this after school presentation was written and recorded by internalized
the one essential condition of human existence is that man should always be able to bow down before
something infinitely great if men are deprived of the infinitely great they will not go on living
and will die of despair the 19th century Russian novelist fyodo Dostoyevsky is considered as one
of the greatest writers in the world his work explores existential and psychological issues
with theology this interplay between the human and the Divine allows us to get to the depth of
the human condition it is a testament to his genius that his work is still widely read and
discussed today for it expresses fundamental and Timeless concerns of the human being
Dostoevsky had studied engineering but his passion for literature made him resign from the career
he was trained for and devoted himself to writing despite remaining in great financial difficulty he
became part of a group of revolutionaries and was eventually arrested finding himself incarcerated
and in solitary confinement this was however the true beginning of his inner life from the deepest
Darkness he found the light with which he later wrote his greatest works he was led to be shot
by a firing squad but at the very last minute a messenger arrived waving a white flag it had been
a mock execution a twisted form of psychological torture afterwards he was sensory prison labor
camp in Siberia in extremely harsh conditions in his book The Idiot Dostoyevsky sets himself to
depict a good soul in a cruel world and describes the thoughts of a person before execution
mirroring his own experience it seemed that he had only five more minutes to live and said that those
minutes were like an eternity he calculated the exact time he needed to take leave of his
companions and decided that he could do that in two minutes then he spent another two minutes
thinking over his life and another minute for a last look around there was a church not far off
its gilded Spire shown in the bright Sunshine he remembered staring with awful intensity
at it and the Rays of light sparkling from it he could not tear his eyes from those rays of
light they seemed to him to be his new nature and he felt he had somehow merged with them
feeling of disgust with what must ensue almost immediately and the uncertainty were Dreadful but
he said that the thing that was most horrible to him was the constant thought what if I had not to
die what if I were to return to life again oh what an eternity of days and all mine I should count
every minute separately and waste none he said that this reflection finally filled him with such
bitterness that he wished to be shot as quickly as possible to understand dostoyevsky's works we
should know that he wrote in a time of increasing atheism nihilism utilitarianism materialism and
what would later become communism man's ego became the center of the world and the goal was the
maximization of Happiness through a calculated and rational approach moreover technological
progress would guide man to attain a Utopia and finally be happy however the exact opposite
happened these ideas were partly the result of the Bloodshed of the 20th century the totalitarian
States took over people's freedom and Justified murdering all dissenters in the name of progress
man is a strange animal he wants to be happy but ends up being miserable he likes to count his
troubles but does not count his happiness happiness cannot be pursued it must ensue
seeking happiness solely through money material acquisition power or fame only gives us a
temporary sense of Happiness after covering our basic needs we must proceed to the task of
self-realization and self-transcendence or else we will feel stagnated and empty there's no satiation
point for a spiritual longing by physical means by losing touch with our soul the essence of our
being and to our spiritual relationship with a higher self we become neurotic and split in crime
and punishment Dostoyevsky portrays the results of this inner split through the character raskolnikov
whose name literally means split or Schism Dostoyevsky uses this character as a mouthpiece
for the ideals espoused by the Society of his time for raskolnikov God is dead and in order
to fill the void he must become God himself one cannot help but to notice the similarities between
resconikov and Nietzsche's tragic Declaration of the death of God a historical event that
inevitably would lead to nihilism and God had to be replaced by the man God or ubermench who would
conquer nihilism through sheer willpower whereas kolikov writes a paper on how extraordinary men
can trespass the accepted moral standards for the common good with a clean conscience while
ordinary men blindly follow societal norms and conventions like sheep raskolnikov sees
an opportunity to put his ideals into practice after overhearing people talk in a Tavern about
a wicked and greedy old woman who works as a pawn broker and takes advantage of everyone he decides
to murder her because in the utilitarian approach society would be better off without her as she is
a Laos and her money could be used to help his family and to pay for his studies in order to
become a lawyer and perform Good Deeds for society raskolnikov carefully plans the murder and kills
her with an ax but while looking for her money and goods her half-sister unexpectedly walks
in so he quickly kills her too here Dostoyevsky brilliantly portrays the psychology of a murderer
raskolikov as planned kills the wicked old woman but also a totally innocent human being who was in
the wrong place at the wrong time at the very moment of committing the murder prescholikov
also killed a part of himself he was not the extraordinary man he believed himself to be
instead he is tormented by his own conscience and his Guild overwhelms him to the point of
psychosomatic illness the book does not so much explore the legal consequences of crime but
rather what happens to a person after trespassing the moral boundary in fact the original Russian
title of the book cannotes a stepping across as is the religious implication of transgression
sometimes one lacks knowledge and thus cannot make the right choices other times however one knows
the right thing but still doesn't make the right choices this is an age-old problem and as the
result of a conflict between intellect and will what we know and what we choose it is likely that
we have all experienced something that appeared to be good but was in fact bad therefore we must
learn to use the intellect as a basis for making good choices and to discipline our will we want
to be healthy but are unhealthy we are addicted to something destructive but cannot get ourselves out
of it we believe in love but rarely express it to others Etc this cognitive dissonance further
results in an inner split raskolnikov knows what he did was wicked but does his best to avoid the
consequences of his crime which results in him slowly descending into madness suggesting that
if we find ourselves in such a situation it is better to confess and face whatever one has to
face eventually raskolnikov confesses to his crimes and is sent to prison interestingly this
is when he goes through a spiritual journey the only way he can deal with his mental anguish and
be redeemed but it is not clear that he ultimately attains spiritual freedom for his ego is still at
play and considers what he did not as a sin but simply an error the word religion comes from
religare which literally means to put things back together again in order to reunite our
fragmented inner self we must undergo a complete transformation of our entire being which can only
be attained with a relationship to a higher self with God this is the job of the religious life
paradoxically we can only become ourselves by surrendering to a higher self ecstasy is
to stand outside oneself without ceasing to be oneself after his serious illness Ras konikov
has a dream of a virus that causes its victims to think that they are the sole possessors of
Truth there is no objectivity everything becomes subjective however this does not lead to Freedom
instead people try to impose their views on others and no one gets along so they tear themselves
apart without religion to provide an objective view of morality and rival authoritarianism it
is the strongest who finally impose their view on everyone without God everything is permitted
this is an allegory of the dangerous ideas that Dostoevsky witnessed in his time that
caused millions of deaths which he brilliantly prophesized a note from underground Dostoyevsky
portrays one of the darkest and least sympathetic of all his characters the nameless protagonist
simply known as the underground man and though it is a fictitious character Dostoyevsky states that
he not only may but must exist as a product of the ideologies of his time the underground man is a
bitter spiteful and self-hating retired 40 year old civil servant who was rude and intimidating
towards his customers though it was all part of a game as he admits he could never be genuinely
Wicked he describes listening to others through the cracks under the floor as if he were a mouse
his inability to interact with other people causes his attempts to form relationships and participate
in life to end in disaster driving him deeper underground until he is completely locked away
from the world the underground man distracts himself by reading novels but is disappointed
by the real world representing his profound alienation from society I am a sick man I am a
spiteful man I am an unattractive man I believe my liver is deceased no I refuse to consult
a doctor from spite that you probably will not understand my liver is bad well let it get worse
these are the words of the underground man which introduces us to his psychological distress right
from the beginning he is unable to properly Define himself and constantly revises what he says as
he's nothing more than a chaos of conflicting emotional impulses just like raskolnikov he
experiences an inner split the underground man is very envious of the so-called man of action
for whom ignorance is bliss and simply goes about his day living without ruminating too
much in life but the underground man finds solos in his intellectual superiority nevertheless he is
constantly Paralyzed by his thoughts and cannot Act he is a man of acute Consciousness stuck in
his own reflective hyper-consciousness thinking too much is a disease and since he cannot choose
he is characterless and has no identity he writes I did not know how to become anything
neither spiteful nor kind neither Rascal nor an honest man neither a hero nor an insect
out of pure boredom the underground man has given birth to his self-created hell out of
his own internal ruminations which led him to write his notes man is by no means a rational
animal but innately irrational and destructive and it is not reason that saves him from his impulses
and desires but rather Faith the underground man says that the best definition of man is
the ungrateful biped he would sacrifice all his advantages just to choose for himself even if
it were happiness wealth health or Security in order to preserve his individuality shower upon
man every Earthly blessing crown 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 a continuation of his species and even out
of share in gratitude sheer spite man would play you some nasty trick 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
life is not a mathematical formula or problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced if
we could access the perfect formula for happiness so that everything would be so clearly calculated
and explained that choices would cease to exist we would act against reason in order to
prove our free will this is how deep craving for self-expression men love to create and build but
also loves chaos and destruction Perhaps it is because he is instinctively afraid of attaining
his goal and only loves looking at it from a distance he loves building it but does not want to
live in it we will never renounce to destruction nor suffering thinking about a world without
suffering will only sink us further into suffering for happiness cannot exist without suffering it is
our capacity to endure suffering that makes us truly great for years the underground man would
desire revenge over any small injury and remember it down to the smallest details and every time
would add even more details teasing and tormenting himself with his own imagination he admits that
he invents Adventures for himself for he really has nothing else to do with his life many times
he even takes offense simply on purpose though he knows that he's offended at nothing but convinces
himself at last to the point of being really offended he continuously lies to himself so
that he cannot even distinguish it from truth and loses all respect for himself and others
and having no respect he ceases to love in the end he destroys and betrays himself for nothing
nothing in the world is harder than speaking the truth and nothing easier than flattery
the underground man ends his notes by stating as far as I myself am concerned I have merely
carried to an extreme in my life what you have not dared to carry even halfway and what's more
you have taken your cowardice for Good Sense and found comfort in thus deceiving yourselves so
that perhaps after all a small life in me than in you it is interesting that Dostoyevsky though an
Orthodox Christian usually has his main characters espousing the opposite of his own views of life
he does not criticize his opponents but gives strong and reasonable Arguments for them to the
point that we can even relate to them and develop sympathy with them rather than telling us what to
do Dostoyevsky pains the psychological hell that we sometimes send ourselves into his work allows
us to explore ourselves through the characters portrayed where we may see a reflection of our
own life experiences we learn from Dostoyevsky that we should always put our own existential
condition first and not the ideas others tell us to believe in to adjust our life views as we
ourselves experience life to be aware of Utopias that seduce us and leads us astray to see Life as
a polarity and suffering as a necessary compliment to happiness and to focus on what truly matters in
in the end our relationship with our deepest self and God without which there's no salvation at all
I hope you found this collaboration valuable if you're interested in
learning more about the works of Dostoyevsky and other prominent thinkers head over to my channel
eternalized thank you for watching foreign
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