Dostoevsky can Bite
Via a public post on facebook, by Vladimir Golstein.
Via a public post on facebook, Vladimir Golstein.
Dostoevsky can be pretty biting at times. Here he describes --brilliantly -- all sort of pontificators and “influencers” that surround us everywhere. Journalism, activism, politics, social media. All those who love to engage in grand-standing, virtue signaling, finger pointing and cheesy moralizing. How else -- according to Dostoevsky -- can an ordinary man suddenly feel special?
“There is, indeed, nothing more annoying than to be, for instance, wealthy, of good family, nice-looking, fairly intelligent, and even good-natured, and yet to have no talents, no special faculty, no peculiarity even, not one idea of one’s own, to be precisely “ like other people.” To have a fortune, but not the wealth of Rothschild; to be of an honorable family, but one which has never distinguished itself in any way; to have a pleasing appearance expressive of nothing in particular; to have a decent education, but to have no idea what use to make of it; to have intelligence, but no ideas of one’s own; to have a good heart, but without any greatness of soul; and so on and so on. There is an extraordinary multitude of such people in the world, far more than appears. They may, like all other people, be divided into two classes: some of limited intelligence; others much cleverer. The first are happier. Nothing is easier for “ordinary” people of limited intelligence than to imagine themselves exceptional and original and to revel in that delusion without the slightest misgiving.
Some of our young ladies have only to crop their hair, put on blue spectacles, and dub themselves Nihilists, to persuade themselves at once that they have immediately gained “convictions”’ of their own. Some men have only to feel the faintest stirring of some kindly and humanitarian emotion to persuade themselves at once that no one feels as they do, that they stand in the foremost rank of culture. Some have only to meet with some idea by hearsay, or to read some stray page, to believe at once that it is their own opinion and has sprung spontaneously from their own brain.
The impudence of simplicity, if one may so express it, is amazing in such cases. It is almost incredible, but yet often to be met with. This impudence of simplicity, this unhesitating confidence-of the stupid man in himself and his talents, is superbly depicted by Gogol in the wonderful character of Lieutenant Pirogov.
Pirogov has no doubt that he is a genius, superior indeed to any genius. He is so positive of this that he never questions it; and, indeed, he questions nothing. … I always regretted that Gogol took his great Pirogov from so humble a rank; for he was so self-satisfied that nothing could be easier for him than to imagine himself, as his epaulettes grew thicker and more twisted with years and promotion, an extraordinary military genius; or rather, not imagine it, but simply take it for granted. Since he had been made a general, he must have been a military genius!
And how many such have made terrible blunders afterwards on the field of battle! And how many Pirogovs there have been among our writers, savants and propagandists! I say “have been,” but of course we have them still.” (The Idiot. Part IV, ch. 1)