Ben Fleming is back to discuss a work, Dostoevsky's "Notes from Underground," that underscores the thesis that the west is largely "stuck" playing out the same themes and ideas from the 1850's-1920's.
Great stuff — I would pushback a bit on how much Ben historicizes the text to merely the 1840s and 60s. Dostoevsky is providing a critique of overemphasizing reason, thereby providing room for passions of the soul and especially faith. The image of the Crystal Palace goes far deeper than the Modern Enlightenment, speaking to always and everywhere impulse of man to rebel against things higher than man — specifically, he also has in mind the Tower of Babel after having achieved a universal language of understanding (ie the Modern version is merely the mathematics employed in constructing the Crystal Palace)
Thanks! I wouldn't say the book's themes were limited to the 1840s and 1860s, just that we have a tendency to forget that ages of nihilism are often preceded by (and caused by) a period of uncritical optimism and snake oil salesman cloaked in rationalism.
This could just as easily apply to the optimism of the fin de siècle and World War I, the good vibes of the 90s and the 2008 financial crisis, the sales pitch vs the reality of decolonizing Africa, or Emperor Maximilian's "enlightened liberalism" promptly landing him in front of a firing squad.
The reason that I re-read this book is because I'm doing an art history series, and the Socialist Realist theoreticians of the 1930s based their stories around a (not always accurate) recounting of the 1860s. I do think that I came away from the book with a very different appreciation by reading it as an artifact of the 1860s as opposed to as a meditation on the futility of rationalism.
Great discussion. Thank you for this. A follow-up discussion of Dostoevsky’s novel, Demons (also titled Devils in the Katz translation) would be welcomed.
I enjoyed the metaphor twist where the “cult of progress” has become the “cargo cult of progress”; an echo of Richard Feynman’s caution of “cargo cult science.”
Great stuff — I would pushback a bit on how much Ben historicizes the text to merely the 1840s and 60s. Dostoevsky is providing a critique of overemphasizing reason, thereby providing room for passions of the soul and especially faith. The image of the Crystal Palace goes far deeper than the Modern Enlightenment, speaking to always and everywhere impulse of man to rebel against things higher than man — specifically, he also has in mind the Tower of Babel after having achieved a universal language of understanding (ie the Modern version is merely the mathematics employed in constructing the Crystal Palace)
Thanks! I wouldn't say the book's themes were limited to the 1840s and 1860s, just that we have a tendency to forget that ages of nihilism are often preceded by (and caused by) a period of uncritical optimism and snake oil salesman cloaked in rationalism.
This could just as easily apply to the optimism of the fin de siècle and World War I, the good vibes of the 90s and the 2008 financial crisis, the sales pitch vs the reality of decolonizing Africa, or Emperor Maximilian's "enlightened liberalism" promptly landing him in front of a firing squad.
The reason that I re-read this book is because I'm doing an art history series, and the Socialist Realist theoreticians of the 1930s based their stories around a (not always accurate) recounting of the 1860s. I do think that I came away from the book with a very different appreciation by reading it as an artifact of the 1860s as opposed to as a meditation on the futility of rationalism.
Great discussion. Thank you for this. A follow-up discussion of Dostoevsky’s novel, Demons (also titled Devils in the Katz translation) would be welcomed.
I enjoyed the metaphor twist where the “cult of progress” has become the “cargo cult of progress”; an echo of Richard Feynman’s caution of “cargo cult science.”
Glad you enjoyed! Ben mentioned that one several times. I have a copy but have not read it.