The Harder You Try, The Worse It Gets - The Philosophy of Fyodor Dostoevsky

this video is sponsored by blinkist the app that condenses thousands of nonfiction books into 15-minute summaries use the link in the description and receive one free week and 25 off a premium membership theodore dostoevsky is widely regarded as one of the greatest novelists in history his fictional work is so rich with deep insights into human psychology particularly its interplay with various social and political structures of the modern world he is equal parts renowned psychologist and philosopher his work brings into question how well we truly know ourselves what we really want and how we go about considering and attaining these things in the world as well as the consequences of following false delusions and impossible ideals his insights and warnings about humanity both individually and collectively were not only ahead of his time but in many ways they are still arguably unheated warnings immensely relevant to today dostoevsky was born in 1821 in moscow russia to a well-off orthodox christian family his father was a successful doctor and his family lived on the hospital grounds where his father worked while in his teens however his mother died of tuberculosis and while dostoevsky was away at school studying to become an engineer his father died without definitive cause although it was reported and speculated that he was murdered by his own serfs in an act of vengeance against his abusive tendencies young dostoevsky's proximity to the conditions of a hospital his upbringing in a strong faith family and the early deaths of both his parents especially that of the mysterious possible murder of his father likely all culminated into some amount of the early foundation of what would go on to become his unique but tragic voice as a writer after graduating from a military engineering institute dostoevsky would work as an engineer however as a means of engaging in his budding passion for literature and humanities he also began translating books on the side during this time as this passion for literature soon increased further and further he would resign from his engineering career and focus solely on writing himself in 1846 he published his first book titled poor folk right away this work received commercial success and was reviewed favorably by literary critics of the time deemed as russia's first social novel however dostoevsky's subsequent works just following this one would struggle to find any similar level of success and he soon found himself mostly just experimenting and failing as a writer quickly falling into financial distress partly as a consequence of his financial situation in 1847 while in his late twenties dostoevsky became associated with a radical group of writers and intellectuals focused on utopian socialism this however would soon lead him to being arrested when the government went after those associated with these types of groups in 1849 as punishment dostoevsky was sentenced to death by firing squad on december 22nd of the same year he stood facing the barrel of a gun pointed at his head the remainder of his life was now counted in minutes as the officials held their aim and steadied to pull the trigger suddenly at the last moment a message arrived and dostoevsky was pardoned the execution would turn out to be a mock execution used merely as a psychological tactic to instill fear in the prisoners following this dostoevsky was instead sent to siberia where he was forced to wear grueling labor and horrible conditions for four years in 1860 dostoevsky returned from siberia but returned a very different man he would soon begin writing again but now his voice would contain a new tone of pessimism realism and a highly perceptive understanding of the human psyche he was now turned away from utopian ideals of society and instead his focus was now turned inward towards spiritual and psychological explorations over the following 20 years before dying of a lung disorder in 1881 dostoevsky would produce several successful masterpieces many of which are still regarded as some of the most important works of literature to this day including notes from underground crime and punishment the idiot demons and the brothers kara matsoff one of the more prominent themes established in much of dostoevsky's work was his insights on an assessment of human suffering more particularly the means by which and the consequences of humanity trying to overcome and rid itself of suffering especially in relation to a time in which religious and spiritual anchors were cut loose and individuals and societies were left to create and defend their world views through an increasing thrust of rationality and technology toward the ideal of perfect well-being in notes from underground published in 1864 dostoevsky explores and critiques these modern western ideals rationality and technological progress as a means toward perfect happiness and goodness in the novel we follow an unnamed retired civil servant often referred to as the underground man through a series of diary entries the man is deeply angered and unhappy and he possesses a disdain for others and the delusions in which others live he wants to make other people see the truth and acknowledge the same discontent and absurdity he knows and feels in life for dostoevsky suffering is a fundamental tenet of human life it is infused in the blood thus there is no life nor social or material condition for life that can exist without suffering and so for dostoevsky all efforts and accomplishments of progress both individually and collectively can merely change the particular things that we derive our suffering from but cannot eliminate our suffering comprehensively man only likes to count his troubles he doesn't calculate his happiness rotostevsky for dostoevsky since there can never be a social or material structure that rids humanity of unhappiness or suffering any objective of improving the world toward an idealistic utopian version of itself is doomed to fail through the underground man dostoevsky largely critiques and warns about humanity pursuing these sorts of ideals while operating within the increasingly prevalent worldviews of nihilism utopianism rationalism and egoism which essentially culminate into the beliefs that there is no inherent or transcendent meaning to life and that actions and morality should be based on reason and knowledge with self-interest as the driving force dostoevsky argued however that with a void of religious faith and a deeply flawed irrational human nature this worldview would become destructive in the process of resolving suffering toward perfection solutions to old problems will inevitably create new problems in need of new solutions and the more grandiose the solutions the more complex and perhaps destructive the new problems this is not necessarily to say that efforts of social technological or self-improvement are useless or inherently bad but rather they are not capable of attaining what they often set out to accomplish and if not considered within the constraints of the human condition their incessant motion can serve to only fan the flames of problems in notes from underground dostoevsky wrote now i ask you what can be expected of man since he is of being endowed with strange qualities shower upon him every earthly blessing drown him in a sea of happiness so that nothing but bubbles of bliss can be seen on the surface give him economic prosperity such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep eat cakes and busy himself with the continuation of his species and even then out of sheer ingratitude sheer spite man would play you some nasty trick he would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish the most uneconomical absurdity simply to introduce into all this positive good sense his fatal fantastic element it is just as fantastic dreams his vulgar folly that he will desire to retain simply in order to prove to himself as though that were so necessary that men still are men and not the keys of a piano for dostoevsky humanity is irrational and incessantly desires a sense of self-agency not perfect happiness thus even if a perfect life or society in which happiness could be of a formulaic ease to everyone humanity would rather go mad or destroy its perfect conditions than live as if it fit into a mechanical system we think we want happiness but we don't not really we know this every time we could be happy but aren't every time we find something to dwell on or complain about or sabotage our conscious mind appears to tell us that we want happiness and peace with perfect equality but our whole being our behaviors our history show us that we quite often want the opposite we don't know ourselves as well as we think and often when we do we struggle to accept the truth in dostoevsky's subsequent masterpiece crime and punishment published in 1866 he further explores this notion of self-knowledge or the lack thereof the novel centers around a young former law student living in poverty named droughtion ruskonikov raskonikov's mother and sister are sacrificing a great deal to try and help ruskanikov's situation and facilitate his success his sister even setting up to marry a wealthy man in order to help this however all further upsets and shames roskonikov additionally he is deeply affected by a nihilistic rationalistic and atheistic view of the world because of his views without needing to answer to any religious or spiritual principles raskolnikov decides to kill and rob a wicked abusive old pawn broker woman whom he has become aware has a lot of cash he believes that moral decisions ought to be based on what one can determine through reason produces the highest net good on society or the greatest happiness for the largest number of people because of this he believes that he deserves the money more than the old woman as he can do far more good with it he can help his sister and mother and he can become a lawyer and can then go on to do even more good in the world moreover he thinks of himself as an individual of greatness powerfulness and ruthlessness and in his mind extraordinary men are allowed to commit crimes for the common good and so he is able to rationally justify murder and he proceeds to kill the pawn broker and then her half-sister when she walks in during the act throughout the rest of the novel resconiko finds himself tormented and riddled with guilt and horror because of his actions he is not who he thought he was he is not a man of ruthless power he is a tender and feeling man eventually he turns himself into the police in order to essentially avoid going insane through raskonikov's guilt and torment dostoevsky critiques the notion of reason and self-interest as complete methods of determining morality and selfhood raskonikov had every reason to do what he did and yet what he did was wrong and it causes him to feel immense pain and suffering like in notes from underground dostoevsky is again critiquing the views of nihilism utilitarianism rationalism and egoism in which all faith and relevance is placed solely on the individual and all efforts to maximize a life and society are done through self-interest and rationality also like in notes from underground crime and punishment focuses on the complexity of the human mind and how we as the conscious observers and orators of who we think we are are often detached from and inconsistent with who we really are moreover our perception of who others are is often even further removed from the truth dostoevsky not only shows how raskolnikov has a completely inverted false self-perception but he also allows the reader to relate to and empathize with raskonikov a cold-blooded murderer rather than purely showing how a bad character becomes bad dostoevsky shows how a bad character isn't purely bad and is in many ways a lot like us extremely confused and misguided by the conflict of their inner psyche and their misunderstanding of said psyche for us all the complex interplay between our conscious mind unconscious mind and the world outside of ourselves is chaotic muddled contradictory and perhaps impossible to ever truly understand none of us are that far from those we fear or dislike in them is some amount of us and in us is some amount of them we don't know ourselves as well as we think we chase things that we don't want and we often dread what we truly want we are far less rational than we think we exhibit a sort of madness every day in every generation christianity and idealistic philosophy set us up to fail science cannot save us and technology is not a means to escape our problems but merely an efficient transformation of them dostoevsky believed all this to be the case and arguably on at least some level he was right however at the end of crime and punishment raskonikov is in prison serving just an eight-year sentence for doing good deeds the novel ends alluding to the prospect that roskonikov's story will continue suggesting dostoevsky's belief that through suffering faith acceptance compassion and repentance redemption is still possible although dostoevsky's work is largely dark and tragic it also contains a sort of epilogue of redemption in spite of itself at least redemption of a sort in his novel the idiot published in 1869 through the main character prince michigan dostoevsky reflects on some of his own personal experiences and ideals in life in one instance prince mishkin discusses an anecdote about a man recounting having been arrested and sentenced to a mock execution by firing squad mirroring almost exactly dostoevsky's own experience many years prior prince mishkin says he had about five minutes left to live not more he said those five minutes seemed like an endless time to him and enormous wealth he reckoned up the time for bidding his comrades farewell and allotted two minutes to that then allotted two more minutes to thinking about himself for the last time and then to looking around for the last time he was dying at the age of 27 healthy and strong bidding farewell to his comrades he remembered asking one of them a rather irrelevant question and even being very interested in the answer then after he had bidden his comrades farewell the two minutes came that he had allotted to thinking about himself he knew beforehand what he was going to think about he kept wanting to picture to himself as quickly and vividly as possible how it could be like this now he exists and lives and in three minutes there would be something some person or thing but who and where he wanted to resolve it all in those two minutes there was a church nearby and the top of the cathedral with its gilded dome shown in the bright sun he remembered gazing with terrible fixity at that dome in the ray shining from it it seemed to him that those were his new nature and in three minutes he would somehow merge with them the ignorance of and loathing for this new thing that would be and would come presently were terrible yet he said that nothing was more oppressive for him at that moment than the constant thought what if i were not to die what if life were given back to me what infinity and it would all be mine then i'd turn each minute into a whole age i'd lose nothing i'd reckon up every minute separately i'd let nothing be wasted he said that in the end this thought turned into such anger in him that he wished they would hurry up and shoot him in this dostoevsky arguably alludes to the idea that although life is so often tragic purity and perfect goodness is impossible and suffering is fundamental the conscious awareness of being but moments away from losing it all is so overwhelmingly horrible that one would literally rather hurry up and die than steep in the knowledge of just how beautiful everything truly is and that they are just about to lose it all forever whether we agree with dostoevsky or not his deep insights and brilliant works of literature can help remind us and allow us to feel the same beauty and depth in life while there's still time this video was sponsored by blinkist with so much stimulation and distraction in the modern world it certainly seems that at least for many of us it has become more difficult to engage in consistent and extensive reading habits the value of learning from books however has of course not gone down at all the book summary app blinkist helps resolve this problem by bridging the gap between our sensitivity to time and the value of learning from wide ranging collections of books by taking the best non-fiction books pulling out the key takeaways and forming them into 15-minute text and audio summaries blinkist allows you to easily learn from and navigate across various books and authors far more efficiently and comprehensively spend five minutes discovering that you are not interested in a book not three hours learn from 40 books on a subject not just one refresh yourself on topics quickly and easily blinkist provides over 5000 titles in 27 categories as well as summaries of popular podcasts and a wide selection of audiobooks meaning you can easily go straight from summaries to audio books all in the same place if you're interested in philosophy blinkist has fantastic titles like beyond good and evil by friedrich nietzsche i am dynamite by super doe and the story of philosophy by will durant philosopher friedrich nietzsche once said that dostoevsky was the only person who has ever taught me anything about psychology in these titles you can discover how nietzsche as well as other philosophers around dostoevsky's time were influenced by him and dealt with similar topics of suffering religious decay and redemption use the link in the description and you'll receive one free week of unlimited access as well as 25 off a premium membership the free seven-day trial can be cancelled at any time within the trial period and of course as always thank you so much for watching in general and see you next video my own book of my collected works on various philosophers and philosophies titled the art of living a meaningless existence is also out now and you can find the link in the description below as well

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Length: 18min 0sec (1080 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 17 2022