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Dostoevsky s Revolutionary Hero The fictional author of Dostoevsky s Notes From Underground claims that he has all the traits of the anti-hero. He torments others out of spite; he is weak, petty, and spineless. His intelligence and self-proclaimed disease of hyper consciousness have made him nihilistic; he is unable to believe in himself and has reasoned himself into inaction. Peterson states that nihilism is one logical evil consequence of heightened self-consciousness. This character had done what Buddha wanted to when he first faced the tragic awareness of mortality, and could no longer enjoy life s pleasures, that is to withdraw himself from the world, suffer and do nothing. This character has retired to his underground, where he avoids reality and fantasizes about a life, all the while unable to do anything productive for himself.
He describes himself as a hyper conscious mouse that has reasoned past his motivations and can no longer believe in his own actions. Embittered by inaction, the mouse then creates around itself a fatal brew, a stinking mess of doubts and unsettled questions. Then filled with half despair, half belief, he consciously buried himself alive for grief in the underworld for forty years, in hyper consciousness and doubtful hopelessness, in the hell of his unsatisfied desires. With time, the self-generated swamp grows increasingly impenetrable as the consequences of long-term avoidance propagate.
This man does seem to embody all things unheroic. But I would argue that parts of the revolutionary hero could also be seen in this character. Peterson, in his epic book entitled Maps of Meaning, explains that voluntary movement toward the good would mean reintegration of cast-off material, voluntary incorporation of what is indigestible (pg. 332). I think this is hat Dostoevsky s character is attempting to do in the second half of this novel.
He has decided to confront the memories that he was afraid of, and do so with complete honesty. In writing down the past events, which he has always avoided with certain uneasiness, he thinks perhaps that he can get some relief. He believes that his hyper consciousness is a disease, because a nihilistic attitude has stopped him from feeling like he can be anything, neither spiteful nor good, neither scoundrel nor noble, neither hero nor an insect (pg. xv). At one point he fantasizes about being a normal man, for example a loafer. He imagines that if he were simply lazy, he could live at ease and die triumphantly, demanding respect all along the way, persecuting anyone who did not show him respect, and people would recognize that he was good.
But this he cannot do. As Peterson states, men are inclined to laziness to hide behind their customs and opinions, to avoid upsetting their neighbour, who insists on convention and veils himself with it. Laziness is choosing to be like everyone else. It is hard to not follow the well-beaten path, which seems safe and secure and guarantees group identification and protection.
Our hero is too conscious to choose the well-beaten path, the protective enclave of the group. His hyper consciousness has led him to an intensely developed individuality, which involves his separation, loneliness and isolation. Peterson says that the true individual stands outside the protective enclave of acceptance, unredeemed- the personification of weakness, inferiority, vengefulness, cowardice, and difference. This man, weak, ignorant, vulnerable is a true individual, truly existing, truly experiencing, truly suffering. This is an adept description of our hero. It may be that he grasps his trueness.
At the end of the novel, he states that he has taken to extreme what others have not dared take halfway, and that they have taken their cowardice for good sense and have found comfort in deceiving themselves. So, our revolutionary hero, who appears to have nihilistic ally and evilly withdrawn from the world, to live forty years in his self-generated hell, has voluntarily exposed himself to chaos. Peterson states that those that undergo a second initiation suffer more deeply and profoundly than their peers, they are in Jung s phrase the most complex and differentiated minds of their age (pg. 273). Dostoevsky s character indeed suffers in his individuality. (He has even learned to find enjoyment in his suffering. ) In writing his notes from underground, he is sharing what he has learned through experiencing suffering in the underworld. He is surfacing with great insights into human nature and the progress of society. In this way he completes his role as revolutionary hero.
What insights has he gained by observing himself and others from his underworld? He has certainly understood the tragedy of consciousness. As stated previously, he sees hyper consciousness as a disease. This lesson, that awareness of man s vulnerability poisons existence, is also at the heart of the Christian myth of the fall of man and the story of Buddha. He also says that sometimes man is passionately, fearfully in love with suffering. Man will never renounce real suffering, because suffering is the sole origin of consciousness.
So although consciousness is our greatest misfortune, we will never give it up, never give up suffering for it. This is like the story of Brahmin, who realizes that ignorance is bliss, but not a bliss he desires. Our hero says that although he envies normal man, he would not choose to be in his place. The questing spirit undermines his own stability, but will not give up that destabilizing capacity for return to the unconscious source. Our hero also notices that man is a creative force, destined to strive towards a goal, but who often leads himself astray, toward destruction and chaos. In asking why does man love destruction and chaos, he speculates that maybe man is just instinctively afraid of attaining his goal.
Perhaps the only goal on earth to which mankind is striving lies in this incessant process of attaining. Perhaps the author has implicitly captured man s need to identify with the process of exploring, attaining, and adapting. Man likes attaining, he states, but does not quite like to have attained. Here the author has captured what Goethe was getting at in his novel Faust, that man is forever striving, forever erring, and will never be completely satisfied. The future always looks more ideal, and the present remains eternally unbearable. Because we are designed to explore, we can never reach our ever-receding goals.
We are forever unsettled, unhappy, unsatisfied, terrified, hopeful and awake. To stop striving, to feel satisfied in our achievement, that would be to stop identifying with the exploratory hero. The author claims that 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 to justify his logic. Saying this he refers to the theory that science and rationality will be able to calculate all of man s actions and advantages, at which time man will use only reason, to act in his own advantage.
He is afraid of this possibility but also incredulous that it could occur. Perhaps he is afraid because he implicitly knows that to identify solely with reason, saying I know (or can know) all there s to know is to no longer identify with the exploratory hero, but to identify with Lucifer, the spirit of arrogant rationality. In his pride, man would end up presuming omniscience, which would lead to certain fall. Perhaps the author knows that presuming omniscience unconsciously underlies totalitarianism (that and a genuine cowardice regarding the unpredictable. ) He is also incredulous of the totalitarian Utopia that would ensue. He understands that even if you give man Utopia, man will inevitably do something nasty to stir things up.
He recognizes that man sometimes loves destruction and chaos; perhaps he is conscious that in order for man to thrive, he needs these forces in dynamic interplay, in balance. The sheer boredom of Utopia would cause man to stir up trouble. The author realized this as a child when he would cut capers and suffer the consequences just to avoid twiddling his thumbs. Looking back at history, our hero notices that in the course of the development of reason, man has become no less bloodthirsty. He points out that the most subtlest slaughterers have almost always been the most civilized gentlemen.
Our author also doubts that man can reach the Utopia where reason governs peacefully, because man will consciously act against his own advantage, just to remember that he can, to remind himself that he is a man and not a piano key. Because man has an advantage that is more valued than reason, and this is independent choice. He needs to preserve his most precious personal individuality. This man had suffered in his individuality, but these two things, suffering and individuality, have forced him to expose himself to chaos, where he learned valuable insights into man that he could share.
Although the demeanor of Dostoevsky s underground character strikes one as loathsome, he seems to truly be an exemplar of the vital revolutionary hero. Bibliography: Dostoevsky: Notes from Underground Peterson, J. B. : Maps of Meaning; The Architecture of Belief
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