#Shigalyov

[sparklehare]

disco elysium au demons Pt.5

Pyotr,Lebyadkin,Fedka,Shigalyov

Pt.4:https://www.tumblr.com/sparklehare/781962568934801408/disco-elysium-au-demons?source=share

[drowningparty]

'Every member of the society spies on the others, and he is obliged to inform against them. Everyone belongs to all the others, and all belong to everyone. All are slaves and equals in slavery. In extreme cases slander and murder, but, above all, equality. To begin with, the level of education, science, and accomplishment is lowered. A high level of scientific thought and accomplishment is open only to men of the highest abilities! Men of the highest ability have always seized the power and become autocrats. Such men cannot help being autocrats, and they've always done more harm than good; they are either banished or executed. A Cicero will have his tongue cut out, Copernicus will have his eyes gouged out, a Shakespeare will be stoned—there you have Shigalyov's doctrine! Slaves must be equal: without despotism there has never been any freedom or equality, but in a herd there is bound to be equality—there's the Shigalyov doctrine for you! Ha, ha, ha! You think it strange? I am for the Shigalyov doctrine!

[...] We don't want education. We have had enough of science. We have plenty of material without science to last us a thousand years. The thing we want is obedience. The only thing that's wanting in the world is obedience. The desire for education is an aristocratic desire. The moment a man falls in love or has a family, he gets a desire for private property. We will destroy that desire; we'll resort to drunkenness, slander, denunciations; we'll resort to unheard-of depravity; we shall smother every genius in infancy. We shall reduce everything to one common denominator. Full equality. "We've learned a trade and we are honest men—we want nothing more," that was the answer given recently by English workers. Only what is necessary is necessary; that's the motto of the whole world henceforth. But a shock, too, is necessary; we, the rulers, will take care of that. Slaves must have rulers. Complete obedience, complete loss of individuality, but once in thirty years Shigalyov resorts to a shock, and everyone at once starts devouring each other, up to a certain point, just as a measure against boredom. Boredom is an aristocratic sensation; in the Shigalyov system there will be no desires. Desire and suffering are for us; for the slaves—the Shigalyov system.'

Pyotr Verkhovensky in FM Dostoyevsky's The Devils (trans. David Magarshack).

[itsmassivecollectionpatrolus]

The Egalitarian Madness

Dostoyevski, on the other hand, with his interest turned toward the future rather than the past, saw in the egalitarian madness the cause rather than the result of tyranny.

Thus he speaks of Shigalyov, the leftist ideologist in The Possessed:

Shigalyov is a man of genius. He has discovered “equality.” He has it all so beautifully written down in his copy-book. He believes in espionage. He wants the members of society to control each other and be in duty bound to denounce their neighbours. Everybody belongs to all and all belong to each single one. All are slaves and equals in slavery. As a final resort there will be calumny and murder; but the most important thing remains equality.

Liberty or Equality: The Challenge of Our Time

Erik von Kuhnelt-Leddihn

[hermitthrush]

"It’s not that at all”, the lame teacher at last intervened, speaking, as was his wont, with rather an ironic smile, so that it was difficult to say whether he was serious or joking. “This, ladies and gentlemen, isn’t the point at issue at all. Mr. Shigalyov is too much devoted to his task and, besides, he is too modest. I know his book. He proposes as a final solution of the problem to divide humanity into two unequal parts. One-tenth is to be granted absolute freedom and unrestricted powers over the remaining nine-tenths. Those must give up their individuality and be turned into something like a herd, and by their boundless obedience will by a series of regenerations attain a state of primeval innocence, something like the original paradise. They will have to work, however. The measures the author proposes for depriving the nine-tenths of humanity of their true will and their transformation into a herd by means of the re-education of whole generations, are very remarkable. They are based on the facts of nature and very logical."

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Devils (1871) | Magarshack translations, Part II, “At Virginsky’s” 7.2. A meeting of would-be revolutionaries and conspirators.

[minarquia]

Movilidad y nobleza, por Mises Hispano.

[Este artículo apreció originalmente en el número de Primavera de 2017 de Claremont Review of Books]

Hace unos años, algunos hombres muy ricos me llevaron a comer un gran club de Nueva York. Me permitieron conocer su opinión sobre el rígido sistema británico de clases. Parecían no advertir que, en ese mismo momento, estaban siendo servidos por un frenesí de hombres obsequiosos, cuya humillación era ciertamente la misma que yo habría visto un cualquier otro lugar del mundo.

Como mis anfitriones eran evidentemente muy inteligentes y cultivados, deduje que debían haberse sentido incómodos con la noción de clase, tal vez incluso culpables de ser ellos mismos miembros tan evidentes de una clase alta y bastante exclusiva. He tenido experiencias similares en Australia, otra sociedad supuestamente sin clases.

Me parecía que el embarazo de mis interlocutores neoyorquinos derivaba de una confusión común entre una sociedad de clases y una sociedad cerrada. No son en absoluto la misma cosa. De hecho, una sociedad sin clases, si fuera posible, sería en cierto modo la más cerrada de todas, porque en ella no habría movilidad social, ni hacia arriba ni hacia abajo. Todos se mantendrían exactamente donde estuvieran porque no habría ningún otro lugar al que ir.

Esta confusión entre la sociedad de clases y cerrada aparece a lo largo de todo el libro de Nancy Isenberg White Trash, que está lleno de anhelos totalitarios. Según esta, Estados Unidos sigue siendo lo que ha sido desde su mismo inicio: una sociedad de castas en la que la posición social de nacimiento determina toda la biografía de una persona de la misma manera que los hindúes ortodoxos siempre consideran a un intocable como intocable, sin que importe su conducta o logros. Su método e historiografía son los de Michel Foucault: empieza con una conclusión y luego rastrea la historia en busca de evidencias confirmatorias, sin considerar nada de lo demás.

* * *

Las inclinaciones totalitarias de Isenberg pueden verse en el pasaje que se incluye en la conclusión o resumen de su libro:

Pero dediquemos más atención a lo que escribía Henry Wallace en 1936: ¿qué pasaría, planteaba, si a cien mil niños pobres y a cien mil niños ricos se les diera la misma alimentación, ropa, educación, atención y protección? Las clases probablemente desaparecerían. Era la única forma concebible de eliminar las clases, decía; lo que no decía era que esto requeriría sacar a los niños de sus hogares y educarlos en un entorno neutral y equitativo. ¡Una idea de verdad peligrosa!

Y evidentemente también es atractiva, al menos para Isenberg, catedrática de historia estadounidense en la Louisiana State University, pues todo su libro es una protesta contra los efectos de las clases sociales: el peor de los males y la raíz de todas las miserias. Además, el único significado que puede darse a las palabras “neutral” y “equitativo” en relación con el entorno infantil propuesto es “idéntico”. Como nadie admitiría desear algo no equitativo, de esto se deduce que Isenberg está a favor, aunque tal vez no se dé cuenta del todo, de que se siga la línea de Un mundo feliz. La clonación se convierte también en un imperativo, ya que difícilmente puede negarse que los niños difieran en sus características genéticas. (Ningún entorno neutral y equitativo me habría convertido en un Mozart o Einstein, por ejemplo). A lo largo de su historia, o más bien panfleto, de las clases en EEUU, desprecia a los eugenistas (correctamente, en mi opinión). Su pecado, en su opinión, fue demostrar el desdén inmemorial de las clases altas estadounidenses por las bajas. Por adoptar ligeramente el famoso argumento de Shigalyov en Los demonios de Fiodor Dostoievsky, Isenberg no se da cuenta de que empieza desde una oposición absoluta a la eugenesia y acaba con su obligación absoluta.

* * *

La crudeza del pensamiento de la autora es evidente cuando no realiza una distinción entre oportunidad e igualdad de oportunidades. Repito, estas dos cosas no son en absoluto lo mismo e incluso pueden ser completamente opuestas: una sociedad que no ofrezca ninguna oportunidad a nadie tendría una absoluta igualdad de oportunidades. De hecho, la igualdad de oportunidades, un ideal defendido irreflexivamente incluso por gente normalmente sensata, es de por sí totalitario: si se toma en serio (algo que nunca pasa) nada en la herencia genética o crianza de ningún niño debería dejarse al azar, sino que debería igualarse, lo que implica algún igualador, omnisciente y omnipotente. Pero el que prácticamente todos deban tener alguna oportunidad y no deban tener obstáculos legales para su progreso es sin duda un objetivo alcanzable.

Por supuesto, hay desventajas así como ventajas para una sociedad en la que hay oportunidades para todos. Cuantas más oportunidades ofrezca una sociedad, más te enfrentas a tu propia responsabilidad y tu propio destino, que en la gran mayoría de los casos, por definición, te dejará lejos de lo más alto del árbol. Sin un inicio desigual en la vida o la injusticia para explicar el fracaso, te ves obligado al autoexamen, que a veces es más doloroso y menos satisfactorio que el resentimiento ante la injusticia sufrida.

Los Estados Unidos de Isenberg no son fácilmente reconocibles, aunque ella argumentaría que esto pasa porque su historia real (es decir, la historia de White Trash) no se ha contado nunca por razones ideológicas y políticas, oculta de la vista para proteger los intereses de los ahora denigrados del Uno Por Ciento. Sus Estados Unidos son una tierra sin movilidad social en la que una clase alta hereditaria (en realidad una casta) se apropia incesantemente de toda la riqueza del país y una subclase igualmente hereditaria está condenada a la pobreza perpetua, sufriendo en su trato la indignidad de ser despreciados y culpabilizados de sus propios problemas.

Como esquema histórico, parece un esbozo cercano al absurdo. Entre otras cosas, olvida una narración más interesante, importante o conmovedora acerca de la persistencia de la pobreza rural blanca en EEUU. Sucesivas oleadas de inmigrantes a Estados Unidos, que llegaban con nada y no eran capaces de hablar inglés, se han convertido rápidamente en prósperas y en ningún caso han empobrecido. Este fue un fenómeno de masas, no el caso de unos pocos individuos aislados. En la medida en que existiera una pobreza blanca rural hereditaria, por tanto, no puede deberse a la naturaleza propia de una camisa de fuerza de la sociedad estadounidense, como deduce Isenberg. Además, su argumento solo podría ser válido si la sociedad estadounidense y su economía fueran de una naturaleza de suma cero, indudablemente un punto de vista insostenible incluso para ella.

Si existe el fenómeno de la pobreza rural blanca hereditaria, debe por tanto deberse a razones distintas de las que ella da. Incluso en sociedades con sistemas de clase supuestamente más rígidos que el estadounidense, por ejemplo, el británico, sus argumentos no se sostendrían. Una encuesta reciente descubría que las familias más ricas de Gran Bretaña cuando se analizaban por la filiación religiosa eran judías y sij. Estos grupos de inmigrantes no fueran siempre recibidos con alegría por la población nativa, pero no sufrieron impedimentos legales para prosperar. Salvo que la profesora Isenberg aceptara los argumentos de antisemitas y racistas (de que los judíos y los sij de alguna manera ha logrado su riqueza explotando o desplazando a la población previa) tendría que aceptar que la pobreza aparentemente hereditaria de las clases más bajas no podría estar causada solo por la rígida estructura de clase de la sociedad británica.

En resumen, hay algo en la mentalidad o cultura de los hereditariamente empobrecidos que impide, o al menos inhibe, el cambio. Libros como White Trash, que argumentan la necesidad de y parecen ofrecer la esperanza de una salvación política que de alguna manera siempre desaparece como el espejismo de un oasis en el desierto, reforzando lo que William Blake llamaba “las esposas forjadas en la mente” que causan el estancamiento. Encuentro asombroso que una catedrática de historia pueda firmar seriamente (en la última página de su largo libro) que “hemos hecho poco progreso desde que James Agee mostró el mundo de los aparceros pobres en 1941”… pero luego siempre tengas a tu lado a los corruptores de la juventud.

* * *

Una opinión diametralmente opuesta son las memorias de J.D. Vance que se crio en las montañas y escapó de su entorno a las laderas oleadas de Silicon Valley. Isenberg sin duda rechazaría Hillbilly Elegy como una mera anécdota, la historia de cómo un hombre dejó atrás a miles y por tanto sin mayores implicaciones. Pero es mucho más que eso: es la historia de cómo un hombre con un historial en desventaja (excepto en un aspecto muy importante) consiguió ascender en la escalera social sin echar a nadie, aunque manteniendo ciertas cicatrices psicológicas causadas por su entorno infantil.

La familia de los Apalaches de Vance era bastante disfuncional, aunque sus disfunciones indudablemente no eran únicas en esa zona, pues eran precisamente del tipo que he apreciado entre mis pacientes en los bajos fondos de una ciudad antiguamente industrial de Inglaterra. Hay claramente una relación dialéctica entre los rasgos de conducta y el estancamiento social de familias como la suya. Dicho esto, está igualmente claro que venga lo que venga primero, los rasgos o el estancamiento, no puede haber progreso sin cambiar de comportamiento: nadie puede aprovechar ninguna oportunidad sin autodisciplina.

* * *

No es que a la familia de Vance se le hubiera negado la posibilidad de mejorar. Por ejemplo, su madre era enfermera, pero siempre prefirió el drama de la disfuncionalidad (drogas y malos amigos) a los requisitos de disciplina para un trabajo de enfermería. Y aunque amaba a su hijo, no parecía tener una idea clara de las tareas de una madre ni la determinación para llevarlas a cabo.

En mi práctica médica he recibido consultas de muchas mujeres como la madre de Vance, pero siempre las ha encontrado muy confusas. Aunque lo intenté, realmente nunca entendí su punto de vista, al menos en el sentido de ser capaz de ponerme en su lugar. No hay nada específicamente montañés en su patología moral. No era falta de inteligencia, al menos en el sentido de la palabra de cociente intelectual, pero eran completamente, y casi debería decir que militantemente, deficientes en las competencias cotidianas que requiere una vida ordenada. Sus decisiones desafiaban el sentido común y era previsible que llevaran al desastre, al que parecían cortejar con avidez, como si un desastre futuro justificara un desastre pasado. El sistema de ayudas sociales les permitía vivir su existencia caótica, pero yo estaba lejos de estar seguro de que si se eliminara su asistencia mejoraría su conducta. Su efecto era más indirecto y estaba más enraizado: habían normalizado ese modo de vida a lo largo de generaciones, haciendo de él casi la elección una carrera. Unido a las circunstancias económicas objetivas más allá del control de cualquier individuo, la ayuda social servía para eliminar la relación en sus mentes entre conducta y resultado. Todo lo que les quedaba era la tragicomedia de sus propias vidas que solo podían hacer interesantes mediante una sucesión de sórdidos incidentes.

El mundo en el que se crió Vance era uno en el que la falta de vergüenza hacía el papel de moralidad, lo que significaba que las relaciones entre las personas eran en buena parte las de lealtad y poder tribal. Consecuentemente, la modestia y la decencia común se consideraban signos de debilidad. Podría haber sido fácilmente absorbido completamente hacia esta sociedad de bandas y, si lo hubiera sido, su inteligencia hubiera hecho de él un hombre peligroso, muy probablemente con una sentencia a cadena perpetua delante de él. El mal hace trabajar a la inteligencia ociosa. Vance se salvó por una abuela a cuyo cuidado, gracias a la indiferencia de su madre, se le había encomendado al principio de su adolescencia. Aunque lejos de ser un epítome de respetabilidad o propiedad burguesa, creía que Vance podía hacer todo lo que era capaz, y que de hecho estaba obligado a hacerlo. Así que libre del fatalismo montañés autocomplaciente, esta no toleraba excusas para un mal rendimiento en la escuela que un tutor menos exigente podría haber aceptado. Al rechazar hacerlo, salvo a su nieto. No aceptó la opinión comúnmente extendida en su entorno de que el esfuerzo era inútil porque las cartas del mundo estaban repartidas en contra de personas como Vance.

Después del instituto, Vance se unió a los marines y debido a su inteligencia natural se convirtió en portavoz ante la prensa. Sus cuatro años en los marines ampliaron enormemente sus perspectivas: ya no estaba encerrado en la pequeñez de su entorno montañés. De los marines fue a la Ohio State University y de ahí a la Escuela de Derecho de Yale. En algunas de las páginas más conmovedoras de su libro, describe cómo ha tenido que aprender la etiqueta de las comidas formales para sentirse cómodo con sus nuevos compañeros: una educación que la profesora Isenberg sin duda desdeñaría, en buena parte porque que tener el cuchillo usar es probablemente algo que nunca ha tenido que aprender conscientemente. No hay nadie más snob que un igualitario.

* * *

El significado más general el ascenso de Vance de un estatus social muy bajo a uno alto (en sólo unos pocos años) será durante mucho tiempo un asunto para el debate. ¿Demuestra que son las “esposas forzadas en la mente” las que detienen a las personas y las condenan a una existencia miserable o el caso es tan excepcional que no demuestra nada en absoluto? Fue extremadamente afortunado por el hecho de que su abuela fuera tan distinta de su madre. Pero en principio no hay razón por la que cualquier otro en su entorno juvenil no hubiera podido hacer lo que él hizo.

Por supuesto, podría decirse que no todos pueden ir a la Escuela de Derecho de Yale (gracias a Dios, podría añadir). Pero no se trata de ir a Yale o a la cárcel. La gradación de éxitos es innumerable y cualquier manera de ganarse la vida que sea un servicio para otros es honorable. Sospecho que parte del problema es que nos han infectado con la idea de que solo los logros más altos (ya sea en status académico, recompensas monetarias o fama pública) son dignos de respeto y todo lo demás se considera un fracaso. A partir de esa premisa no tiene sentido realizar ningún gran esfuerzo para ser solo un fracaso tranquilo, respetable, útil y temeroso de Dios. Es precisamente la ausencia de esta actitud impaciente, inmadura, de todo o nada ante la ambición la que explica el éxito de los inmigrantes asiáticos. El que  Hillbilly Elegy refuerce o contrarreste esta actitud está por ver.

El artículo original se encuentra aquí.

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[7r0773r]

Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky

Abroad, Shatov had radically changed some of his former socialist convictions and leaped to the opposite extreme. He was one of those ideal Russian beings who can suddenly be so struck by some strong idea that it seems to crush them then and there, sometimes even forever. They are never strong enough to master it, but they are passionate believers, and so their whole life afterwards is spent in some last writhings, as it were, under the stone that has fallen on them and already half crushed them. (p. 30)

***

“Each man cannot judge except by himself,” [Kirillov] said, blushing. “There will be entire freedom when it makes no difference whether one lives or does not live. That is the goal to everything.”

“The goal? But then perhaps no one will even want to live?”

“No one,” he said resolutely.

“Man is afraid of death because he loves life, that’s how I understand it,” I observed, “and that is what nature tells us.”

“That is base, that is the whole deceit!” his eyes began to flash. “Life is pain, life is fear, and man is unhappy. Now all is pain and fear. That’s how they’ve made it. Life now is given in exchange for pain and fear, and that is the whole deceit. Man now is not yet the right man. There will be a new man, happy and proud. He for whom it will make no difference whether he lives or does not live, he will be the new man. He who overcomes pain and fear will himself be God. And this God will not be.”

“So this God exists, in your opinion?”

“He doesn’t, yet he does. There is no pain in the stone, but there is pain in the fear of the stone. God is the pain of the fear of death. He who overcomes pain and fear will himself become God. Then there will be a new life, a new man, everything new . . . Then history will be divided into two parts: from the gorilla to the destruction of God, and from the destruction of God to . . .”

“To the gorilla?”

“. . . to the physical changing of the earth and man. Man will be God and will change physically. And the world will change, and deeds will change, and thoughts, and all feelings. What do you think, will man then change physically?”

“If it makes no difference whether one lives or does not live, then everyone will kill himself, and perhaps that will be the change.”

“It makes no difference. They will kill the deceit. Whoever wants the main freedom must dare to kill himself. He who dares to kill himself knows the secret of the deceit. There is no further freedom; here is everything; and there is nothing further. He who dares to kill himself, is God. Now anyone can make it so that there will be no God, and there will be no anything. But no one has done it yet, not once.” 

“There have been millions of suicides.”

“But all not for that, all in fear and not for that. Not to kill fear. He who kills himself only to kill fear, will at once become God.”

“He may not have time,” I observed.

“It makes no difference,” he replied softly, with quiet pride, almost with scorn. (pp. 115-16)

***

(Stavrogin) “You seem to be very happy, Kirillov?”

“Yes, very happy,” the latter replied, as if making the most ordinary reply.

“But you were upset still so recently, angry with Liputin?”

“Hm . . . now I’m not scolding. Then I didn’t know I was happy yet. Have you seen a leaf, a leaf from a tree?”

“I have.”

“I saw one recently, a yellow one, with some green, decayed on the edges. Blown about by the wind. When I was ten years old, I’d close my eyes on purpose, in winter, and imagine a leaf--green, bright, with veins, and the sun shining. I’d open my eyes and not believe it, because it was so good, then I’d close them again.”

“What’s that, an allegory?”

“N-no . . . why? Not an allegory, simply a leaf, one leaf. A leaf is good. Everything is good.”

“Everything?”

“Everything. Man is unhappy because he doesn’t know he’s happy; only because of that. It’s everything, everything! Whoever learns will at once immediately become happy, that same moment. This mother-in-law will die, and the girl will remain--everything is good. I discovered suddenly.”

And if someone dies of hunger, or someone offends and dishonors the girl--is that good?”

“Good. And if someone’s head gets smashed in for the child’s sake, that’s good, too; and if it doesn’t get smashed in, that’s good, too. Everything is good, everything. For all those who know that everything is good. If they knew it was good with them, it would be good with them, but as long as they don’t know it’s good with them, it will not be good with them. That’s the whole thought, the whole, there isn’t any more!”

“And when did you find out that you were so happy?”

“Last week, on Tuesday, no, Wednesday, because it was Wednesday by then, in the night.”

“And what was the occasion?”

“I don’t remember, just so; I was pacing the room . . . it makes no difference. I stopped my clock, it was two thirty-seven.”

“As an emblem that time should stop?”

Kirillov did not reply.

“They’re not good,” he suddenly began again, “Because they don’t know they’re good. When they find out, they won’t violate the girl. They must find out that they’re good, then they’ll all become good at once, all, to a man.” 

“Well, you did find out, so you must be good?”

“I am good.”

“With that I agree, incidentally,” Stavrogin muttered frowningly.

“He who teaches that all are good, will end the world.”

“He who taught it was crucified.”

“He will come, and his name is the man-god.”

The God-man?”

“The man-god--that’s the whole difference.” (pp. 237-38)

***

(Shatov) “. . . The aim of all movements of nations, of every nation and in every period of its existence, is solely the seeking for God, its own God, entirely its own, and faith in him as the only true one. God is the synthetic person of the whole nation, taken from its beginning and to its end. It has never yet happened that all or many nations have had one common God, but each has always had a separate one. It is a sign of a nation’s extinction when there begin to be gods in common. When there are gods in common, they die along with the belief in them and with the nations themselves. The stronger the nation, the more particular its God. There has never yet been a nation without a religion, that is, without an idea of evil and good. Every nation has its own idea of evil and good, and its own evil and good. When many nations start having common ideas of evil and good, then the nations die out and the very distinction between evil and good begins to fade and disappear. Reason has never been able to define evil and good, or even to separate evil from good, if only approximately; on the contrary, it has always confused them, shamefully and pitifully; and science has offered the solution of the fist. Half-science has been especially distinguished for that--the most terrible scourge of mankind, worse than plague, hunger, or war, unknown till our century. Half-science is a despot such as has never been seen before. A despot with its own priests and slaves, a despot before whom everything has bowed down with a love and superstition unthinkable till now, before whom even science itself trembles and whom it shamefully caters to.” (pp. 250-51)

***

(Shatov to Stavrogin) “You’re an atheist because you’re a squire, an ultimate squire. You’ve lost the distinction between evil and good because you’ve ceased to recognize your own nation. A new generation is coming, straight from the nation’s heart, and you won’t recognize it, neither will the Verkhovenskys, son or father, nor will I, for I, too, am a squire--I, the son of your serf and lackey Pashka . . . Listen, acquire God by labor; the whole essence is there, or else you’ll disappear like vile mildew; do it by labor.”

“God by labor? What labor?”

“Peasant labor. Go, leave your wealth . . . Ah! you’re laughing, you’re afraid it will turn out to be flimflam.”

But Stavrogin was not laughing. (pp. 255-56)

***

(Stavrogin) “You seem to be very offended with them, Marya Timofeevna?”

“Who, me? No,” she smiled simpleheartedly. “Not a bit. I looked at you all then: you’re all angry, you’re all quarreling; you get together and can’t even laugh from the heart. So much wealth and so little joy--it’s all loathsome to me. . . “ (p. 274)

***

“[Shigalyov’s] got it all down nicely in his notebook,” Verkhovensky continued. “He’s got spying. He’s got each member of society watching the others and  obliged to inform. Each belongs to all, and all to each. They’re all slaves and equal in their slavery. Slander and murder in extreme cases, but above all--equality. First, the level of education, science, and talents is lowered. A high level of science and talents is accessible only to higher abilities--no need for higher abilities! Higher abilities have always seized power and become despots. Higher abilities cannot fail to be despots and have always corrupted rather than been of use; they are to be banished or executed. Cicero’s tongue is cut off, Copernicus’s eyes are put out, Shakespeare is stoned--this is Shigalyovism! Slaves must be equal: there has never yet been either freedom or quality without despotism, but within a herd there must be equality, and this is Shigalyovism! Ha, ha, ha, so you find it strange? I’m for Shigalyovism!” (p. 417)

***

(Pyotr Stepanovich) “ . . . I’m a crook, really, not a socialist, ha, ha! Listen, I’ve counted them all up: the teacher who laughs with children at their God and at their cradle, is already ours. The lawyer who defends an educated murderer by saying that he’s more developed than his victims and couldn’t help killing to get money, is already ours. Schoolboys who kill a peasant just to see how it feels, are ours. Jurors who acquit criminals right and left, are ours. The prosecutor who trembles in court for fear of being insufficiently liberal, is ours, ours. Administrators, writers--oh, a lot of them, an awful lot of them are ours, and they don’t know it themselves! On the other hand, the docility of schoolboys and little fools has reached the highest point; their mentors all have burst gallbladders; everywhere there is vanity in immeasurable measure, appetites beastly, unheard-of . . . Do you know, do you know how much we can achieve with little ready-made ideas alone? When I left, Littré’s thesis that crime is insanity was raging; I come back--crime is no longer insanity but precisely common sense itself, almost a duty, at any rate a noble protest: ‘But how can a developed murderer not murder, if he needs money!’ And this is just the fruit. The Russian God has already folded in the face of ‘rotgut.’ The people are drunk, mothers are drunk, children are drunk, the churches are empty, and in the courts it’s ‘two hundred strokes, or fetch us a pot.’ Oh, just let this generation grow up! Only it’s a pity there’s no time to wait, otherwise they could get themselves even drunker! Ah, what a pity there are no proletarians! But there will be, there will be, we’re getting there. . .” (p. 420)

***

I have already hinted at the fact that various trashy sorts of people had appeared among us. Always and everywhere, in a troubled time of hesitation or transition, various trashy sorts appear. I am not speaking of the so-called “vanguard,” who always rush ahead of everyone else (their chief concern) and whose goal, though very often quite stupid, is still more or less definite. No, I am speaking only of scum. This scum, which exists in every society, rises to the surface in any transitional time, and not only has no goal, but has not even the inkling of an idea, and itself merely expresses anxiety and impatience with all its might. And yet this scum, without knowing it, almost always falls under the command of that small group of the “vanguard” which acts with a definite goal, and which directs all this rabble wherever it pleases, provided it does not consist of perfect idiots itself--which, incidentally, also happens. (pp. 461-62)

***

(Stepan Trofimovich) “. . . I do not wish you much happiness--it would bore you; I do not wish you trouble either; but, following the people’s philosophy, I will simply repeat: ‘Live more’ and try somehow not to be too bored. . .” (p. 491)

***

(Kirillov) “. . . God is necessary, and therefore must exist.”

(Pyotr Stepanovich) “Well, that’s wonderful.”

“But I know that he does not and cannot exist.”

“That’s more like it.”

“Don’t you understand that a man with these two thoughts cannot go on living?” (p. 615)

***

(Kirillov) “. . . If there is no God, then I am God.”

(Pyotr Stepanovich) “Now, there’s the one point of yours that I could never understand: why are you God then?”

“If there is God, then the will is all his, and I cannot get out of his will. If not, the will is all mine, and it is my duty to proclaim self-will.”

“Self-will? And why is it your duty?”

“Because the will has all become mine. Can it be that no one on the whole planet, having ended God and believed in self-will, dares to proclaim self-will to the fullest point? It’s as if a poor man received an inheritance, got scared, and doesn’t dare go near the bag, thinking he’s too weak to own it. I want to proclaim self-will. I may be the only one, but I’ll do it.”

“Do it, then.”

“It is my duty to shoot myself because the fullest point of my self-will is--for me to kill myself.” (p. 617)

***

“. . . Listen,” Kirillov stopped, gazing before him with fixed, ecstatic eyes. “Listen to a big idea: There was one day on earth, and in the middle of the earth stood three crosses. One on a cross believed so much that he said to another: ‘This day you will be with me in paradise.’ The day ended, they both died, went, and did not find either paradise or resurrection. What had been said would not prove true. Listen: this man was highest on all the earth, he constituted what it was to live for. Without this man the whole planet with everything on it is--madness only. There has not been one like Him before or since, not ever, even to the point of miracle. This is the miracle, that there has not been and never will be such a one. And if so, if the laws of nature did not pity even This One, did not pity even their own miracle, but made Him, too, live amidst a lie and die for a lie, then the whole planet is a lie, and stands upon a lie and a stupid mockery. Then the very laws of the planet are a lie and a devil’s vaudeville. Why live then, answer me, if you’re a man.” (p. 618)

***

(Stepan Trofimovich) “. . . I’ve been lying all my life. Even when I was telling the truth. I never spoke for the truth, but only for myself, I knew that before, but only now do I see . . .” (p. 652)

***

(Stepan Trofimovich) “. . . And now a thought has occurred to me; une comparaison. Terribly many thoughts occur to me now; you see, it’s exactly like our Russia. These demons who come out of a sick man and enter into swine--it’s all the sores, all the miasmas, all the uncleanness, all the big and little demons accumulated in our great and dear sick man, in our Russia, for centuries, for centuries! Oui, cette Russie que j’aimais toujours. But a great will and a great thought will descend to her from on high, as upon that insane demoniac, and out will come all these demons, all the uncleanness, all the abomination that is festering on the surface . . . and they will beg of themselves to enter into swine. And perhaps they already have! It is us, us and them, and Petrusha . . . et les autres avec lui, and I, perhaps, first, at the head, and we will rush, insane and raging, from the cliff down into the sea, and all be drowned, and good riddance to us, because that’s the most we’re fit for. But the sick man will be healed and ‘sit at the feet of Jesus’ . . . and everyone will look in amazement . . .” (p. 655)

***

(Stepan Trofimovich) “My immortality is necessary if only because God will not want to do an injustice and utterly extinguish the fire of love for him once kindled in my heart. And what is more precious than love? Love is higher than being, love is the crown of being, and is it possible for being not to bow before it? If I have come to love him and rejoice in my love--is it possible that he should extinguish both me and my joy and turn us to naught? If there is God, then I am immortal! Voilá ma profession de foi.” (p. 663)

***

“On the contrary, total atheism is more respectable than worldly indifference,” [Tikhon] added, gaily and ingenuously.

“Oho, so that’s how you are.”

“A complete atheist stands on the next-to-last upper step to the most complete faith (he may or may not take that step), while the indifferent one has no faith, apart from a bad fear.” (p. 688)