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TJ123-8-2009 LK VWD0011 Tradition Humanistic 6th Edition W:220mm x H:292mm 175L 115 Stora Enso M/A Magenta (V)READING 30. 7
86 CHAPTER 30 Industry, Empire, and the Realist Style86
Dostoevsky’s Realism (and his genius) lie in the way in
which he forces the reader to understand the character as
that character tries to understand himself.From Dostoevsky’s Crime and
Punishment(1866)
“... the ‘extraordinary’ man has the right... I don’t mean a 1
formal, official right, but he has the right in himself, to permit
his conscience to overstep... certain obstacles, but only in
the event that his ideas (which may sometimes be salutary for
all mankind) require it for their fulfilment. You are pleased to
say that my article is not clear; I am ready to elucidate it for
you, as far as possible. Perhaps I am not mistaken in supposing
that is what you want. Well, then. In my opinion, if the
discoveries of Kepler and Newton, by some combination of
circumstances, could not have become known to the world
in any other way than by sacrificing the lives of one, or ten, 10
or more people, who might have hampered or in some way
been obstacles in the path of those discoveries, then Newton
would have had the right, or might even have been under an
obligation... to removethose ten or a hundred people, so that his
discoveries might be revealed to all mankind. It does not follow
from this, of course, that Newton had the right to kill any Tom,
Dick, or Harry he fancied, or go out stealing from market-stalls
every day. I remember further that in my article I developed the
idea that all the... well, for example, the law-givers and 20
regulators of human society, beginning with the most ancient,
and going on to Lycurgus, Solon, Mahomet, Napoleon and so
on, were without exception transgressors,^1 by the very fact that
in making a new law they ipso factobroke an old one, handed
down from their fathers and held sacred by society; and, of
course, they did not stop short of shedding blood, provided only
that the blood (however innocent and however heroically shed
in defence of the ancient law) was shed to their advantage. It
is remarkable that the greater part of these benefactors and law-
givers of humanity were particularly blood-thirsty. In a word, I 30
deduce that all of them, not only the great ones, but also those
who diverge ever so slightly from the beaten track, those, that
is, who are just barely capable of saying something new, must,
by their nature, inevitably be criminals—in a greater or less
degree, naturally. Otherwise they would find it too hard to leave
their rut, and they cannot, of course, consent to remain in the
rut, again by the very fact of their nature; and in my opinion they
ought not to consent. In short, you see that up to this point
there is nothing specially new here. It has all been printed, and
read, a thousand times before. As for my division of people into 40
ordinary and extraordinary, that I agree was a little arbitrary, but
I do not insist on exact figures. Only I do believe in the main
principle of my idea. That consists in people being, by the law
of nature, divided in generalinto two categories: into a lower
(of ordinary people), that is, into material serving only for the
reproduction of its own kind, and into people properly speaking,
that is, those who have the gift or talent of saying something
newin their sphere. There are endless subdivisions, of course,
but the distinctive characteristics of the two categories are
fairly well marked: the first group, that is the material, are, 50
generally speaking, by nature staid and conservative, they live
in obedience and like it. In my opinion they ought to obey
because that is their destiny, and there is nothing at all
degrading to them in it. The second group are all law-breakers
and transgressors, or are inclined that way, in the measure of
their capacities. The aims of these people are, of course,
relative and very diverse; for the most part they require, in
widely different contexts, the destruction of what exists in the
name of better things. But if it is necessary for one of them, for
the fulfilment of his ideas, to march over corpses, or wade 60
through blood, then in my opinion he may in all conscience
authorize himself to wade through blood—in proportion,
however, to his idea and the degree of its importance—mark
that. It is in that sense only that I speak in my article of their
right to commit crime. (You will remember that we really began
with the question of legality.) There is, however, not much
cause for alarm: the masses hardly ever recognize this right of
theirs, and behead or hang them (more or less), and in this way,
quite properly, fulfil their conservative function, although in
following generations these same masses put their former 70
victims on a pedestal and worship them (more or less). The first
category are always the masters of the present, but the second
are the lords of the future. The first preserve the world and
increase and multiply; the second move the world and guide it
to its goal. Both have an absolutely equal right to exist. In short,
for me all men have completely equivalent rights, and—vive la
guerre éternelle—until we have built the New Jerusalem, of
course!”^2
“You do believe in the New Jerusalem, then?”
“Yes, I do,” answered Raskolnikov firmly; he said this with 80
his eyes fixed on one spot on the carpet, as they had been all
through his long tirade.
“A-and you believe in God? Forgive me for being so
inquisitive.”
“Yes, I do,” repeated Raskolnikov, raising his eyes to Porfiry.
“A-a-and do you believe in the raising of Lazarus?”
“Y-yes. Why are you asking all this?”
“You believe in it literally?”
“Yes.”
“Ah... I was curious to know. Forgive me. But, returning to 90
the previous subject—they are not always put to death. Some,
on the contrary.. .”(^1) Raskolnikov’s views are similar to those expressed by Napoleon III
in his book Life of Julius Caesar. The newspaper Golos(Voice) had
recently summarized the English Saturday Review’s analysis of
Napoleon’s ideas about the right of exceptional individuals (such as
Lycurgus, Mahomet, and Napoleon I) to transgress laws and even to
shed blood. The book appeared in Paris in March 1865; the Russian
translation in April! [Lycurgus: the founder of the military regime
of ancient Sparta; Mahomet: Muhammad, the prophet of Allah and
founder of the religion Islam; Solon: statesman and reformer in
sixth-century B.C.E. Athens.]
(^2) New Jerusalem, symbolic of the ideal order, after the end of time,
is a Heaven on Earth, a new paradise. See the description in
Revelation 21 (the Apocalypse). The French phrase means,
“Long live perpetual war.”