Posted on 01/03/2021 4:27:31 AM PST by karpov
...
People do not live by bread—or, what philosophers called the maximalization of “advantage”—alone. All utopian ideologies presuppose that human nature is fundamentally good and simple: evil and apparent complexity result from a corrupt social order. Eliminate want and you eliminate crime. For many intellectuals, science itself had proven these contentions and indicated the way to the best of all possible worlds. Dostoevsky rejected all these ideas as pernicious nonsense. “It is clear and intelligible to the point of obviousness,” he wrote in a review of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, “that evil lies deeper in human beings than our social-physicians suppose; that no social structure will eliminate evil; that the human soul will remain as it always has been . . . and, finally, that the laws of the human soul are still so little known, so obscure to science, so undefined, and so mysterious, that there are not and cannot be either physicians or final judges” except God Himself.
Dostoevsky’s characters astonish by their complexity. Their unpredictable but believable behavior reminds us of experiences beyond the reach of “scientific” theories. We appreciate that people, far from maximizing their own advantage, sometimes deliberately make victims of themselves in order, for example, to feel morally superior. In The Brothers Karamazov (1880), Father Zosima observes that it can be very pleasant to take offense, and Fyodor Pavlovich replies that it can even be positively distinguished.
(Excerpt) Read more at newcriterion.com ...
T post
(It’s been a while. Thanks for the refresher and thanks to Gary Saul Morson)
AFast look. Ingest/digest more at breakfast BUMP!
“The laws of the human soul are still so little known, so obscure to science, so undefined, and so mysterious, that there are not and cannot be either physicians or final judges” except God Himself.”
Dostoevsky
Word.
Excellent post.
And very accurate.
Thanks to all who add to it’s content.
Respects
Thank you. I purchased the book at the link. They already skyrocketed in price on Amazon to about triple that.
That book is now $64 used on Amazon, $88 new.
Re-read an essay from Cognitive Dissonance
http://twoicefloes.com/empire-in-decline-propaganda-and-the-american-myth/
...And the truly frightening realization, something I suspect most of us know deep down in our hearts but don’t actually acknowledge, is that the majority of people in positions of power and/or wealth are either sociopaths or harbor strong sociopath tendencies. Which means they do not think in terms of civic duty and public service, but rather about personal gain and ever more power. As conditions continue to deteriorate, less and less sane and well-meaning people will be willing to step up and attempt to lead, creating an even larger power vacuum the sociopaths are more than willing to fill.
...Those who claim “They would never do that” are hopelessly and dangerously deluded, mesmerized by the great American myth or just hopelessly deep in denial. For crying out loud, of course they’d do ‘that’, just as you and I are capable of doing just about anything when subjected to great stress and pressure. The difference is that in the grand scope of things, whatever we might do would harm mostly ourselves and maybe those nearest to us, while ‘they’ can and will harm thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, to maintain their status quo and position of power.
Last night I watched a biopic of Rostropovich. My God, what a spastic cellist. He invited Solzhenitsyn to stay at his dasha when the writer had nowhere else to go. Called him second to Dostoyevsky. Needless to say, Slava found himself on a plane with no direction home, all his tours cancelled.
Still don’t like his music. Shostakovich either. What’s all that freedom for? Bombast, anger, noise, ego? Give me Janos Starker’s rubato and agogic accents.
Got to hand to the the Russians, though. All their imagination seems baptized just enough to ever long for a higher world. Think of Tarkovsky. Inspiration without a doubt.
Some ‘light’ reading for an early Sunday morning!
Thank you for posting it. Happy New Year!
= fallen man
per your tag: ping
It’s the double edged sword of a need for virtuous leaders vs every man’s innate need to be led. In absence of such virtuous leaders, as we witness today on an unprecedented scale, (especially in the church, in the family, etc.) the people are led by the crooks of false shepherds to their own destruction. What made this possible, in large part, was the eradication of classical western thought from our educational system and a steady diet of bread and circus for the masses.
... eradication of classical western thought
And with it, the vanishment of Philosopher Kings
Thank you for the ping to this thread, GOPJ. Those two paragraphs in HangnJudge’s post summarize what has been for me, one of the most disillusioning things about these last five years of watching our government.
The realization of just how corrupt to the core our government has become, across the board.
There are still people of integrity serving, but they are and absolute minority, and none on the Democrat side. (I say that, because I do not believe one can be a member of that party and have America’s best interests at heart)
I admit, I never accepted that Seth Rich was murdered. I didn’t discount it, but put it further down the list. Not because it was improbable based on what was known, but because I clung to the belief that our political cadres wouldn’t murder Americans in pursuit of office.
That belief no longer exists for me. If they would engage in all they have the last four years, surveilling an opposition party using the full power of the government (even Nixon only used hired hands) persecuting Trump’s allies using the DOJ and FBI, and those same bodies setting up a highly regarded General to get him sacked and imprisoned.
I never thought I would see those things.
And then this election.
QED! And what vocation in life could be more noble than that of a philosopher king!
GREAT article by Barton Swaim. Thanks. The is evil and SUPEREVIL. The SUPERIOR EVIL just squabble with each other.
https://selfdefinition.org/psychology/BF-Skinner-Beyond-Freedom-&-Dignity-1971.pdf
Subtitle: The End of Freedom in America (funny how that is LEFT out, eh?)
T(errific) thread. Tanks to all posters.
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