This Caprice of Ours
“You see: reason, gentlemen, is a fine thing, that is unquestionable, but reason is only reason and satisfies only man’s reasoning capacity, while wanting is a manifestation of the whole of life—that is, the whole of human life, including reason and various little itches. And though our life in this manifestation often turns out to be a bit of trash, still it is life…”
Dostoevsky’s Notes From Underground was published in 1864. It takes the form of notes written by an unnamed narrator, imagining himself to be in a dialogue with other Russian intellectuals. Since the story consists entirely of monologue, we get a good look at what the Underground Man is like on the inside—and he is an absolutely despicable person. He is obsessive, self-absorbed, and mean. It is impossible for him to connect with other people. The book opens with him describing himself: “I am a sick man… I am a wicked man.”
The amazing thing about Notes From Underground is the degree to which it speaks to life now, over 150 years after its publication. Apparently being a 19th century Russian intellectual is a bit like being a regular person today, because the obsessions of the Underground Man hit a little too close to home. It’s funny (if a little unsettling), seeing how the Underground Man’s obsession with books prevents him from experiencing the world or people clearly, and from simply living his life—and feeling such a strong connection to that problem. Of course, the cause of the problem for us is much more likely to be social media than books (can you imagine being so obsessed with books that it negatively affects your ability to live your life?).
We’ve all grown unaccustomed to life, we’re all lame, each of us more or less. We’ve even grown so unaccustomed that at times we feel a sort of loathing for real “living life,” and therefore cannot bear to be reminded of it. For we've reached a point where we regard real “living life” almost as labor, almost as service, and we all agree in ourselves that it's better from a book.
In the second part of the story, called “Apropos of Wet Snow,” the Underground Man relates a few shameful events from his youth in agonizing first-person detail (as “corrective punishment”). The first of these is his interaction with an officer who once insulted him in a bar. UM passes this officer regularly on the street, but the officer takes no notice of him. UM becomes obsessed with the officer and their encounters on the street. He feels he needs to right the wrong of the insult, but also he envies and respects the officer; he is taller, more handsome, more successful, etc., so UM is compelled to elevate his social status relative to the officer, but also, he feels a terrible need to be simply noticed by the officer. Every time they pass on the street, they are walking directly towards each other, and they would bump into each other if one of them did not step out of the way. The Underground Man steps out of the way every single time, and hates himself for this, for being such a weak person and a coward. The officer does not appear to ever notice the UM’s existence. UM agonizes and monologizes for pages and pages over his continuous intention to buck up and let the officer bump into him instead of stepping out of the way, but he fails, over and over. He buys a new coat that he cannot afford so that he will look more wealthy and put-together when the officer finally notices him. He consistently loses his courage to bump into the officer and this causes him terrible mental suffering… until finally he manages to walk straight and let the officer bump into him. He is filled with joy. He describes it as perhaps the best day of his life.
The Underground Man is a despicable, miserable person, and it’s all too easy to care for him, to empathize with him, and to see yourself in him. His problems would be so easily solved (just, stop thinking so much and go to a party or something, try to have some fun, Jesus Christ), but that’s not really where your mind goes. Instead, you feel his suffering yourself, you feel the significance of his problems, the weight that social structures put on a person.
His suffering comes from hyper-awareness of his position in the social hierarchy, an unhealthy obsession with being noticed, and an enormous effort to appear a certain way to others. He is relatable and effective at provoking reflection on some of that same suffering in ourselves, but he’s also a satirical figure and caricature meant to illustrate the worst possible incarnation of a 19th century Russian intellectual.
Notes From Underground was written at a time when it was very much in vogue with the Russian intelligentsia to espouse rationality and western philosophy. This was the period following the work of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill and the rise of rationality and utilitarianism and specifically rational egoism, which became very popular in Russia; it was the basis of the socialist movement.
Rational egoism exists both as a normative position (meaning a belief about the way things should be; what is “good”) and a positive position (meaning a belief about the way things are). Normative rational egoism would be the position that to be moral is to pursue one’s self interest. Positive rational egoism would be the position that to be rational is to pursue one’s self interest; or, more broadly, that people are rational and that they do pursue their own self interests—this is basically the basis of modern economic theory. There are infinitely many ways you could mix these normative and positive positions, and degradations of strength therein, and I’m sure that’s what all the Russian intellectuals were talking about when Dostoevsky was writing Notes.
The Underground Man makes explicit arguments against rational egoism in the first part of the story, called “Underground.” He believes that there is some good to suffering—especially “lofty suffering”—and that there is some irrational “wanting” that transcends the basic “good” or “utility” (or “profit,” as UM terms it) which is the moral currency of utilitarianism; you can want against your own good, and this is good.
Most basically: Would you really want to live life without suffering? Would you prefer to feel no pain when you touch a hot pan, so that you wouldn’t be compelled to prevent your hand from being horribly burned? Now more lofty: Would you prefer to feel no existential yearning to fulfill a calling, your individuality? Would you prefer to feel no heartbreak if your significant other broke up with you, or died?
But loftier still is “humanity’s greatest profit,” the thing which the Underground Man puts forth as the ultimate counter-example to rationality and utilitarianism. He does not specifically describe this “irrational wanting,” so it remains relatively mysterious, but he does put it in general brackets. He’s talking about “caprice,” a wanting that goes against all rationality, “sometimes chafed to the point of madness,” the “want to live so as to satisfy my whole capacity for living, and not so as to satisfy just my reasoning capacity alone,” “this stupidest of all, this caprice of ours, gentlemen:”
And in particular it may be more profitable than all other profits even in the case when it is obviously harmful and contradicts the most sensible conclusions of our reason concerning profits—because in any event it preserves for us the chiefest and dearest thing, that is, our personality and our individuality. Now, some insist that this is indeed the dearest of all things for man; wanting may, of course, converge with reason, if it wants, especially if this is not abused but is done with moderation; it is both useful and sometimes even praiseworthy. But wanting is very often, and even for the most part, completely and stubbornly at odds with reason, and… and… and, do you know, this, too, is useful and sometimes even quite praiseworthy?
The Underground Man might be talking about art and beauty, or lofty suffering, which both of these things probably count as wants that go against rationality, but I don’t think they are the specific thing (“the omitted one”, the “unnamed wanting”) that he has in mind as humanity’s greatest profit. It seems more likely that Dostoevsky was thinking of something like our realization of ourselves, our pursuit of our individualities and callings and (now this is lofty) destinies. Anyway there is something irrational about wholesome well-being. We all want for something that does not stand up to analysis, that is individual to ourselves.
Dostoevsky is using the Underground Man, who is deeply first person and vulnerable but also deplorable, both as an intimate vessel to voice arguments against rational egoism as well as a vessel for satire—a picture of what a commitment to rational egoism does to a person.
I have merely carried to an extreme in my life what you have not dared to carry even halfway, and, what's more, you've taken your cowardice for good sense, and found comfort in thus deceiving yourselves.
This character duality of relatable/despicable is a big part of what makes the story effective. Again, your relationship with the Underground Man feels a lot like your relationship with yourself. And I think it goes even further than that, because your relationship with yourself is actually one of the most valuable potential takeaways from Notes From Underground.
“Rational egoism” has two parts: rationality and egoism. The Underground Man’s condition of being “underground” is meant to convey the way emphasizing rationality, intellectualism, and books prevents a person from living his life. For example, he is obsessed with books and being “literary;” he’s constantly thinking about whether what he is saying comes across as if from a book. Meanwhile, UM’s monologuing obsessiveness and social helplessness are meant to convey the result of emphasizing ego.
The Underground Man is obsessed with his own ego, both as something that he is compelled to develop as well as an object of consideration itself (he doesn’t use the word “ego,” and he’s not considering the concept of ego generally—only his own ego specifically).
The Underground man has an enormous ego. Not in the normal sense, as in someone who thinks they are amazing, but in a more general sense; his ego is extremely inflated, overactive. His ego is basically his entire being. The monologue of the book goes around and around UM’s social standing, his failures, and his negative qualities. He despises himself, he thinks of himself as low and worthless… but you can’t experience these powerful feelings towards yourself without having a powerful sense of yourself. In fact, it is clear that these negative self-conceptions are manufactured in an effort to engorge his ego: he talks about how he makes an effort to be wicked, to be a rat, to get people to notice him, to have some sort of remarkable identity rather than being overlooked or forgotten. This is the power of ego in the Underground Man (and maybe you and me, too).
Our concept of ourselves is likely to be much more negative than positive. A strong negative self-conception is just as much of a “big ego” as a strong positive self-conception, and it causes all the same problems; probably even more problems and more severe problems.
Perhaps the UM’s irrational wanting, humanity’s greatest profit, is supposed to be this desire to feed the ego, even when we’re feeding it terrible things. (Doesn’t it seem to be the case, now, that people are willing to sacrifice anything to be noticed? Doesn’t it feel like attention is the greatest profit?)
No, I think that the true highest wanting, unnamed, omitted, irrational, yes, is to annihilate the ego; to annihilate wanting itself. This is humanity’s greatest profit. In fact, I think this is even what the Underground Man wants, though he is not able to become conscious of it (hence the persistent mystery of the specificities of the “omitted one”). He wishes to dissolve his obsession with himself, because he knows that that is his problem (his awareness of this at least is clear in the monologue), and he thinks he can do that by lowering himself, making the concept of himself a rat rather than a man. But this effort has the opposite effect, and his ego becomes a more and more powerful force over him. If only the Underground Man could realize that it is this energy directed at the concept of his ego that is causing his suffering—and if only he could let it go.