Philosophy, etc.

[Mogwai]

On this board, we can discuss how Dostoevsky related with Christianity, existentialism, and other philosophies.  There will be some deep stuff on here in the future...

[Ivan]

Which one would you like to talk about?  Existentialism? Christianity?  Other philosophies?

[xxfire3dxx]

How about nihilism? And its context in C&P...

[Mogwai]

I don't think there's a more evident presence of nihilism in literature than in Demons.  I'm reading it right now and the overwhelming theme of the novel that Dostoevsky portrayed was the dangers of the 'new nihilism' rising up in Russia at the time.

But you're correct, xxfire3dxx, nihilism certainly relates to Rask's superman theory that he is above morality (or at least supermen are as Rask realized in the end that he wasn't one).  My question is: If Raskolnikov only believed that supermen were transcendant of moral laws, did the other 'commoners' need to adhere to the moral foundations?  Why?  If nothing really 'existed', why would the common people need to follow any laws?

[xxfire3dxx]

Well that's exactly what I don't understand. I think that R believed very much in the law (was't he studying it at the university?). So then yes, he believed that everyone had to go by the law and yet simultaneously he believed that everything was empty, without meaning, and the world needed change. I guess that's part of the whole "Raskol"nikov ("schism") idea in the book. And I think that that's what Dost was going for - he was criticizing nihilism for its self-contadiction.
However, my problem is that although in C&P, nihilism is presented as some mainstream idea which every Joe and Bob professed but only R deeply believed in it and understood; my problem is that no matter how self-contradictory Dost makes it out to be, the philosophy was real and did spark a philosohical revolution. The great Nietzsche believed in it I think. I think he was also the one who in real life professed the idea of a moral superman. So how could such a self-contradictory idea survive and better yet how could it be promoted by so many great thinkers such as Nietzsche?

[Ivan]

Well...

We have to view the extraordinary man, the ubermensch, etc as being a person who brings, what Rask calls a "new word."  In other words, he or she is someone who brings about a new worldview.  The morals in which the extraordinary man is operating are only necessary to the ordinary men, but only for a time.

Ok.  The extraordinary man's intention is to overthrow the old morals or the old worldview and so why would he follow them?  
Nietzsche uses thinkers and philosophers to describe the extraordinary men; i.e. Jesus, Plato, etc.  Dostoevsky uses military figures like Napolean.  They both serve society to the same extent inasmuch as they create revolutions; politically or idealogically.
How the ordinary are to act according to the new worldview brought to the world by the extraordinary is something that hasn't been answered.  Or, at the very least, it has been answered with as much pessimism and fear as possible.
I am, therefore, not going to try and explain a new "morality" for the ordinary man, that is under the extraordinary man's new worldview.  Not only is this something not successfully explored (i.e.: Nietzsche's Zarathustra is a hermit!) but is something highly controversial.
In an environment where this revolution has not occurred, where the old morals are still followed, extraordinary men do not have to follow moral codes.  They (Rask) are still experimenting with the parameters of this revolution, hence breaches of morality.  Defining the parameters begins with defining the faults of the old worldview, this is exactly the flesh of Nietzsche's work.
Without a revolution, without a new worldview, the ordinary men and women must follow the moral codes that the extraordinary men are seeking to destroy.

This, I think, is the nature of the beast

[Golyadkin]

I finally found a place on the internet where there are smart people to talk to! I can now die happy! I love this forum.

[Mogwai]

I finally found a place on the internet where there are smart people to talk to! I can now die happy! I love this forum.

Golyadkin, we're glad you're here!  Welcome and feel free to post away...

As you might know, this site is only a few months old and is slowly rising in the search engines.  Once it gets in the top 10 for major Dostoevsky key phrases, we should have a lot more people here...they just need to find the site first...I'm hoping this forum nets 50 posts a day by year's end.  It's good for the soul to talk about ol' Fyodor.  

[Golyadkin]

I'll be sure to tell everyone I know about this site. Maybe some will join. Anyway... back to the "Philosophy, etc." topic.

[Lev]

Reading your posts about Raskolnikov's "new word" brought to mind a phrase/idea of Dostoyevsky's. Where you have talked about the ubermensch, Fyodor Mikhailovich would have written a strange little phrase: "man-god." Kirillov, from Demons, is a wonderfully concise package of "man-god" philosophy. Or atleast a narrow form of it. I'll search through some of the books on the web and see what I come up with. These texts should help....

[Lev]

One is the passage in which Ivan Karamazov speaks with a certain devil: The Brothers Karamazov, PART IV, BOOK XI, CHAPTER 9: The Devil. Ivan's Nightmare

Devil: "Oh, I love the dreams of my ardent young friends, quivering with eagerness for life! 'There are new men,' you decided last spring, when you were meaning to come here, 'they propose to destroy everything and begin with cannibalism. Stupid fellows! they didn't ask my advice! I maintain that nothing need be destroyed, that we only need to destroy the idea of God in man, that's how we have to set to work. It's that, that we must begin with. Oh, blind race of men who have no understanding! As soon as men have all of them denied God -- and I believe that period, analogous with geological periods, will come to pass -- the old conception of the universe will fall of itself without cannibalism, and, what's more, the old morality, and everything will begin anew. Men will unite to take from life all it can give, but only for joy and happiness in the present world. Man will be lifted up with a spirit of divine Titanic pride and the man-god will appear. From hour to hour extending his conquest of nature infinitely by his will and his science, man will feel such lofty joy from hour to hour in doing it that it will make up for all his old dreams of the joys of heaven. Everyone will know that he is mortal and will accept death proudly and serenely like a god. His pride will teach him that it's useless for him to repine at life's being a moment, and he will love his brother without need of reward. Love will be sufficient only for a moment of life, but the very consciousness of its momentariness will intensify its fire, which now is dissipated in dreams of eternal love beyond the grave'... and so on and so on in the same style. Charming!"

Ivan sat with his eyes on the floor, and his hands pressed to his ears, but he began trembling all over. The voice continued.

"The question now is, my young thinker reflected, is it possible that such a period will ever come? If it does, everything is determined and humanity is settled for ever. But as, owing to man's inveterate stupidity, this cannot come about for at least a thousand years, everyone who recognises the truth even now may legitimately order his life as he pleases, on the new principles. In that sense, 'all things are lawful' for him. What's more, even if this period never comes to pass, since there is anyway no God and no immortality, the new man may well become the man-god, even if he is the only one in the whole world, and promoted to his new position, he may lightheartedly overstep all the barriers of the old morality of the old slaveman, if necessary. There is no law for God. Where God stands, the place is holy. Where I stand will be at once the foremost place... 'all things are lawful' and that's the end of it! That's all very charming; but if you want to swindle why do you want a moral sanction for doing it? But that's our modern Russian all over. He can't bring himself to swindle without a moral sanction. He is so in love with truth-"

[Mogwai]

That happens to be one of my favorite chapters in TBK...

[Ivan]

Dostoevsky sure had a grasp for the "evolution" of the individual.  Altough I would separate these two sections (Rask's speech and your TBK quote).
Rask's speech seems to talking more about the "prophet" who will create a condition for the type of individual which the devil is talking about.

[Lev]

I don't know, Ivan. Especially when you consider the passages in Demons where Kirillov and Stavrogin and later Kirillov and Pyotr Stepanovich (I thought I had posted those references but I think I erased it somehow yesterday). It made sense to me yesterday (ha ha)... but I'm a bit disoriented because I had my wisdom teeth taken out yesterday morning (no fun). I can find them again though and I'll try to recover my thoughts. Okay, the first in Demons is found in Part II, Book I, Chapter V. The second is in Part III, Book VI, Chapter II... My notes say that the Petrashevsky circle came to some conclusions about anthropotheism - man-godhood. I think there is a very strong connection... the whole rewriting of the map of morality if God doesn't exist... you know? "There is no law for God. Where God stands, the place is holy. Where I stand will be at once the foremost place... 'all things are lawful'" God is the law, so if God doesn't exist, you have man as the law. Dostoyevsky is very aware of this and it is developed, in the "evolution" you spoke of, throughout many of his books. I hope I have explained that okay.

[Lev]

I was just thinking, Fyodor, I bet the diabolic "poor relative" reminds you of Screwtape, right? You know how after reading certain passages you are reminded again of what a genius Dostoyevsky was to do certain things... It was not at all what I had expected. How clever he was to portray him as he did! I mean, after that silly Father Ferapont, and catching the demon's tail in the door, who else would have thought to so subtly introduce the "wandering relative" version? Only a genius.