Marx was fond of the phrase “Everything that exists deserves to perish.” Creating the shining future of communism meant destruction of the corrupt system of bourgeois capitalism. Like Marx, Friedrich Nietzche thought the western world’s moral system was hopelessly flawed, only he believed it was tainted by the “slave morality” of Christianity. Unlike Marx though, he thought a new race of supermen would be needed to cure the World of the plague of nihilism that would descend upon humanity when the decrepit Christian value systems were finally declared dead. But there was another view. A Russian writer named Fyodor Dostoyevsky warned what might happen if either of these utopian dreams were attempted. He predicted police states, reigns of terror and 100 million corpses... and he did it all in a devilishly dark comedy. Not bad for a guy writing in 1872. What happens when you tear down a system? Will it result in a beautiful dream or a dystopian nightmare?
Marx was fond of the phrase “Everything that exists deserves to perish.” Creating the shining future of communism meant destruction of the corrupt system of bourgeois capitalism. Like Marx, Friedrich Nietzche thought the western world’s moral system was hopelessly flawed, only he believed it was tainted by the “slave morality” of Christianity. Unlike Marx though, he thought a new race of supermen would be needed to cure the World of the plague of nihilism that would descend upon humanity when the decrepit Christian value systems were finally declared dead. But there was another view. A Russian writer named Fyodor Dostoyevsky warned what might happen if either of these utopian dreams were attempted. He predicted police states, reigns of terror and 100 million corpses... and he did it all in a devilishly dark comedy. Not bad for a guy writing in 1872. What happens when you tear down a system? Will it result in a beautiful dream or a dystopian nightmare?
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Imagine for a moment if one day… without warning the sun disappeared. Or how about if it was still visible but through some mysterious reason stopped emitting warmth. For a while everyone would go about their lives as if nothing was awry I imagine. The atmosphere would retain enough heat that there would be no effect at all. Soon though it would feel unseasonably cold. The cold would become worse and worse until the lakes and rivers would freeze.. Then the seas. Eventually the atmosphere itself would no longer exist in its present form. The earth would become a frozen mass hurtling through space. Devoid of life. Frozen in time. Humans would have to make some pretty serious adjustments if they were to survive. They might have to move underground. Maybe use some sort of geothermal heat source. They would have to create artificial light to grow plants to eat. Of course the vast majority of humans would perish but maybe… just maybe some might figure a way to live on. After all… the Earth has a red hot molten interior that will still be red hot and molten when the sun explodes 5 billion years hence. One option that would NOT be open to humans would be to act as if nothing had changed at all… that the same conditions that had allowed life to flourish for over 4 billion years still existed. They would have to admit to the terrible reality of the situation and act decisively. Any other course of action would mean the extinction of all life… permanently.
Although they did not use this metaphor a number of thinkers thought the same type of reality faced humanity in the 19th century. The Judeo Christian ethic was no longer functional for the core of morality. We’ve talked about Marx and other socialists. Socialists of all stripes did little to hide their contempt for organized religion. In the coming socialist state it had to go since it merely enforced the social hierarchies that gave rise to class exploitation. It was a tool of the oppressing classes. Socialist states as a rule were atheistic. No two ways about it. The coming utopia had no use for the value systems of the past. But what does that mean? What would that really mean? Perhaps these value systems are a moral engine. Maybe they are the fuel that runs the engine.. Maybe they are the foundation of the house. If you suddenly removed them what would occur. If a star ceases to fuse hydrogen atoms together to make helium atoms gravity will force everything the star its made of.. Its mass together with catastrophic force. It will collapse and explode in a moment of terrible brilliance. Then its gone.. Just some new elements.. Rocks and gas.. Drifting through interstellar space. There's a word for this condition… nihilism… In order for the new society to take place you have to get rid of the old. You gotta clean house. Well when you are cleaning out a house you have to take out all the old furniture and carpets before you can put in the new ones. For a little while the place will be totally empty. Now its one thing to do that for a house but for a society? For a culture?? Is it even possible? If it was, would it be worth it? This new type of thinking would pervade Western thought in the late 19th century. Some would say it led to the calamities of the 20th century and possibly almost ended the world. Its Nihilism… this time on Savage Continent.
Intro Music 4:57
Welcome back to Savage Continent. I'd like to start of by reminding you that we are on twitter. That's stephen@savagecontinent and also at facebook as well. You can just look up Savage Continent podcast and it will come right up. If you've been following me for awhile I would implore you to just leave a nice review on apple podcast or just click that little 5 star thingy. It only takes a second. It won't hurt. I promise… and it really helps the show grow. I put an immense amount of time and effort into these things and I ask nothing in return so… as Joe Biden would say “C’mon man”
Now this episode is the result of when you are planning on doing one thing and then you get distracted by another thing and you just find it so interesting that you set aside the original thing and well… you get the idea. So I had hoped to get it out sooner but then well here we are…
I’m pretty sure you've heard of Fredrich Neitzche. Individualists… free thinkers… people of all political persuasions have been influenced by him for well over a century. Some have even called him the most influential philosopher of the modern age. Every uttered the phrase “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?” or sing it?? You know the Kelly Clarkson song?
Nietzche famously said “I am dynamite.” I think that's pretty fitting. He throws so many philosophical hand grenades when you read him that you almost get numb to it after awhile
One of Fredrich Nietzsche's most famous works was a story about a madman lamenting the death of God. I think you've heard it. It goes like this
Kaufman, Walter Existentialism Dostoyevsky to Satre p. 126
The madman isn't gleeful or triumphant here. He is a prophet of doom. He sees what other people cannot or will not. Of course he doesn’t mean that God actually croaked. He doesn't believe in God and the people he’s talking to do not either. They are atheists. He’s referring to civilization and its conception of a divine ordering of things. Everything that comes with it. The people watching don't understand what they have lost. Its a disaster that has happened but they don't comprehend its immense gravity. Its a train barreling down the tracks and they are looking in the opposite direction. A storm on the horizon while they sit in the sun.. Think about it this way… To an ancient mind the universe was pregnant with the divine. Every part of creation was a manifestation of gods and goddesses. Every rock, every tree, every animal… the sky, the sun you name it god was there. But you know how this goes… we began to figure out that there were natural explanations for what previously appeared to be supernatural. Thunderstorms were not Zeus hurling lightning bolts. The sun was not the chariot of Apollo. Earthquakes were not Titans in tartarus. Everything gets explained away eventually. But what of these moral precepts? Well they start to fall away as well. Many of the laws we used to see as divine dictates are cast aside when they no longer serve their purpose. Think about it. There are 613 laws in the Hebrew Bible… all technically the word of God.. all equally divine dictates. What are we down to?? 10? Neitzce believes that man does not take God seriously any longer.. Deep down he knows in his heart that God is either not there or is no remote as to be irrelevant. The moral foundation of the world is crumbling. The house is slowly collapsing and if we don't face the facts and come up with a plan disaster will ensue because without a functioning belief system humanity will become morally unhinged and in a wildly dangerous reality he sees as “nihilism”
Kaufman, Walter Existentialism Dostoyevsky to Satre p. 130-2
Now Neitzche is not a fan of nihilism.. He just thinks it will be the logical outcome. It will be the end product of Christianity. Christianity has always been a religion grounded in historical reality. It's an honest search for truth. It wants to explain the world. Each of the stories in the bible were seen as historical realities. Whether it's Jesus walking on water, Noah's Ark, Adam and Eve, The parting of the red sea you name it. Early scientists or natural philosophers were all believers in the Judeo Christian conception of the world. They wanted to prove its validity. But as time moved on that started to change. A lot of the Bible’s claims seemed to be proven false. That put these men in an awkward place. Since they were seekers of the truth they had no choice but to follow the truth… or invent some elaborate way for their findings to adhere to this bronze age document. Things took a turn. Now science was not a friend it was an enemy. The little boy had grown up only to slay the father. It's the end of the life cycle of the Christian god. He describes how the God of the Bible was once vigorous and jealous. He acted decisively. He got things done. Then as time progressed he lost that vigor he grew more detached. Now he is completely enervated. He is a shell of his former self. People who are following him are just going through the motions… putting on a pointless show. Soon no one will believe in anything. There will be no moral foundation for anything. This state is simply untenable. He would write in “The Gay Science”:
“Gradually man has become a fantastic animal that has to fulfill one more condition of existence than any other animal: man has to believe, to know from time to time why he exists; his race cannot flourish without a periodic trust in life.”
Stephen 24:28
Neitzche with his savage irony and sarcasm once suggested that the history of mankind should not be in the garden of eden…. But with pond scum. Ouch!! Shots fired!! What's left? What's to be believed? People are gonna lose it!!This precarious state could even lead to destruction and war.
“For when Truth battles against the lies of millennia there will be shock waves, earthquakes, the transposition of hills and valleys such as the world has never yet imagined even in its dreams. The concept "politics” then becomes entirely absorbed into the realm of spiritual warfare. All the mighty worlds of the ancient order of society are blown into space—for they are all based on lies: there will be wars the like of which have never been seen on earth before. Only after me will there be grand politics on earth.” Ecce Homo
Now many people see that quote as a prediction of the wars of the 20th century? Maybe.. After all.. If the old values are gone something will have to fill the void? How many millions of people died due to sheer ideology?? But that I will get into later. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
So… Marx and Neitzche both see Christianity… and Western religions in general (and just about every institution influenced by them) as ineffectual or even subversive.. Both are convinced that they have to go. But their reasoning is different. While Marx sees religion as a tool to reinforce class structure. A weapon used to subdue the proletariat… Neitzche sees things somewhat differently. He saw it as a weapon that the weak use against the strong. There is this tradition of mercy, kindness, turning the other cheek.. Helping the poor. “God opposes the proud. He gives grace to the humble.” You get the idea. Early Christians were poor. Many were slaves. Their lives were hard. A faith that promised to reward their suffering in the world to come was particularly appealing. A belief system that turned their shameful condition into virtuous life was something they cherished. Well that “slave morality” ended up becoming the world’s dominant faith. In the past great men exercised their power without any moral scruples. That's what great men do. That's what all living creatures do. He calls this the “will to power.” It is the guiding force in life. Christianity stifles it. It punishes the most capable members of society. It turns their genius into haughtiness. Meanwhile the common weak members of society are rewarded for their weakness. Its like natural selection has been turned on its head. Its no surprise that Neitzche, like Marx, took a shine to Darwin. They both saw a teleology… a direction to history. They both saw the current world as entering an untenable state. Marx thought Capitalism would enter a series of crises that would culminate in a world revolution which would be followed by the dictatorship of the proletariat… Socialism.. Then at long last the perfect world of communism. Christianity helped keep the capitalist system afloat. It had to be eradicated by root and branch. Its morals were corrupt and they were to be replaced by new ones. People pointed out the nihilistic tendency in Marxism fairly early on. We’ve already talked about Marx’s “Ruthless criticism of everything that exists” or the mantra “everything that exists deserves to perish.” Marx believes that everything in the current world is false and we will only enter its true state when the system is finally overthrown. Neitzche for his part reasoned that Socialism was a form of nihilism or at least closely related to it since it negates the value of the current world in favor of a better one somewhere in the future.
Later Philosopher Albert Camus would write “Socialism is nihilistic, in the henceforth precise sense that Nietzsche confers on the word. A nihilist is not one who believes in nothing, but one who does not believe in what exists.”
Neitzche sees the coming tide of nihilism as a crisis every bit as serious as Marx’s capitalist implosion. But like Marx he sees a way out.. There is a path to utopia… Humanity will have to rely on a small class of superior beings to show the way. He call this new type of person the “ubermensch” or overman. You see the problem when we enter this new age of nihilism will be that the old values are gone. What humanity needs is a new set of values. One based on strength rather than weakness. He speaks of a “transvaluation of all values” A master morality and not a slave morality. The problem is that most people are not leaders… we all know that. Neitche thinks most people are followers. He uses the term “herd animals” or even “sheep.” Such people are incapable of the task. The overman will have to do the job for them. If you think this sounds a little elitist, megalomaniacal and authoritarian you would be very correct. He has nothing but derision for the weak or “botched.” If they all died tomorrow he’d be totally cool. And yes, whether you are a sheep or a wolf is determined by heredity. Neitzche is the one who coins the term “master race.” One has to be blind to not see how the racial determinism of the Third Reich is right around the corner. The Nazis loved this guy. German soldiers were each given copies of his books to read when they weren’t rampaging across Europe. And it doesn’t stop there.. Oh no. Like other writers of his day… (And yes.. Marx and Engels I’m looking at you) he makes a number of comments on race that would get him cancelled pretty much immediately. He mentions slavery over 300 times in his writings and the vast majority of the times in a positive light.
Stephen 30:35
In Beyond Good and Evil he wrote: “Every enhancement of the type ‘man’ has so far been the work of an aristocratic society – and it will be so again and again – a society that believes in a long scale of orders of rank and differences in value between man and man, and that needs slavery in some sense or other.” In The Gay Science, he significantly mentions “subhumans” as the natural attendants of heroes and supermen. Now much like Marx and Engels he does attribute modern industrial capitalism as a sort of de facto slavery but in terms of real slavery… well he openly criticized Harriet Beecher Stowe. He argued that even if the Greeks were “ruined because they kept slaves, the opposite is more certain, that we will be destroyed by the lack of slavery.”
Nonetheless his followers bend themselves into knots trying to keep his philosophy unblemished and there is a good case that he was gravely misinterpreted by them. For one, although he did have a lot of negative things about the Jews he had nothing but scorn for antisemitism. Another defense is that he also denounced German nationalism…. And there’s more gut we will get into that much later.
So…what will this future overman world look like? What will these values be? He’s vague but he is clear that they will be a heroic age.
Kaufman, Walter Existentialism Dostoyevsky to Satre p. 127
Durant, Will The Story of Philosophy p. 544
The overman projects power. He helps the world but he acts for himself. A leader. Not a sheep. A bird of prey. He takes what he wants. Doesn't care what others think. These are the virtues of a bygone age… Of classical heroes. The original meaning of “virtue” being manly prowess and not just being nice to people less fortunate than you. Think Alexander the Great. Think Julius Caesar, hell… Attila the Hun while your at it. No resantemante as he called it… It's sort of like resentment but its basically when someone did you wrong but you cant get back at them. You just have to eat your pride… no… none of that for overman… not even a little. Cruelty?? Eh..
Durant, Will The Story of Philosophy p. 552
Durant continues…
Durant, Will The Story of Philosophy p. 556
Led by these overman rulers there will be 2 other classes
Durant, Will The Story of Philosophy p. 569-70
So let me be clear.. Like Marx and Engles, Nietzsche attacks the modern state and culture. Western Democracies are built on a rotten foundation. While they see everything as a conspiracy of the powerful against the weak, he sees a conspiracy of the weak against the powerful. Nonetheless both think the system has to be torn down both… for a time at least think that coercion will be necessary to bring on the better world. All are radicals. Neitzche believes an aristocracy should be a permanent condition of mankind, Marx… at least from a Leninist interpretation believes a sort of aristocracy must exist during the Socialist part of the Revolution. When the state finally falls away.. Well it's vague what will exist at that point. One can argue that the Soviet state at least was every bit as aristocratic as any society Europe had seen to that point.
Stephen 42:21
So there you have it. Two assaults on the morality of the world and they seem to come from opposite sides. Both want the system torn down. Both believe the world has a serious flaw… Both offer a vision of a world that at its core has a new morality. Many scholars think that Neitzche was casting his net much wider than just Christianity… any belief that took you out of this world and into some future or metaphysical realm were his targets. These were all gods that had died. Sooner or later no one is coming to the door no matter how much we knock. Its starting to smell funny. If we can just reinvent ourselves. Train our very souls anew… maybe we could be supermen. Who knows? These are both erudite and profound writers. Both had an enormous impact on the world that resonates to this very day. Intellectually, they are both bomb throwers.. Arsonists even. One needs to read them both to understand anything about the events of the 20th century and even today.
But there’s another view… Maybe the system is somewhat broken but maybe that brokenness is just a part of our human nature and we should just deal with it. True Christianity may be in decline. It may even be fatally flawed. But what would happen if you just tossed it aside? Would the brave new world be a utopian dream come true or would it be a nightmarish hellscape that even Heironymous Boch couldn't have dreamed up? Be careful what you wish for.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky was a contemporary of both Nietzsche and Marx… In fact these guys read and commented on each other's work. Not only that but early in his life he became attracted to revolutionary politics. He was very familiar with the work of Marx and early on he was in agreement with his assessment of Capitalism. Nonetheless, in 1849 he was arrested due to his involvement in a revolutionary group known as the Petrashevsky circle. He was held in St. Petersburg’s St Peter and Paul fortress. He and the other members of the circle are sentenced to death. The story of his execution is pretty epic. You hear about a certain event that changes the trajectory of a person's life… well this is it right here folks. The real thing.
Picture this… December 22nd at dawn. It's 20 degrees below zero. 20 young men are led onto a platform. Two lines of 10. Dostoyevsky is 6th in the 2nd line. The sheriff goes down the line. One by one “condemned to death. Condemned to death. Condemned to death.” 20 minutes went by. Below the platform there are 20 coffins waiting covered in black cloth. They are stripped down to their shirtsleeves. He looks up and sees the sun reflecting through the clouds and off the dome of the church. He writes of this moment in 3rd person in his later work The Idiot :
“ He remembered staring stubbornly at this spire, and at the rays of light sparkling from it. He could not tear his eyes from these rays of light; he got the idea that these rays were his new nature, and that in three minutes he would become one of them, amalgamated somehow with them.
"The repugnance to what must ensue almost immediately, and the uncertainty, were dreadful, he said; but worst of all was the idea, 'What should I do if I were not to die now? What if I were to return to life again? What an eternity of days, and all mine! How I should grudge and count up every minute of it, so as to waste not a single instant!' He said that this thought weighed so upon him and became such a terrible burden upon his brain that he could not bear it, and wished they would shoot him quickly and have done with it."
The firing squad raise their rifles they cock them.. And then at that very moment a rider gallops onto the scene…. Through the mercy of the Czar they would not be shot.
Apparently the episode petrified him so much that he developed epilepsy. And he had that for the rest of his life.
He was sentenced to 4 years of prison in Siberia. On christmas eve he is packed off on a sleigh. 3 weeks later he’s there. He describes being permanently chained. Packed in “like herrings in a barrel.” Fleas and lice all the time. 40 degrees below zero. As bad as it gets… But its here that Dostoyevsky will meet so many of the characters that will populate his novels. Among the murderers, rapists and thieves he meets fellow revolutionaries.. The czar has little patience for these types so this was typically their lot. All the figures of the later Russian Revolution spent time in Siberia. And I mean all of them. Often the experience would only radicalize them. For Dostoyevsky the opposite would be the case. He develops a deep animosity towards the revolutionaries of his time. He develops an appreciation of evil. He comes to the conclusion that men.. If given the right conditions can become “more cruel or bloodthirsty than any beast.” Now at the time there is a growing movement in Russia called Nihilism. Yeah… these guys are willing to go by the term and they overlap with Socialism. They are way out on the political left and want to overthrow the government. During the 1850’s and 60s they will proliferate. Eventually one of them will murder the Czar but I dont want to get ahead of the story here. The actual nihilists with a capital “N” start during the era of European revolutions. People before then sort of threw around the word but it wasn't common. 1848 was a big year though. Revolutions everywhere. Russian intellectuals tend to take their cues from Germany which is a hotbed of revolution.. For a little bit at least. A lot of people decide it's time for a change in Russia. Lots of material comes out… especially after Nicholas I dies in 1855 and is replaced by the more progressive Alexander II. A writer by the name of Ivan Tergenev publishes a book entitled “Fathers and Sons” in 1862. In the book there is a character named Bazarov who calls himself a nihilist. People are puzzled. “What do you believe in nothing? What's the point of that?” He defends himself by saying that he and people like him are there to change Russia and no values will hold him or people like him back.
“A nihilist is a man who does not bow down before any authority, who does not take any principle on faith, whatever reverence that principle may be enshrined in.”
The book makes a big splash and there's this sort of counter culture in Russia that develops. A lot of the younger generation find themselves explaining to the older generation what they are about. Conservatives hate it. Some of these guys want free love, others want an end to the redemption payments serfs had to make. Lots of atheists. That sort of thing. They question everything. Well as time goes on these people get more radical. They want to overthrow the system. They start taking a shine to these new communist and anarchist ideas that are floating around.
Here's a famous line from a famous Nihilist named Sergey Nechev from a work entitled Catechism of a revolutionary. It was designed to be a manifesto for these secret societies popping up all over Russia. He wants to take Nihilism from being sort of an avant garde progressive idea to a straight up take no prisoners burn down the house sort of deal. Totally hard core. A number of important political figures are assassinated. Its no joke. Here’s a quote from Catechism:
“The revolutionary is a doomed man. He has no private interests, no affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own. His entire being is devoured by one purpose, one thought, one passion - the revolution. Heart and soul, not merely by word but by deed, he has severed every link with the social order and with the entire civilized world; with the laws, good manners, conventions, and morality of that world. He is its merciless enemy and continues to inhabit it with only one purpose - to destroy it.”
Stephen 54:44
We have this idea of creative destruction. One must not only disrupt the current social system. One must atomize it.
Arguably the most influential Anarchist of all time Mikhail Bakunin would write “The passion for destruction is a creative one.”
Any crime or treachery done to help this along is perfectly warranted.. Even encouraged. So that nihilism that Neitzche views with a certain level of apprehension??? These guys are like bring it on!! It's just so dark. But then there is sort of like a grim fascination with it. This is Freud’s death drive in its most distilled form. The influence of this movement will be way more important than you think… Way more..
Another nihilist writer named Nikolai Chernechevsky writes a novel entitled “What is to be done” in 1863. If “Fathers and sons” was a 10 gallon drum of home heating oil this is a truck load of rocket fuel. Its called a “handbook of radicalism” and led to the founding of several revolutionary organizations including the Land and Liberty Society which sought to create a mass peasant rebellion, murder of goverment officials, redistribution of land… you name it these guys were off the chain. It will split up in 1879 and a member of one of the two successor groups… wouldn't you know it… assassinates Czar Alexander II in 1881. More importantly a fellow by the name of Vladmir Ulyanov (you will know hims as Lenin) gets his hands on the book… reads it 5 times one summer. Later on he will write his own political manifesto… and surprise surprise he names it “What is to Be Done.” He would reflect later on that it was this book that would turn him on to the ideas of marx and it was a much greater influence than anything the Great old Man ever wrote. So yeah…. No Nihilism. No Chernyshevsky. No Lenin… you can fill in the blanks from here.
Dostoyevsky sees this Nihilism and decides he wants to take it on. At first he wants to denounce it with a series of articles but nah… gotta be a better way. And oh I love his response. He writes a novel. But he makes it a sort of Dark Comedy entitled “Demons” or “Devils” or its sometimes called the possessed. Now this why do good people commit evil acts is a reoccuring theme in his work. Dostoevsky thinks that people will just get into trouble. Even if you give them a perfect world the will screw it up out of sheer boredom. There’s this passage in Notes From the Underground… like awesome book btw its available in Audiobook form and let me tell you the narrator sounds does the best crotchety old man impression ever. Its a silique where he is mulling bitterly over everything that comes to mind.
Ok… sorry for the digression. I love Existential philosophers and Dostoyevsky is just about my favorite. Back to Demons.
The novel opens with that story in the Bible where Jesus confronts a demon possessed man.. Like really possessed. So many that they call themselves “legion.. For we are many.” Jesus casts out the demons and they end up going into pigs. The pigs end up all jumping off a cliff and drowning themselves. You know that one right? Classic. Anyways, in this novel group of revolutionaries take over a town. All sorts of madcap hyjinx ensue… murders, arson rape… but they are all half bumbling idiots… half meglomaniacal psychopaths. Interspersed within the narrative are these little speeches where the characters sort of plan out the coming revolution. You know… how they will do it.. What the goal will be… what lengths they are willing to go to. There is this one scene where there is a meeting. The chapter is called the meeting. Its a back and forth dialogue.. I wont trouble you with the background of the characters.. Its not really important to our purpose. Some are more radical than others but they all share the same goal.
“He suggests as a final solution of the question the division of mankind into two unequal parts. One-tenth enjoys absolute liberty and unbounded power over the other nine-tenths. The others have to give up all individuality and become, so to speak, a herd, and, through boundless submission, will by a series of regenerations attain primæval innocence, something like the Garden of Eden. They’ll have to work, however. The measures proposed by the author for depriving nine-tenths of mankind of their freedom and transforming them into a herd through the education of whole generations are very remarkable, founded on the facts of nature and highly logical.”
“For my part,” said Lyamshin, “if I didn’t know what to do with nine-tenths of mankind, I’d take them and blow them up into the air instead of putting them in paradise. I’d only leave a handful of educated people, who would live happily ever afterwards on scientific principles.”
“It is suggested to us in various pamphlets made abroad and secretly distributed that we should unite and form groups with the sole object of bringing about universal destruction. It’s urged that, however much you tinker with the world, you can’t make a good job of it, but that by cutting off a hundred million heads and so lightening one’s burden, one can jump over the ditch more safely.
They shout ‘a hundred million heads’; that may be only a metaphor; but why be afraid of it if, with the slow day-dream on paper, despotism in the course of some hundred years will devour not a hundred but five hundred million heads? Take note too that an incurable invalid will not be cured whatever prescriptions are written for him on paper. On the contrary, if there is delay, he will grow so corrupt that he will infect us too and contaminate all the fresh forces which one might still reckon upon now, so that we shall all at last come to grief together. I thoroughly agree that it’s extremely agreeable to chatter liberally and eloquently, but action is a little trying.… However, I am no hand at talking; I came here with communications, and so I beg all the honorable company not to vote, but simply and directly to state which you prefer: walking at a snail’s pace in the marsh, or putting on full steam to get across it?”
“He’s written a good thing in that manuscript,” Verhovensky went on. “He suggests a system of spying. Every member of the society spies on the others, and it’s his duty to inform against them. Every one belongs to all and all to every one. All are slaves and equal in their slavery. In extreme cases he advocates slander and murder, but the great thing about it is equality. To begin with, the level of education, science, and talents is lowered. A high level of education and science is only possible for great intellects, and they are not wanted. The great intellects have always seized the power and been despots. Great intellects cannot help being despots and they’ve always done more harm than good. They will be banished or put to death. Cicero will have his tongue cut out, Copernicus will have his eyes put out, Shakespeare will be stoned—that’s Shigalovism. Slaves are bound to be equal. There has never been either freedom or equality without despotism, but in the herd there is bound to be equality.”
This goes on and on..
A common refrain from the book… and if there was one sentence Dostoyevsky would want you to come away with it would be “Without God all things are permitted.”
Stephen 1:09:25
Dostoyevsky wrote this in 1872… 1872!!! I mean.. Thats the Russian Revolution.. Thats Lenin… Thats Stalin. This guy has it pinned 50 years ahead of time!! And you can throw in Mao, Pol Pot and whoever else you like. Dostoyevsky sees everything degenerating into a hellscape of grandiose proportions. Not only that but by his death he was huge. People read this. Neitzche was scarcely read in his lifetime. A lot of his books barely sold a hundred copies. Marx gets a little traction but the First International breaks up in 1876 and he dies in 1883. Its not until the 1890’s that Socialism starts to take off in a big way. When Dostoesky dies he has the largest non royal funeral in Russian history. 100,000 people attended. Now don't get me wrong. He was no perfect man. He had his own demons to contend with. He had a legendary gambling problem and I mean legendary. Despite being one of the best known and loved writers in Europe he at times was so broke that his wife was pawning her underwear to keep them afloat. Yikes..
Well who knows… maybe a guy like Dostoyevsky was chasing windmills… fighting the tide. Nothing he wrote could stop what was coming in Russia. Of course his books were banned in the Soviet Union. Just having a copy could land you in the gulag. The Soviet state would forcibly impose a Nitzchean type of Nihilism. They felt the old values were slowly dying so hell… they just thought they were helping the sick elderly patient dr Kavorkian style. Churches were closed.. Priests murdered or exiled. Anything having to do with Old Russia was cast into the waters of oblivion. They filled this vacuum with an ideology every bit as mystical as anything the orthodox church could have dreamed up. Icons of the czars and saints were replaced with those of general secretaries.
But friends… we are getting way ahead of ourselves here. I promise we will hit that up in a future episode.
So.. Nihilism. Erasing a value system to replace it with a new one. Is it possible? Are we in a nihilistic culture even now? Its something to wrap your mind around isnt it. William James… often considered a founding father of modern psychology wrote:
“The fact that we can die, that we can be ill at all, is perhaps what perplexes us; the fact that we now for a moment live and are well is irrelevant to that perplexity. We need a life not correlated with death, a health not liable to illness, a kind of good that will not perish, a good in fact that flies beyond the goods of nature.”
Nihilism is something we all must grapple with. It's impossible not to. Anyone who tells you they never have is just straight up lying. We live in a modern world with endless distractions… we keeps ourselves always in the moment but there’s always moments when we think “does anything really matter?”
Neitzche once wrote “When you stare into the abyss. They Abyss stares into you,” and Gustave Flaubert wrote “The more you approach infinity the deeper you penetrate terror.”
The idea of eternity is a concept that blows my mind. When I was 2 apparently i cried and rolled on the ground when I was told there is no back wall to space. I find when I think about things like that the nihilism creeps in and I just try to distract myself with something else. Maybe thats why people who find themselves isolated for too long end up falling prey to mental illness. But anyways… I’m drifting here.
Thanks for sticking with me today. Next episode we will get back into the history of the era. As you can gather these were turbulent times. No ideas form in a vacuum
Outro Music 1:16:58