Consequently, these laws of nature have only to be discovered, and man will no longer be responsible for his actions, and it will become extremely easy for him to live his life. Furthermore, you say, science will teach men (although in my opinion a superfluity) that they have not, in fact, and never have had, either will or fancy, and are no more than a sort of piano keyboard or barrel-organ cylinder and that the laws of nature still exist on the earth, so that whatever man does he does not of his own volition but, as really goes without saying, by the laws of nature. You are convinced that then men will of their own accord cease to make mistakes and refuse, in spite of themselves, as it were, to make a difference between their volition and their normal interests. but all the same you are quite sure that he will inevitably acquire the habit, when certain bad old habits have altogether passed away, and common sense and science have completely re-educated and normally direct human nature. You will say that that was in barbarous times, comparatively speaking that even today the times are barbarous because (again speaking comparatively) pins are still being thrust into people and that even now man, although he has learnt to see more clearly than in the days of barbarism, is still far from having grown accustomed to acting as reason and science direct. They say that Cleopatra (excuse my taking an example from Roman history) liked to stick golden pins into the breasts of her slaves, and took pleasure in their screams and writhings. Before, he saw justice in bloodshed and massacred, if he had to, with quiet conscience now, although we consider bloodshed an abomination, we engage in it more than ever. At least, if civilization has not made man more bloodthirsty, it has certainly made him viler in his thirst for blood than he was before. Have you ever noticed that he most refined shedders of blood have been almost always the most highly civilized gentlemen, to whom all the various Attilas and Stenka Razins could not have held a candle? –and if they are not so outstanding as Attila and Stenka Razin, it is because they are too often met with, too ordinary, too familiar. While the book is clearly intended as a deep literary work and, no doubt, people will spend semesters analyzing it, there are some obvious passages of pure brilliance dealing with a deep understanding of the world. Perhaps this, once again, is a law of nature. That is really the essence of all thinking and self-awareness. But how am I, for example, to be sure of myself? Where are the primary causes on which I can take my stand, where are my foundations? Where am I to take them from? I practice thinking, and consequently each of my primary causes pulls along another, even more primary, in its wake, and so on ad infinitum. After all, in order to act, one must be absolutely sure of oneself, no doubts must remain anywhere. How is this to be explained? Like this: in consequence of their limitations they take immediate, but secondary, causes for primary ones, and thus they are more quickly and easily convinced than other people that they have found indisputable grounds for their action, and they are easy in their minds and this, you know, is the main thing. … all spontaneous people, men of action, are active because they are stupid and limited. After all, the direct, immediate, legitimate fruit of heightened consciousness is inertia, that is, the deliberate refusal to do anything. The essence of all thinking and self-awarenessĪnd all out of boredom, gentlemen, all out of boredom I am crushed with tedium. The “fruit“ of his acute consciousness causes “inertia,” a deliberate refusal to do anything, which he believes is more intelligent than uninformed activity.
but perhaps the normal man should be stupid.” Unlike them, he’s never able to remove all doubt and act he’s always questioning things whereas others question little and act easily. This acute sense of consciousness, he believes, sets him above his fellow man. Add in his belief that societal expectations are shaping his actions and you have quite the memoir. In his short 1864 book, Notes From Underground, Fyodor Dostoyevsky tells the story of a man who is “too conscious.” The man, whose name we never learn is so aware of his own thoughts and feelings as to cause him to be indecisive and overly self-critical.
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