Socialism/Liberalism and Dostoevsky

Firstly to say that Dostoevsky spent some years in a Siberian prison camp for his own conspiratorial period, chiefly motivated by a desire to end serfdom; and so it is the perversion of the ideal of liberalism for him that is the problem, not the ideal of liberty. Some utterances below by the nihilist revolutionary Pyotr Verkhovensky from the novel Demons, the germ of whom was based on the contemporary figure of Sergei Nechaev, a man who felt no moral restraint whatsoever in terms of what was permitted him in the cause of revolution and the seizure of power, including the vilest betrayals of his own apparent friends or allies if he felt it helpful. Acquiring incriminating evidence at every opportunity against his own seemingly allies in the cause, blackmailing or selling them out to the authorities, murder of one of their own as a means of deepening the bonds within the rest of the group - these were all justified means towards the end, though to add this depth of information would have largely been unavailable to Dostoevsky at the time. Anyway, utterances from Verkhovensky in rare moments of truthfulness:

 “You know with us socialism spreads mostly through sentimentality.”

This is obvious enough - the social justice warrior stuff, convinced almost solely on the basis of emotions, particularly indignation, and so the movement in its believers equates to moral truth and any opposing force with moral iniquity. It’s much more pleasant to keep things simple and at this kind of adrenaline-based level rather than deal with much in the way of intellectual depth. 

Then come the out-and-out crooks; well they take up a lot of time, require constant surveillance. 

This perhaps would equate to more militant aspects like Antifa and the more conspicuously ugly aspects of groups like BLM, (whose co-founder Patrise Cullors  said in interview, “We are trained Marxists”) who presumably gain a real taste for power through intimidation and mayhem, and the actions of which the liberal establishment figures like if at all possible to turn a blind eye to. This often thuggish element can possibly get a little autonomous and hard to control though, but they are still small-fry overall, and on the spectrum of power more on the level of useful but dangerous idiots.

“Well and finally the main force - the cement that bonds it all - is shame at one’s own opinion. There isn’t a single idea of one’s own left in anyone’s head! They consider it shameful!”

So these herd mentality incarnates, imagining themselves at the cutting-edge of individuality, become ‘woke’ and sign up to an army of ready-made sacred progressive truths; and again to not be in step with these thoughts is by definition to be a shame to the human race. The greatest enemy is the individual in the real sense.

And the final especially killer line:

“I tell you, I can get them to go through fire if I just yell at them that they are not liberal enough!”

This, to remind you, was written in 1871.