered…by these silly things people USED to believe in. THINK of how much you can get DONE!
So what’s the PROBLEM with DOING that for Dostoevsky? Well, ONE problem we put on display LAST episode in the experience of Raskolnikov. The problem was that sometimes: EVEN IF we THINK we’ve moved BEYOND the moral traditions of the past…we HAVEN’T really. And if you don’t happen to have, you know, PERFECT self-awareness…you might end up being someone like Raskolnikov that murders two people, or does whatever it is…and then finds life UNLIVABLE on the other side of DOING the thing.
Well ANOTHER problem with this kind of Nihilism… lies here in the character of Stavrogin. Dostoevsky’s saying: okay, let’s SAY you COULD… reject that moral order of the past and live in a TOTALLY self aware, controlled place of Nihilism, okay…well how would this AMAZINGLY FREE life of Nihilism you’re talking about… REALLY look in practice?
Well you may find yourself ending up like Stavrogin…he’s a person who lives in a CONSTANT CYCLE between belief and NON belief about everything…he’s someone that CAN’T ever GENUINELY COMMIT himself to CARE about ANYTHING really, he can’t morally GROUND his behavior in anything ENDURING…so he’ll DO things for a couple days… then lose INTEREST in whatever it is, then move on to something else and then lose interest in THAT.
And WHAT this kind of person turns INTO, when we’re talking at the scale of ideas discussed so far on this EPISODE, the DEMONS…what HAVING no moral direction PRODUCES, in THIS TYPE of HIGHLY capable PERSON…is a person whose abilities… just end up getting USED…by OTHER people that can manage to PERSUADE them to come over to their CAUSE for a while.
THESE days it would be done PROBABLY through something like an INSTAGRAM feed by someone like PYOTR. Point is: this HIGHLY capable person… is PARTICULARLY AT RISK of this HAPPENING to them these days, and if it DID: HOW would they KNOW it was happening, and how could they morally object to it…if it WAS happening?
See that’s one of the big TRAGEDIES of Stavrogin. He LOOKS the PART. He HAS the ABILITIES. But a person that can’t morally stand for ANYTHING… is a person that can become a FOOTSOLDIER… OF ANYTHING.
MORE than that: what this PRODUCES in a person when they can’t truly CARE about the things in the world…is just a MALAISE that they start to live in everyday…where MOST of the time they FEEL almost NOTHING.
There’s GLIMMERS, there’s MOMENTS where it seems like Stavrogin knows he WANTS to be feeling a connection here or there…but again unencumbered by any sense of morality, being BEYOND all that stuff apparently…he ends up doing HORRIBLE things in his life…just to be able to feel SOMETHING at all.
And it’s funny because his WHOLE EXISTENCE here…the CONTRAST between what people around him SEE him as…and what his ACTUAL EXPERIENCE is…it ALL becomes a HUGE misunderstanding.
It’s ACTUALLY kind of hilarious. BECAUSE he sees THROUGH the FUTILITY of all these traditions…it gives him a type of FEARLESSNESS in the FACE of them…which THEN gives him the APPEARANCE of being a FEARLESS and POWERFUL person…that OTHER people AROUND him MISTAKE… as a type of moral STRENGTH.
There’s a Theologian and an author named Rowan Williams that TALKS about Stavrogin as a character in his work…and what he says I love it’s that Stravrogin… becomes a kind of character…that is a TWISTED, PARODY of the concept…of apatheia.
Apatheia you may recognize from conversations surrounding Stoicism, it’s a common word used in those circles: the GENERAL idea is… what does a wise person look like? Well I’ll tell you what they DON’T look like…they’re NOT someone whose FLYING off the rails with a bunch of intense emotions all the time, they’re not someone COMPLETELY controlled by different VICES that they have…a WISE person…if you SPOTTED one in the wild…that would LIKELY be a person that’s RATIONALLY learned to CONTROL themselves, and they’ve learned NOT to BE too up or down as life comes their way.
Now if you’re a Stoic you achieve this through maybe THOUSANDS of hours of rational contemplation and PRACTICE…this is a skill that is hard fought and EARNED. But if you’re STAVROGIN in the BOOK…to the people that immediately SURROUND him…his behavior LOOKS to them…more or less the SAME as someone who is WISE.
Now little do they KNOW…he hasn’t MASTERED his EXPERIENCE of the world…he’s just DEAD inside. He’s not up or down, and it’s NOT because he’s WISE…it’s because there’s just nothing that MATTERS enough to him to make him FEEL up or down.
And this is where the issue…of the belief or NON-belief in God starts to come into the picture for Dostoevsky.
See if you’re good at recognizing patterns…you MAY notice something SIMILAR here… between Stavrogin and the DOWNFALLS of the ways that he VIEWS the world…and some of the OTHER characters from Dostoevsky’s novels that we’ve talked about so far.
You know, TALKING about a book from the 1870’s…there’s been a LOT of people that have COMMENTED on Dostoevsky’s work. And when it comes to trying to ORGANIZE…the CHARACTERS in the novels…COMMON thing people say, is that with MANY of the characters he explores…the CHARACTER gets FACED with something… that FORCES them to consider their belief or NON-belief in the existence of God…and then DEPENDING on which character we’re ANALYZING…they take ONE of two PATHS for Dostoevsky and that determines everything ELSE about them…they either take the path of the Madman…or they take the path of the SAINT.
Now hopefully it’s not TOO obvious… but characters like Stavrogin and Raskonikov and the Underground man…THESE are going to be the people that fall under the MADMAN category of that.
And as you can probably guess: Dostoevsky traces the PROBLEMS that are going on in their lives… no matter HOW POLITICAL, or SOCIAL, or ECONOMIC their problems may SEEM to be…these are ALL problems that ULTIMATELY stem for him…out of their NON-belief in God…something that GROUNDS every decision they choose to make AFTER that…something that shapes every way they make SENSE of the world.
Because for Dostoevsky: NON-BELIEF in God…FORCES you to POSTURE yourself in your life…in a way that LEADS for him to very predictable outcomes.
Now, EACH ONE of them does it in their OWN unique way…but they’re ALL an example of the MADMAN.
And AT BOTTOM for dosoevsky…if you WANTED to describe their common mistake just to give a GENERAL DESCRIPTION of what’s going ON here…the madman he thinks chooses a DIVISIVE way of making sense of the world…that fundamentally lives in DENIAL… of their connection to the things and people in the network of existence that’s around them.
To LINK this to the CURRENT arc of the show since episode 211: compare this point to Heidegger, and the more IMMEDIATE experience of being he talks about with Dasein. Or in his LATER work with letting be. Compare this to Nishitani and his distinction between the field of CONSCIOUSNESS and the field of Sunyata that RECOGNIZES our connection to BEING.
The MISTAKE that’s going ON for Dostoevsky… is that when we live in DENIAL…of the love and connection to everything that represents what he calls GOD…when we DON’T live lives of FAITH towards every day developing a deeper COMMUNION with what he calls God…well then we are FORCED to find a way to RELATE to the world…that is ego-centered, or fragmented, alienated from others, and ultimately to live in a way where we create false IDOLS…out of THINGS that eventually DESTROY us.
Or put another way. this goes back to the story from the Bible of the DEMONS possessing the PIGS. In the PROCESS of creating false IDOLS out of OURSELVES and of the IDEAS of others in the form of these ISMs…when we BUILD OUR IDENTITIES AND RELATIONSHIPS, OUT of our CONNECTION to these ISMs…and when we DO that without moral guidance that’s rooted in TRUE love and connection to the ROLES we play in this network of being…we will ALWAYS, in the process of trying to BRING ABOUT these ISMs and PROVE how POWERFUL we are to ourselves…we will always end up DESTROYING ourselves in the process.
Now you can certainly see this mistake in characters like Raskolnikov or Stavrogin…but the ULTIMATE EXAMPLE of what Dostoevsky sees as this sort of FLAW in their THINKING…the example he was probably MOST proud of creating in his lifetime…is the character of Kirillov in this book we’re talking about today called Demons.
We haven’t TALKED about him yet this episode. He’s a character that’s inspired TONS of philosophers and authors SINCE this book was written. Not the least of which was Camus, you know, HE spends QUITE a bit of time DISSECTING Kirillov as one of the most IMPORTANT characters in all of literature…for HIM Kirillov is a philosopher of suicide.
See KIRILLOV has what he thinks is a GREAT IDEA in the book…and like OTHER ideas in this book it’s a LITTLE exaggerated and is SUPPOSED to be that way for Dostoevsky…but his IDEA IS…that BECAUSE God does not EXIST…then my WILL must be ENTIRELY MY OWN, he says. But MORE than that BECAUSE my will is my own…it is also my DUTY…to SACRIFICE myself…in the NAME of my own VALUES.
Now SOME people will do this with their weekends, you know, sacrifice some time with family over the holidays to build the company they care about, things like THAT…Kirillov thinks the ULTIMATE way of sacrificing yourself…is to KILL yourself in the name of a cause. So what his LIFE becomes is to SIT around, looking out at the world, listening to arguments WAITING for the RIGHT CAUSE to come along, so he can FINALLY fulfill his ULTIMATE purpose and KILL himself for the SAKE of that cause.
And turns out that ends up being…EXACTLY what HAPPENS. He waits around until Pyotr convinces him to DO it. Once again Pyotr kind of reminding us of the media, perhaps.
Anyway: the symbolism here is pretty clear. Dostoevsky sees Kirillov… as the ULTIMATE EXAMPLE of the FLAW in the thinking of the madman. His THINKING is that as LONG as he’s RADICAL enough and as LONG AS HE’S got the RIGHT REVOLUTIONARY CAUSE…if he DESTROYS himself in the PROCESS…this somehow makes his sacrifice REDEEMING for all of humanity. Once again think of how this becomes PARTICULARLY dangerous as a message to tell YOUNG people in a western liberal society.
We’ll talk MORE about Kirillov and his example as we start exploring this OTHER way of reacting to the question of God’s existence, cause he’ll serve as a GOOD contrast to characters that embody the approach of the saint.
Now ON that note: something needs to be said here that no doubt a lot of people are thinking at this point. LET’S SAY…I BUY what you’re SAYING here Dosteovsky. That these THEORETICAL systems that we BREAK down the WORLD with…are NEVER capable of OFFERING an enduring moral foundation. And that when I BUILD my worldview around these ISMs…I will ALWAYS have SHALLOW friendships, a SHALLOW love life, a shallow connection with BEING in the world around me.
But if ULTIMATELY what you’re scared of… is that these ISMs… are going to LEAD people to a type of HUBRIS that maybe leads them to do things like commit acts of violence…if what you’re scared of are people doing horrible THINGS and then rationalizing it AFTER the fact…well how in GODS name, no pun intended, do you see something like RELIGION… as something that’s EXCLUDED from that?
This person could say: some of the LEAST moral people I KNOW… are religious, or at least SAY they are. And these RELIGIONS…these GEYSERS of MORALITY you’re talking about…these are the SAME things that lead to treating GAY people horribly based on a sentence in a book, or lead to throwing ACID in women’s faces or how about the Crusades?
In other words: TAKE your PICK of which example of morally abhorrent behavior you WANT… that then gets RATIONALLY justified AFTER the fact by your supposed agents of God’s will.
What, am I just supposed to ACCEPT THIS…as part of the world? And why, for fear that I may be making a bigger mistake than even THEY are? When THINGS like this are going ON in the world…how can you POSSIBLY see a connection… between a valid moral foundation…and the institutions of religion?
Well this is PROBABLY the point in the episode and in the SERIES…to say that: MUCH like Keiji Nishitani…who would say that just because you CALL yourself RELIGIOUS…DOESN’T mean you’re ON a truly religious quest…that it’s possible and even very COMMON for people to have a SUPERFICIAL relationship to a religious institution…and then to USE that relationship to avoid the DIFFICULT process of ENGAGING with their existence fully…well MUCH like THIS line of thinking from Nishitani: Dostoevsky might say that if YOU’RE a modern christian…and you DON’T take your faith very seriously, you’re rarely UNCOMFORTABLE in your faith…if FAITH seems to come EASY to you…and if you’re READING Dostoevsky’s books that are talking about FAITH and GOD and the Russian Orthodox CHURCH as be a uniquely beautiful path to God that the WHOLE WORLD can benefit from…if you READ these things and think man, Dostoevsky sounds like a kindred spirit, he thinks JUST like I DO! Well, you’re PROBABLY way off… of the reality of things.
LOT of people over the years have COMMENTED on Dostoevsky’s faith. It’s complex. It’s not something to try to encapsulate HERE simply at the END of this episode.
What I WILL say though to set the stage for NEXT episode when we talk about the approach of the SAINT…is that Dostoevsky’s faith has been described…as a kind of tragic, EXISTENTIAL form of Christianity. It’s very MYSTIC. Some people think he MORE resembles a type of Buddhism… than he does Christianity. What I mean is: it’s DEEPLY along the kinds of conversations that we’ve been having on the PODCAST lately…which means it is a way of viewing faith…that is NEVER IDEALIZING the institutions or the approach laid OUT in something like the bible… whatsoever.
FAITH for Dostoevsky was a STRUGGLE. A CONSTANT struggle. It was a DIFFICULT engagement… with the sometimes DEEPLY flawed institutions and scripture that we inherit as people…but this was NONETHELESS a STRUGGLE to him…that NEEDS to go ON if someone EVER wanted a deeper communion with God and their own being. And if there is EVER, ANYONE who is BORN into this world and ACTUALLY is trying to DO that in good faith…religion just WILL BE…a part of that process.
Now that said: while Dostoevsky is NOT your average Christian by ANY sense of the imagination…it’s ALSO true that to REMOVE Christianity from the ways he engaged with existence…would be to REMOVE something DEEPLY important about what Dostoevsky saw as TRUTH.
We have PLENTY of time to talk about it. And I’m PLENTY excited to keep GOING if all of YOU are. Let me know if you want to hear about the OTHER way of wrestling with this question of God’s existence, again, a question Dostoevsky wrestled with his entire lifetime.
Appreciate ALL of you so much. It’s a privilege to do these podcasts for you as my job. Patreon.com/philosophizethis. Thank you for listening. Talk to you next time.
