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The Underground Man - Fyodor Dostoevsky's Warning to The World

Eternalised

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Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote Notes from Underground in 1864 which is considered to be one of the first existentialist works, emphasising the importance of freedom, responsibility and individuality. It is an extraordinary piece of literature, social critique and satire of the Russian nihilist movement as well as a novel with deep psychological insights on the nature of man.

Dostoevsky’s most sustained and spirited attack on the Russian nihilist movement is voiced by one of the darkest, least sympathetic of all his characters – the nameless narrator and protagonist known as the Underground Man, revealing the hopeless dilemmas in which he lands as a result.

Notes from Underground attempts to warn people of several ideas that were gaining ground in the 1860s including: moral and political nihilism, rational egoism, determinism, utilitarianism, utopianism, atheism and what would become communism.

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📚 Recommended Reading

▶ Notes from Underground (1864)
https://amzn.to/2DBRXas
▶ Crime and Punishment (1866)
https://amzn.to/3h2BIks
▶ The Idiot (1869)
https://amzn.to/3bxKFRK
▶ Demons (1872)
https://amzn.to/2FexadH
▶ The Brothers Karamazov (1880)
https://amzn.to/324Kiem

🎧 Prefer Audiobooks? Get a 30-day Audible Plus FREE trial:
▶ https://amzn.to/332zPzN

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⌛ Timestamps

0:00 Introduction
0:54 Notes from Underground: Historical Context and Themes
7:26 Notes from Underground: Introduction
10:38 Man of Action vs Man of Acute Consciousness
15:39 Irrational Pleasure in Suffering
17:05 Critique of Rational Egoism and Utopianism
23:48 The Value of Suffering

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📝 Sources

Frank, J. (1961). Nihilism and "Notes from Underground". The Sewanee Review, 69(1), 1-33
Scanlan, J. P. (1999). The Case against Rational Egoism in Dostoevsky's" Notes from Underground". Journal of the History of Ideas, 60(3), 549-567.

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#dostoevsky #undergroundman #existentialism

20 Comments

@Eternalised Creator 4 years ago (edited) Pinned

“I did not know how to become anything; neither spiteful nor kind, neither a rascal nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect." — Dostoevsky :_eternalDostoevsky:

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Note: Dostoevsky is not wholly to be confused with The Underground Man, whom he used to embody the nihilism of his age, in order to criticise it. However, he also agreed with many of The Underground Man's philosophical contemplations, using him as a mouthpiece for his own ideas. This is one of Dostoevsky's writing techniques, of giving a voice to the opposite views that he himself holds.

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@Nunu4evaa 2 years ago

"The best way to keep a prisoner from ever escaping is by making sure that he never knows he's in a prison in the first place . that he never feels he is in one. " - Fyodor Dostoevsky

@davidwalker5054 3 years ago

Dostoevsky was uncanny he seems to know from beyond the grave that you are reading one of his novels and he includes a character who you recognize as yourself and then he makes sure you don't like what you see

@KonstantineMortis13 4 years ago

This book helped me put into words some things I always knew about myself: that I am full of lies. So many lies, subtle, strange lies that only I would know are lies. Untruths so deeply embedded into my own mind that to separate them is a profound undertaking. I know I have put on such dramatic shows of insult and suffering, found offense where there was none and leaned into it until I hated a person for a reason they did not know, and that fact infuriated me; that I am not worth paying attention to. How much of the image of this world have I twisted, knowingly, just for sympathy, attention, a chance for someone to know how "brilliant" I am. Foolishness. Utter folly. Do not live like this, someday it will entrench you, and you'll realize too late you have lost a battle with your own mind.

@YSOGRIMJIM 4 years ago

"Which is better : cheap happiness or sublime suffering?" this honestly brutally opened my eyes towards myself and my actions, thank you for this video.

@vibrolax 2 years ago

I read "Notes from Underground" in the 80's. I was impressed by how contemporary the author's sensibility was. I'm still impressed 40 years later.

@reesehood8518 4 years ago

This was definitely one of the hardest books I've read. I had to slow down to interpret the philosophy which would result in me forgetting where I was in the story. He must have been utterly brilliant.

@JanneWolterbeek 4 years ago

Finding gems like these is what makes me prefer Youtube above anything else.

@enbilerfrainitiald8529 4 years ago

Notes from Underground helped me in one of my worst periods of life. I'll never forget this novel and I am forever grateful to Dostoyevsky.

@Raging.Geekazoid 4 years ago (edited)

"We learn from history, that we do not learn from history."

@tracehints9315 4 years ago

I took an existentialism class my sophomore year at a college prep school in the early 70s and read notes from underground. Even at that young age I could fully identify with the underground man and still do. No novel has impacted me so deeply as this one.

@Mackaygolf 4 years ago

Reading Crime and Punishment in September shook me to my core. None of the ideas championed in today's political climate are novel. Humanity is entirely predictable in regard to it's horrific nature.

@360decrees2 4 years ago

Notes From Underground doesn't seem to have been read by very many psychotherapists, at least not here in the US. If all a client had to do at the beginning of the first session was say, "I'm like the Underground Man", it would save a lot of time.

@Deveritasmagia 4 years ago

this is one of the deepest novels on the human condition

@TheFoulblood 4 years ago

I feel uneasy hearing this description of myself through such a pitiful character. Thank you so much for the upload, this is going to be the first book I've read in years

@rhuarcaran3427 3 years ago

Dostoevsky is my favorite writer and it is incredible how succinctly he illuminates the crisis of the modern world. If you like Dostoevsky, I'd also recommend Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.

@DrJellyFanguzzz 4 years ago (edited)

When I was 14, I read this. At first, I thought it was a personal attack.

When I was 25, after I went through trauma, I realized the first half was a dismantling of the fundamental societal need to achieve something greater, whilst not actually acting upon such moral convictions. Everybody in society wants to say they'll help further the cause until duty necessitates the action, in which case selfish acts often prevail. I think the point is that society works better when there's the necessity to have something better than them to strive towards, while the greater whole does not have to hold themselves to such high moral standards.

The book was a warning about what today is.