I just started reading this book. It is absolutely amazing how Dostoyevsky can translate the anxiety and mania involved in murder and the rationalization that the murderer himself has to justify in order to commit such an act.

I read Crime and Punishment recently, and it was so incredible. One those books I see myself re-reading.

Conversation b/w Rodya and Porfiry is just out of the world 🌎

I miss this Jordan.

Finished this book today. I think it warns agains dangers of the notion of the ‘greater good’ in a very interesting way. Something incredibly relevant to the modern world:

- Can you handle the consequences of actually doing things for the greater good (murder and suffering)

-What gives you the right to bring about the greater good? (the notion of the superior man)

-What about the innocence lost in pursuit of the greater good? (Lizaveta)

-How do you know that the greater good is actually greater, or good? (Objective morality)

I think the 20th century serves as a great warning as to dangers of trying to bring about the greater good or in other words a utopia. It’s astonishing to me how Dostoyevsky was able to prophesies this decades before the atrocities of communism, Nazism and fascism actually materialised, all ideologies which seeked to bring about a utopia. .

I just finished Crime and Punishment today. It was truly the best novel I've ever read and grasped so many ideas--im gonna have to sleep on this for a while.

I am only on chapter 4 for crime and punishment, but that conversation Raskolnikov had with the drunk man about human dignity and begging was just incredible. And the way he almost makes you sympathize with him despite ruining his family through his alcoholism is just peak writing

I read Crime and Punishment as a teenager. I have forgotten most about what I have read. I didn’t understand its complexity at that time at all. If I have time, it’s going to be the first book that I will reread

Imagine the joy of sitting in his class every day i have had some amazing teachers, i wonder the amazing people he was able to teach and the many more he will teach, we need more Teachers like JBP.

Dude wtf is going on with comment section eh?
Sooo refreshing.... absolutely lovely

Funny timing. I just finished re-listening to Crime and Punishment. It's such a fantastic book

Thank you for posting this talk. It was very good to listen to right now, as I just finished reading the last page of the book, Crime and Punishment. I read it and summarized each chapter after reading it. I read it aloud on my channel. I wanted to go deep into the story, and I find that reading aloud and making notes for myself  is helpful for me. I like what Jordan Peterson says about the tendency of some to set up a straw man. It's a way to fool yourself and certainly others, and feel smug about it, without some annoying obligation to research honestly a position you want to take. I like how he says to put up an "iron man" - or a steely argument against what your are proposing, and THEN see how your ethical point can stand up. That would be a more honest approach, intellectually and morally.
I am impressed how Peterson just speaks from his thoughts, yet his points are organized and flow easily and in a logical progression. That's hard to do!
Also, I find it funny how sometimes when he paces towards the double doors, you can see people peering through the crack - haha.

"Dialogue happens on two occasions: When people have something to say, or when they have something to hide."
-My Sophomore English II Honors Teacher

I miss Crime and Punishment and Dr. Peterson. Thank you.

I enjoyed all his books, especially Notes from the Underground. I think not everyone is able to appreciate this one as much as it's worth.

I recommend TV mini series from 1979 starring John Hurt.

I just finished reading the book, amazing writing, amazing story. So much to think about on Rodya. Interesting characters and all the psychology behind it. Def worth a re-read in the future.

Decent review.  I would go further to say C & P is not about Christian morals or "secular psychology" but about faith.  Crime and Punishment, as I see it, is a study of a self-centered life vs a God-centered life.  One is hell and death, the other is a life saved by God.  And it is also the study of a certain type of person whose personality type compels him  to follow sin to its ultimate end in order to be forced to discover his faith.  You see God finds a way for all of us.  That type of person is under the delusion of self-sufficiency.  I would say we are all Raskolnikov on some level.  FYI, the first half of it will induce insane nightmares, while the end of it has the power to restore your faith if you're open to it.

I am a major fan of Peterson but he misses the mark in his synthesis, failing to capture the essence. Raskolnikov admired Napoleon and believed that great men like him were not bound by ordinary moral rules. He aspired to that same greatness, seeing himself as superior to others. To prove his theory, he killed the old pawnbroker, rationalizing that the act was justified to fund his studies and secure his grand future.

However, while his reasoning convinced him, his actions betrayed him. Guilt and shame consumed him, revealing the deep conflict between his conscious thoughts and the truth of his heart—or his unconscious. This internal struggle manifested: he left absurdly obvious clues, and behaved erratically. His rational mind (still thinking he was justified and moral) and his deeper, unconscious self were at odds, exposing the flaw in his soul.

Dostoevsky masterfully portrayed this tension, showing how the heart’s truth manifests.

Raskolnikov is by far the most psychologically complex character in the novel. The common description of him as “a man driven mad by guilt after committing murder” is inadequate. His central conflict is between grandiose autonomy and profound relational need. Before the murder he is already socially withdrawn, irritable, intensely self-absorbed, materially deprived, and almost pathologically inactive. Dostoevsky describes him as having withdrawn so far into himself that ordinary encounters have become aversive; later we learn that at university he was respected for his intellectual effort but was aloof, proud, secretive, and perceived as looking down on his peers. Psychologically, his problem begins long before the axe.

Raskolnikov has a striking combination of high intelligence, high sensitivity, severe pride, shame-proneness, and poor tolerance of dependency. He cannot comfortably occupy an ordinary vulnerable position. Being poor is not merely inconvenient for him. Being indebted to his landlady, dependent on his mother, unable to support himself, and aware that his sister may sacrifice herself financially for the family are all experienced as humiliations. His response is not primarily practical. Razumikhin, who is also poor, works. Raskolnikov retreats into his room and thinks. That difference is psychologically fundamental. Raskolnikov converts helplessness into abstract superiority. If he cannot control his material circumstances, he can imagine himself belonging to a category of people superior to those circumstances. His theory of “ordinary” and “extraordinary” people therefore cannot be separated from his personal psychology. It is philosophy serving an emotional need.

Money matters, poverty matters, concern for his mother matters, and ideological arguments matter. But none is the deepest motive. When Raskolnikov finally speaks honestly to Sonya, he strips away his earlier justifications. He says that he did not murder primarily to help his mother or to become a benefactor of humanity. He wanted to discover whether he could dare, whether he could “step over,” whether he was merely like everyone else or belonged among those who possess the right to take power.

Raskolnikov needs to reduce another human being to an abstraction before he can kill. Alyona becomes the “louse.” That language is psychologically functional. It is dehumanization. If Alyona remains a complete human subject—someone with perceptions, fear, history, bodily vulnerability—the act becomes psychologically much harder. So Raskolnikov compresses her into a category:

parasite → harmful → worthless → removable.

This is not merely moral reasoning. It is a cognitive defense permitting aggression. The accidental murder of Lizaveta is therefore devastating to the architecture of his theory. Lizaveta cannot plausibly be assimilated to the same category. The Russian text repeatedly presents her as timid, submissive, exploited, honest and gentle. Raskolnikov later links her mentally with Sonya as one of the quiet, meek sufferers. His supposedly clean philosophical experiment immediately produces an innocent second victim. Reality refuses to obey his abstraction.

The text fits much better with a mixture of severe stress, malnutrition, social isolation, obsessive rumination, depressive withdrawal, fever/delirium-like episodes, and dissociative phenomena than with schizophrenia or a primary psychotic disorder. Even Dostoevsky carefully keeps Raskolnikov responsible. His altered state helps explain the crime. It does not erase agency.

The epilogue makes this explicit. Even in Siberia he initially does not truly repent of the murder. His pride remains wounded because he sees his catastrophe partly as a failed attempt—an error, a weakness, an inability to “step over.” Dostoevsky explicitly says he would almost welcome genuine repentance because at least that would give meaning to his suffering; instead his conscience initially finds no sufficiently terrible moral guilt beyond the failure itself.