PDA

View Full Version : "The Verdict" - A Thinking Man's Suicide Note



The Goy Chevalier
08-15-2011, 11:54 PM
The following text is transcribed from Feodor Dostoievsky's Writer's Diary, October entry, 1876.


Apropos, here is the deliberation of a suicide out of tedium--of course, a materialist.


...Indeed, what right did this nature have to bring me into this world pursuant to some of her eternal laws? I am created with consciousness and I did conceive nature: what right had she, therefore, to beget me without my will, without my will as a conscious creature?--Conscious implies suffering, but I do not wish to suffer, since why should I consent to suffering? Nature, through the medium of my consciousness, proclaims to me some sort of harmony of the whole. Human consciousness has produced religions out of this message. Nature tells me--even though I know well that I neither can nor ever shall participate in this 'harmony of the whole,' and besides, that I shall never even comprehend what it means--that nevertheless I must submit to this message, abase myself, accept suffering because of the harmony of the whole, and consent to live. However, if I were to make a conscious choice, of course I should rather wish to be happy only that moment when I exist, whereas I have no interest whatever in the whole and its harmony after I perish, and it does not concern me in the least whether this whole with its harmony remains in the world after me or whether it perishes simultaneously with me. And why should I bother about its preservation after I no longer exist?--that's the question. It would have been better to be created like all animals--i.e., living but not conceiving myself rationally. But my consciousness is not harmony, but, on the contrary, precisely disharmony, because with it I am unhappy. Look: who is happy in this world and what kind of people consent to live?--Precisely those who are akin to animals and come nearest to their species by reason of their limited development and consciousness. These readily consent to live but on the specific condition that they live as animals, i.e., eat, drink, sleep, build their nest and bring up children. To eat, drink and sleep, in the human tongue, means to grow rich and to plunder, while to build one's nest pre-eminently signifies--to plunder. Perhaps I may be told that one may arrange one's life and build one's nest on a rational basis, on scientifically sound social principles, and not by means of plunder, as heretofore.--All right, but I ask: What for? What is the purpose of arranging one's existence and of exerting so much effort to organize life in society soundly, rationally and righteously in a moral sense? Certainly no one will ever be able to give me an answer to this question. All that could be said in answer would be: 'To derive delight.' Yes, were I a flower or a cow, I should derive delight. But, incessantly putting questions to myself, as now, I cannot be happy even in the face of the most lofty and immediate happiness of love of neighbor and of mankind, since I know that tomorrow all this will perish: I and all the happiness, and all the love, and all mankind will be converted into naught, into former chaos. And on such a condition, under no consideration, can I accept any happiness--and not because of my refusal to accept it, not because I am stubbornly adhering to some principle, but for the simple reason that I will not and cannot be happy on the condition of being threatened with tomorrow's zero. This is a feeling--a direct and immediate feeling--and I cannot conquer it. All right: if I were to die but mankind, instead of me, were to persist forever, then perhaps, I might nevertheless be consoled. However, our planet is not eternal, while mankind's duration is just as brief a moment as mine. And no matter how rationally, happily, righteously and holily mankind might organize its life on earth--tomorrow all this will be made equal to that same zero. And even though all this be necessary, pursuant to some almighty, eternal and fixed law of nature, yet, believe me, in this idea there is some kind of most profound disrespect for mankind which, to me, is profoundly insulting, and all the more unbearable as here there is no one who is guilty.

And, finally, even were one to presume the possibility of that tale about man's ultimate attainment of a rational and scientific organization of life on earth--were one to believe this tale and the future happiness of man, the thought itself that, because of some inert laws, nature found it necessary to torture them thousands and thousands of years before granting them that happiness--this thought itself is unbearably repulsive. And if you add to this that this very nature which, finally, had admitted man to happiness will, for some reason, tomorrow find it necessary to convert all this into zero despite all the suffering with which mankind has paid for this happiness and--what is most important--without even bothering to conceal this from my consciousness, as it did conceal it from the cow--willy-nilly, there arises a most amusing, but also unbearably sad, thought: 'What if man has been placed on earth for some impudent experiment--just for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not this creature is going to survive on earth?' The principal sadness of this thought is in the fact that here, again, there is no guilty one; no one has conducted the experiment; there is no one to damn, since everything simply came to pass as a result of the inert laws of nature, which I do not understand at all, and with which my consciousness is altogether unable to reconcile itself. Ergo:

Inasmuch as to my questions on happiness I am receiving from nature, through my own consciousness, only the answer that I can be happy not otherwise than within the harmony of the whole, which I do not comprehend, and which, it is obvious to me I shall never be able to understand-----

Inasmuch as nature not only does not admit my right to demand an account from her, but even gives me no answer whatsoever--and not because she does not want to answer, but because she is unable to give me an answer-----

Inasmuch as I have convinced myself that nature, in order to answer my queries, designates (unconsciously) my own self and answers them with my own consciousness (since it is I who say all this to myself)-----

Finally, since, under these circumstances, I am assuming both the roles of a plaintiff and of a defendant, that of an accused and of a judge; and inasmuch as I consider this comedy, on the part of nature, altogether stupid, and to be enduring this comedy on my own part--even humiliating-----

Now, therefore, in my unmistakable role of a plaintiff and of a defendant, of a judge and of an accused, I sentence this nature, which has so unceremoniously and impudently brought me into existence for suffering, to annihilation, together with myself. ...And because I am unable to destroy nature, I am destroying only myself, weary of enduring a tyranny in which there is no guilty one.

Eldritch
08-15-2011, 11:55 PM
Erm ...

The Goy Chevalier
08-15-2011, 11:57 PM
Erm ...

:confused:


Mr. Dostoievsky's explanation of the intent of reprinting that note will follow in the future. It's good fodder for thought, is it not?

The Goy Chevalier
08-19-2011, 05:45 PM
I'm really quite surprised at the lack of discussion this has generated.

I mean, really, what in the fuck is that stupid comment even supposed to mean, Eldritch?

I can only hope that the note was not the final force needed to push one over into the abyss...though that would explain the dead atmosphere...

Regardless, the author's follow up will appear shortly.

The Goy Chevalier
08-19-2011, 06:08 PM
The October issue of my Diary has also caused me trouble--in a way, of course. In it there is a short article The Verdict, which had left me in some doubt. That Verdict is the confession of a suicide, recorded by himself immediately before he shot himself with a pistol--recorded for his justification and, maybe, as a moral. Several of my friends, whose opinion I treasure most highly, even praised the article but corroborated my doubts. The praised it for the fact that actually a formula, as it were, of suicides of this pattern had been found--a formula which clearly expressed their basic ideology. But these friends of mine were wondering if the object of the article would be understood by each and all of my readers. Wouldn't it, contrariwise, produce on someone some altogether opposite impression? Moreover, wouldn't some of them--those very people who had already begun to dream about the pistol or the noose--wouldn't they be seduced by the reading of my article, and wouldn't they feel even more confirmed in their unfortunate intentions? In a word, doubts were expressed which were identical with those that had earlier occurred to me. And, as a result, I came to the deduction that it would have been necessary to give, directly and simply, in clear words at the end of the article, the author's explanation of the object with which it had been written--and even to add a moral.

With this I was in accord. Besides, while I was writing the article I myself felt that a moral was necessary, but somehow I was ashamed to write it. I felt ashamed to presume, even in a very naive reader, so much simplicity that he wouldn't guess the underlying motive of the article, its object, its moral. To me this object was so clear that, willy-nilly, I supposed it to be equally clear to everybody. I proved to be wrong.

Correct is the observation which was made several years ago by a writer to the effect that in days gone by it was considered a shame to admit the lack of understanding of certain things because it was direct proof of the dullness of him who made such an admission, of his ignorance, of the defective development of his mind and heart, of the weakness of this mental faculties. At present, on the contrary, the phrase--"I don't understand it"--is often being uttered almost with pride or, at least, with an important air. This phrase promptly places the man, in the opinion of his listeners, on a pedestal, and--what is still more comic--in his own opinion, too; and he isn't in the least ashamed of the cheapness of the pedestal thus acquired. Nowadays the words: "I understand nothing about Raphael," or "I have purposely read all of Shakespeare and, I confess, I found absolutely nothing particular in him"--these words today may be accepted not only as a sign of profound intellect, but even as something valiant, virtually as a moral exploit. And is it only Shakespeare or Raphael who is subjected to such judgments and to such doubts?

This observation concerning uppish ignoramuses, which I have recorded here in my own words, is rather correct. In point of fact, the pride of the ignoramuses has become boundless. Poorly developed and dull people are not ashamed of these unfortunate qualities of theirs; on the contrary, a situation has developed where these very qualities "add zest" to them. I have also often observed that both in literature and in private life there have developed great segregation, and many-facetedness of knowledge has disappeared: people who vehemently challenge their adversaries throughout whole decades have not read a single line of the latter's writings: "I have different convictions"--they say--"and I am not going to read nonsense." Verily--a penny's worth of ammunition and a ruble's worth of ambition. Such an extreme one-sidedness and isolation, such segregation and intolerance, have developed only in our day--i.e., preeminently during the last twenty years. Couple with these, there arose in many a man some sort of impudent boldness: men of negligible knowledge laugh--and even to one's face--at people possessing ten times more learning and understanding. And what is worst of all--as time goes on "rectilinearness" develops in an ever-increasing measure: for example, the instinct for adaptation, for metaphor, for allegory, begins to disappear. Noticeably, people cease (generally speaking) to understand jest, humor--and this, according to the observation of a certain German thinker, is one of the surest symptoms of the intellectual and moral degradation of an epoch. Instead, there come into being gloomy blockheads with frowning brows and narrow minds moving in one direction only--along the straight line toward one fixed point. Do you think that I am speaking only of the young ones and the liberals?--I assure you that I am referring also to old fellows and conservatives. As though in imitation of the young ones (at present already gray ones), some twenty years ago there came into being queer single-track conservatives--irritated old men who understood nothing about current affairs, about the new people and the younger generation. Their rectilinearness, if you please, was sometimes even more rigorous, more cruel and more obtuse that that of "the new men." Oh, possibly, all this developed in them as a result of the superfluity of good intentions and of magnanimous feelings which, however, had been vexed with the latest follies. Nevertheless, at times they are blinder than the modern rectilinearists. However, I am afraid that, while denouncing rectilinearness, I myself have digressed much too far.

More to follow for those who are half-educated and fully interested.