Intellectual Superiority Complex
Ivan Karamazov has lost his faith precisely because he has elevated himself above the people. In this case, “the people” are not necessarily peasants, but are what Ivan, a modern intellectual, is not: human beings…
Tag: The Brothers Karamazov
One Kind Gesture
I am grateful to Gary Saul Morson, for his book that has engaged me over the last year, Wisdom Confronts Certainty, as well as many of his articles and essays. Thanks to Morson’s insights here…
Specks and Seeds
Incidentally, I have already mentioned that although he lost his mother in his fourth year, he remembered her afterwards all his life, her face, her caresses, “as if she were standing alive before me.” Such…
Advice for Those Who Say They Want to Save the World
Above all, avoid lies, all lies, especially the lie to yourself. Keep watch on your own lie and examine it every hour, every minute. And avoid contempt, both of others and of yourself: what seems…
The Path of the Prosaic
for Natalie Long Faith comes not from theory but from experience, from the bottom up, by living the right sort of life from moment to moment. For Zossima, that means attending to the prosaic. One…
Lies
And therefore I think the solution I have found for myself will be valid for all sincere men who set themselves the same question. First of all, to the question: What must we do? I…
Minute Particulars
Active love is always directed at somebody or something in particular. Abstract love of humanity is professed by Ivan Karamazov’s Grand Inquisitor, by Rakitin, and eventually by Ivan Karamazov’s devil. When it comes to meeting…
Reveling in Resentment
The man who lies to himself can be more easily offended than any one. You know it is sometimes very pleasant to take offense, isn’t it? A man may know that nobody has insulted him,…
Soul Sentiment from the Nineteenth Century
I onward go, I stop,With hinged knees and steady hand, to dress wounds;I am firm with each—the pangs are sharp, yet unavoidable;One turns to me his appealing eyes—(poor boy! I never knew you,Yet I think…
This Is Because That Is…
I am spending my mornings reading the riveting new book by Gary Saul Morson, Wonder Confronts Certainty: Russian Writers on the Timeless Questions and Why Their Answers Matter. A short while back, I posted a…