Notes from Underground

The Underground Man opens with a concession: he is joking, he knows his jokes are not brilliant, but one can take everything as a joke. He is, perhaps, jesting against the grain. Then immediately: he is tormented by questions. Answer them. The questions are genuine. You want to reform man's will in accordance with science and good sense — but how do you know it is even DESIRABLE to reform man that way? How do you know his inclinations NEED reforming? Why are you so convinced that acting in accordance with reason and arithmetic is always to man's advantage? "So far, you know, this is only your supposition. It may be the law of logic, but not the law of humanity." He concedes the creativity argument: man is pre-eminently a creative animal, predestined to make new roads wherever they may lead. But perhaps he goes off at a tangent precisely because he is predestined to make roads — and the destination is less important than the process of making it. And why does man also love chaos and destruction? Perhaps because he is instinctively afraid of attaining his object and completing the edifice. He may love the building from a distance but not want to live in it once finished. He'll leave it, when complete, for the use of les animaux domestiques — the ants, the sheep, and so on. The ants, he notes, have a marvellous edifice that endures forever. Greatest credit to their perseverance. But man is "frivolous and incongruous" — like a chess player, he loves the process of the game, not the end. Perhaps, he suggests, the only goal on earth to which mankind strives is the incessant process of attaining — life itself, not the thing to be attained. Because the thing to be attained must always be expressed as a formula, as certain as twice two makes four. And such certainty is not life — it is the beginning of death. Man quests for mathematical certainty but dreads finding it, because when he finds it there will be nothing left to look for. When workmen finish a job they at least get their pay, go to the tavern, get taken to the police station — occupation for a week. Where can man go once he has attained everything? "Twice two makes four is a pert coxcomb who stands with arms akimbo barring your path and spitting. I admit that twice two makes four is an excellent thing, but if we are to give everything its due, twice two makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too." On suffering: he is not arguing for it. He holds no brief for suffering nor for well-being either. He is standing for his caprice — and for it being guaranteed to him when necessary. But suffering would be out of place in the Palace of Crystal — the Crystal Palace requires no doubt, no negation. And yet man will never renounce real suffering, because suffering is the sole origin of consciousness. Though consciousness is the greatest misfortune, man prizes it and would not give it up. Once you have mathematical certainty there is nothing left to do or understand. But with consciousness you can at least, at times, flog yourself — and that will, at any rate, liven you up. "Reactionary as it is, corporal punishment is better than nothing."