Down Olympia’s great height,
On her kidnapped daughter’s trail,
Wandered Ceres and caught sight
Of the world in grim travail,
Where men offer gods no haven
No respect for things divine,
Selfish, wicked, mean, and craven,
Fail to worship at their shrine.
From the fields no flowers gay,
From the grapes no gen’rous flood,
Only smoldering corpses lay
On the altars stained with blood…
And wherever the sad stare
Of the goddess still did light,
It met sorrow, wild despair,
Man’s humiliating plight.
…
“Hell, if I hadn’t pulled him off, I suppose he’d have killed him—how much more could the old fool take…” Ivan whispered.
“God forbid,” Alyosha said.
“Why God forbid?” Ivan continued in the same whisper, his mouth crooked with spite. “If one wild beast devours another, it’s good riddance to both of them.”
Alyosha shuddered.
…
“There’s something else I want to ask you, Vanya: Do you really believe that any man has the right to decide, when he looks at other people, which of them deserves to live and which no longer deserves to?”
“Why bring in this business of deserving? Men usually answer that question without worrying about merit; their answer is determined by much more natural reasons. But a man certainly has the right to wish for whatever he likes, and no one can deprive him of that right.”
“Even to wish the death of another man?”
“Well, why shouldn’t he wish another man to die? What would be the point of lying to ourselves when that’s just how things are in life and, I suppose, it’s the only possible way they can be.
Thus goes one of many lively exchanges between the Karamazov brothers, in this case the middle brother Ivan (Vanya), and the younger brother Alexei (Alyosha). This particular exchange takes place just after their older brother Dmitry (Mitya) has angrily attacked their father, Fyodor Karamazov.
The Brothers Karamazov is Fyodor Dostoevsky’s final and most lengthy novel, his magnum opus. It has been considered by a number of prominent people to be the greatest novel ever written, and it has exerted a vast influence. To get a sense of this, here is a lightly edited version of it’s wikipedia article’s influence section (for the full version with citations, follow the link):
The Brothers Karamazov has had a deep influence on many public figures over the years for widely varying reasons. Admirers include scientists such as Albert Einstein, philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger, as well as writers such as Virginia Woolf, Cormac McCarthy, Kurt Vonnegut, Haruki Murakami, and Frederick Buechner.
British writer C.P. Snow writes of Einstein's admiration for the novel: "The Brothers Karamazov—that for him in 1919 was the supreme summit of all literature. It remained so when I talked to him in 1937, and probably until the end of his life."
Sigmund Freud called it "the most magnificent novel ever written".
Franz Kafka felt indebted to Dostoevsky and The Brothers Karamazov for its influence on his own work.
James Joyce wrote, “The Brothers Karamazov… made a deep impression on me…”
The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein is said to have read The Brothers Karamazov "so often he knew whole passages of it by heart". A copy of the novel was one of the few possessions Wittgenstein brought with him to the front during World War I.
Nobel Prize laureate William Faulkner reread the book regularly, claiming it as his greatest literary inspiration next to Shakespeare's works and the Bible. He once wrote that he felt American literature had produced nothing yet great enough that might compare to Dostoyevsky's novel.
American philosophical novelist Walker Percy said in an interview:
“I suppose my model is nearly always Dostoevsky, who was a man of very strong convictions, but his characters illustrated and incarnated the most powerful themes and issues and trends of his day. I think maybe the greatest novel of all time is The Brothers Karamazov which...almost prophesies and prefigures everything—all the bloody mess and the issues of the 20th century.”
Pope Benedict XVI cited the book in the 2007 encyclical Spe Salvi.
Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had read Dostoevsky since his youth and considered the author as a great psychologist. His copy of The Brothers Karamazov reveals extensive highlights and notes in the margins that he made while reading the work, which have been studied and analyzed by multiple researchers. Russian politician Vladimir Putin has described The Brothers Karamazov as one of his favorite books.
Sounds like a noteworthy book!
I first became aware of the book when my probably-most-literate friend in high school read it and said it was his favorite book. Recently, Jordan Peterson—a great admirer of Dostoevsky—referenced the book in a recent interview with Steven Fry, who in turn calls the book a “work of genius” that “everyone should read”. This became a reminder to me that the book exists and I finally got around to reading it.
For those who haven’t read the book yet, I highly recommend reading it, if you have the time. Though it is lengthy so you may not have the time now. If you are concerned about spoilers, know that this review will mostly avoid talking about the events of the main plot (and the most significant side plot), instead it will focus on certain themes and ideas espoused by the characters, particularly Zosima and Ivan, but we will also follow the threads of these two in the story.
If you don’t have time to read the full book, you may still want to read the acclaimed story within a story, “The Grand Inquisitor”, which even has its own wikipedia article, and which the likes of Aldous Huxley, Noam Chomsky, and David Foster Wallace have referenced in their own works.
I read the newest English translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, which is very good (I compared it with the free version on project gutenberg). So if you read in English, that is the version I would recommend.
With all that and without further ado, let’s get into the content of the book.
I opened this review with a poem and a dialogue which paints a dismal picture of the human condition. Ivan Karamazov, the most educated and intellectual of the brothers, supposes that there is no other way that things could be.
But there are those in the story who understand that this is not the way things have to be. A vision of what could be is introduced to us when young Zosima, just prior to becoming a monk, meets with a certain wealthy altruist. The former had been preaching his ideas to the townsfolk, and the altruist—impressed by the ideas Zosima has been espousing—ventures to speak with him in private. The altruist is impressed by Zosima’s dream, which he shares.
“Let me tell you, then, that this dream, as you call it, will most certainly come true. You may rest assured of that, but it will not happen immediately, because everything that happens in the world is controlled by its own set of laws. In this case, it is a psychological matter, a state of mind. In order to change the world, man’s way of thinking must be changed. Thus, there can be no brotherhood of men before all men become each other’s brothers. There is no science, no order based on the pursuit of material gain, that will enable men to share their goods fairly and to respect each other’s rights. There will never be enough to satisfy everyone; men will always be envious of their neighbors and will always destroy one another. So to your question when heaven on earth will come about, I can only promise you that it will come without fail, but first the period of man’s isolation must come to an end.”
“What isolation?” I asked him.
“The isolation that you find everywhere, particularly in our age. But it won’t come to an end right now, because the time has not yet come. Today everyone asserts his own personality and strives to live a full life as an individual. But these efforts lead not to a full life but to suicide, because, instead of realizing his personality, man only slips into total isolation. For in our age mankind has been broken up into self-contained individuals, each of whom retreats into his lair, trying to stay away from the rest, hiding himself and his belongings from the rest of mankind, and finally isolating himself from people and people from him. And, while he accumulates material wealth in his isolation, he thinks with satisfaction how mighty and secure he has become, because he is mad and cannot see that the more goods he accumulates, the deeper he sinks into suicidal impotence. The reason for this is that he has become accustomed to relying only on himself; he has split off from the whole and become an isolated unit; he has trained his soul not to rely on human help, not to believe in men and mankind, and only to worry that the wealth and privileges he has accumulated may get lost. Everywhere men today are turning scornfully away from the truth that the security of the individual cannot be achieved by his isolated efforts but only by mankind as a whole.
“But an end to this fearful isolation is bound to come and all men will understand how unnatural it was for them to have isolated themselves from one another. This will be the spirit of the new era and people will look back in amazement at the past, when they sat in darkness and refused to see the light. And it is then that the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the heavens… But until that day we must keep hope alive, and now and then a man must set an example, if only an isolated one, by trying to lift his soul out of its isolation and offering it up in an act of brotherly communion, even if he is taken for one of God’s fools. This is necessary, to keep the great idea alive.”
A theme running throughout the book is that this much sought after psychological transformation remains an isolated phenomenon, something only a handful of individuals manage to bring about. Perhaps even for spirituality there is such a thing as innate aptitude, and only those with the knack can ascend the highest heights. But in this case the reward will not necessarily be the admiration of society. These individuals are not understood by the people around them and are taken to be “God's fools” because they behave in a manner that makes no sense from a conventional view.
In the earliest events of the book (chronologically) we meet with one such “fool” when Zosima tells us about when he was just a child. His older brother Markel had been taken under the wing of a scholar exiled from Moscow and he subsequently mocks the idea of God and Christian tradition, making all sorts of rude remarks. This gets turned on its head when Markel falls ill and his disposition changes radically…
I can still see him now, sitting in that armchair, gentle, smiling, and always looking cheerful despite his illness. He was completely changed; it was really an unbelievable change that took place in him. When, for instance, our old nanny entered his room and asked him, “Would it be all right, my dear, if I lighted the lamp before your icon”—something he used not to allow her to do; he would even blow the lamp out if he found it lighted—this time he said to her: “Go ahead, dear nanny, light it. I was a monster before not to let you light it. For that’s your way of praying to God, and watching you makes me happy and in my happiness I pray for you too, which means that both of us are praying to the same God.”
These words seemed very strange to us, and mother cried all the time except when she went into Markel’s room; then she’d dry her eyes and try to look cheerful. “Don’t cry, mother, don’t,” he’d tell her. “I still have a long time to live and have a good time, for life is so good and so full of joy!”
“How can it be such a joy to you, my darling, when you are so feverish at night and cough so that it sounds as if your chest is about to burst…”
“Mother,” he would answer, “don’t be sad. Life is paradise; we all live in paradise, although we don’t want to see it. As soon as we are willing to recognize it, the whole world will become a paradise; it could happen tomorrow, any time.”
Everyone was surprised at his words and at the assurance with which he said these things; we were all moved and it made us cry. When friends came to see him, he would say to them: “It’s so nice of you to come, for I don’t know what I’ve done to earn your love and I can’t begin to understand how you can love someone like me, nor can I understand how I could have failed to appreciate it until now.” To the servants who entered his room, he kept saying, “Why must you wait on me like this, my dear friends? Do you really think I deserve to be waited on by you? If God spares me for now and I go on living, I’ll wait on you too, for we should all wait on each other.”
Mother listened to him, shaking her head. “It’s your illness that makes you talk like this, my dear.”
“My dearest, beloved mother,” he said, “since it is impossible to do without masters and servants in the world, let me also be a servant to my servants, just as they are to me. And I’ll tell you also, mother dear—we are all guilty toward others and I am the guiltiest of all.”
That made even mother laugh. “I would like to know,” she said, laughing and crying at the same time, “how you can be the guiltiest of all? With all the thieves and murderers, what have you done to accuse yourself like this?”
“Mother, my own dear blood”—he sometimes used the most peculiar endearments—“my own dear blood, my sweet joy, know that this is the truth and that every one of us is answerable for everyone else and for everything. I don’t know how to explain it to you, but I feel it so strongly that it hurts. And now, the way we used to live before seems strange to me, how we got annoyed at one another, and how we knew nothing then.”
And he would awaken in this state every morning, becoming more and more touching and more and more elated, literally trembling with love.
When the doctor came—an old German called Eisenschmidt—Markel would ask him: “Tell me, doctor, will I be one more day in this world?” He always joked with the doctor, who would answer: “It’s not a question of a day, or even many days. You’ll be here for many months and years yet…”
“There’s no need for years or even months, days are enough; a single day is sufficient for a man to discover what happiness is. Why must we quarrel, brag, and remember offenses against us? Why shouldn’t we go into the garden right now and love, kiss, praise, and enjoy one another, and bless our lives?” When mother saw the doctor off, he said to her: “I’m afraid your son is not long for this world—his illness has affected his brain now.”
The windows of my brother’s room gave onto our garden, which was full of shady old trees in which the young spring buds were swelling and the first spring birds were chirruping and singing. And as he watched and admired the little birds, he suddenly started to ask them, too, to forgive him: “God’s little birds, please forgive me, for I have sinned before you, too.” Now that was something nobody could really understand. But Markel lay there with tears of joy rolling down his cheeks. “Yes,” he explained, “I used to be surrounded by the glory of God—the birds and the trees and the fields and the sky—and I alone lived in degradation. I was the only one who was an insult to everything, and I didn’t even notice all the beauty and the glory of the world.”
“Aren’t you taking too many sins upon yourself?” mother would ask him sometimes.
“Mother, my life’s delight, why, don’t you see that it’s not out of sorrow that I am crying? I am crying from joy, mother. Why, I want to stand guilty before everybody and everything, although I can’t explain to you why, because I don’t even know how to love them. But if I have sinned before everyone, they will all forgive me now, and then we will have heaven on earth. Don’t you think I am living in heaven now?”
Markel passes away shortly thereafter but the whole affair leaves a deep impression on young Zosima. Even so, Zosima grows up and starts out his young adult life with all the conventional worldliness of a young man, pursuing a career in the military, looking to get a cushy job as an imperial guard. At some point he ends up insulting a man and getting challenged to a duel—doing this out of jealousy as the man is engaged to a woman Zosima fancies. The night before the duel, being in a bad mood for one reason or another he strikes his servant in the face.
He wakes up feeling terrible and remembers Markel’s words about servants, and the other things Markel said. He realizes that he has been going about life the wrong way. Before heading off to the duel, he apologizes to his servant, putting his head on the ground (making the servant feel awkward). He then gets to the duel, allows his opponent to fire the first shot (which grazes his cheek), then immediately casts aside his pistol and begs for forgiveness. These acts become a transformative experience, and Zosima suddenly sees the world in a new light.
“Gentlemen!” I cried in a burst of passion, “look around you and see all the things God has given us: look at the clear sky, at the air that is so transparent, at the tender grass and at the birds, at the beauty of immaculate and sinless nature, in which we are the only stupid, godless creatures who do not understand that life is a heaven. As soon as we understand that, we shall have that heaven here in all its beauty and we shall embrace one another and weep with joy…”
I wanted to say more but could not go on because I was so moved it took my breath away; everything looked so lovely and enchanting and I was filled with a joy such as I had never before experienced.
This “dishonorable” end to the duel causes some hullabaloo, and the people in his regiment argue about whether he ought to be made to resign. He announces that there is no need as he will resign to enter the monastery and at this they have a hearty laugh at his expense. But they let him go, stating “we would not dare to stand in judgment of a monk!”. He starts sharing his ideas (inherited from his brother) with the local townsfolk, where he gets laughed at some more, though not unkindly.
It was mostly in the evenings, in the presence of the ladies, that I had an opportunity to voice my beliefs, for the women came to like listening to me and made their men listen too.
“But how can you possibly be responsible for everyone?” people would say, laughing at me openly. “How could you be responsible for our acts, for instance?”
“How can you understand,” I told them, “when the whole world has been running on false ideas for so long, when we accept unmitigated lies as truth and demand lies of others. Now that, for the first time in my life, I have acted sincerely, you all look upon me as if I were one of God’s fools and, although you like me, you still laugh at me.”
In spite of being laughed at, Zosima nevertheless goes on to become a monk. But not just any monk, he becomes the disciple of an elder, eventually becoming an elder himself.
What precisely is an elder, then? An elder is a man who takes your soul and your will into his soul and his will. Once you have chosen your elder, you renounce your own will, you yield it to him in total submission and self-renunciation. A man who consents to this ordeal, to this terrible apprenticeship, is willing to bear it in the hope that, after a long period of trial, he will conquer himself and achieve a self-mastery that will enable him to finally attain, through a whole life of obedience, complete freedom (that is, freedom from himself) and thus avoid the fate of those who reach the end of their lives without ever having found themselves within themselves.
…
It is also true, though, that this well-tested, thousand-year-old method of spiritual regeneration from slavery to freedom and moral perfection may prove to be a double-edged weapon, for some men, instead of gaining humility and ultimate self-mastery, may acquire the most satanic pride, so that they are fettered rather than free.
Fortunately, for Zosima the result ends up being one of freedom and not “satanic pride”, and as an elder he gains a reputation of being a saint, and people seek him out for his blessings and wisdom.
One person who is thoroughly enamored of the Elder Zosima is Alyosha, the hero of the story (according to both the author and the narrator), and the youngest, most pious, most loving, and most loved of the titular Karamazov brothers. Alyosha gets to observe Zosima up close as a novice at the local monastery where the now elderly elder resides.
Alyosha never felt the least surprise that all these people should love the elder, that they should prostrate themselves before him, weeping with emotion at the mere sight of his face. Oh, he understood very well that for the meek soul of a simple Russian, exhausted by grief and hardship and, above all, by constant injustice and sin, his own or the world’s, there was no stronger need than to find a holy shrine or a saint to prostrate himself before and to worship.
…
He was not in the least troubled by the fact that Zosima stood before him an isolated phenomenon: “It makes no difference, he is a saint, and his heart knows the secret of regeneration for all, the power that will finally establish the rule of truth on earth. Then all men will be saints and will love one another, and there will be no poor and no rich, no mighty and no humiliated—all will be the children of God and the true kingdom of Christ will come.” This is what Alyosha felt in his heart.
Later on, Zosima gives some teaching to the laypeople who have come to visit him:
Try to love your neighbors, love them actively and unceasingly. And as you learn to love them more and more, you will be more and more convinced of the existence of God and of the immortality of your soul. And if you achieve complete self-abnegation in your love for your fellow man, you will certainly gain faith, and there will be no room in your soul for any doubt whatsoever. This has been tested. This is the true way.
…
Above all, avoid lying, especially lying to yourself. Keep watching out for your lies, watch for them every hour, every minute. Also avoid disgust, both for others and for yourself: whatever strikes you as disgusting within yourself is cleansed by the mere fact that you notice it. Avoid fear too, although fear is really only a consequence of lies. Never be afraid of your petty selfishness when you try to achieve love, and don’t be too alarmed if you act badly on occasion.
…
A true act of love, unlike imaginary love, is hard and forbidding. Imaginary love yearns for an immediate heroic act that is achieved quickly and seen by everyone. People may actually reach a point where they are willing to sacrifice their lives, as long as the ordeal doesn’t last too long, is quickly over—just like on the stage, with the public watching and admiring. A true act of love, on the other hand, requires hard work and patience, and, for some, it is a whole way of life.
This last bit echoes something the narrator says of Alyosha earlier in the story:
he was spoiling for immediate action, was prepared to sacrifice everything, his life itself, in an act of supreme devotion. Unfortunately, these young men often fail to understand that the sacrifice of their lives may be the easiest of all sacrifices, much easier, for instance, than giving up five or six years of their seething youth to hard study, to the acquisition of knowledge which would increase their strength tenfold in the service of that same cause, and in the performance of the great works they aspire to. But to sacrifice those few years to study often proves too much for them.
The bit about watching out for your own lies is an idea which he elaborates on when speaking to Fyodor Karamazov (a person who is an endless stream of lies and buffoonery):
A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself as well as for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love and, in order to divert himself, having no love in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal, in satisfying his vices. And it all comes from lying—lying to others and to yourself. A man who lies to himself, for instance, can take offense whenever he wishes, for there are times when it is rather pleasant to feel wronged—don’t you agree? So a man may know very well that no one has offended him, and may invent an offense, lie just for the beauty of it, or exaggerate what someone said to create a situation, making a mountain out of a molehill. And although he is well aware of it himself, he nevertheless does feel offended because he enjoys doing so, derives great pleasure from it, and so he comes to feel real hostility toward the imaginary offender… But, please, get up off your knees and sit down. You know very well that your kneeling is also an insincere gesture, a lie…”
At a later time, we observe the Elder giving guidance to his fellow monks:
“Love one another, fathers. Love God’s people. We are no holier than those outside, just because we have shut ourselves up behind these walls. Just the opposite, by coming here, each of us has acknowledged to himself that he is worse than those who remain outside, worse than anyone in the world. The longer a monk lives within the monastery walls, the more acutely must he be aware of this. Otherwise there was no reason for him to come here. It is only when it is revealed to him that not only is he worse than all those outside these walls, but also that he is responsible to all men for everyone and everything, for all human sins, universal and individual—only then will he have achieved the purpose of his seclusion. For I want you to know, my beloved ones, that every one of us is responsible for all men and for everything on earth, not only responsible through the universal responsibility of mankind, but responsible personally—every man for all people and for each individual man who lives on earth. Such an awareness is the crown of a monk’s life and, indeed, the crown of any human life on earth. For monks are no different from other men, and they must be what other men ought to strive to become. Only then will our hearts be moved by a love that is infinite and universal, and knows no surfeit.
…
And, above all, remember—do not be proud! Do not be proud before the weak or before the mighty. Do not hate those who reject you, those who dishonor you, those who abuse you and slander you. Do not hate atheists, or teachers of evil, or materialists, whether they are wicked or good—for many among them are good people, especially in our time. Remember them in your prayers thus: ‘Save all those, O Lord, who have no one to pray for them, and all who refuse to pray.’ And you must add this to that prayer: ‘I do not pray for them out of pride, O Lord, for I myself am the most loathsome creature of all’
The last bit likely sounds strange to many readers as it goes against our modern culture. But this is an important aspect of how humility is cultivated in the Christian tradition. Recall as well how Markel found it joyful to admit his guilt before all—so don’t presume that the Elder expects the monks to feel bad as they say this.
Look at the worldly, at those who set themselves above the people of God—have they not distorted the image of God and His truth? They have science, but science contains nothing that does not come through the senses. The spiritual world, the nobler side of man’s being, has been rejected altogether, banned as it were triumphantly, perhaps even with hatred. The world has proclaimed freedom, now more loudly than ever; but what do we find in that freedom of theirs? Nothing but enslavement and suicide! The world says: “You have needs—satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don’t hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more.” This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder; for while the poor have been handed all these rights, they have not been given the means to enjoy them.
…
Some claim that the world is gradually becoming united, that it will grow into a brotherly community as distances shrink and ideas are transmitted through the air. Alas, you must not believe that men can be united in this way. To consider freedom as directly dependent on the number of man’s requirements and the extent of their immediate satisfaction shows a twisted understanding of human nature, for such an interpretation only breeds in men a multitude of senseless, stupid desires and habits and endless preposterous inventions. People are more and more moved by envy now, by the desire to satisfy their material greed, and by vanity.
Giving dinners, riding in private carriages, occupying high social positions, and having myriads of servants—these are considered so important by some that they devote their whole lives to acquiring them and sacrifice for their sake their love of their fellow men, and sometimes even kill themselves if they cannot obtain what they believe they must have. It is the same with those who are not rich. And, as to the poor, who cannot satisfy their needs at all, they just drown their envy of others in alcohol.
…
Now let me ask you: Do you really think that such men are free? One “champion of freedom” told me himself that when he was arrested and deprived of tobacco, the privation was so painful to him that he was on the verge of betraying his “cause,” just to get something to smoke. And this was a man who said: “I am fighting for mankind!” What can such a man do, though—what is he good for, unless he acts on some sudden impulse? He will never be able to endure pain for the sake of his “cause.” So it is not surprising that, instead of freedom, they lapse into slavery, that, instead of promoting unity and brotherhood, they encourage division and isolation, as my mysterious guest and teacher explained to me in my youth. That is why the idea of service to mankind and brotherly love has been dying out in the world; indeed, now it is often sneered at, for what can a man do who has become the slave of the innumerable needs and habits he has invented for himself? He lives in his separate little world and does not care about the great world outside. The result of all this is that, today, when more material goods have been accumulated than ever, there is less joy.
The elder is speaking of Russia in the 19th century, but if you replace “private carriages” and “myriads of servants” with “nice cars” and “myriads of followers on social media” I feel that he could very well be talking about 21st century America.
People may ridicule the vows of obedience, fasting, and prayer, yet these are the only way to attain true freedom. It is by discarding cumbersome and unnecessary demands, by subduing and disciplining selfish and conceited aspirations, by obedience, that the monk, with God’s help, achieves spiritual freedom and thereby finds spiritual happiness.
…
And we in turn could ask those who scoff at us: “If we are the victims of a delusion, what about you? When will you build your own edifice and organize your life justly by reason alone and without Christ?” For when they claim that it is they who are working for the union of men, only the credulous among them really believe it and, indeed, it is surprising that they can be so credulous. The truth is that they indulge in wishful thinking much more than we do. In trying to bring about a just society without Christ, they will end up by flooding the world with blood, for blood cries out for more blood and he who lives by the sword shall perish by the sword.
Given that this was written before the Russian Revolution and the whole bloody mess of the 20th century, this is an impressive insight, and it is perhaps because of quotes like this that some call The Brothers Karamazov prophetic.
I’ve missed the discussions of it in my highlights, but in the book Dostoevsky takes a dim view of the socialism popular among atheists at the time. He perceives that such a system would not work given his understanding of human nature and sees the atheist socialists as dangerously naive. And he comes to this conclusion without the benefit of hindsight that we have! For Dostoevsky, socialism can only work when coupled with fundamental psychological change, and he sees Christianity, particularly of the Russian Orthodox variety, as the best bet for bringing this about.
Elder Zosima gives his final wisdom before he passes away:
There will be moments when you will feel perplexed, especially in the presence of human sin. You will ask yourself: “Must I combat it by force or try to overcome it by humble love?” Always choose humble love, always. Once you have chosen it, you will always have what you need to conquer the whole world. Loving humility is a powerful force, the most powerful, and there is nothing in the world to approach it.
…
And this is what I think of Satan’s pride: it is difficult for us on earth to perceive it and so we readily slip into error, become contaminated by it, and then delude ourselves that we are performing great and admirable deeds. Besides, there are many human emotions and twists in human nature that men on earth are still unable to understand.
…
But while we are on earth, we grope almost as though in the dark and, but for the precious image of Christ before us, we would lose our way completely and perish, just as men did during the flood. Much is hidden from us on earth but, as compensation, we have been given a mysterious, sacred sense of a living bond with another world, with a lofty and superior world; and, indeed, the roots of our thoughts and feelings are not in the earth but in other worlds. That is why the philosophers say it is impossible for us on earth to grasp the essence of things. God took the seeds of other worlds and sowed them on this earth and they sprouted in His garden; everything that could grow, did. And all that has grown remains alive and lives by its awareness of its ties to other, mysterious worlds, and if that awareness weakens or dies in you, then all that has grown within you will also die. And you will become indifferent to life, will even come to hate it.
…
When you find yourself alone, pray. Learn to enjoy prostrating yourself and kissing the earth. Kiss it tirelessly, love it insatiably, love all men and all things, seek that fervor and ecstasy of love. Water the earth with tears of joy and love those tears. And do not be ashamed of these raptures, treasure them: they are a special gift of God that He has not given to many—only to the elect few.
This is the last of Zosima’s teachings.
Let’s now return to Ivan, and follow his thread through the story. The Karamazovs have decided to go see the elder in order for him to arbitrate between Dmitry and his father (since he is a holy man and likely to give wise judgment). They have some downtime when the elder has to go off to attend to some other matters and so those gathered begin to discuss other topics including Ivan's article in a magazine where he defends the church in a matter of church and state arguing a pro-church position. Peter Miusov (a relatively minor character who will not appear elsewhere in this review) then relates this anecdote:
“Let me, instead, tell you another little story, this one about Mr. Ivan Karamazov himself, an extremely interesting and characteristic story, I think. Well, not more than five days ago, in a company consisting mostly of ladies of our town, he solemnly declared, in the course of a discussion, that there was nothing on earth to force men to love their fellow men, that there was no law of nature that a man should love mankind, and that if there was love on earth it did not stem from any natural law but rather from man’s belief in immortality. And here he added parenthetically that if there was any natural law, it was precisely this: Destroy a man’s belief in immortality and not only will his ability to love wither away within him but, along with it, the force that impels him to continue his existence on earth. Moreover, nothing would be immoral then, everything would be permitted, even cannibalism. He went even further, finally asserting that, for every individual—people like us now, for instance—who does not believe in God or immortality, the natural moral law immediately becomes the opposite of religious law and that absolute egotism, even carried to the extent of crime, must not only be tolerated but even recognized as the wisest and perhaps the noblest course…”
…
“Just a minute!” Dmitry shouted unexpectedly. “I want to get it straight: crime must be considered not only as admissible but even as the logical and inevitable consequence of an atheist’s position. Did I get it right?”
“You’ve got it right,” Father Paisii said.
“Good, I’ll remember that.”
…
“Is this really your conviction about what would happen if men lost their faith in the immortality of the soul?” the elder asked, looking at Ivan.
“Yes, I did argue that there is no virtue if there is no immortality.”
“If you believe that, you must be either blissfully happy or desperately unhappy.”
“Why unhappy?” Ivan asked, smiling.
“Because it is extremely unlikely that you yourself believe either in the immortality of your soul or even in what you wrote about the Church and the problems of Church and State.”
“You may be right. But I wasn’t simply joking when I said all that,” Ivan admitted quite unexpectedly, albeit blushing slightly.
“True, you weren’t just joking: you haven’t quite solved that problem in your heart and it still torments you. But a man who suffers also sometimes likes to divert himself with his own despair, and that also out of despair, we may say. For the moment, your despair is driving you, too, to divert yourself, either by writing magazine articles or by expressing daring, sophisticated opinions in cultured company, while you do not believe in your dialectics yourself and laugh at them inwardly, although it hurts you… Within you, that problem has not been solved and yours is a great unhappiness, because the problem demands an answer.”
“But is it possible that there is an answer for me? I mean, could there be an affirmative answer?” Ivan said in a strange questioning tone, looking at the elder with a quizzical little smile.
“If the answer cannot be affirmative, it can never be negative either, for, as you know very well yourself, that is a peculiarity of your nature and the source of your suffering. But you must thank your Creator for having given you a heart so noble that it can experience this torment: ‘to mind high things and to seek high things forasmuch as our dwelling is in heaven.’ May God grant that your heart find the answer while you are still on this earth, and may He bless you on your journey through life!”
The elder raised his hand and was about to make the sign of the cross toward Ivan, when Ivan suddenly got up, walked over to him, received his blessing, kissed his hand, and went back to his seat—all without uttering a sound. He looked grave and determined.
It is mentioned earlier in the story that the elder is able to read people very well and here he gives an accurate reading of Ivan's motivations for writing the magazine article and expressing this extreme opinion. Although Ivan is not convinced of his own opinion he shares it anyway and that will have unfortunate consequences, since his ideas influence others in negative ways. Note how Father Paisii affirms Ivan’s idea, likely on the idea that man is lost without the Christian faith. This sort of all-or-nothing attitude has unfortunate consequences for anyone who begins to doubt. The elder does not share Father Paisii’s attitude of course, since—as we saw earlier—he sees the path of loving others as the way to faith for those who doubt.
This exchange does a fair job of presenting Ivan’s role in the story. He grapples with the fundamental questions of human existence, and since he has not yet found a satisfactory solution for himself, he suffers. Even though Ivan is full of doubt he is still grateful to receive the elder’s blessing. This, together with his pro-church article, suggests that he is not altogether hostile toward Christianity, though he sees flaws in it.
Of Ivan’s idea, Rakitin later opines to Alyosha:
His whole theory is vile! Mankind can find enough strength within itself to live for virtue’s sake, even without believing in the immortality of the soul. In the love of freedom, of equality and the brotherhood of man, it will find it...
Dostoevsky likely doesn’t think much of this view, as Rakitin displays a lack of scruples over the course of the story, and is selfish and unpleasant. This is emphasized much later in the story when Dmitry relates a conversation he had with him.
Solving the problem of existence is easy for Rakitin: ‘If you wanted to do something useful today, you could, for instance, fight for people’s civil rights or even maintain the price of beef at a reasonable level; that would be a simpler and more direct way of manifesting your love for mankind than playing with all kinds of philosophical theories.’ So I said to him: ‘But if there’s no God, you’d jerk up the price of beef yourself if you knew how to, and if you had a chance, if you could, you’d fleece people to make a ruble of profit on each kopek.’ That made him angry.
At some point after meeting with the elder, Ivan meets with Alyosha for a conversation with just the two of them, and presents Alyosha with challenges concerning God and the Christian faith.
I want you to understand that it is not God that I refuse to accept, but the world that He has created—what I do not accept and cannot accept is the God-created world. However, let me make it clear that, like a babe, I trust that the wounds will heal, the scars will vanish, that the sorry and ridiculous spectacle of man’s disagreements and clashes will disappear like a pitiful mirage, like the sordid invention of a puny, microscopic, Euclidean, human brain, and that, in the end, in the universal finale, at the moment universal harmony is achieved, something so magnificent will take place that it will satisfy every human heart, allay all indignation, pay for all human crimes, for all the blood shed by men, and enable everyone not only to forgive everything but also to justify everything that has happened to men. Well, that day may come; all this may come to pass—but I personally still do not accept this world. I refuse to accept it!
Alyosha asks Ivan why he cannot accept the world, and Ivan relates stories that he has collected of children being abused or tortured. Ivan explains that he uses the example of children because the children have not yet lost their innocence, and so it seems to be clear evidence that the world is unjust.
This may be a good place to note that Dostoevsky had a three year old child named Alyosha that died of epilepsy while he was putting together notes for the book.
“I have never been able to understand how it was possible to love one’s neighbors. And I mean precisely one’s neighbors, because I can conceive of the possibility of loving those who are far away. I read somewhere about a saint, John the Merciful, who, when a hungry, frozen beggar came to him and asked him to warm him, lay down with him, put his arms around him, and breathed into the man’s reeking mouth that was festering with the sores of some horrible disease. I’m convinced that he did so in a state of frenzy, that it was a false gesture, that this act of love was dictated by some self-imposed penance. If I must love my fellow man, he had better hide himself, for no sooner do I see his face than there’s an end to my love for him.”
“Elder Zosima has often discussed that,” Alyosha remarked. “He also said that a man’s face often prevents those inexperienced in love from loving him. But then there is much love in men, almost Christ-like love, I know that myself, Ivan…”
“Well, I for one know nothing about it yet. I cannot understand it, and there are masses of people just like me. The question is, then, whether this is because people are bad or because that is their nature. In my opinion, Christ’s love for human beings was an impossible miracle on earth. But He was God. And we are no gods.
Trust to what your heart will tell you,
For from heaven no sign comes.
(Last chance to read “The Grand Inquisitor” before we get into it. This is considered by many to be the best part of the book.)
Ivan tells Alyosha about a story he wrote a while back. (It’s called a “poem”, but at least in the English version it doesn’t seem very poetic) The story is set in Seville in Spain at the time of the Spanish inquisition. Jesus shows up in town as the second coming but he does not speak because it is said He is not allowed to add to the teachings that He has already given. And so Jesus simply heals the sick and crowds gather around Him before the Grand Inquisitor finds Him and locks Him up. The Grand Inquisitor himself goes to see Him and reveals that he knows who He is and yet despite this he will remain imprisoned and in fact they will be executing Him tomorrow. Knowing that it is Jesus he feels no need to hold back and confesses everything…
So, in the end, they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us: “Enslave us, but feed us!” And they will finally understand that freedom and the assurance of daily bread for everyone are two incompatible notions that could never coexist! They will also discover that men can never be free because they are weak, corrupt, worthless, and restless. You promised them heavenly bread but, I repeat, how can that bread compete against earthly bread in dealing with the weak, ungrateful, permanently corrupt human species? And even if hundreds or thousands of men follow You for the sake of heavenly bread, what will happen to the millions who are too weak to forego their earthly bread? Or is it only the thousands of the strong and mighty who are dear to Your heart, while the millions of others, the weak ones, who love You too, weak as they are, and who are as numerous as the grains of sand on the beach, are to serve as material for the strong and mighty? But we are concerned with the weak too! They are corrupt and undisciplined, but in the end they will be the obedient ones! They will marvel at us and worship us like gods, because, by becoming their masters, we have accepted the burden of freedom that they were too frightened to face, just because we have agreed to rule over them—that is how terrifying freedom will have become to them finally! We shall tell them, though, that we are loyal to You and that we rule over them in Your name. We shall be lying, because we do not intend to allow You to come back. And it is in this deception that our suffering will consist, because we will have to lie! So this is the meaning of the first question You were asked in the desert, and this is what You rejected in the name of the freedom that You put above all else. And yet that question contains one of the great mysteries on which our world is founded. Had You been willing to give them bread, You would have satisfied the eternal craving of both individual man and human society as a whole—to have someone to worship. There is nothing a free man is so anxious to do as to find something to worship. But it must be something unquestionable, that all men can agree to worship communally. For the great concern of these miserable creatures is not that every individual should find something to worship that he personally considers worthy of worship, but that they should find something in which they can all believe and which they can all worship in common; it is essential that it should be in common. And it is precisely that requirement of shared worship that has been the principal source of suffering for individual man and the human race since the beginning of history. In their efforts to impose universal worship, men have unsheathed their swords and killed one another. They have invented gods and challenged each other: “Discard your gods and worship mine or I will destroy both your gods and you!”
And this is how it will be until the end of time, even after gods have vanished from the earth—for they are bound, in the end, to yield to idols. You knew, You couldn’t help knowing, this fundamental mystery of human nature and, knowing it, You nevertheless spurned the only banner that was offered You, that would have made them follow You and worship You without a murmur—the banner of earthly bread. But You chose to reject it in the name of freedom, in the name of spiritual bread! And look what You did after that, again in the name of freedom. I tell You once more that man has no more pressing, agonizing need than the need to find someone to whom he can hand over as quickly as possible the gift of freedom with which the poor wretch comes into the world. But only one who can appease a man’s conscience can take his freedom from him.
…
Man is weak and despicable. What if, today, he rebels everywhere against our authority and is proud of his rebellion? It is a childish pride, the pride of a schoolboy, of little children rioting in their classroom and driving out their teacher. But the end will come soon and they will have to pay dearly for their fun. They will raze churches and flood the earth with blood, but the stupid children will finally realize themselves that, although they are rebels, they are weak and are unable to bear their own rebellion. Shedding their silly tears, they will finally admit that He who created them rebels intended to mock them and no more. They will say it in despair and it will be blasphemy, and then they will be even more unhappy, because human nature cannot bear blasphemy and in the end always punishes itself for it. And so man’s lot is nothing but unrest, confusion, and unhappiness
…
[The strong] bore Your cross, they endured years and years of hunger in a barren wilderness, living on roots and locusts—and, of course, You can point proudly at these children of freedom, at their freely given love, and at their magnificent suffering for Your sake. Remember, though, there were only a few thousand of them and even these were gods rather than men. But what about the rest? Why should the rest of mankind, the weak ones, suffer because they are unable to stand what the strong ones can? Why is it the fault of a weak soul if he cannot live up to such terrifying gifts? Can it really be true that You came only for the chosen few? If that is so, it is a mystery that we cannot understand; and if it is a mystery, we have the right to preach to man that what matters is not freedom of choice or love, but a mystery that he must worship blindly, even at the expense of his conscience. And that is exactly what we have done. We have corrected Your work and have now founded it on miracle, mystery, and authority. And men rejoice at being led like cattle again, with the terrible gift of freedom that brought them so much suffering removed from them.
…
Freedom, free-thinking, and science will lead men into such confusion and confront them with such dilemmas and insoluble riddles that the fierce and rebellious will destroy one another; others who are rebellious but weaker will destroy themselves, while the weakest and most miserable will crawl to our feet and cry out to us: “Yes, you were right. You alone possessed His secret, and we have come back to you. Save us from ourselves!”
…
And everyone will be happy, all the millions of beings, with the exception of the hundred thousand men who are called upon to rule over them. For only we, the keepers of the secret, will be unhappy. There will be millions upon millions of happy babes and one hundred thousand sufferers who have accepted the burden of the knowledge of good and evil. They will die peacefully with Your name on their lips, but beyond the grave they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the secret and, for their own happiness, we shall dangle before them the reward of eternal, heavenly bliss. For we know that, even if there is something in the other world, it is certainly not for such as they.
Here we see the problem of religious tribalism in the “requirement of shared worship”. People are brought together in their desire to worship together, but this runs into our innate tendency toward tribalism, and even if the founder of the tradition says “do not judge” and to “love your enemies” the attitude of “if you aren't with us you are against us” seems to inevitably develop as time goes on.
Religious traditions become changed over time, and in this case the Inquisitor provides a justification for the changes that they have made—the tradition had to be changed for the sake of the masses. Jesus' teaching was too difficult for most people to follow and only a handful of elites could follow it and find spiritual freedom—heavenly bread. Instead of giving the people this heavenly bread the church instead takes away their freedom and gives them earthly bread which is apparently the best that they can hope for given the hopelessly corrupt condition of human nature and inability to live up to Jesus’ new paradigm.
The idea of freedom as a terrible burden stands so contrary to our culture in which we value freedom and autonomy highly, and in which the expectation is that the more freedom one has, the happier one will be. But the idea is presented that this freedom only leads to misery and therefore the most important thing for a man to do is to find someone to submit himself to and give his freedom up. The Inquisitor makes out like this is somehow different from what Jesus taught although it seems to me that it would be the case that Jesus thought we ought to submit to God, so the key difference between the two is whether there is a human authority forcing it or not.
Nevertheless, this idea—freedom as a burden—is interesting, and looking at certain aspects of life we may provide support for it. For example, having an authority tell you what to do and simple being able to obey instead of having to make decisions for oneself is a pretty straightforward way to live. If you have to plan everything for yourself there’s a whole lot of anxiety and worry to be had in that, and many people find it to be too much. Consider all the men who join the military whose lives were a mess and then find that when they have someone shouting and yelling at them to do things suddenly they have the discipline to do all the stuff that they are supposed to do. And then some find it difficult transitioning to civilian life due to the sudden regaining of autonomy.
From my own career, one memory that stands out is a time when my boss's boss came to give me a task directly and ask for me to produce some report that she needed as soon as possible. Suddenly I had a lot of motivation and I wanted to do a good job at the task and I really had a good time seeing how fast I could get the task done. I did the job well and very quickly, and she was pleased. It was a very different experience from my normal day-to-day where I would pull down tickets from our ticketing system, and I found it far more satisfying.
And of course many people find that life as an adult is a lot more difficult than being a child, where you can just trust the adults to take care of you and do what they say. Of course there are those who chafed at the rule of adults and experienced childhood as oppressive, so that's something worth bearing in mind. I suppose these people probably don’t care for having a boss tell them what to do as an adult either.
We won’t look at it here, but I really enjoyed the ending to this story as well as the dialogue between Alyosha and Ivan in this part.
Despite listening to Ivan's blasphemous ideas Alyosha’s faith is not shaken and it seems that nothing can make him give up his piety. But his faith is finally shaken when the elder dies.
Due to the elder's greatness it was expected that his death would be followed by some great miracle and so everyone anticipates that something remarkable will happen. Zosima’s body is placed into a coffin in his cell where a bit of ceremony is held. There are legends that the body of a saint after it dies will not experience decay and if it gives off any smell it will be a pleasant one. But it isn't long before visitors notice the body giving off an unpleasant odor as corpses naturally do. And then those who hated the elder due to dislike of the institution of the elder and those who envied that he was regarded as such a great saint take the odor as a sign that the elder was a false saint.
Then some began to criticize openly the recently deceased elder, and even to make accusations against him.
“His teachings were false,” some confused monks said. “He taught that life was a great joy and not tearful resignation.”
“His interpretation was too modern,” others, even more confused, joined in. “He didn’t believe in actual physical fire in hell.”
“He didn’t observe the fasts very strictly,” some of the envious said. “He indulged in sweet things; he liked to have his tea with the cherry jam that was sent him by rich ladies. Is that right for an ascetic?”
“He sat in pride and fancied himself a saint,” the most spiteful said cruelly; “people knelt and prostrated themselves before him and he accepted it as normal, as his due.”
One opponent of the elder among the monks was Father Ferapont. Father Farapont is extremely strict with his fasts and therefore garners a great deal of respect among the monks despite his “eccentricities”—he sees demons everywhere and thought the elder far too lax. Hearing of the incident with the body odor he shows up to the room with the body as the ceremony is being held…
Raising his arms over his head, Father Ferapont roared:
“Casting out, I cast out!”
Then, describing a full circle, he made the sign of the cross eight times in succession, once on each wall and once in each corner. Those who had followed him understood his gesture at once, for they knew that he always did this whenever he entered a room and that he would never sit down anywhere or utter one word until he had driven out the unholy spirits.
“Satan, get thee hence; Satan, get thee hence,” he said each time he made the sign of the cross. “Casting out, I cast out!” he roared again when he had finished his ritual.
He wore his coarse cassock with a rope around the waist. His hemp shirt was open at the neck, showing his chest covered with gray hair. He was barefoot. When he waved his arms, the heavy chains he wore under his cassock clanked.
…
“My Lord has conquered! Christ has overcome the setting sun!”
His voice was frantic, his hands were raised toward the sun, his face was pressed against the earth. Then he began to sob, crying aloud like a little child, his body shaking convulsively, his arms now spread out crosswise on the ground.
The whole crowd was around him now, shouting excitedly, some beginning to sob with him. They were all gripped by a strange frenzy.
“Here’s the one who is really a saint!” “Here’s a truly righteous man!” was shouted from the crowd. The monks were no longer afraid, and some even cried out spitefully: “He’s the one who should be an elder!”
The Elder Zosima, despite being so wise and despite winning over so many people with his saintliness during his life, nevertheless is considered disgraced following his death due to something as superficial as the odor of his corpse. The people are quick to replace their respect for him and his teachings with respect for a raving madman, who seems more impressive to them in his extreme demonstrations of piety.
Alyosha, being already grieved by the death of the elder, finds all this to be too much and he enters into a state of despair. He has been deeply shaken. Rakitin finds Alyosha in this state, and delighting in the opportunity to corrupt the pious novice he takes him to the home of a certain woman…
Which is a fun scene, but we won’t get into it here.
Eventually, Alyosha comes back by himself to the monastery where Father Paisii is reading from the gospels. Exhausted by the events of the day, Alyosha drifts off into sleep and begins to dream…
it’s Cana of Galilee, the first miracle… Ah, that miracle, what a lovely miracle! It wasn’t sorrow, it was human happiness that Christ extolled, and the first miracle He worked was to bring men happiness… ‘He who loves men loves their happiness,’ Father Zosima used to repeat so often—that was one of his guiding ideas… Whatever is true and beautiful is always full of forgiveness—the elder used to say that too…
Alyosha is then there at the wedding feast within the dream and to his surprise he finds the elder, who invites Alyosha to drink with him.
“Let us enjoy ourselves,” said the dried-up little man. “Let us drink new wine, the wine of great, new happiness. Look at all the guests, and look, there are the bridegroom and the bride. And now the wise governor of the feast will taste the new wine.
…
“Can you see our sun now? Can you see Him?”
“I am afraid… I don’t dare look,” Alyosha whispered.
“Don’t be frightened of Him. Though He is frightening in His greatness, terrifying in His majesty, He is also infinitely merciful and, out of love, He has made Himself like one of us and shares our joy and turns our water into wine, so that the joy of the guests shall not cease, and He invites more and more guests, unceasingly, more new guests forever and ever. Look, see, they are bringing new vessels in…”
A bright flame burned in Alyosha’s heart. His heart was full to the brim and even pained him. Tears of rapture welled up from his soul. He stretched out his arms and awoke…
Later in the story, it is revealed that Ivan has a brain fever, and once upon returning to his home he finds a man there, who purports to be the devil. Ivan takes the man to be an apparition borne out of his condition, and though the devil says a lot of clever things, Ivan insists that they are all ideas he has had before, and hates the devil for repeating back his own ideas to him.
For me this was the most enjoyable part of the book. The demon goes on at length, but I’ll just provide a few highlights.
My fondest wish is to be able to incarnate myself once and for all into some two-hundred-pound merchant’s wife and to believe seriously in all those things that she believes in. My ideal is to go to church, light a candle, and offer up a prayer with the utmost sincerity. I swear this is true. That would be the end of my torments…
By some predestination that goes back to primeval times, by a decree that I could never make any sense of, I have been designated to be the Negator, despite my kindly nature and the fact that I’m really very poorly fitted for ‘negation.’ ‘Never mind,’ my protests were brushed aside, ‘there must be negation, because without it there would be no criticism. You understand,’ I was told, ‘it would be just like having a magazine without a criticism section. It would be nothing but one uninterrupted hosannah. And in life, sheer hosannah is not enough, for things must be tested in the crucible of doubt, and so on and so forth.’ I don’t really have to go into all that, for I didn’t create the world, and I’m not responsible for it. Anyway, they had to have a scapegoat, so they made me write my column of criticism and that made life possible. We understand this comedy. I, for instance, demand annihilation for myself. ‘No,’ they told me, ‘you just have to live, because without you there would be nothing. For if everything on earth was reasonable, nothing would ever happen; there would be no happenings without you and we must have happenings.’ And so here I am, serving under protest so as to make it possible for things to happen, and acting against reason on superior orders. And people take all this comedy seriously, even people endowed with indisputable intelligence. And that’s their tragedy. Of course they suffer, but that still doesn’t prevent them from living, and living a real, not an imaginary, life, because suffering is life. What joy would there be in life if there were no suffering? Everything would become one endless hymn of thanks to God, which would be very holy but rather dull too.
…
A blonde, twenty-year-old Norman girl comes to an old Jesuit father. A buxom, natural beauty—makes you drool just to look at her. She bends down and whispers her sins to the priest through that little grill. ‘What are you saying, my daughter—already? You’ve fallen again?’ the Jesuit exclaims. ‘Oh, Sancta Maria, and not even with the same man! How long will this continue, tell me? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?’ ‘Ah, mon père,’ the sinner answered him, the tears flowing down her cheeks, ‘ça lui fait tant de plaisir et à moi si peu de peine! [it gives him so much pleasure and me so little pain!]’ What do you think of that answer! Well, I gave up on her: that was a true cry of nature, purer, if you will, than innocence itself! And so I absolved her sin and was about to leave when I heard the old Jesuit arranging, through that little grill of the confessional, to meet her later. Just think—that old man, hard as flint, and there he fell in the twinkling of an eye! The truth is, though, that nature took its due!
…
I heard the joyful cries of the cherubim singing and shouting hosannah and the thunderous, rapturous shouts of the seraphim that shook heaven and all creation. And I swear to you by all that is holy that I longed to join the choir and shout, ‘Hosannah’ with the rest! The word was forming in my throat and almost escaped from my lips, for, as you may well know, I’m very sensitive and artistically receptive. But then my common sense, which is my most unhappy feature, kept me within my assigned limits and I missed the opportune moment. Because, I thought, what would happen after I shouted, ‘Hosannah’? Everything in the world would be extinguished and there would be no more happenings. And so it was only out of my sense of duty and in deference to my public image that I stifled the good impulses within me and remained in my assigned position, to take care of the dirty work. Somebody claims all the honor for good works, leaving me nothing but the foul play. But I did not covet the honor of living a life of deceit, for I am not vainglorious. So why must I be the only creature in the world condemned to the curses of all decent people, even to be kicked by them, for when I assume human form I must face all the consequences of it too? Why, I know for sure that there is a secret there, a secret they’ll never reveal to me, for if I found out what it was all about, I might very well start shouting, ‘Hosannah!’ and the indispensable minus sign would disappear, reasonableness would rule the world, and it would be the end of everything, including the newspapers and magazines, for who would think of subscribing to them then?
Toward the end of the story, Ivan meets a certain man to talk about a crime that has taken place. To Ivan’s surprise, the man confesses to being the culprit, and he professes that he did it all because of Ivan.
I did it above all simply because ‘everything is permitted.’ And the truth is, I learned that from you; you taught me many things at that time, things like, since there is no infinite God, there’s no such thing as virtue either and there’s no need for it at all. You were right there. And that’s the way I understood it.”
Ivan expresses a desire to share what he now knows in court, and he is taunted by his interlocutor, since for Ivan to testify would go against not only Ivan’s professed philosophy, but his self-interest as well.
“It’s impossible. You’re very, very intelligent. You love money, I know that. And you like people to honor and respect you, because you’re very proud. You also like women too much. Yes, and what you like most of all is to live in comfort and security without having to bow to anyone for it. So it doesn’t seem likely that you’ll want to cover yourself with shame and disgrace by accusing yourself in court tomorrow.
In spite of all this, Ivan insists he will do the right thing, commits to doing so, and then takes leave to head back to his own place.
The blizzard was still raging. Ivan started out energetically enough, but soon his steps became uncertain and he began to sway. “This is something physical,” he thought with a grin. A strange happiness had come over him now. He felt full of determination: there would be no more wavering for him, wavering such as had caused him so much suffering lately. His mind was made up and he wasn’t going to change it, he thought cheerfully. At that moment he stumbled against something and almost fell. He saw in the darkness that it was the little peasant, still lying there unconscious. By now almost his whole face was covered with snow. Ivan suddenly bent down, picked the man up, and, carrying him on his back, went on until he saw a house with a light inside. He knocked on the window and asked the man who answered to help him to carry the peasant to the police station, promising to give him three rubles for his help. The man put his coat on and came out.
I won’t go into the details of how Ivan finally succeeded in getting the peasant to the police station, seeing that the man got properly taken care of and examined by a doctor, and generously providing “for possible expenses.” I shall only say that it took almost a whole hour of his time, but Ivan felt that it was well worth his while.
His thoughts wandered as his mind worked intently. “If I hadn’t made up my mind so definitely about tomorrow,” he suddenly thought with delight, “I wouldn’t have stopped and spent a whole hour looking after that peasant; I would have just gone on and not cared a damn if he froze to death… It’s strange, though, that I can make all these observations about myself,” he thought with even greater delight, “while those people there believe I’m going mad!”
When he reached his house and was about to go in, he stopped and asked himself: “Shouldn’t I go and see the prosecutor right now and tell him everything without waiting?” But he answered his own question by entering the house. “Let it all be done tomorrow at the same time!” he whispered and at that very second all his joy and happiness vanished.
This is the closest Dosteovsky gets to providing a solution to Ivan's dilemma about how someone could be virtuous without belief in an immortal soul or in God. As soon as Ivan sets his theories aside and just acts in accordance with his conscience, not for his own benefit but for the benefit of another, suddenly he is relieved of a burden that he has endured over the course of the book and his suffering is supplanted by lighthearted joy.
Recall how earlier in the story Ivan told us about St John the Merciful and said that it must have been in a state of frenzy that the saint would wrap his arms around a freezing beggar, but here Ivan disproves this idea by his own behavior (unless we consider Ivan's good mood to be a "frenzy"), since here he takes care of a freezing peasant as though it were the onlIn the midst of this pleasant mood he is in, he acts virtuously without any psychological difficulty.
But then his old habits return, he procrastinates on doing the good deed he set out to do, and the good mood is gone.
To man prostrated in the dust,
Joy brings friends and cheering wine;
Gives the insects sensual lust,
Angels—happiness divine.
Humility (and its opposite, pride) is one of the biggest themes in the book, and Elder Zosima has said that loving humility is the most powerful force, but what does science have to say about humility? Do we have any new knowledge since the time the book was written?
It turns out that it's not so easy to measure humility so not much research has been done. Nevertheless, I did find a series of studies at the University of Northern Texas published in 2011, where researchers devised a new method for the measurement of humility, the Relational Humility Scale (RHS). To get a sense of the scale, let’s have a look at Table 1 from the study:
(Note that these evaluations are done by “other-reports”. In other words, they get someone who knows the subject to evaluate the subject.)
To get a sense of what sorts of things are correlated with humility, let’s have a look at Table 2:
We see that, toward a person who has given offense, a humble person is more able to forgive, has less of a tendency to avoid the person or seek revenge, and has more empathy toward their offender. We also see in their close relationships (in this case a relationship with a parent) they exhibit more virtuous behavior and have more positive emotion and less negative emotion. In other words, they do good things and they feel good. Those with a sense of being superior to others (pride) have the inverse—they are less virtuous and tend to feel worse.
This calls to mind teachings of Jesus like “the last shall be first and the first shall be last” or “he who humbles himself will be exalted” which is typically taken to be an eschatological statement about things to come, but perhaps we can consider the possibility that these teachings are not (exclusively) about some future heaven, but point to a truth of our psychology here and now, and how our present lives can be made more heavenly.
One might be wondering if virtue and feeling good actually go hand in hand, why do so many people lack virtue? Why don’t they do something that makes them feel good? I think the answer is we are driven by instincts and compulsions which do not necessarily lead to wellbeing. Consider, as an example, how many people still use tobacco products. This could be another reason why the elder recommends looking out for our own lies—we are often swindling ourselves. It’s also not very clear looking out at the world that virtue and feeling good are connected (via humility), since there are so many who don a mask of humble virtue for the sake of pride.
So humility looks like it is of great benefit both to the person who has it, and of course for those around that person. But how does one become more humble?
In the book, the monks give a demonstration of how one can be humble in the face of an offender. At some point Fyodor Karamazov shows up to a dinner that the monks have provided for the family who are at the monastery as guests. Karamazov, always behaving like a buffoon, proceeds to insult the monks and question their motives. The Father Superior responds:
“It was said long ago: ‘Many have spoken out against me, saying evil things, and hearing them I said to myself: it is the healing of the Lord and He has sent it to cure my vain soul!’ Therefore we thank you humbly, dear guest.”
He bowed waist-deep to Karamazov.
“Tut-tut-tut, the same old phrases, the same old hypocrisy! A pack of old lies, the old bowing that has become meaningless! We all know what it is worth: ‘a kiss on the lips and a dagger in the heart,’ as in Schiller’s Robbers. I don’t like sham, fathers. What I’m after is truth, and it’s not in carp that you’re likely to find truth! I have said so before. Why do you keep fasting, fathers? Because you expect it to be credited to you in heaven? Why, for a reward, I would fast too! Now, fathers, try to be virtuous in life instead of confining yourselves inside the walls of a monastery with your meals assured and expecting a reward up there—that’ll be more difficult.
…
When Karamazov stopped spouting his stream of malicious slander, the Father Superior bowed his head and once more said solemnly:
“It is also written: ‘Bear with patience and fortitude the dishonor that befalleth thee and hate not him who dishonoreth thee.’ We shall obey.”
But this is a technique that would seem to only work for a narrow use case. We cannot expect to be viciously insulted every day, and even if we were, surely we would habituate and the benefit would diminish. Is there a more general way by which we can gain humility?
One very common way our ancestors would gain humility is through submission to some higher authority. But it is often the case that people experience authority as oppressive and instead of being humbled they adopt a rebellious attitude. So then we may wonder if there are traits an authority might have which would have inspired in our ancestors acceptance of said authority? We can take a hint from the Inquisitor that “only one who can appease a man’s conscience can take his freedom from him”. So for an authority to inspire genuine humility, the authority must be seen as benevolent—as wise and just. For our selfish impulses to be subdued, to inspire our submission, this authority must be powerful, ideally even physically bigger than us.
But people who fulfill these conditions and fulfill them well are rare and hard to find. And even if you find such a person, it may be that as soon as they gain power over others they become corrupted soon after. If only each of us had access to a person that was perfectly benevolent and wise, incredibly powerful, incorruptible, and bigger and better than we are in every way! One that perfectly represents goodness itself! If one believed in such a person as that, you could submit to such a person deeply and gain a tremendous amount of humility!
A powerful being who is goodness itself, the image of whom inspires the utmost devotion and willing submission, through which the devotee is transformed into who they ought to be—this the purest conception of the divine, and something like it can be found in various traditions. Even the Buddhists, though the Buddha taught equality, have traditional rituals of bowing before a Buddha statue. As far as I can tell, it is the same principle at play. In bowing to a symbol of goodness, one becomes both more humble and more transformed into someone good.
One may wonder though, if this is true, then how is it that there seems to be a substantial number of religious people with smug, holier-than-thou attitudes? How can one square that with humility? C.S. Lewis addresses this question directly in Mere Christianity:
How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshipping an imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people: that is, they pay a pennyworth of imaginary humility to Him and get out of it a pound's worth of Pride towards their fellow-men.
I suppose it was of those people Christ was thinking when He said that some would preach about Him and cast out devils in His name, only to be told at the end of the world that He had never known them. And any of us may at any moment be in this death-trap. Luckily, we have a test. Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good—above all, that we are better than someone else—I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil. The real test of being in the presence of God is that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object. It is better to forget about yourself altogether.
The principle for gaining humility can also be generalized to any relationship. Anytime you elevate others above yourself, transferring importance from yourself to something outside yourself, humility is gained. Of course, it is not always easy to do this, as typically there is something in our subconscious that does not want to be lower than anyone else that will put up resistance when any such potential lowering takes place. It's good—through introspection—to notice this resistance consciously, because it is the greatest obstacle to becoming humble.
A common way that people cut through this resistance is with the pleasure found in a romantic relationship, and this is likely a natural part of the mechanics of bonding—though Dostoevsky depicts a way in which this can fail:
If it’s to be love, let it be love then! I’ll be your slave now, your slave as long as I live, and I’ll love being your slave… Come, Mitya, keep kissing me! You can beat me, hurt me, do what you want to me… Yes, I suppose I have really deserved to be made to suffer… Wait, stop! I don’t want it like this…” She suddenly pushed him off. “Go away—leave me, Dmitry Karamazov. I’ll go and get myself some wine now. I want to get drunk, and then I’ll dance, dance drunk. That’s what I want, and that’s what I’ll do!”
I think we can take this as Dostoevsky’s take that gaining humility through sensuality can be unreliable for the same reasons that sensuality is unreliable in general—your allegiance is still to your sensual desires and so you abandon the path the instant your desires shift. But given the current state of the world, perhaps we should be happy to take what we can get. As I see it, anything that can help people find something outside themselves to care about may be considered an asset. And a romantic partnership can be one of the best sorts of relationships a person can have for this—one where you concern yourself with the needs, wants, desires, and problems of another and they can do the same for you.
But perhaps one of the most important things for maintaining humility is to avoid the pitfalls of modern culture. It begins with telling children that they are all special individuals who can grow up to be the president and that they should have lots and lots of self-esteem—the more the better—and all this justified by the idea that the only alternative to self-esteem is some sort of wretched self-pity. The idea that you might free yourself from self-centeredness isn't even thought to be a valid option! And with our new technology more and more apps are created in a fashion to stroke the user's ego, with avatars, reputation systems, and endless new signaling games, new avenues to try and claim superiority over others, where people try to be more cool, more beautiful, more hip than anyone else. And all this is part of a more general trend of corporations appealing to the worst side of ourselves, creating new vices as quickly as they can to accelerate their growth, and marketing departments doing their utmost to appeal to the pride of the consumer and stoke the flames of greed. And as the consumer sates again and again their ever growing selfish desires, they become more and more bewildered as they become more and more at the mercy of their own inner demon.
But if they are fortunate, they may notice something amiss, and go in search of an explanation—an explanation for their own misery and the misery of the world.
“I want you to explain to me why these burnt-out mothers are standing here, why there have to be poor people, why the poor babe must suffer, why the steppe is barren, why people don’t embrace and kiss one another, why they don’t sing joyful songs, why they look blackened from that black misfortune, why there is nothing to feed the babe.”
And although [he] realized that it was stupid of him to keep on asking like that and that no good would come of it, he felt he had to ask and he had to ask just that way. He also felt a new, unknown fervor welling up in his heart; he felt like weeping; he longed to do something to stop the baby and its blackened, dried-up mother from crying, to stop all tears forever and ever, and he wanted to do it now, right now, without delay, regardless of everything; he wanted it with all the unrestrained passion of a Karamazov.
…
And his heart caught fire and turned toward a light; he wanted to live now, to live and to walk on and on toward that unknown light that was beckoning to him; he had to start quickly, quickly, right away!
Perhaps then they will discover the wisdom of humble love.
Alyosha read it all, greatly surprised. He reread it twice, thought for a while, and suddenly began to laugh, quietly and sweetly. Then the sound of his own laughter made him shudder—he felt it might be sinful. But a second later he was laughing again, just as quietly and happily. He slowly put the letter back into the envelope, crossed himself, and stretched out on the sofa. All that had been weighing on him was gone. “Have mercy upon them all, O Lord. Save them, the unhappy and the tormented. Guide them onto the path that is right for each one of them, according to Your wisdom. You are love. You will bring joy and happiness to all…” Alyosha muttered, crossing himself and drifting into peaceful sleep.
