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The Underground Inner Man
I, too, am “a sick man… a mean man” (84). A bleak picture is painted in Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground about a misanthropic man’s existence in and subsequent dismissal of society. The Underground Man, the narrator, tells the reader of his disdain for high society, for others, for help, and for himself. The masochist seems to thrive in the cesspool of his own limitations. Interestingly, I find that most people have the Underground Man lurking within them. He is present in literature across eras, genres, and geography. Dostoyevsky did not notice something new; he merely gave this aspect of humanity a new, Russian-accented voice.
The plight of the Underground Man is to spend his middle age recounting tales of himself when he was younger and philosophizing in the form of a faux manifesto of misanthropy. In the accounts he shares, he tells of his inability to cope with his lower class socioeconomic position and his intentional creation and destruction of hope in the life of a young prostitute. The Underground Man explains his irrationality in social situations by saying that it is a part of human nature. “The explanation for it is so simple that there hardly seems to be any need for it—namely, that a man, always and everywhere, prefers to act in the way he feels like acting and not in the way his reason and interest tell him, for it is very possible for a man to feel like acting against his interests and, in some instances, I say that he positively wants to act that way—but that’s my personal opinion” (103-4). He goes on to argue how reason and desire are at odds with one another, and that it is essential to maintain the capability to desire, because that is the essence of life (106). The problem, of course, is that desire and rationale are regularly at odds with one another in everyone’s mind. Otherwise, of course, there would be no disparity between will and action.
In the first century writings of the Apostle Paul, a very similar tension is noted. Romans 7 details a dichotomy that emerges between fleshly nature and regenerated spirit. Paul, who is considered among the most influential thinkers in all of Christian history, details his struggle to do what he knows is best, that is, what he rationally understands to be best.
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it I no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is not longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. (Romans 7:15-19)
Thus, Paul ascribes the dichotomy to a “sinful nature” which would be present in every person by definition. The outstanding implication is that there is a divergence of the will of logic and the will of desire. Paul goes on to describe the members of his body “waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members” (7:23). Thus, the physical desires for control and assertion of humanity, individuality, and personal pleasure surmount the desires for greater good, et al.
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it I no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is not longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. (Romans 7:15-19)
Thus, Paul ascribes the dichotomy to a “sinful nature” which would be present in every person by definition. The outstanding implication is that there is a divergence of the will of logic and the will of desire. Paul goes on to describe the members of his body “waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members” (7:23). Thus, the physical desires for control and assertion of humanity, individuality, and personal pleasure surmount the desires for greater good, et al.
As the tension between the will of rationality and the will of personal desire are at war, so is humanity within itself caught in battle. Dostoyevsky’s Underground Man finds alleviation for his desires in the company of a prostitute and then in the destruction of her hopes by mental manipulation. In the end, of course, the Underground Man, is left spouting his lessons learned in a private journal. Conversely, St. Paul goes on to underscore the helplessness of mankind in the assay for redemption, and rather outlines the path to reliance on the grace of Christ. Whether it be the nature of fallen man or the by-product of life’s feelings of powerlessness, the movement to assert oneself is universal. “What a wretched man I am!” (7:24), and yet, not at all abnormal.
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Yep. There's that. And here's this because it's been too long since you've laughed this hard. (And saying "There's that" made me think of it... and I can't resist. It's my fallen nature. Though, to be fair, I didn't really try.)
T
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