On the surface, it seems that The Underground Man is nothing more than Dostoyevsky's attempt to refute fascinating and contradictory way Chernyshevsky's proposal of rational egoism as a solution to a problem. emerging hyperconscious culture. Fascinating in the sense that the Underground Man refuses to subscribe to the construction of the idealistic "crystal palace" through his innate belief in free will, and contradictory in the sense that his own state of hyperconsciousness pushes him deeply into what 'he describes. as a “conscious inertia” or state of inaction – which is ironically what rational egoism exists to solve. The Underground Man, even if he does not realize it, exhibits many of the same traits as an existentialist, including a belief in some kind of inherent radical subjectivity related to humanity and a refutation of the idea according to which human reason can be reduced to pure mathematics. he believes that humans derive their essence from their actions. Yet his existentialist nature is thwarted when he recognizes the futility of his position: he is trapped in "conscious inertia", which leads to what philosophers like Sartre call "despair". This status, which remains with him throughout both parts of the novel, arose because Dostoyevsky created his character as a perversely extreme version of the hyperconscious being, who does not realize that his reality is shaped by his actions. His subconscious, however, yearns for the human contact and unity that Dostoyevsky defends. Quite symbolically, this desire manifests itself in the prostitute Liza, but no matter how much her subconscious desires to connect, Dostoyevsky has designed her distorted existentialist nature to exclude any chance of human connection. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The first part of Notes from Underground best represents the narrator's existential nature, which is perhaps most evident through his refutation of Chernyshevsky's rational egoism, one whose main principle is the "crystal palace", described by translators as "the ideal living space for the future utopian communist society". Its construction is incredibly offensive to the Underground Man, as he believes it robs not only himself but society of their free will by reducing their wants and desires to mere calculations. It is one of Chernyshevsky's main points that if only these calculations could be made known to us, they could surely enlighten humanity based on what brings us the most "profit", which generally converges with reason in order to improve our well-being or our economy. Status. The Underground Man refutes this idea, claiming that it is reductionist in nature, and he vehemently objects to it: "His own free and voluntary desire, his own whim, however wild, his own imagination, though irritated sometimes to the point of madness - all this is the same most profitable profit, that which is omitted, which does not enter into any classification and because of which all systems and theories are constantly blown to hell” ( Dostoyevsky 25). The “most profitable” profit, according to him, is the simple capacity of man to want and desire completely independently. It ignores any system or theory that would openly show or even force man to do what is best for him, rational egoism being his (or Dostoevsky's) main adversary. It is worth emphasizing how particularly important it is for the Underground Man that not only his desires, butall those of humanity, be theirs, and that any form of external pressure or attempt to define profit is totally absent. For the Underground Man, reason and rationality are so insignificant. in relation to free will, that the exercise of one's right to the latter is justified "even in the case where it is manifestly harmful and contradicts the most sensible conclusions of our reason concerning profits - because in any case it preserves us what is most important and dearest, that is to say our personality and our individuality” (29). To clarify this last thought, he asserts that practicing our free will in the ways we wish preserves our essence as human beings. This line of thinking echoes philosopher Sartre's mantra that "existence precedes essence" in his book Existentialism and Human Emotions: "Man is nothing other than what he makes of himself- even” (Sartre 15). If man is only what he makes of himself, he must be the sole determinant of his being and his essence – and not an “average of statistical figures and scientific-economic formulas” (Dostoyevsky 21 ), which, according to Dostoevsky, unfairly reduce and simplify the human essence while creating a distorted version of his harmonious utopian society, a dystopia that imposes unity on us, rather than allowing us to achieve it of our own will. Whatever the philosophical implications, almost one thing is certain about The Underground Man after examining his attitude toward the possibility of an external determinant in man: he exhibits many of the same traits as the existentialist of Sartre, extremely radical in his belief in freedom. will. The Underground Man's beliefs in free will are clearly characterized by his use of numerous metaphors and by his rant: "two times two is four", the construction of the "crystal palace" and even his disgust at classify humans as “a sort of piano key or organ strand.” But his understanding of the radical responsibility that comes with free will is significantly more difficult to recover due to the convoluted nature of his speech. Sartre extends his definition of existentialism by stating: "...the man who becomes involved and who realizes that he is not only the person he chooses to be, but also a legislator who , at the same time, also chooses all of humanity. like himself, cannot help but escape the feeling of his total and profound responsibility. He calls this feeling “angst,” and his description sounds awfully familiar in the context of Notes from Underground. Throughout the first part, even from the first line, the Underground Man has told us that he is sick, that he is evil, and that his illness stems from his hyperconsciousness. According to Sartre, his suffering is nothing other than a feeling of anguish, resulting from the awareness of his deep responsibility not only for his own actions, which accompany his free will, but also for his neighbor. This anxiety results in conflicting and ambivalent feelings towards others who are not in the same hyperrational state as him. He envies them for their ability to act with such certainty, while hating them for their ignorance and insulting their intelligence. Consider how the Underground Man himself recognizes the futility of action: “How can I explain it? This is how: because of their narrow-mindedness, they mistake the most immediate and secondary causes for the first causes, and thus convince themselves more quickly and easily than others that they have found an indisputable basis for their actions, and so they feel at ease; and that is, after all, the main thing.For to begin, one must first be completely at ease, so that there are no more doubts” (Dostoyevsky 17). Their narrow-mindedness allows them to act, because they confuse lower causes with main causes. But in the radically subjective world of the Underground Man, there can never be a truly primary cause that can motivate action – it simply does not exist. On the contrary, if it exists, it would take infinite time to achieve it. Aside from simply choosing the most readily available and logical path at the time, one of the reasons most men are not hyperrational like the Underground Man is because they let their emotions distort their rationality and their judgment, that is to say that their passion triumphs over their reason. This is a huge error according to Sartre, because it allows men to abstain from responsibility for their actions: “…he is responsible for everything he does. The existentialist does not believe in the power of passion. He will never accept that an overflowing passion is a devastating torrent which leads a man to certain acts and therefore constitutes an excuse” (Sartre 23). The underground man falls into another definition of the existentialist because he believes in blame or responsibility. He abstains from passion and emotion by remaining in his seclusion in hiding, and he claims that his intelligence gives him complete and utter responsibility not only for his actions, but also for actions that affect him, as in the case of his example. be responsible for someone slapping him. He masks his “anxiety” about the responsibility he feels as an existentialist by calling it an illness and even going so far as to take pleasure in it. It is clear that he is proud of his hyperawareness status even if he envies those who are not endowed with it; for him it is both a blessing and a curse - in any case, it sets him apart from others and makes him different. Because of his hyperconsciousness, he is condemned to a life of inaction and passivity. Passivity turns into immobility, immobility leads to isolation, from isolation arises indifference and, as is evident in the case of the Ridiculous Man, indifference precedes apathy, which Dostoevsky associates to death and sin. Of course, he deeply agrees with the idea advocated by the Underground Man, which at this point is clearly free will, but his excess of consciousness always leads to his downfall, as we observe very obviously in the second part. The Underground Man prides himself on his independence from others, but in reality he succumbs to societal pressure quite frequently. For example, when he visits old friends and more or less invites himself to their going away party: "'Why twenty-one?' I said, somewhat agitated, apparently even offended. “If you count me, that’s twenty-eight rubles, not twenty-one. » (Dostoyevsky 64). Offended by what? To have been forgotten. He feels entitled to be invited to a social gathering even though he despises the people who will be there - he describes their appearances with utter loathing. This feeling of an unfulfilled desire to actually have a human connection with others culminates the next night, when he arrives at a brothel and pays a prostitute, Liza, to sleep with him. An interesting little detail was the way he described the brothel itself: “During the day it was a store; and in the evening, those who had references could come and visit me... In front of me stood a person with a stupid smile, the hostess herself, who knew me a little” (86). The Underground Man has been here before, this isn't the first time he's paid someone for sex, which in itself is symbolic of his subconscious desire for any kind of connectivity..