POL SCI 4 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: The Grand Inquisitor, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Cartesianism
22 Jan 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Dostoevsky believed in the deep seated human capacity for evil (xx) We cannot extract the darkness by our own will because that will entail destroying some of the best things about ourselves - the sensual karamozov dimension of the self (xxi) Responding to evil by attempting to excise it drives us deeper into evil second-order evil that issues from pride (xxii) Attempt to rise above sensual nature through self denial = laceration (xxii) > lacerated individuals are torn apart. Consequences of laceration (1) self fragmentation (2) fractured social relationships (xxiii) To prove depth of human feelings, need to display capacity for suffering, therefore make oneself look like a victim (xxiii-xxiv) Affirm own superiority by portraying the other as insensitive, subhuman (xxiv) In the end self affirmation only breeds feeling of worthlessness that leads to greater forms of cruelty and destructiveness (xxiv) Understand rebellion and the grand inquisitor as expressions of ivan"s intellectualized laceration (xxiv)
