Monday 13 October 2008

Artifice- Hesse on Dostoevsky

There is nothing more explicit of an artificial sense of life and inner unreality, than the compartmentalising of that life(Nothing?). As Marcus Aurelius puts it, "The integrity of the whole is mutilated if thou cuttest off anything." Or, tangentially and by natural extension, Jesus: "He that is not with me is against me," translated here that each moment that is not with truth is against truth. You cannot slice reality up into various distinct components to suit oneself, as naturally, and by simple law of reality, you don't end up with reality but unreality.
Or Hermann Hesse on Dostoevsky's The Idiot: "Dostoevsky's Myshkin is one who no longer separates thinking from living, and thereby isolates himself in the midst of his surroundings and becomes the opponent of all." Surroundings here being the mental surroundings of existentially confused others, and their ensuing unreal "real world."
And to continue Hesse's drift a little:

This gentle "idiot" completely denies the life, the way of thought and feeling, the world and the reality of other people. His reality is something quite different from theirs. Their reality is in his eyes no more than a shadow, and it is by seeing and demanding a completely new reality that he becomes their enemy.
For them the co-existence, the equal validity of both worlds(material and spiritual) is a principle and an idea, for him they are life and reality! But this child is not as innocent as he seems. His innocence is by no means harmless, and people quite properly fear him.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Funny, i was just reflecting on how i piss off most of the people i have to work alongside eventually - not just because i have fascist views (my current fellow slave shares them) on the need to round up ne-er-do-wells and put them in chain gangs, but because i regard office work as a pointless charade, only necessary because it procures $$$ for rent and food. Even though i never say this, everything in my manner suggests it, try though i do to hide it. You'd think people would just accept that i do the job well but, no, they become enraged at the presence, in their very midst, of someone who has other priorities. Damn, i hate work. i try to present myself as an idiot, so they'll overlook my lack of work-zeal, but instead they regard me as a potential saboteur.