Dostoevsky: Notes From Underground & Rational Egoism
Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground is considered to be the first work of existentialism. It's a rebuke to the rational egoists of his day, specifically Nikolai Chernyshevsky's What is to be Done? What's the analysis? How do we interpret the book? And how did he predict the financial crash of 2008?
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Sources:
Jackson, Robert Louis, Dostoevsky’s Underground Man in Russian Literature
Paris, Bernard. J., Dosteovsky’s Greatest Characters
Dostoevsky, Notes From Underground
Scanlan, James P. "The Case against Rational Egoism in Dostoevsky's "Notes from Underground"." Journal of the History of Ideas 60, no. 3 (1999): 549-67. doi:10.2307/3654018.
Weiner, A, The Most Politically Dangerous Book You’ve Never Heard Of, Politico, www.politico.com/magazine/sto...
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Notes From the Underground was a denouncement of utopia in its entirely. It could easily be taken as an argument against both Chernyshevsky and Lenin's books called "What is to be Done". Dostoevsky simply didn't believe that humans were capable of utopia, and he went deeper into this topic in his book "Brothers Kazamov". In that book, he used the story with Jesus and the High Inquisitor as an allegory for the ending of the Garden of Eden story in the bible. The High Inquisitor admitted that the church was trying to rebuild the Garden of Eden by taking away the people's burden of knowledge of good and evil.
What about utopia did you see in NFU? He was a misanthrope, envying the military men around him at work, living as a NEET with a domestic servant at home, trying to awkwardly trying to seduce a prostitute. NFU is a personal account of a life told by a dishonest neet that hated every human being around him, including himself most of all. Was there some passage in NFU about politics that i missed? id love if you could tell me where to find that citation
@@ludlowaloysius There was a brief mention in the underground man's monologue where he talks describes humans as "ungrateful bipeds" and the human drive against "rational". Utopia is mainly critiqued through the "Crystal Palace", which works as a stand in for basically all imaginary utopian fantasies. The underground man believes that human due to their desire to affirm their own free will as well as their ungratefulness and spite, would still want to smash this "Crystal Palace" I'm sorry for being unable to give any prober citations on this, since I didn't read the book in English but I believe that you should properly look from page 30 onwards. Besides of that however, I thought that his own fall into self-deprecation through his masochistic self-humiliating behaviour and his following moments of clarity were really interesting to read, especially if you met people who remind you of him.
I think Dostoevsky wholly believed within the possibility of a Utopia, just didn’t believe a utopia could be possible through modern modes of thought. Yes, Grand Inquisitor condemns the notion of God and the possibility of the Utopia, but we see the author of the poem, Ivan Karamazov, slowly fall into sickness. But why does he fall into such a sickness? Well we see that Ivan concludes Grand Inquisitor with the only logical notion to have after the denouncement of God, that humans must create their own morality. “Everything is permitted”, he puts it. But we see where the parallels with Notes begin to ensue. Just like the video said, humans cannot create their own sense of morality, it only leads to chaos and destruction, as shown through the character of Smerdyakov, who kills their father, and justifies the murder as saying “he only listened to Ivan”. Believing that there is no common basis for humans to stand on and humans should create their own morality is a logically fallacy that ironically was conceived through logic. Instead, Dostoevsky argues for more old fashioned values such as love for all and care for others, inheritly Christian values, but argues for them in a logical sense, so that one could understand and accept them completely without having to accept God as true. Ivan character arc was his logically argument as to why the Grand Inquisitor really can’t hold its own weight that it was arguing for, and Alyosha would be Dostoevsky’s answer to how we should approach life and his view on how Utopia is truly achieved. So i believe dostoevsky truly believed Utopia was possible, just not through the modes of thought that believed that rational egoism was the path to Utopia etc etc
In the high inquisitor part it is said something to the effect of "there is no greater torment to humanity than the freedom of choice" i think. A clear allusion to the totalitarianism desired by the revolutionaries, and the people who would follow them blindly just so they didn't have to trail their own path.
This is laughably wrong. There is nothing utopian about Lenin's What is to be done. Furthermore Lenin is known to be politically a hard realist and often talked against utopianism himself. I love when people talk about his work and Marxism without knowing the first thing.
Many years ago when I was in my early 20's, Notes From Underground was like my bible. It described my state of mind and inner turmoil so accurately that it was both frightening yet so liberating. He and Nietzsche seemed to be the only two people I was aware of that understood my psyche. I will always be indebted to both men.
An amazing summary of an extremely difficult novel; thank you.
Wow, what a wonderful video. Beautiful narrated. I didn't know how I never came across your channel before. Really great stuff man, thank you so much for your content. Please keep up the good work. 👏🏽
Love your stuff man, really great narrating and great analysing always
Thank you! It means a lot!
Can't wait to get my hands on this book!
I love that you used clips from the movie from the adaption of HG Wells' Things to Come (which Wells worked on). I found that story tells the Underground story well (even putting the Utopian city underground). When the people of this utopia are excited by the man who wants to stop progress, the people who hear him become giddy about the idea of "smashing things up" and the more rational people were only able to succeed with seconds to spare.
Enjoyed the small clip from "Things to Come." That part of the film is such an interesting take on democracy and the power of charismatic voices to alter opinion or provoke violence.
I’ve walked through streets named tchernechovski through most of my youth, but when I asked my teachers and parents who he was I got no more thorough answer than “a great leftist political thinker” now you’ve cleared a little bit about his ideology for me and it’s background, and with its glaring commonalities with its direct opposite I also understand abit of the very well known animosity between his socialist utopia and other communists’ ones. Thanks for tying it all in such a context, so even without full knowledge of few of those thinkers I can start connecting and contradicting between them as a prelude to reading them
Absolutely brilliant. I salute You sir!
Great video as always. Would you consider making a video about the themes in some of the other works of Dotoyevsky like Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov?
Another banger. Also with silently insidiously unconsciously masochistic
Hi T&N thanks!! Btw It's a good content and voice of the emphasizing on the context and important values from the historical sources of this book. •indonesian•
Wonderful video.
Excellent. Thank you. 💐
That's why I like Dada and Surrealism. Also, much of L'Art Brut.
Awesome!
Great video!
Thanks!
Great analysis.
I am the underground man its almost scary how closely I resemble him, his entire thought processes and ideals, to how he interacts with the people around him. I do not know how to feel about this, I need some light in my life
Loved this video! Can you tell me what’s that opening music is from?
I just watched the collaboration video you did over on the caspian report, and I figured I'd check this channel out. Both this, and your neurobollucks video are really good. I'm a tad surprised you don't have more subscribers. Though, I suppose the market for informative youtube videos is a bit on the crowded side nowadays. Anyways, you've just won yourself over a subscriber, and I hope you do more colabs with shirvan and the caspian report in the future. You have a lovely voice by the way.
Thank you! It's appreciated. I'm really glad you've enjoyed :)
I found this through caspian as well :3
@@allencummings7564 how many videos have you watched so far? As of now, I have already gotten through about 2/3 of the content this channel has to offer (26 videos).
Thanks! I'd be interested to hear which ones you've enjoyed this most :)
“You will ask why did I worry myself with such antics: answer, because it was very dull to sit with one’s hands folded, and so one began cutting capers. That is really it. Observe yourselves more carefully, gentlemen, then you will understand that it is so. I invented adventures for myself and made up a life, so as at least to live in some way. How many times it has happened to me-well, for instance, to take offense simply on purpose, for nothing; and one knows oneself, of course, that one is offended at nothing; that one is putting it on, but yet one brings oneself at last to the point of being really offended.” This excerpt describes human life perfectly. Creating fantasies to distract ourselves from the nullity of existence. Trying to blame and attribute to some force as the cause of one’s suffering. As if these people or the way of the world has a vendetta with me. To give purpose to suffering. To make it seem that one’s life is anything other than worthless. That all things are subject to the same impersonal inscrutable necessity, and that there is no one to blame for
Thank you
excellent!
Nice video
It’s seems fairly self evident, that rationalism and it’s expectations of individual capacity, is just a strand of enlightenment idealism-it’s (almost romantically) idealistic and lacks a basis in the grounded actuality of the contradictions/constraints of the human mind and by extension the social constructions that result.
Recently read this, here is something I have been thinking about: to what extent is man's obstinate irrationality the result of being confronted by the results of a rational understanding of himself? Does man still crave expressions of whim over objectivity if he remains ignorant of that objectivity? Doestoevsky describes this rational moment of discovering the objective limits of human nature as encountering a brick wall, and there are two types of reactions to this encounter: that of the ordinary person who lacks the understanding that this wall represents a limit and is thus satisfied with bashing their head against it over and over again; and then that of Dostoevsky's character, who (arrogantly, or accurately?) considers themselves to be exceptionally intelligent, and is paralyzed by despair once they realize that the wall cannot be passed through, i.e. there is no transcendence of humanity. If this understanding is correct, is it possible that Dostoevsky would find folly not just in expecting the masses to act rationally, but also that rationality itself when taken to its logical extremes produces the irrationality we should fear the most.
Nietzsche went into this line of thought a lot in his middle period works... the idea that we value the search for truth so much that we find out that some truths can hurt us. The question is, what do we do then? Dostoevsky was pessimistic and thought man would instead descend into irrationality as a refuge. Nietzsche, however, thought that we needed to reexamine our morals and engage in a "transvaluation of values". Unfortunately he wasn't clear about how to go about that as he became more ill and his sanity started to fray. It may be an impossible task.
Amazing analysis of the book although the argument of how it predicted the 2008 crisis could not be more wrong.
Not necessarily, however, the tone with which this video puts it is indeed questionable. In one way or the other many forms of previous philosophical work, as well as many intellectual and practical works at that, predicted the 2008 crisis. It was an inevitability of so many clusters of the impending cataclysm that its easy to just pick any thinker from the past and associate their work with the event itself.
Ayn Rand believed man should pursue his individual desires, so long as it doesn't interefere with others freedom... so wouldn't Aym Rand support man's pursuit of irrationality in an overly rational environment?.... I don't understand the Alan Greenspan comment about objectivism. Moral objectivism is guided by natural law, not monetary policy lol what did I miss?
These are the best video essays on youtube. disastrously undersubscribed.
Anyone know the name of that black and white sci-fi movie that played in the background?
Amaze content
Thank you!
Thank you for this presentation on Dostoevsky and his influence on Existentialism. I am reminded of my reading of William Barrett's, "Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy" where Dostoevsky's seminal writings came out of a Russian literary tradition of other writers like Gogol and Pushkin. The most recent work of behavioral economics (i.e. The 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics to Richard H. Thaler) and evolutionary psychology would seem to validate Dostoevsky position vis-a-vis rational egoism. Thank you again for adding to my growing understanding, irrational as that might be.
amazed
I like the second what is to be done better
Good video, but Greenspan couldn't have brought Ayn Rand as his adviser in 1987, as she died in 1982..
Someone doesn't have to be physically there to be your advisor, but I get your point concerning the ambiguity and possible error in his statement.
goddamn that was good,
Great video! I've always found it strange that conservatives try to claim Dostoevsky, people like Jordan Peterson are always going on about him, but his work is clearly intended to rebuke that kind of Enlightenment rationalism and utilitarianism.
Good video but the earliest existentialist work is Kierkegaard.
Kierkegaard kind of stands alone. He started the ideas of Existentialism in many ways, but he was also deeply Christian and came at his existentialism from a somewhat different direction than the 20th century modern ones. I almost think he deserves his own category. Definitely a fascinating thinker
@@t.c.bramblett617 He is one of my best thinkers too. But lets be honest, who are we kidding, the first well documented and thorough work on existentialism is the bible, this is why Kierkegaard hard such a strong and unique head start.
@@t.c.bramblett617 it's definitely true that Kierkegaard isn't comparable to existentialists such as Sartre, but the same could be said of Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky was deeply religious and believed in objective morality - both of those aspects are usually rejected by 20th century existentialists - so I would argue that Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky have quite a lot in common. if one of them is seen as an existentialist, then the same should be said about the other...
Notes from underground should be required reading in schools.
Do Richard Rorty
"spontaneous" at 3:43 was maybe too harsh
If this vid was shown on TV, there would be a revolution. Peter Lorre played Raskolnikov in a 1935 movie. It very intense but the director thought it melodramatic. I guess he wanted a sensitive Existentialist. Lorre, who played the child murderer in the Expressionist, "M," knew better. And, as we see from culture now, was unpleasantly on the money.
Great video, thanks for this. I think a lot of people sometimes draw conclusions from Notes From Underground that Dostoyevsky himself never fully commits to in the text, due to the tension between the protagonist and Dostoyevsky himself. Are we to take what the Underground Man says seriously, or is Dostoyevsky critical of HIM as well? Indeed, it doesn't seem like the author particularly likes the character, and the character certainly isn't happy. Are we really to take philosophical inspiration from this sick, vindictive, hypocritical man?
Alan Greenspan never brought Ayn Rand as an advisor. She died in 1982 and he was appointed chairman of the Fed in 1987. Also Greenspan policies at the fed were highly interventionist artificially reducing interest rates and creating the real state bubble.
Australopitecuz2 He means he brought "her" with him as in her ideas - not her body. It's like someone saying they're "walking with Jesus".
@@user-wl4sr4tl7f He literally said "brought her as one of his closest advisors" the phrasing is at best highly missleading. Also non of his actions at the fed were in accordance to Rands ideology. So it seems like a lazy way to force his conclusion by tying Greenspan actions to Rand.
@@user-wl4sr4tl7f lol, nice comeback buddy
Australopitecuz2 Just some friendly advice, pal.
I think your second point is glossed over and important. Greenspan fucked up because he didn't let the markets stabilize and adjust interest rates. Same as it is now, same as it ever was. Central banks are by definition interventionists.
"I am a sick man. ... I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased..."
Did you hear about the Existentialist farmer? He had a herd of goats from the underground. [BA-BOOM!}
Could you maybe acknowledge that to speak about the reasons for the 2008 crash requires much more research and understanding than just "people are irrational"? Like I really enjoy the explanations of the concepts in your videos, yet at the same time, I think that to talk about events which can be explained in two completely different ways by two "leading" specialists in the economic field you might require a bit more caution and research.
Sure, there a lots of causes - one in particular - that are well known. I took one angle for this video that seems interesting. Thanks!
Did Ya ever end up Making that "Russian Literature is the Best" video?
Actually....
Great video. My only criticism is the 2008 Financial crisis stems from politicians (from both sides) trying to maximize home ownership (to push toward this utopia) by enacting legislation that required banks to write risky loans (enforced by balancing demographics in loan issue) and using Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (government funded) to buy these risky loans from banks without a plan for the inevitable massive mortgage defaults, which led to the crash. This happened well after the Reagan administration (during the Bush administration) that was led by two Democrat Senators and supported by Bush’s ‘Compassionate Conservatism’.
Its very unPC to attack altruism.
"You can summarize most of the stuff said in the Propaganda series by saying that a person's reputation is more important than their rationality. Or perhaps, that reproducing is more important than being rational."- StoryBrain And that's why I advocate replacing humans
I forgot where but had a blog right?
the senior intellectuals of our societies must be disbanded especially philosophers and psychologists.
Nah Kierkegaard...
the profound and deep ideas in this video gave me shivers. "To be free is to live irrationally." Woke AF, as the kids would say
nietsche>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>fyodor.
Hi, my first comment here. I come from Serbia, a country with a very long history of everyone reading Dostoevsky and other "Russian Greats". Do consider his relationship with Orthodox Christianity, it, and personal faith. Especially in his later works it plays an incredible sub-textual and sometimes very clearly textual (Brothers Karamazov) role. Being from a country with a specific history of relations with Russia, and a shared Slavic and Orthodox culture, he is very important shared cultural text in both of them, and he is read generally from a much more Christian angle. Also his irrational tendency plays a role in a certain self perception of eastern European position in history, in relation to western Europe. The fact that the Great Inquisitor is a Catholic who suppresses the second coming of Christ for instance is a clear example. Personally I dislike him exactly for these reasons. That and the style, even in our much better translations, is incredibly repugnant for me. Interesting video, but very clearly one from a culture in which Dostoevsky is not a main stay. :D
It is really interesting to bring Christianity into an understanding of "Notes", where it is explicitly absent - and yet, there is a sense that Dostoevsky's character is so repugnant, so frustrating, that a follow-up argument that his rampant intellectuality should be subsumed by faith really makes a lot of sense (from Dostoevsky's perspective).
you misrepresent the book but good video anyways.)
Love to the channel's content, but whoever are you trying to imitate with this voice please, please stop. It's hard lo listen to. After a while i had to mute and put subtitles
Lol xD
Nah it's fine. I thought his voice was wierd on caspian report but it sounds right here
Maybe is particularly annoying for me since I'm not a native speaker. I cannot explain it. I can make sense of every single words but it is hard to follow a whole sentence. Is is a regional thing I never heard before? It sound just "fake" to me. Do humans speak like that in real life?
It's because he's speaking super slow. The accent is 'standard' received pronunciation English.
It sound like the present state of the far left.
fyodo
Nice to know you’re a centrist... and would happily sit on the fence and say something like ‘both Nazis and socialists are equally as bad’...
Man in the Box yes
Yes
@@armandozavala9133 you think the socialists are as bad as nazis?
@@lucqq3792 Worse.
@@J..P.. with that profile picture I’m not surprised you put that answer, but please get outside, sniff some air and then get back to me when you’re done larping
This work is not the first of existentialism. It's the first work of existentialist FICTION. What Is To Be Done is not an Ayn Randian egoist book. It was a radical egalitarian book. It's rationalism is much closer to Kant. I think you are reading a very Anglophone philosophy into all of this. And also way oversimplifying.
Yes, philosophy is the basic cause of culture. Rand said that man either focuses his mind onto concrete reality or he evades focusing. From that little acorn grows the mighty oak of culture. Of course, its a tough little acorn. I told my Contemporary Continental Philosophy professor that Merleu-Ponty was a philosopher of nightclubs. He said, "Do you really think so?" He didn't pursue it. I was disappointed. The thought of outrageous philosophical humor made me dizzy.
You have ripped your arguments from "The Case against Rational Egoism in Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground" by James P. Scanlan with no reference. Plagiarism is ugly, and now you are uglier for it.
Sources are in the description