8. Dostoevsky and Goethe: Notes From The Extremities

Dostoyevsky’s Notes From the Underground attacks the enlightenment’s claim that freedom and happiness are synonymous by showing that in reality these two concepts stand in opposition to one another. Happiness, Dostoevsky seems to say, is the absence of freedom. He introduces us to the underground man, a mean and spiteful individual who, in a relentless quest to maintain and exert the integrity of his personal freedom, systematically destroys every chance he has for happiness by irrevocably alienating his peers and brutally shunning his only chance for love; he suffers from a disease of the liver but refuses to see a doctor, proclaiming “let it get worse!” Dostoevsky takes on the enlightenment myth which claims that rationality and freedom can be structured as an equation for human happiness and the creation of an ideal society: “2+2=4″ the underground man mutters, “as if that is what is most important to us.” Dostoevsky poses the following dilemma: if it is our personal liberty that we cherish above all; and, if the freedom of the will is to be understood as our most precious and humanising characteristic, do we not render ourselves, in some sense, inhuman when we blindly adhere to a role as part of the grand plan for the ideal society?

Dostoevsky makes it eerily clear that by going along with the enlightenment schema that which is “our most advantageous advantage” is, in fact, paradoxically left out of the equation, only to be replaced by an subverted concept of freedom that is all but meaningless. If the enlightenment’s myth of liberty twists the notion of freedom––consciously or otherwise––into something resembling its antithesis in order to create social contentment, the underground man responds to this subversion with a resounding “No!” For him freedom is the very foundation of being human, to sacrifice it in order to acquiesce to society is impossible; true individuality, wretched and miserable though may be, is the highest good.

Although he is tempted from time to time to resolve himself socially, the underground man would rather face the depravity of a life of spite than submerge himself in what he considers to be disingenuous social conventions and artificial hierarchies. But of course, from the perspective of the underground man, there is no depravity––his position is only understood as perverse from the point of view of the enlightened rationalists who value social cohesion over the richness of true individuality. Thus, Dostoevsky presents the emotion of spite, not simply as an emotional disorder, but as a philosophical principle which allows the underground man to exercise freedom even in the face of his own personal interests. Indeed, even the expected course of action his physical ailment would seem to demand presents a challenge to the freedom of the will and is therefore rejected by the underground man in an affirmation of his existence.

In the final analysis, the underground man is rendered impotent, incapable of any kind of coherent active engagement with the world. Making choices manifest in action involves making predictions and judgements which are value laden, often involving moving or changing one’s self––physically as well as psychologically––in relation to the Other; the underground man finds that he cannot realise the simplest decision because in doing so he would have to relinquish his freedom by recognising the Other or the group. This terrifies and disgusts him above all else. Understanding, choosing and acting are highly emotionally charged activities which involve some sort of compromise, acquiescence or coming to terms with the position of an Other, or situations which are beyond the immediate control of the self. The emotions associated with such circumstances are pushed aside by the underground man with disgust; he regards them with horror and allows himself only spite. But when spite cannot protect him; when he must face his emotions in the waning moments of the story when he his finally confronted with the possibility of love and happiness––not only his own, but also that of the young prostitute whom his decision will profoundly affect––he collapses in tears. In the end, the underground man refuses everything except his own will; ironically rejecting his only real chance to make his existence meaningful to another, he chooses to remain in the misery, and wretched safety of spite.

Dostoevsky’s critique of the Western european concepts of freedom and happiness echoes throughout his work. And, when we consider the way in which he extends this critique of happiness and freedom to the Roman Catholic Church in the Grand Inquisitor, we begin to understand that, for Dostoevsky, freedom, happiness and self affirmation rest in the realm of a personal and spiritual understanding of God and Creation. Like Augustine, Pascal, and Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky asserts that true individuality has a profound spiritual element which transcends the ‘herd’ mentality of popular religion, rational rhetoric and the material distractions of daily existence.

Dostoevsky’s underground man also offers us a subtle critique of the relationship between emotion and reason. As the underground man makes so painfully clear, the concept that emotions can be negated rationally, or that they can be made to take on predictable or instrumental roles is a questionable claim. But, on the other hand, can we really understand our selves as being completely controlled by our emotions like Goethe’s Werther? Both young Werther and the Underground man live at the limits of their subjective existence. But where the Underground man is capable of retreating from the unyielding social and physical world that surrounds him into his disgusting metaphysical burrow of spite and resentment, Werther’s only escape is death.

Werther’s suicide, however,cannot be properly understood as a simple evasion. While the Underground man asserts his existence by lacerating himself from the world through rational denial, eventually coming to rest in spite; Werther can only exist at the extremities of feeling. For Werther, the world itself transforms according to his emotions. When he is happy he sees only beauty; even the hard life of the peasants in the village seem charming to him. But when he is sad the world becomes cold and indifferent. Although joy and sorrow are his only proper domains, Wether’s narcissism transcends all. His infantile longings, coupled with his need rationalise his reality around his extreme emotive states dooms his chances of contentment in the working world of bourgeois society; and the possibility of a reasonable friendship with Lotte is rendered impossible. Dostoevsky and Goethe offer insight into the profound contribution of emotion to subjective experience. Psychologically speaking, emotion seems to both protect us from the world and allow us physical engagement with it; emotions allow us to form understandings of the world which permit us to act according to some rational schema. However, as the pathological cases of the Underground man and Werther make clear, the relationship between emotion and reason can be a dangerous one when it creates an understanding of the world in which the individual cannot properly integrate himself physically or socially. How then are we to understand this relation ship between reason, emotion and the mind? Are emotions simply products of the mind, or are they integrated responses to the world? Are emotions in some sense chosen, or are they biologically determined? Are emotions purely subjective experiences or do they adhere to some set of social, biological or psychological determiners?