Sunday

Wendell Pfeffer

I’ve finally finished the first half of Notes from Underground, but I still find it difficult to keep track of some of the important points Fyodor made. One important point he made though was when he said that all humans are irrational and even those humans that seem to be acting rational are only acting out of the norm in order to seem rational. He even states that he is an irrational person because he would rather choose a mansion rather than a hen house. A rational person, if there is one, wouldn’t value the mansion over the hen house because they both serve the same purpose. A mansion becomes over excessive, which thus makes it irrational. Humans are led by choice not rationality that is why Fyodor choose the mansion instead of the hen house. I also get the sense that he was inspired by Newton and Locke to write his famous short story because he is always talking about the mechanization of the universe, human behavior and that all can be identified by the use of math and science because those two things are rational. Newton and Locke both included the idea of rationality greatly into their works. Rationality may have inspired Newton to create his laws of gravity and Locke to create the laws of human behavior, which I believe inspired Fyodor to input the fundamental use of the laws of nature into the Notes from Underground. Another really important idea was his perspective on suffering. He believes that if a person experiences suffering he will thus have a higher level of consciousness, which can be a good and bad thing. A higher level of consciousness means that you will have greater intellect, but on the downside you will be much less happier than a person who has a low level of consciousness.