What were the external factors that crippled him and especially his childhood experiences that led him to fear love and intimacy even though he longs for them?
His unconscious troubles began early on with his traumatic childhood. This dilemma foreshadows his difficulty connecting with Lisa. A basic element of a successful society is a functioning family unit. Children need to have love. Can a society progress without a strong family unit.
Norms encourage men and women to produce children and develop a stable environment to raise those children. This is a common theme throughout the novel and the total lack of connection with others stems from his broken childhood. The text shows a good example of this problem. “If I’d had a family in my childhood, I wouldn’t be the same as I am now” and “I grew up without a family: that must be why I turned out this way . . . unfeeling.” This is a powerful statement. His inability to connect with others is at the root of his contempt.
Another problem is his economic status within his society. He believes that poverty is at the root of many social evils in Russia. When he tells Lisa that “you’re one of the truly unfortunate ones. Hm . . . It all comes mainly from poverty” is truly on the money. Progress and rationalism are linked together, but Dostoevsky takes issue with this statement. I think correctly. The economic system is supported by efficiency and science, however, in reality that system has completely broken down. The masses are left only a small amount of capital while the middle classes and petit bourgeois are sitting pretty. Family life is destroyed by poverty in his eyes. Does poverty destroy a person’s happiness? Family, money, love are all connected and missing any one of those elements creates a loss in a person’s ego.
He begins by satirizing the ideals of the Enlightment thinkers who thought that if people only acted out of enlightened self-interest they would become “good and noble”? What problems does Dostoevsky have with this theory? Why does the notion of automatic moral reform make him so angry?
He provides some illuminating examples of why a system based upon self-interested motives is counterproductive. First, he critiques the belief that “man” gets softer from civilization and becomes less bloodthirsty. Empirical evidence provides substantial evidence that this is not the case. Dostoevsky has seen the duality of man in Napoleon and the rein of terror that developed from the Wars in France, Prussia and United States.
Morality seems to be corrupted by conformity and the belief in blind optimism. The masses become passive in dissent and consciously accept that bloodshed is going to happen. The question must be asked: why do people ignore reason? It is easier to join the ranks of the masses and forget larger questions of right and wrong.
The supremacy of science is a problem. People use nature and science as a catchall genre of solving moral dilemmas. This idea limits individual thought. He uses the symbol of “piano keys or a sprig in an organ” to bring to light this moral quagmire. Are people just robots or machines? This is a substitute for free thinking and in return tells people that every answer must be found within a narrow classification. This is a method to stun freedom of choice. He comments that “all human actions will then be calculated according to these laws” and presumably going outside these lines would be adverse to the idea of individual self-interest.
In addition, this idea of reform could lead to new capitalist economy. The current context marginalizes people to the outskirts of the community and now people will just have to accept the inequality of civilization. Limiting the answers and choices people can turn to is the start of fascism.
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