Notes From Underground

My reflections on the novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

“The thought that Liza was coming worried me continually.”

The extent with which the Underground Man has removed himself from human society, and the anxiety he feels at the thought of a visit from Liza implies that he has a social phobia or anxiety disorder. In addition to and as a result of his persistent isolation, the UM has found an inner voice which is incessantly reflecting and thinking in his head and never shuts up. It is this rambling, inexorable voice that constiutes the substance of UM's narration:

“Granted I am a babbler, a harmless vexatious babbler, like all of us. But what is to be done if the direct and sole vocation of every intelligent man is babble, that is, the intentional pouring of water through a sieve?”

Part of the problem is that UM is intelligent and has a pretty clear understanding of his plight and social inhibitions. However, UM is unable to apply this awareness in any practical way. In short, the UM knows he is a failure and has a good understanding of all the ways in which he has failed and why he has failed and his failures are exacerbated by this knowledge. Like the recluse in Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, the UM is trapped in his own mind:

“It was not only that I could not become spiteful, I did not know how to become anything; neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. Now, I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, and it is only the fool who becomes anything.”

UM's obsessive self-reflection and self-consciousness inhibits his ability for normal social interaction. For UM, introspection is taken to an impossible extreme - the reductio ad absurdum of Socrates' dictum: “the unexamined life is not worth living.” UM is paralyzed by analysis which necessitates the analysis of that analysis in an infinite regression of thoughts dictating more thought:

“To be acutely conscious is a disease, a real, honest-to-goodness disease.”

A common thread in human intellectual history and the history of philosophy, is an attempt to arrive at fundamental and immutable truths. Philosophies of ethics, metaphysics, morality and epistemology offer models of rational behavior and theories that are universal in their application. These ambitious projects are unimportant and meaningless to UM who's thoughts fails to transcend his own existential status. UM challenges the significance of these sweeping philosophical theories and argues in defense of irrationality, pain and rebellion. According to UM, the subjective intangibles like fulfillment, the experience of volition, and self-assertion will frustrate any broad philosophical absolutes:

“The whole human enterprise seems to consist in man’s proving to himself every moment that he is a man and not a sprig!”

UM man uses this argument to explain the persistence of war in modern society and to argue that people will always be attracted to irrationality:

“The formula two plus two equals five is not without its attractions.”

The UM's narration raises questions about the relevance of much philosophical inquiry and how philosophical inquiry is tied to a person's inner experience. The ability to function in the world, to care about rationality and to be an agent of rationality is predicated on basic questions of psychology, personal fulfillment and happiness. The novel also raises questions about how human beings are affected by the anxieties, choices and freedoms of modernity; what is characterized by Max Weber as an existential crisis precipitated by the differentiation of the value spheres.

“And what is it in us that is mellowed by civilization? All it does, I’d say, is to develop in man a capacity to feel a greater variety of sensations. And nothing, absolutely nothing else. And through this development, man will yet learn how to enjoy bloodshed. Why, it has already happened . . . .Civilization has made man, if not always more bloodthirsty, at least more viciously, more horribly bloodthirsty.”

Dostoevsky writing in his own voice:

“...such persons as the writer of such not only may but even must exist in our society, taking into consideration the circumstances under which our society has generally been formed.”

For the UM, it's not a privation of philosophical reflection which is problematic, but rather an excesses of reflections and introspections which can effectively destroy a human life and challenge ambitious theories of behavior and rationality. The UM characterizes a fundamental question of existentialist philosophy:

“Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has others which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But finally there are still others which a man is even afraid to tell himself, and every decent man has a considerable number of such things stored away. That is, one can even say that the more decent he is, the greater the number of such things in his mind.”

Perhaps the project of existentialism starts in a dark and empty room where the philosopher is left alone with the experience of his own self and thoughts. The experience of one's proximity to one's own being is different for different people, and can range from being pleasant to uncomfortable to horrific. What does one say to oneself in this situation? How does one experience their own consciousness, volition and self-hood? How does one cope with the experiences of loneliness, boredom, futility and absurdity? The answer to these questions, what and the dramas that play out in the mind of the solitary thinkers, affect life in society and the applicability of other more general philosophical projects.