Am I a trembling louse or do I have the right. “Am I a trembling creature, or do I have the right?”
Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right?
Can killing a person unworthy of life be considered a bad act? Or is his “unworthiness” still a sufficient justification for murder? Is it even possible to talk about the possibility of justifying murder? And are there people unworthy to live?
Is it God or fate that gives life to a person... if a person exists, then that’s how it should be. If he were superfluous, unnecessary for anything, he simply would not be born. Nothing in the world is accidental, and everything that happens deserves to happen.
There are no right or wrong actions, only what we have done and the consequences of it. It is never possible to predict what actions, even the most mundane ones, will lead to. Our smile now can save the life of someone on the other side of the world, or it can kill. Everything we do is not necessary or not, it simply is, and it creates history.
But this cannot justify all our actions: no matter what providence exists, there are laws and rules that regulate our lives and prevent us from being savages. If everyone starts killing each other, considering their victims "unworthy", humanity will die out. Raskolnikov implies that this will not happen, because not everyone is capable of this: there are “ordinary” people, and there are “extraordinary” people.
He calls “ordinary” people people who are unable to go beyond existing rules, commit a crime and/or step over it. That is, either conscientious and principled, or cowardly. He believes that the history of mankind is driven by “extraordinary” people - people who have the right to drown up to their elbows in blood and not be embarrassed by it, if they act for the “common good.” And humanity forgives them everything, even canonizing some of them as saints.
Let's take Hitler as an example. He killed in battles, and these are wars, not “personal” murder for his own purposes. In war, the goal is to defeat the enemy and bring victory to the state. Without them, history would have gone the same way, just in a completely different way. Wars are an incentive to develop faster than other states in order to win. But not the people who lead these battles and cut out half the world. That is, war has reasons that accumulate, and the result is a clash between the warring parties, this forces development. Competition. Not people. Hitler did not promote new technologies. Without it, humanity would not have frozen at that stage of development and would not have died out. They only radically changed something, both for the worse and by accelerating some social processes.
The engines of humanity are Minds. Those who created the digging stick, understood how to light a fire, invented electricity, a cure for the plague, discovered the laws of physics, made chips, telephones, found acid-resistant metals, etc. Without them, humanity would have remained at the stage primitive people. Not tyrants. Tyrants are people who left a mark on history, but did not move it. More precisely, simply those who lengthened history, and did not raise humanity to a new level.
Raskolnikov does not say that all “extraordinary” people must commit outrages. But they are obliged to allow their conscience to step over the committed crime if it is in the name of fulfilling his idea. That is, if Newton had to kill to publish his discoveries, he would have been obliged to do so.
But if, due to his character, upbringing, principles, etc., he was unable to commit murder, would he become “ordinary”? According to the main character of Dostoevsky’s novel, yes. But he is the one who moved humanity far forward. And his strength was in his mind, and not in unprincipledness and the thought that his discoveries were higher human life.
Raskolnikov says that all “extraordinary” people are capable of crime. Franz Kafka was able to publish only a few during his lifetime short stories, constituted a very small proportion of his work, and his work attracted little attention until his novels were published posthumously. That is, he did not promote his ideas at the cost of the lives of other people or other atrocities, he was not capable of crimes and did not commit them. If we take Dostoevsky's contemporaries, then an example is Mendel, who discovered the basic principles of heredity as a result of experiments, published part of the work in a journal, but was not understood. The extreme importance of his discovery was realized only at the beginning of the twentieth century. And although Mendel could have committed crimes so that the world would know about his discoveries, he did not. Raskolnikov's theory is not supported by historical examples.
Killing a person cannot be considered a bad act. Man himself came up with the division of actions into “bad” and “good” in order to survive. If everyone does “bad” things, “survival” is unlikely to happen, which is why there is such encouragement for “good” actions. There are consequences that will happen if you kill a person, and you cannot do anything about it, because the existence of these consequences keeps society from falling apart and is backed by forces much higher than ours.
God complex... it is not for us to decide who are worthy people and who are not. “The unworthy” do not exist at all, since all people make their contribution to the history of mankind.
Absolutely everything can be justified. Man, in essence, is not to blame for anything. All his actions are determined by external factors for which he is not responsible and for which he cannot be blamed. Any human act is a consequence of a number of reasons: the upbringing that other people give him, the chemical processes in his body, the lack of any vitamins due to ecological situation in the city. It is no longer a mystery or a hypothesis that all our feelings are hormones and chemical reactions. An abundance of endorphins makes us happy, thyroxine makes us irritable, and oxytocin makes us affectionate and friendly.
And hormones come to us with food, sleep phases, etc. A person can kill because he will be angry due to a lack of endorphins, because he did not sleep for four nights in a row, because he was called to work on the night shift, because another man broke his leg due to being in an accident because the driver of the car did not notice him as he was blinded by the sun. It turns out that the man killed because the sun is shining. This whole chain was presented in order to say: everything can be justified.
Again, you can’t be guided by this and do crazy things. Consequences again come first; we can control our hormones and impulses in most cases. There are situations of breakdowns when no arguments of reason and all points of consequences do not reach the brain, because at such moments emotions rule everything. But in cases based not on a surge of emotions, but on their stability, everyone must remember the consequences of their choice.
So. There are no bad deeds, no people unworthy to live, and no actions that cannot be justified. Just as there are no “ordinary” and “extraordinary” people, and if there are, then not in the sense that Raskolnikov put into these concepts. Murderers do not pull humanity to the top and must obey all the same laws that others obey.
Who is Raskolnikov?
Raskolnikov is a person who realized his insignificance in front of the existing web of laws, rules, traditions, patterns of action that establish our behavior in certain situations. A man who realized and did not want to come to terms with it, and therefore came up with a theory about “extraordinary” people and wanted to prove – first of all to himself – that he was not a “louse.” It’s hard to understand your complete powerlessness, and Rodion’s character couldn’t cope with it. “Extraordinary” people, in his opinion, are people who are above this system. And that's exactly what he wanted to be. Only by choosing the wrong path, he committed the murder of a man.
The system was invented by a man, and therefore the man himself has the right to change it. Even if it has already taken root over the years, with its roots going back to the times of the first Romanovs, having sent them (roots) deep into the consciousness of everyone living today, it can change, because we are its authors, and we are the people who support it and give it "water" for prosperity. And the system is not pure evil and the cause of all problems. This is the core of society, what prevents it from falling apart, people becoming savages and starting atrocities openly. There is Raskolnikov’s pride, which made him want his freedom and disobedience general rules. That's all. There are no worthy and unworthy, “ordinary” and “extraordinary”. Only humanity and its actions that will eventually lead somewhere. And where, no one knows. And therefore, readers who have finished reading this tedious and very subjective speech, I urge you to live and not nag yourself because of wrong actions. No one will say what would have happened if you had acted differently, no one will say what these actions would lead to: there is a legend that “everything that happens happens for the better.” Believe this and think about what you do... but not too much: thinking is harmful and tiring :)
The text is large so it is divided into pages.
I killed myself, not the old woman...
F. M. Dostoevsky
F. M. Dostoevsky - the greatest Russian writer, unrivaled realist artist, anatomist human soul, a passionate champion of the ideas of humanism and justice. His novels are distinguished by their keen interest in the intellectual life of the characters, revealing the complex and contradictory consciousness of man.
Dostoevsky's main works appeared in print in the last thirds of the XIX century, when a crisis of old moral and ethical principles emerged, when the gap between rapidly changing life and traditional standards of life became obvious. It was in the last third of the 19th century that society started talking about a “revaluation of all values”, about changing the norms of traditional Christian morality and morality. And at the beginning of the twentieth century, this became practically the main issue among the creative intelligentsia. Dostoevsky was one of the first to see the danger of the coming revaluation and the accompanying “dehumanization of man.” He was the first to show the “devilishness” that was initially hidden in such attempts. This is what all of his main works are dedicated to and, of course, one of central novels- "Crime and Punishment".
Raskolnikov - spiritual and composition center novel. External action only reveals his internal struggle. He must go through a more painful split in order to understand himself and moral law, inextricably linked with human essence. The hero solves the riddle of his own personality and at the same time the riddle of human nature.
Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov - main character Romana is a student in the recent past who left the university for ideological reasons. Despite his attractive appearance, “he was so poorly dressed that another, even an ordinary person, would be ashamed to go out into the street in such rags during the day.” Raskolnikov lives in extreme poverty, renting a closet resembling a coffin in one of the St. Petersburg houses. However, he pays little attention to the circumstances of his life, as he is passionate about his own theory and the search for evidence of its validity.
Disillusioned with society's ways of change surrounding life, he decides that influencing life is possible through violence, and for this, a person who intends to do something for the common good should not be bound by any norms or prohibitions. Trying to help the disadvantaged, Rodion comes to the realization of his own powerlessness in the face of world evil. In desperation, he decides to “transgress” the moral law - to kill out of love for humanity, to commit evil for the sake of good.
Raskolnikov seeks power not out of vanity, but to help people dying in poverty and lawlessness. However, next to this idea there is another - “Napoleonic”, which is gradually coming to the fore, pushing aside the first. Raskolnikov divides humanity into “...two categories: the lowest (ordinary), that is, so to speak, the material that serves solely for the generation of their own kind, and actually people, that is, those who have the gift or talent to say a new word in their midst ". The second category, the minority, is born to rule and command, the first is to “live in obedience and be obedient.”
The main thing for him is freedom and power, which he can use as he pleases. - good luck or for evil. He admits to Sonya that he killed because he wanted to know: “Do I have the right to have power?” He wants to understand: “Am I a louse, like everyone else, or a man? Will I be able to cross or not? Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right?” This is a self test strong personality testing her strength. Both ideas control the hero’s soul and reveal his consciousness.
Having become isolated from everyone and withdrawn into his own corner, Raskolnikov harbors the idea of murder. The world and people cease to be a true reality for him. However, the “ugly dream” that he has cherished for a month disgusts him. Raskolnikov does not believe that he can commit murder, and despises himself for his abstraction and inability to take practical action. He goes to the old pawnbroker for a test - to inspect the place and try it on. He thinks about violence, and his soul writhes under the burden of world suffering, protesting against cruelty.
The inconsistency of Raskolnikov's theory begins to be revealed already during the commission of the crime. Life cannot fit into a logical scheme, and Raskolnikov's well-calculated script is disrupted: Lizaveta appears at the most inopportune moment, and he is forced to kill her (and also, probably, her unborn child).
After the murder of the old woman and her sister Lizaveta, Raskolnikov experiences the deepest mental shock. Crime puts him “beyond good and evil,” separates him from humanity, and surrounds him with an icy desert. A gloomy “feeling of painful, endless solitude and alienation suddenly consciously affected his soul.” Raskolnikov has a fever, he is close to insanity and even wants to commit suicide. Rodion tries to pray, and laughs at himself. Laughter gives way to despair. Dostoevsky emphasizes the motive of the hero’s alienation from people: they seem disgusting to him and cause “... endless, almost physical disgust.” He cannot even talk to those closest to him, feeling an insurmountable border “lying” between them.
The path of crime for Raskolnikov (and according to Dostoevsky, for no one) is unacceptable (it is not for nothing that Dostoevsky compares Raskolnikov’s crime with death, and his further resurrection occurs in the name of Christ). That human thing that was in Raskolnikov (he supported a sick fellow student for almost a year at his own expense, saved two children from the fire, helped, giving the last money for the funeral, Marmeladov’s widow), contributes to the speedy resurrection of the hero (Porfiry Petrovich’s words that Raskolnikov "I fooled myself for a short time"). Sonya Marmeladova resurrects Rodion to a new life. Raskolnikov's theory is contrasted with the Christian idea of atonement for one's own and others' sins through suffering (images of Sonya, Dunya, Mikolka). It is when the world of Christian spiritual values opens up for Raskolnikov (through his love for Sonya) that he is finally resurrected to life.
Tired of “theory” and “dialectics,” Raskolnikov begins to realize the value ordinary life: “No matter how you live, just live! What a truth! Lord, what a truth! A scoundrel is a man! And a scoundrel is the one who calls him a scoundrel for this.” He, who wanted to live as an “extraordinary person” worthy of true life, is ready to come to terms with a simple and primitive existence. His pride is crushed: no, he is not Napoleon, with whom he constantly relates himself, he is just an “aesthetic louse.” Instead of Toulon and Egypt, he has a “skinny, nasty receptionist,” but that’s enough for him to fall into despair. Raskolnikov laments that he should have known in advance about himself, about his weakness, before going to “bleed.” He is unable to bear the gravity of the crime and confesses it to Sonechka. Then he goes to the police station and confesses.
With his crime, Raskolnikov removed himself from the category of people, became an outcast, an outcast. “I didn’t kill the old woman, I killed myself,” he admits to Sonya Marmeladova. This isolation from people prevents Raskolnikov from living.
The hero's idea of the right of the strong to commit crime turned out to be absurd. Life has defeated theory. No wonder Goethe said in Faust: “Theory, my friend, is brimstone. But the tree of life is ever green.”
According to Dostoevsky, no high goal cannot justify the useless means leading to its achievement. An individualistic rebellion against the order of life around us is doomed to failure. Only compassion, Christian empathy and unity with other people can make life better and happier.
The novel by F. M. Dostoevsky is not only socio-psychological, but also partly philosophical. A question asked to oneself: “Who am I: a trembling creature or do I have rights?” was set by the main character of the story Rodion Raskolnikov and filled deep meaning. Let's try to figure it out.
If you remember who Raskolnikov was, it becomes clear why he was interested in this question. Being a simple student, Rodion lived modestly, one might even say, poorly. Not all was well in the family either. Therefore, the main character of the novel began to scroll through his own theory of his existence in his head: so who is he really: a “trembling creature,” that is, a simple down-to-earth person living according to the commandments of God, or a person “having the right” to do any business and not feel guilty for what you did? Can he remain unpunished and rise to the occasion?
Raskolnikov publishes his reasoning in the newspaper, where he also says that a person with power gives himself the right to commit any crime and is not obliged to consult with anyone. The hero believes that criminals are caught because they themselves are cowards and go to confess, and a person belonging to a higher type will leave everything as it is. He will be confident that he did everything for the benefit of people, so he will never experience pangs of conscience.
To get his theory tested, Raskolnikov commits two crimes and his theory almost immediately fails. He understands that he is not “having the right,” since the pangs of conscience tormented him more and more. Having committed the murder, he could not remain indifferent. At the same time, he is not a “trembling creature,” because he committed a crime and violated social and Divine foundations. It turns out that you can’t divide people in this way. Everything is much more complicated than Raskolnikov thought, and he had to verify this from his own bitter experience.
So, we have seen that the question “Who am I: a trembling creature or do I have rights” is key in the novel and forms the character’s own worldview theory. Dostoevsky shows throughout the entire narrative that this theory does not work, since in general such a division of people is meaningless.
The meaning of the phrase Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right?
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky - genius psychological novel and a real classic Russian literature. His works, which remain the most widely read in the world to this day, changed the course of history, forcing millions to think about their relationship to the world. Dostoevsky's books teach humanity and love for one's neighbor, and reveal complex psychological problems. The novel "Crime and Punishment" is best work Fyodor Mikhailovich, according to many critics of both that time and today. Main character Raskolnikov is one of the most confusing personalities in Russian literature. Each of his monologues contains a riddle, and having solved it, a person comes to a certain truth laid down by Dostoevsky. It is precisely this riddle in the phrase “Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right?” I would like to stop in my essay.
Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov is a poor student who killed Lizaveta and the old pawnbroker, who passionately loves his sister and mother and at the same time has a negative attitude towards the world around him, full of injustice, meanness and inequality. Raskolnikov comes up with a theory short summary which is approximately this: there are people - “Napoleons” who can kill to make history, and there are ordinary people- “trembling creatures.”
He sincerely believed in his own theory, classifying himself as a “Napoleon,” which is why he decides to kill the old pawnbroker. But why does he ask the question posed in the title of the essay and when does he do it? In the episode with Sonya Marmeladov, Raskolnikov uttered the phrase: “Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right?” and before that: “Am I a louse like everyone else, or a man?” That is, Raskolnikov’s adherence to his concept is clearly visible. He considers only those who can decide the destinies of others to be a person, a person.
However, the inconsistency of his dogma is revealed already at the moment of the crime: he felt strong nervous and psychological tension, he cannot kill calmly, coldly, as he previously believed. Therefore, the phrase in the title of the work is nothing more than a reflection of Raskolnik’s old position, a reflection of his attitude to the world. But he is changing, why? Meeting little people on his way: Sonya, Marmeladov, Avdotya, he sees that they, according to his old definition, are “lice”, because they endure, suffer, and cannot influence history, they cannot influence their own situations.
But on the other hand, he sees in them the apogee of spirituality, enduring and suffering, they live only for the sake of others, for the sake of God. Such ambiguity makes Raskolnikov think about his theory, because all the “little people” of the novel are pure, bright, spiritually rich and great people. Raskolnikov understands that they are individuals, people, and he is a sinner, he is a murderer! To correct this, he decides to confess to the crime, acting in a completely different way from the old concept. But with repentance and recognition of sin, he is spiritually cleansed, after a long martyrdom, Raskolnikov comes to the worldview of a true Christian, he becomes more philanthropic and moves towards the main Christian commandment: Sonya Marmeladova helps him to love his neighbor in this - a person living for the sake of another, the Christian ideal , to which Dostoevsky strived and encouraged the reading public to strive.
In conclusion, I would like to note that the path taken by Raskolnikov should and can be followed by each of us, because if everyone strives for love for their neighbor, then happiness will come throughout the world. This is exactly what all of Dostoevsky’s heroes wanted: Prince Myshkin, Sonya Marmeladova, Vanya (from the novel “The Humiliated and Insulted”) and Shatov from the work “Demons”, they all wanted each person to find harmony.
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It was not for nothing that this question, wild in today’s view, worried the famous literary character, and with him a fair portion of the intelligent public at the end of the cheerful, rational and self-confident nineteenth century. After all, stupid, boring rationalism, coupled with impenetrable self-confidence, as psychiatrists well know, is a sure sign of mental illness. And vice versa, to a reasonable person, today, as in the distant past, we are characterized by a skeptical attitude towards our abilities. " All I know is that I don't know anything", says Socrates, and the Rev. John Climacus recommends " laugh at your own wisdom».
Today, almost a century and a half later, Raskolnikov’s reasoning actually sounds like absolute nonsense: “I simply hinted that an “extraordinary” person has the right... that is, not an official right, but he himself has the right to allow his conscience to overstep... through other obstacles...” It is obvious, however, that his contemporaries perceived him differently: otherwise the author of Crime and Punishment would not have deserved his fame. And the dispute between Porfiry Petrovich and Raskolnikov in the context of the novel looks less like a conversation between a healthy person and an insane person, and more like a dispute on equal terms. Dostoevsky is even forced to return to this dispute and involve other participants in it, other artistic media: “I needed to find out then, and find out quickly, whether I was a louse, like everyone else, or a human being? Will I be able to cross or not! Do I dare to bend down and take it or not? Am I a trembling creature or do I have the right... - Kill? Do you have the right to kill?– Sonya clasped her hands.
It is not surprising that Raskolnikov has nothing to answer her. The madness of the nineteenth century, as if in a textbook case history, developed from symptom to symptom with general benevolent connivance, until it culminated in a violent explosion in the twentieth. And only today, somewhat humbled by the blood shed in the search and establishment of “human rights”, people gradually began to come to their senses, to understand the legacy that the “progressives”, “liberals” and “enlightenment” left them...
“Human rights” refers to at least two different areas of ethical, legal and political thought. The first direction formulates mainly negative theses: freedom from coercion or persecution of one kind or another, non-interference by the state in certain spheres of human life. The second puts forward positive demands, such as the right to work, social security, education, medical care, etc., declaring, on the contrary, active state participation V Everyday life of people. They are sometimes called the first and second generations of human rights. The first, correspondingly earlier, is based on the political philosophy of individualism of the 17th – 18th centuries; the second - on later socialist theories.
At first glance, human rights in this formulation, whether of the first or second generation, look quite reasonable and attractive: they seem to have absolutely nothing in common with the bloody fantasies of the Raskolnikovs. But this is only at first glance. Even the American Declaration of Independence was based on a position, to put it mildly, very dubious from the point of view common sense and Christian worldview: “ We hold it to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and are equally endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights...» Doesn’t a person take on too much by declaring the Creator as his counterparty in a legal procedure? And if this were to happen, then for what reason could the Creator, who has endowed his creation with certain rights, not take them away with the same ease?...
However, the founders of the American Republic, with all our critical attitude toward them, cannot still be accused of idiocy. They proceeded from the once popular concept of the so-called “natural law”, which spread in the West along with medieval scholasticism and was subsequently discredited, both in practical life and in theory. It was not for nothing that the condition of equality of people formed the basis of the Declaration of Independence, and a few years later, along with a rather concrete freedom and a completely fantastic brotherhood, it turned out to be among basic principles French Revolution. However, tell me, how often have you seen, in addition to identical twins, two equal people?
Of course, they will hasten to convince you that we're talking about only about the equality of people before the law, in contrast, they say, to the ancient feudal order, when for the same violation the aristocrat had to pay so much, and the commoner so much. But do not rush to be persuaded. Better pay attention to the obvious vicious circle: “human rights” are formulated on the basis of the very equality of people, which is then derived from them as a legal norm...
One way or another, by the time of Raskolnikov, human rights were attracting steady interest, and their attractiveness, of course, was in inverse proportion to their achievability. This is especially true for second generation rights. And since the equality of people - actual, not legal - has long been self-evident nonsense, the thought of differentiation naturally arises: to different people, so to speak, different rights.
So it should not be surprising that the long saga of human rights today, in the twenty-first century, has led us along a dialectical curve to the third generation of these very rights - to “group rights” of all kinds of minorities, national, sexual and others. In the Soviet Union during the period of stagnation, restrictions and preferences were practiced against certain nations when hiring, entering universities, etc., and everyone gnashed their teeth about such injustice, looking with longing and hope towards the progressive West. But in the progressive West, especially in the American cradle of democracy, the same (and much worse) restrictions and preferences have long caused almost no emotion. I remember in 1985, when everything was new to me in the United States, I began listening to Bruce Williams’ radio program - open-air consultations on labor and commercial matters - and some unlucky businessman of Anglo-Saxon origin called the studio with a complaint about the city government where he I couldn't get a contract. The businessman asked if he needed to change his last name to Gonzales or Suarez in this regard... Truly, jokes know no bounds.
So what are human rights? How do children say: are they “good” or “bad”? Do they lead to prosperity and justice, or to abuse, to the ax and dynamite? For an answer, you can turn to another Russian author, whose hero participated in the discussion about “respect for the peasant”:
...There is a man and a man -
If he doesn't drink up the harvest,
Then I respect the man!
We should answer exactly the same: there are rights and rights. If they act as a working tool for social and economic relations, if - as Margaret Thatcher notes in her new book - one does not try to develop them in a vacuum, in isolation from the living tradition of a given society, and thereby undermine national interests and the sovereignty of the country - then we respect these rights, protect and take care of them.
But our “human rights defenders” do not need such rights. It is appropriate to liken them to a bearded man with a machine gun who came out of the forest to meet a frightened old woman:
- Grandma, where are the Germans?
- Germans?? The Germans, the killer whale, have been driven away for twenty years.
- Yah? And I keep derailing trains...
The bearded man at least managed to rethink his mission. Where are the “human rights activists”? At the same time, despite all their madness, they are quite reasonable in their struggle on the internal front: “ a person has the right... that is, not an official right, but he himself has the right to allow his conscience to step over...“In other words, among the schismatics of the past and present, the law works as an inhibitor of conscience. Or maybe as a killer.
If “human rights” become a supranational force, a kind of idol or demiurge that challenges the Creator and replaces a sober Christian view of man and society - then forgive me, we have no place for such rights. And it won't.
