Today I suddenly remember a quote from Dostoyevsky’s “Notes from the Underground” that I read a long time ago. It goes like this
Shower upon him every earthly blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, so that nothing but bubbles of bliss can be seen on the surface; give him economic prosperity, such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with the continuation of his species, and even then out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you some nasty trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply to introduce into all this positive good sense his fatal fantastic element… that men still are men and not the keys of a piano, which the laws of nature threaten to control so completely that soon one will be able to desire nothing but by the calendar. And that is not all: even if man really were nothing but a piano-key, even if this were proved to him by natural science and mathematics, even then he would not become reasonable, but would purposely do something perverse out of simple ingratitude, simply to gain his point. And if he does not find means he will contrive destruction and chaos, will contrive sufferings of all sorts, only to gain his point! He will launch a curse upon the world, and as only man can curse (it is his privilege, the primary distinction between him and other animals), may be by his curse alone he will attain his object—that is, convince himself that he is a man and not a piano-key! If you say that all this, too, can be calculated and tabulated—chaos and darkness and curses, so that the mere possibility of calculating it all beforehand would stop it all, and reason would reassert itself, then man would purposely go mad in order to be rid of reason and gain his point! I believe in it, I answer for it, for the whole work of man really seems to consist in nothing but proving to himself every minute that he is a man and not a piano-key! It may be at the cost of his skin, it may be by cannibalism!
Dostoyevsky is my favourite author and he was a brilliant thinker who with his talents presented the depth of human psyche. However, I will borrow words from Keiji Nishitani, he did not understand the power of science deep enough. Science can reach the point that all the “chaos, darkness, curses, madness and cannibalism” can be “calculated and tabulated”. There is nothing but a sense of complete despair because there is nothing that special about being a human. It also gives a sense of freedom, an extreme freedom that one can find it very very positive and negative at the same time. This freedom reminds me of Satre. I don’t know anyone might feel this way but at least this is how I feel when I learn about the power of science. Having said that I don’t think that it is completely lost. I put my hope on Nishitani, Zen Buddhism and the abosolute nothingness. This might be another path, different from a great despair or great freedom.
hgn's note