But man is a frivolous and incongruous creature, and perhaps, like a chess player, loves the process of the game, not the end of it. And who knows (there is no saying with certainty), perhaps the only goal on earth to which mankind is striving lies in this incessant process of attaining, in other words, in life itself, and not in the thing to be attained, which must always be expressed as a formula, as positive as twice two makes four, and such positiveness is not life, gentlemen, but is the beginning of death. Anyway, man has always been afraid of this mathematical certainty, and I am afraid of it now. Granted that man does nothing but seek that mathematical certainty, he traverses oceans, sacrifices his life in the quest, but to succeed, really to find it, he dreads, I assure you. He feels that when he has found it there will be nothing for him to look for. When workmen have finished their work they do at least receive their pay, they go to the tavern, then they are taken to the police-station — and there is occupation for a week. But where can man go? Anyway, one can observe a certain awkwardness about him when he has attained such objects. He loves the process of attaining, but does not quite like to have attained, and that, of course, is very absurd. In fact, man is a comical creature; there seems to be a kind of jest in it all. But yet mathematical certainty is after all, something insufferable. Twice two makes four seems to me simply a piece of insolence. Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who stands with arms akimbo barring your path and spitting. I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.—Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground (1864) (trans. Garnett 1918)
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
'a pert coxcomb'
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
How often I come upon pert coxcombs, arms akimbo! If nothing else, I love learning these words.
ReplyDeleteThe comparison, or juxtaposition, of these two passages is fascinating...to some extent they oppose one another, though I do not think them contradictory. Dostoevsky is observing something that one might expect to hear today, perhaps from Oprah: it is more the journey than the destination. I don't mean to denigrate this because I agree that the erotic, striving nature of the human soul is essential to who we are. It is the feared violation of this dynamism that causes so many to recoil at the idea of a final "beatific vision," which is considered static and dull, as tedious as Dostoevsky's arithmetic.
Soloviev, on the other hand, is celebrating those people who reject "the fact" of a fallen world, a twisted and disordered world, and strive instead for the ideal, the free realization of "Godmanhood." The Dostoevskian rejoined would be to wonder whether this ideal is, in fact, that pert coxcomb, smothering the complexity, diversity, and charm of this world. Is the "ideal" the enemy of the "different"?
Ultimately, I do not think they will disagree. The paradox of the human person, striving to "rest" in the ideal, but recoiling at the loss of the dynamism that causes us to strive in the first place, can only be held together in a trinitarian perspective, which both embrace.