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The Idiot
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Constance Garnett , Joseph Frank , Anna Brailovsky
by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Constance Garnett , Joseph Frank , Anna Brailovsky
I love this book because it made me think. Hard.
According to my understanding of "The Idiot," Dostoevsky's definition of an idiot is someone who actually believes that everyone is trying to do their best and do no harm. This is in utter ignorance, usually, of everyone's tendencies to do harm to others, regardless of intent. Hooray for idiots!
Ippolit Terentyev, one of the minor characters, is a socialist, and a suicide. He has one of the great lines in literature, I think, and I will share it now. "We degrade God too much, ascribing to him our ideas, in our vexation at being unable to understand Him." Not verbatim, necessarily, but that's the sense.
Also included in this story is a story about how governments are not scared of atheists, because atheists have no real back-bone. When it comes down to it, if life is the end-all, be-all, then anyone who is sane (having some idea of self-preservation) will break at threats on their life. Whereas if someone believes that there is a payoff greater than life can offer, or better yet, has an internal motivation that comes from somewhere else, he or she is less likely to be afraid of death. What capitalist governments are really scared of is socialists with a moral imperative that drives them to offer something better than the "one-step-out-of-the-cave" animalism of capital. Luckily, anyone who actually believes that they can or should offer anything better will be rendered ineffective by the capital machine. Anyone with this perspective will be unable to function in real life (The Idiot, I forget the main character's name) or will become so stricken with the dichotomy of living in a way that completely contradicts their philosophy that they will eventually kill themselves (Terentyev).
Back to the question of God -- who says that God isn't a kind of mean drunk, watching the folly of man, laughing, falling asleep, sobering up and making things okay for a while? Ha ha. The best thing about life is that it has a begninning and an end. A lot of the stuff in between kind of sucks.
According to my understanding of "The Idiot," Dostoevsky's definition of an idiot is someone who actually believes that everyone is trying to do their best and do no harm. This is in utter ignorance, usually, of everyone's tendencies to do harm to others, regardless of intent. Hooray for idiots!
Ippolit Terentyev, one of the minor characters, is a socialist, and a suicide. He has one of the great lines in literature, I think, and I will share it now. "We degrade God too much, ascribing to him our ideas, in our vexation at being unable to understand Him." Not verbatim, necessarily, but that's the sense.
Also included in this story is a story about how governments are not scared of atheists, because atheists have no real back-bone. When it comes down to it, if life is the end-all, be-all, then anyone who is sane (having some idea of self-preservation) will break at threats on their life. Whereas if someone believes that there is a payoff greater than life can offer, or better yet, has an internal motivation that comes from somewhere else, he or she is less likely to be afraid of death. What capitalist governments are really scared of is socialists with a moral imperative that drives them to offer something better than the "one-step-out-of-the-cave" animalism of capital. Luckily, anyone who actually believes that they can or should offer anything better will be rendered ineffective by the capital machine. Anyone with this perspective will be unable to function in real life (The Idiot, I forget the main character's name) or will become so stricken with the dichotomy of living in a way that completely contradicts their philosophy that they will eventually kill themselves (Terentyev).
Back to the question of God -- who says that God isn't a kind of mean drunk, watching the folly of man, laughing, falling asleep, sobering up and making things okay for a while? Ha ha. The best thing about life is that it has a begninning and an end. A lot of the stuff in between kind of sucks.
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Erni
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rated it 4 stars
Jan 15, 2008 09:49pm
I like that Ippolit Terentyev's line too. Infact I have it memorized."We degrade God too much, ascribing to Him our ideas, in vexation at being unable to understand Him, I repeat it's hard to have to answer for what it is not given to man to understand. And if it is so, how shall I be judged for being unable to understand the will and laws of Providence? No, we'd better leave religion on one side." Deep...just deep.
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