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Health
and its relation
to Greatness
By
Samuel Hobbs
Senior Thesis
April Fourth, 2009
Final Draft
Introduction: The reason for this Thesis
When I was eighteen, I read Nietzsche and saw greatness. And, being eighteen, unsure, unsteady and small in my own eyes, I said to myself, “Self, become great!” For, I thought, if I am great, I will be masterful and strong... and Respected.
And so, I read Nietzsche. And I saw the things he said about greatness, and some were right, and some were wrong. But what was right, this I loved and searched for what he said that was true, that was right. And I thought to myself, I will write on Nietzsche and what greatness is. Then I will know what is great, and become great.
And then I grew older until I was twenty, and I changed. Through a series of misfortunes I began to realize that I was nothing more than human, and what I sought was greatness beyond humanity. What I sought by means of Nietzsche was this: that I wanted to be the most glorious of human beings, to the point where none would ever surpass me, to the point where I was greater than human. But then I realized that I was just a human being and nothing more special than that. I realized that I was a mere mortal and no great man.
And so, stripped of my dreams of glory and of the Übermench, I tried to figure out what it means to be a regular human being. How are we supposed to work? What is it we are supposed to do? What is our teleos, our end and the fulfillment of our purpose? What does it mean to be a healthy human being? Enter: Dostoevsky, speaking of men searching for greatness, losing and becoming human again.
Thus the topic of this thesis was born. I knew the authors that I loved the most, and I knew the issue that I wanted to explore: What does it mean for a human being to be healthy, and how does that relate to greatness?
The worlds of the Masters: Part 1, Nietzsche
This part of my thesis will discuss the positions of Nietzsche and Dostoevsky respectively on health and greatness and how they relate to each other. First I will give you Nietzsche and his Übermench who is great by virtue of his natural health.
Mastery and Independence
I will explain the Übermensch by showing his history and what his role will be, how he thinks of himself in comparison to other men, how he deals with their morality and then you will see for yourself why he is great. I will paraphrase Nietzsche.
Long ago, before men began to write for themselves histories, and before men thought of gods, there were only men. Men newborn of Nature, and living in accordance with Nature. These men were not living in accordance with logic or religion but with that which Nature and Nature alone put in them. All men were given the Will to Power, an urge to dominate, control, create and measure. But some were given great strength and some less: “the strong did what they could, the weak suffered what they must.” (Thucydides) And these men lived, and fought and created states to rule; or succumbed to the rule of the stronger, being driven to rule by the will to power, or being suppressed by the stronger. In this quote, Nietzsche describes those stronger ones driven by the will to power, and their fierce independence:
Some horde or other of blond predatory animals, a race of conquerors and masters which, itself organized for war and with the strength to organize others, unhesitatingly lays its fearful paws on a population which may be hugely superior in numerical terms but remains shapeless and nomadic. Such is the beginning of the 'state' on earth: I think that the sentimental effusion of which suggested that it originates in a 'contract' has been done away with. He who is capable of giving commands, who is a 'master' by nature, who behaves violently in deed and gesture-- what are contracts to him! One does not reckon with such beings, they arrive like fate, without motive, reason, consideration, pretext, they arrive like lightning, too fearful, too sudden, too convincing, too 'different', even to be hated. Their work is an instinctive creation an impression of form, they are the most involuntary, most unconscious artists there are-- wherever they appear, something new quickly grows up, a living structure of domination, in which parts and functions are demarcated and articulated, where only that which has first been given a 'meaning' with respect to the whole finds a place but the meaning of guilt, responsibility, and consideration is unknown to these born organizers; the fearful egoism of the artist presides in them, with its gaze of bronze and sense of being justified in advance to all eternity in its 'work', like the mother in her child. (66, On the Genealogy of Morals)
Throughout this quote, we can see the strong men in their violent vigor and unflinching action creating what they will and doing as they please without asking permission. There we see the split between the two types of men, the masters and the weak populace.
Master Morality
The master race, reveling in its triumph and glory and gazing upon itself in respect, creates the morality of the noble. Most historians of morality say that good was named by those to whom it was shown. That is, when someone was shown mercy, the beneficiary said, “That is good,” thus defining the merciful action as good. But Nietzsche says the good was defined otherwise, that it was the disparity between the glory of the masters and the ingloriousness of the ruled. The ones who were in power saw themselves as good, and thus whatever they did, that was good. Nietzsche says that the Master race created morality on their own terms, and by no objective standard:
The good themselves-- that is, the noble, the powerful, the superior, and the high-minded-- were the ones who felt themselves and their actions to be good-- that is, as of the first rank—and posited them as such, in contrast to everything low, low-minded, common, and plebeian. On the basis of this pathos of distance, they first arrogated the right to create values, to coin the names of values. (12, On the Genealogy of Morals)
You can see the noble type of man regarding himself as The Determiner of values; he does not require to be approved; he passes the judgment: “What is injurious to me is injurious in itself”; he knows that it is he alone who confers honour on things; he is a creator of values. He honours whatever he recognizes in himself: such morality is self-glorification. (845, The European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche)
Slave Morality and Illness
But in acting as masters and fulfilling their natures these conquerors and definers of morality also created the environment necessary for the generation of slave morality, that is, the morality which respects submission and all the attributes of the lower and weaker, and which would protect the slaves from the vigorous health of the masters, and the disregard in which slaves are held. The race of men in subjection to the Master race were bitterly resentful of those in power; they still were infused with the same animal will to power as their masters, yet this will was thwarted and impotent. For where the masters ordered mankind and society to their own pleasure, and ruled and created, the slaves, clay-like, were fixed into an unchangeable form. They became powerless over their situation and their will to power was thwarted from expressing itself in any objective way, locked as they were into a society of enforced peace and servitude. Nietzsche describes the moral evolution of the will to power in such social slaves:
They turned inward and began to destroy themselves, to have a mastery over something.
Those fearful bulwarks by means of which the state organization protected itself against the old instincts of freedom...caused all the instincts of the wild, free, nomadic man to turn backwards against man himself. Hostility, cruelty, pleasure in persecution, in assault, in change, in destruction,-- all that turning against the man who possesses such instincts: such is the origin of bad conscience. The man who is forced into an oppressively narrow and regular morality, who for want of external enemies and resistance impatiently tears, persecutes, gnaws, disturbs, mistreats himself, this animal which is to be 'tamed', which rubs himself raw on the bars of his cage, this deprived man consumed with homesickness for the desert, who had no choice but to transform himself into an adventure, a place of torture, an uncertain and dangerous wilderness-- this fool, this yearning and desperate prisoner became the inventor of 'bad conscience'. But with him was introduced the greatest and most sinister sickness which still afflicts man even today, man's suffering from man, from himself. (65, On the Genealogy of Morals)
You see how Nietzsche claims the will to power becomes ingrown and poisons men against themselves, forming bad conscience, excusing the desire to hurt oneself by saying, “The will to power is evil.” But it was no ordinary slave who invented bad conscience, it was a slave who took a little too well to the process of self-inflicted torment, the Ascetic Priest. For he is one of the lesser men who is held down by the masters; yet he becomes the most deadly enemy of the masters. For when he is repressed, he relinquishes the fundamentally healthy and natural acts of outward demonstration of the will to power. He relinquishes these for a spiritual power. He takes the Master Morality which names the Ascetic Priest low, mean and common and twists it. He sees the morality of the masters, how they say that they themselves are 'good' and how those who are ruled are 'bad'. And seeing this, the Ascetic Priest creates a morality which justifies the subjection and servitude of the slaves and condemns the actions of the masters. Where the masters value a selfishness, the slave posits selflessness, in the place of pride, humility, from mastery now to servility. Here Nietzsche describes the twisting of the Master Morality into the Slave Morality:
Weakness is being transformed into “goodness”; craven fear into “humility”; submission to those one hate into “obedience” (obedience, that is, towards the authority who, so they claim, ordered this submission-- they call him God). The inoffensive appearance of the weak man, even the cowardice which he possesses in abundance, his hesitation on the threshold, the inevitability of his being made to wait– all assume a good name here, as “patience”, that is, as virtue as such; the inability to take revenge is called the refusal to take revenge, perhaps even forgiveness...you have said nothing about the masterpiece wrought by these experts in black magic who turn every dark shade into the white of milk and innocence... what they have already repeated so often: “We good men-- We are the just.” They do not call what they demand retaliation, but “the triumph of justice”; they do not hate their enemy, no! They hate “injustice”, “godlessness”; their belief and hope is not the hope of revenge, the intoxication of sweet revenge... but the triumph of God, of the just God over the godless; what remains on earth for them to love is not their brothers-in-hatred, but their “brothers in love”, as they say, all the good and just men on earth. (32, On the Genealogy of Morals)
And so the slave morality is formed of the antithesis of the master morality through the lies of such as the ascetic priest. Once this new morality is crafted, then it is put to work. For though the oppressed are turning inward and destroying themselves through the urgings of the will to power, they do not understand why they are suffering. They have forgotten their nature of mastery and will to dominate. And they ask themselves, “Why is it that we are suffering, why do we destroy ourselves, as we live in a peaceful state and there seems no need?” This is raw guilt. And it is here that the Ascetic Priest comes with his fabrications, his lies about Nature and the condition of men:
Only in the hands of the priest, this real artist in guilty feelings, did [guilt] take form- oh what a form! 'Sin', for such is the priestly name given to the reinterpretation of animal 'bad conscience' (cruelty turned inwards against itself)--has been the greatest event so far in the history of the sick soul: it represents the most dangerous and fateful trick of religious interpretation. Man, suffering from himself in some way, suffering physiologically in any case, like an animal locked in a cage, uncertain as to why and wherefore, desiring reasons—reasons are a relief—desiring means and narcotics, finally consults someone who is also acquainted with hidden things—and behold! He receives from a magician, from the ascetic priest, the first hint as to the 'cause' of his suffering: he is to seek it in himself, in some guilt, in a piece of the past, he should understand his suffering itself as a state of punishment... (118, On the Genealogy of Morals)
And so, says Nietzsche, the weak become sick and unhealthy through the ministrations of the Ascetic Priest. And for what is the sufferer guilty? The small acts of the very will which Nature itself gave him, these acts are called evil by the Ascetic Priest. He is guilty of actually using his will to power. He is guilty of acting on his very nature. Now his very nature is being used against itself in a vicious cycle of guilt and cruelty and suffering, gradually sickening and becoming weaker and more impotent. And at first the reason satisfies the ones in torment, but it continues to make them sicker, and more perverted against their very natural will to dominate. And so from the listless nihilism of a merely suppressed animal, now all listlessness is gone, and in its place a will for pain, for repentance, and one who understood the reason for his torment longed ever for more to atone for himself. And they believe ever more that to be low is good, and to seek nobility is wrong, and that the noble themselves must suffer tremendous guilt and not really be as happy as they seem.
Master Race Overthrown by Slave Morality
This part is a bit tricky, because Nietzsche never spells out how the Master Race falls prey to the Ascetic Priest and Slave Morality. But at present, Slave Morality rules, and so, presumably the Masters fell in this sort of manner.
In time the whole of mankind was corrupted and turned against itself. The master race was gradually overthrown through falling to the Slave Morality. The French nobles had ruled France how they pleased, but eventually succumbed to the Estates-General, and thus to the Slave Morality. And further, the spreading of nationalism (and consequently Slave Morality) by the last great master Napoleon, toppled age-old kingdoms. And so, through the sly reasonings of the Ascetic Priest, the Übermench fell and was convinced that his will to power was evil and that he must pay for his will to power with suffering and guilt and self-torment, and that his very healthiness was suspect. Until at last, Christianity, Judaism and the other priestly forms of the ascetic ideal held sway over mankind. And all of mankind turned towards the hatred of itself and its will to power.
But this is not the end, says Nietzsche. For some day a master will be born, strong enough to realize the emptiness of the slave morality and will release his natural will to power. But he will not hate the men below him, for he cares not enough for them. “There is too much nonchalance, too much levity, too much distraction and impatience, even too much good temper mixed up with this aristocratic contempt for it to be capable of transforming its object [the slaves] into a real caricature and monster.” (23) And then will the natural be revealed in him. For he will decide for himself what is right and will lead and break and create at will in accordance with himself and what is natural. He will be himself in his full health and all his greatness.
Interlude: Impressions and Repercussions
The strength and happy vigor of the Übermench naturally was very appealing to me. Being almighty young, I wasn't sure what parts of me were me, and which were merely fabrications of society. And so self-authorship and the rights to define right and wrong, good and bad, were traits I needed to develop on my road to self ownership. Mainly what attracted me was the fact that the Übermench wasn't afraid of other people's opinions; completely self-assured and never bound by guilt. However, as I began to realize my common humanity, and knowing I did not want to rewrite morality I became less and less comfortable with Nietzsche, and more and more intrigued by Dostoevsky. I realized that I might not need to be great in order to be healthy. Perhaps I did not need to rewrite reality in order to own it, and participate fully in it. And so, I read Dostoevsky.
The Worlds of the Masters: Part 2, Dostoevsky
As I explore Dostoevsky's position on health and greatness, I will examine several of his characters from these books: Notes from the Underground, Crime and Punishment, Demons (also called The Possessed). I will examine the characters which I think Dostoevsky would call healthy as well as the unhealthy ones, which incidentally often end in suicide.
The Unhealthy
I will first deal with the unhealthy seekers of greatness. Dostoevsky provides us with a broad range of these in a variety of forms, from the self-confident Kirilov of Demons to the bewildered protagonist of Notes From the Underground unwilling to accept his position as neither hero nor insect. I will now go through several of these characters to show how they live searching for either greatness or satisfaction and the destructiveness of their actions.
One of the most clear articulations of a sick man seeking greatness is the protagonist of Notes From the Underground. From the first line we see that he thinks of himself as unhealthy. “I am a sick man....I am a spiteful man.” But through lies and following confessions we learn that spite is not the problem. “The most disgusting thing was the fact that I was shamefully aware at every moment even at the moment of my greatest bitterness, that not only was I not a spiteful man, I was not even an embittered one.” (4 NFU)
Spite was not his problem. The problem for the Underground man was that he was interminably mediocre. “Not only couldn't I become spiteful, I couldn't become anything at all: neither a hero nor an insect.” (4 NFU) This lack of greatness lead the Underground man to do things which appeared either heinous or noble, but were done without conviction. In petty fashion, he stood his ground against an officer and was himself ignored and ignominiously run over. He followed some “friends” to a brothel in order to offend them and bring attention to himself and disgrace them. But not finding them, he slept with a prostitute and seemingly out noble kindness he convinced her to leave this place of destruction which would lead to her death. He gave her his address and left being seen as a hero. But then he became afraid and embarrassed that she would come. “It doesn't matter. Let her come. Hmm. The only unpleasant thing is that she'll see, for instance, how I live. Yesterday I appeared before her such a ... hero... but now, hmm!” (76 NFU) And when she did indeed come, she found him shamefully beating his obstinate servant. He then began to insult her, telling her that she came for unworthy reasons and that he had been mocking her in the brothel. But she loved him yet and tried to comfort him in his unhappiness. And when he realized that now she was the long-suffering heroine and he the destitute, he began to hate her personally. “She guessed that my outburst of passion was merely revenge, a new humiliation for her, and that to my former, almost aimless, hatred there was added now a personal, envious hatred of her...she fully understood that I was a despicable man, and , most important, that I was incapable of loving her.” (88 NFU) And so, she left. And in his desperate and unyielding search for greatness, the underground man only revealed a sickly, petty nastiness, unable to accept himself, and unable to accept the greatness of others.
My second example of a sick man is Stavrogin, the arch Nihilist of Demons. Among the several unhealthy men in this book (Pytor, Kirilov, Liputin,etc.) Stavrogin seems to be the one Dostoevsky is most interested in, and seems to despise the most thoughtfully. Pyotor is a simple self-seeking Anarchist playing at nihilism. Kirilov is merely madly obsessed with self-will. Liputin is a capitalist. But Stavrogin is intricate. Stavrogin is the embodiment of Nihilism; a man possessed of no driving motive at all, merely a lackadaisical meandering. He sees no reason for life and in the end kills himself from boredom. He seeks only fleeting sensations of passion and pleasure. “Every extremely shameful, immeasurably humiliating, mean, and, above all, ridiculous position I have happened to get into in my life has always aroused in me, along with boundless wrath, an unbelievable pleasure. Exactly the same as in moments of crime, or in moments threatening to life.” (693 Demons) When a young man, he played havoc in his social circles, fought duels, engaged in the most sadistic behavior he could and generally did whatever occurred to him. He married a lame woman because it was one of the most absurd and offensive things he could think of. He taught Shatov to love Russia and believe in God, and at the same time taught Kirilov to believe that he could be God if he would only conquer fear by killing himself. He allowed his wife to be killed. He called Darya to him, but got bored and hung himself before she got there. In all of these activities he ceaselessly confirmed that he had the strength of will to stop, but never did. Always he wandered after evil. But not with the ferocious lust for greatness which possessed Pyotr Stepanovich. And because he had no goal, no end to strive for, he killed himself.
My final example of a thoroughly unhealthy man is Kirilov also from Demons. This man was convinced by the insidious persuasion of Stavrogin, that indeed there was no god, that god was dead, and that the duty of Kirilov was to proclaim that the will of man is all. And, that the only way to claim that will and become God was to conquer fear of death and pain and thus to conquer God himself. “If there is God, then the will is all his, and I cannot get out of his will. If not, the will is all mine, and it is my duty to proclaim self-will... Can it be that no one on the whole planet, having ended God and believed in self-will, dares to proclaim self-will to the fullest point?” (617) And convinced by Stavrogin, Kirilov believes he must kill himself and become God. He waited to kill himself only because he wanted there to be a real God who made good and evil, honest and scoundrel, real distinctions. But he was convinced that there were no distinctions, and thus no God. In the end, he went crazy and killed himself. Obviously this was not a healthy end.
The Healthy
Now that we have examined these three unhealthy men, let us look at healthy ones. These embody what Dostoevsky thinks worthy of pursuit and the proper way in which that goal is pursued.
Ivan Karamazov is my first example, being an ill man who comes to health. Ivan began life as the second child of a debauched father, and lived quite self-consciously on the charity of others. Being rather brilliant, he studied much abroad and became quite educated and absorbed the nihilist philosophy that “everything is permitted.” The earliest mention of his ill health comes from his own mouth, when he begins talking to his younger brother and monastery novice Alyosha about Ivan's own non acceptance of the order of reality.
“Will you explain to me why you do not accept the world'?” said Alyosha. “Of course I'll explain, it's no secret, that's what I've been leading up to. My dear little brother, it's not that I want to corrupt you and push you off your foundation; perhaps I want to be healed by you,” Ivan suddenly smiled just like a meek little boy. (236 Brothers Karamazov)
After this, Ivan explains his problems and how he cannot accept that there is a god who would allow the suffering of children and has less compassion that Ivan himself. Also, he has problems with a god who requires of men more than they can render. God requires that they overcome their weak natures and cease to sin; to Ivan, that means only a few godlike individuals will be chosen, and for all the rest of humanity, he feels pity. He pities those who are weak and are not chosen, the ones who do not want the freedom to chose God, but the ones who in their weakness need to be led and released from the terrors and responsibility of freedom. These are the ones, Ivan says, on whom God has no mercy, and so it is a tragedy that they are miserable and cannot find happiness. And so, he wrote a paper The Grand Inquisitor, describing one who accepted the third temptation of Christ and gained the whole world in order that he might lead the weak that they might be happy despite the disregard of God. But Alyosha rightly points out that this one, this Grand Inquisitor himself, does not believe in god.
From this dubious beginning of Ivan's declaration of mutiny against God until much later in the book, we explore very little of his philosophical ideas, focusing more on the plot of the novel and the interactions of the various players. We see Alyosha leave the monastery. We are told Ivan speaks philosophically with their bastard brother Smerdyakov, and we begin to see that Smerdyakov takes to Ivan's philosophy very readily. And we see the eldest brother Dimitry's rivalry with their father Fyodor Pavlovich over a woman, which culminates in the murder of Fyodor Pavlovich. Dimitry, as the most likely suspect is arrested and held for trial. Smerdyakov reveals to Ivan that through his teaching Smerdyakov has slain Fyodor and inculpates Ivan for wishing his father dead, and teaching that 'everything is permitted.' When Ivan visits him after the murder Smerdyakov says this.
You are guilty of everything,sir, because you knew about the murder, and you told me to kill him, sir, and, knowing everything, you left. Therefore I want to prove it to your face tonight that in all this the chief murderer is you alone, sir, and I'm just not the real chief one, though I did kill him. It's you who are the most lawful murderer!(627)
Ivan is stricken and not sure if he is really a murderer or not. But through a series of artful lies, Smerdyakov convinces him that Ivan's desire for his father's death combined with his philosophy lead Smerdyakov to commit the crime and the blame lands squarely on Ivan. In the end, Ivan is forced to decide whether to denounce himself at the trial of Dimitry, or allow everthing to be permitted.
After this last visit with Smerdyakov, and under the stress of this decision of self definition, whether submissive to reality or not, Ivan succumbs to brain fever. While fevered, he perceives the emptiness of his nihilistic beliefs and when Alyosha comes bearing news of Smerdyakov's suicide, he finds Ivan debating himself and Alyosha interprets the situation this way.
He was beginning to understand Ivan's illness: “The torments of a proud decision, a deep conscience!” God, in whom he did not believe, and his truth were overcoming his heart which still did not want to submit. “Yes...Yes, with Smerdyakov dead, no one will believe Ivan's testimony; but he will go and testify!” Alyosha smiled gently: “God will win!” he thought. “[Ivan] will either rise into the light of truth, or... perish in hatred, taking revenge on himself and everyone for having served something he does not believe in.” (655)
Ivan wavered on this decision until the very end, indeed, he almost decided not to denounce himself. But halfway back from the witness stand, he returned and confessed to the murder of his father. He submitted to reality and accepted that he was wrong for his involvement with the murder and accepted that not everything is permitted.
And though he fell back into delirium, the repentant Ivan survived and regained his health. Which is much more than the unyielding Smerdyakov did. And though not great in the eyes of the world, nor of the Grand Inquisitor, he became great in the eyes of God for his submission.
My last example is the most dynamic. This is of Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment. Like Kirilov, he is possessed by an idea. Raskolnikov determines that a great man will not be hindered by petty moralities invented by society and that a great man will not be dependent on other people. And so he goes against morality to try his mettle and to throw off morality for good and all, and also isolates himself from his friends and family. But he finds himself still believing in right and wrong even before his crime, insulting his sister's buyer/fiancée. Between the annoyance of his inability to escape morality and the paranoia of being caught, he gradually edges toward insanity. And after he has murdered a pawnbroker, he is overwhelmed by guilt and acknowledges the fact that he is bound by morality as a law of nature. He turns himself in, and is sent to Siberia. For a long time still, he will not acknowledge his dependence on Sonya who followed him to Siberia, and this isolates him from everyone. But finally, he admits to being an ordinary man, with no vestiges of greatness and needful of human love, and he accepts Sonya. And so began “the story of a man's gradual renewal, his gradual rebirth, his gradual transition from one world to another, of his growing acquaintance with a new, hitherto completely unkown reality.” (656 Crime and Punishment) And so, he conquered the idea which had consumed him. In relinquishing greatness, he won health, kindness, love, community.
I am not yet sure if this is necessarily the way it is in real life, but this is how Dostoevsky consistently portrays it. Greatness is only achieved by accident, if at all, and health only through accepting morality and our own humanity and that entails- embracing God, the people surrounding you, right and wrong, love, etc.
Worlds Apart
The summary of my paper will concern the comparison of Dostoevsky's notions to those of Nietzsche's. You probably noticed they have almost nothing in common.
Practically the only issue they agree on is the fact that introspection is not for healthy people, but even this agreement is for different reasons. The Übermench never thinks about why he does what he does and if it is good; he simply does things! And for Dostoevsky, introspection is simply not helpful. It is Raskolnikov's introspection which leads him to question whether he could be a Napoleon or not. It is his introspection which keeps the underground man from any action good or ill. Thus in the end, introspection is not for either Nietzsche or Dostoevsky.
But aside from that anomaly, my two authors are completely at odds, from the nature of man to the nature of reality. Nietzsche proclaims that the world is but a grand battle between the weak and the strong, and there is nothing more significant. Dostoevsky quietly affirms that men stand before God and his law. Raskolnikov attempts to overthrow morality as something from which he is exempt, but ends up crushed beneath its weight. Nietzsche would scoff that Raskolnikov is simply not one of the chosen, and is bound because he is weak. Raskolnikov did not find an ultimate, reality shaping morality, he merely found himself weaker than the morality set up by his mother, Sonya and other ascetic influences.
When it comes down to it, Nietzsche would scorn Dostoevsky's healthy and unhealthy characters. He finds the healthy ones to be caught under social morality to the point of serving it to the exclusion of their own interests. And the unhealthy ones either passionless beasts with all the fire taken out of them, or petty small-time tyrants. The only character who might escape scathing remark would perhaps be Pyotr Stepanovich. His lust for glory in the face of social abhorrence would perhaps be smiled upon. But other than this character, all the rest were either too small or too lack-a-daysical for Nietzsche's blessing.
And naturally, Dostoevsky ends up not approving of the Übermench. Crime and Punishment shows where he thinks a self-honest man would go when led by such ideas. Raskolnikov never was quite comfortable with his theory, and only went through with it out of a determination to prove himself to be better than all other men. But in the end, his very question of whether he was great or not, had already placed him in the category of common man. Dostoevsky would have seen the Übermench as a callous man incapable of health, because he was incapable of accepting morality and people.
Essentially the whole difference between Nietzsche and Dostoevsky is whether morality is part of reality, or whether it is a construct used for the enslavement of the great. Nietzsche says that greatness is only attainable through understanding that morality is nothing but psychological chains. Only by acting on one's own will could a man ever rise to greatness, and that is only achievable by the overthrow of societal pressure. Dostoevsky would laugh and say that we are bound by a morality which we cannot transcend, and that greatness only happens upon us. And true greatness only happens upon those who accept it and love other people. Greatness has a very different flavor for both of these men, as does morality, as does health. One sees things through submission, and the other through rebellion.
Works cited
Dostoevsky, Fyodor Mikhaylovich. Notes from the Underground. New York City, NY: Norton Critical Edition, Second Edition, Katz, Michael, 2000
Demons. New York, NY: Everyman's Library, Pevear, Richard, 2000
Crime and Punishment. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Classic, McDuff, David, 2002
Nietzsche, Fredrick. Genealogy of Morals. USA: Oxford University Press. Smith, Douglas 2002
Twilight of the Idols. USA: Oxford University Press. Large, Duncan. 1998
Beyond Good and Evil. New York, NY: Vintage Books, USA: Kauffman, Walter. 1989
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