September 16, 2025 • 58 mins
In Part Two of our Dostoevsky series we move from diagnosing the underground to exploring the way out. Dostoevsky shows us that the true hero is not the exceptional man but the good man, and goodness is only remarkable in its ability to love while knowing the depths of the underground.
We explore how Father Zosima counsels the brokenhearted with hope that refuses to collapse into platitudes, and how his radical teaching—“I am responsible not only for myself, but for everyone else, and I, more than anyone else”—reshapes the way we think about responsibility in an age of chaos. Alongside Zosima we follow Alyosha, who brings mercy into the mess by walking with children, grieving mothers, and fractured families, sowing seeds of restoration instead of judgment.
Along the way we contrast Dostoevsky’s vision with the flat caricatures of modern culture, from television antiheroes to the Joker, and ask why sin for Dostoevsky is not just disobedience but a conscious revolt against meaning itself.
This episode traces how grief, responsibility, and mercy form Dostoevsky’s vision of redemption—and why that vision is more urgent than ever for our own underground age.
Dostoevsky's concept of "the underground" offers profound insights into human nature, revealing how people deliberately choose destructive behaviors even when they know it will hurt themselves and others.
• Dostoevsky portrays the dual nature of humanity - we are neither completely fallen nor saved, but move in and out of "the underground" throughout our lives
• The underground represents not just sin but a "rebellion against meaning itself," explaining phenomena like school shootings and destructive chaos
• Modern solutions like education, technology, economic reform, and political revolution fail to address the underground because they only target external conditions
• Father Zosima in "The Brothers Karamazov" demonstrates spiritual direction that acknowledges complexity rather than offering formulaic answers
• Dostoevsky's path out of the underground isn't about bypassing darkness but confronting it first, understanding its hold on us, and finding authentic pathways toward redemption
• The radical ethic "I am responsible not only for myself, but for everyone else" shifts focus from blaming external factors to examining our own contributions to societal problems
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Dostoevsky saw something in human nature that most modern thinkers miss – what he called "the underground." Far more than just sin or moral failure, the undergroun
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Host: Travis Mullen Instagram: @manartnation
Co-Host: Robert L. Inchausti, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of English at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and is the author of numerous books, including Subversive Orthodoxy, Thomas Merton's American Prophecy, The Spitwad Sutras, and Breaking the Cultural Trance. He is, among other things, a Thomas Merton authority, and editor of the Merton books Echoing Silence, Seeds, and The Pocket Thomas Merton. He's a lover of the literature of those who challenge the status quo in various ways, thus, he has had a lifelong fascination with the Beats.
Book by Robert L. Inchausti "Subversive Orthodoxy: Outlaws, Revolutionaries, and Other Christians in Disguise" Published 2005, authorization by the author.
Intro & Outro Music by Noah Johnson & Chavez the Fisherman, all rights reserved.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (00:01):
they give me these formulaic answers for
everything in the modern worldthat all derive from Kantian
imperative.
And the Kantian imperativedoesn't take into account the
dual nature of man.
He's not fallen, he's not saved.
There's a dual nature.
He moves in and out of theunderground and he's tempted by
(00:23):
the underground.
And I named it and I said thisis not a perpetual state of man,
this is an aspect of humannature that the modern world is
bringing up for examination.
And where all these schoolshooters come from, that's the
underground.
It's like the world telling you, fix the underground, get
(00:46):
people out of the underground,and we don't listen to it.
Travis Mullen (00:57):
Welcome to the Subversive Orthodoxy Podcast.
I'm your host, travis Mullen,and I'm excited to have you with
us.
This is a podcast aboutphilosophy and meaning.
It is about how we as humanswithstand the challenges of our
cultures.
It is about the generalJudeo-Christian revelation of
God in the world and how thebloodiest century ever recorded
(01:18):
couldn't kill that revelation.
It's also about how thatrevelation, tossed aside as
archaic, outdated and obsolete,may be the very life-giving
power we need to resist thisdistracted techno state we're
living in full of anxiety,depression and teenage suicide.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (01:38):
It's great entertainment, thrilling
entertainment.
Travis Mullen (01:54):
It's the Inside Story pack with I'm not that far
in, but I've got a.
I've got a pretty good dose ofeach character and I found the
father to be a lot like.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (02:09):
Or there's a show called succession
yes, of course, that great,great movie.
Travis Mullen (02:13):
That's very ghost of skin would you think, yeah,
but what's what's interesting?
It's so underground because Imean almost makes I'm later.
I'm going to ask you where'sthe redemptive?
You know, stuff come throughabout the underground or in
spite of the underground, butbut like that movie, my, I've
told a few friends this, thatmovie or that show, and another
(02:35):
show called All the Light youCannot See.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (02:37):
Uh huh.
Travis Mullen (02:38):
Have you seen that one?
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (02:39):
No, I haven't seen that one.
Travis Mullen (02:40):
It's about a blind French girl using Braille
to read classic novels throughcode for the US to bomb parts of
Paris against the Nazis.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (02:51):
And it's super powerful.
That's very Dostoevsky and hecould get behind that kind of
novel.
Travis Mullen (03:00):
Well, what was unique about these two shows
juxtaposed to each other?
Because I watched them back toback you know, somewhat back to
back.
My thought from Succession wasyou know, we couldn't stop
watching it for one thing, butsecondly, why can't we stop
watching it?
Every one of these charactersis morally bankrupt.
There's no hero.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (03:21):
Right.
Travis Mullen (03:22):
It is zero.
Like you start to sympathizewith a couple of them and then
they turn and then, but nobodyis good, like there is no good
person in it.
They are all out for themselves.
They're literally morallybankrupt.
It is.
It is kind of like can youwrite a show Like, can you write
(03:42):
a story like this?
I mean, is that even mean, isthat even, is that even
believable?
And then then you go to all thelight.
You cannot see it's exactopposite.
Yes, all these good, beautifulpeople.
You know nazis being thecaricature of evil in the
situation.
Yeah, and then.
But even one of the nazis isgood yes and he's he and he's
(04:04):
functioning in a deceitful wayagainst his own army in a good
way with the people he's notwanting to kill.
So it's a really I don't know.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (04:16):
I don't know what I'm saying, but I just
noticed skides and brotherscare miles off, which is his
masterpiece, which comes asclose as he ever came to
defining the underground andthen defining the way out of the
underground in a believable way, at least for some of the
(04:36):
characters some of the time, andwith that it becomes a
transcendent work of art.
And so if you want to do that,you could combine those two
movies would be a dostoevsky andcreate.
You know, you have the darkcharacters who are running the
(04:57):
world and then you have the, thecharacters of light who are
trying to redeem it right out ofthe mouths of the underground,
and that becomes the story ofthe Brothers Karamazov.
(05:19):
In being fair to all thedifferent points of view and
still having Alyosha come out asan exemplary Christian figure,
some critics argue well, no, theAlyosha doesn't come out as an
(05:40):
exemplary Christian figure.
The hero of the novel is theatheist and the story is really
about the impossibility of ahonest intellectual to believe
in God.
I think that's a grossmisreading.
It certainly violatesDostoevsky's own goals for the
(06:02):
work, but you know if you're anatheist critic and you're
reading Dostoevsky's own goalsfor the work.
But you know if you're anatheist critic and you're
reading Dostoevsky andDostoevsky's being true, being
fair to all sides of theargument, you get to pick who
you follow, right, it's apolyphonic novel, so you
identify with the guy who's mostlike, you Pick your hero and
(06:25):
pick your hero, kind of thing.
Whereas if you know dostoevsky'slife, you know the other books,
you know the things hestruggled with and the story
he's been trying to tell hiswhole life.
And then you know about aliosha, and if we have a show where we
talk about the brothersKaramazov, there's so many
(06:46):
allusions to Alyosha that relateto Dostoevsky's own search for
meaning in his own life that youcan't miss that.
This is the story he wants totell of how somebody could
navigate the underground withoutfalling victim to its tricks
(07:11):
and its evils.
Yeah, now I wanted to read youa couple of quotes here from
Berdanev, because we didBerdanev on one of our episodes
and not that you have that, youhave had to have watched that.
I heard that episode.
But once you sort of hear whatBerdenev says about Dostoevsky,
(07:34):
you might want to go back afteryou read Dostoevsky or we talk
about Dostoevsky to see whereBerdenev was coming from but he
wrote a very interesting book onDostoevsky, uh, to see where
burdenia was coming from.
But he wrote a very interestingbook on dostavsky, and oh, he
wrote a whole book on him yeahand uh uh, and he was.
He was betrayed by the RussianRevolution.
(07:55):
Burdenia was a supporter of theRussian Revolution and then
when the Bolsheviks took overand Stalin took over, they
arrested him for treason and hewas exiled to the philosopher's
ship in the middle of the oceanand later exiled to Paris and
lived in Paris and wrote aboutChristian existentialism until
(08:17):
the Nazis took over Paris.
And then he was driven out ofParis and found his way back to
the Ukraine.
And there's a couple of quoteshere where he's talking about
Dostoevsky and he says that he'stalking about Russia and how
(08:41):
Russia could have had thisrevolution against the Tsar that
turned into an authoritarianstate that created a prison camp
system.
History.
Russia has made absolutely nopositive contribution to world
history.
Her only purpose is to serve asa negative example, except for
(09:20):
the possible contribution ofFyodor Dostoevsky and Leo
Tolstoy.
Travis Mullen (09:31):
Berdiv said that.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (09:33):
Yes, and this is what he says about
Dostoevsky In the finalparagraph of the book on
Dostoevsky.
He says so great is the worthof Dostoevsky that to have
(10:00):
produced him is by itselfsufficient justification for the
existence of the russian peoplein the world, and he will bear
witness for his countrymen atthe last judgment of nations for
all their crimes.
Whoa, now that was.
(10:23):
You know you could see that hewas probably, uh, you know, very
emotional at that point,because he's probably riding in
the 20s, you know, at the heightthat, in 30s, at the height
that said well, no, maybe evenlater, maybe in the 40s um, he's
extremely angry at russiaextremely angry.
Um and uh, you know, anddosevsky and tolstoy were not
(10:48):
read by the communists.
I mean they were.
They were tolerated as kind oflike precursors to the great
communist novels, which were allpropaganda tracks, until you
got to uh, solzhenitsyn and the,or the viscid writers like
Pasternak.
But this is another quote from,from that sort of explains what
(11:13):
we've been talking about.
He says Dostoevsky's novels arenot properly speaking novels at
all.
They are parts of a tragedy,the inner tragedy of human
destiny, the unique human spiritrevealing itself in its various
(11:35):
aspects and at different stepsin its journey, and the reader
is carried along into thehurricane.
Dostoevsky was, more thananything else, an anthropologist
, an experimentalist in humannature, who formulated a new
(11:55):
science of man and applied it toa method of investigation
hitherto unknown.
His artistic science, themodern novel, his scientific art
, studied that nature in itsendless convolutions and
limitless extent, uncovering itslowest and its most hidden
(12:18):
layers.
He subjected man to a spiritualexperiment, putting him into
unusual situations and thentaking away all the external
stops, one after another, tillhis whole social framework had
gone.
Dostoevsky pursued his studyaccording to the methods of
(12:41):
Dionysian art.
And when he has made his wayinto the deep places of human
nature.
He took his whirlwind with him.
His work is an anthropology inmotion, in which things are seen
as such an atmosphere of flameand ecstasy that they have
meaning only for those who arethemselves involved in the
(13:05):
spiritual tempest.
A careful reading of Dostoevskyis an event in one's life from
which the soul never fullyrecovers.
It receives its baptism of fire.
Baptism of fire.
The person who has lived for atime in Dostoevsky's world has
(13:27):
seen it, as it were, has seen,as it were, the unpublic forms
of being, for he is above all agreat revolutionary of the
spirit, opposing himself toevery kind of cliche, lie,
(13:48):
stagnation, fraud and hardeningof the human soul.
So that's, you know kind ofabstract language, to put it,
and I think we're preciselypersuading, uh, we're praising
dostoevsky for his ability totake it, that out of abstract
(14:10):
language and put it into theconcrete I have a couple quotes
of other people talking abouthim yeah so kierkegaard?
Travis Mullen (14:21):
he never wrote extensively about him, it says,
but his themes resonate closelyespecially.
I noticed, obviously paradoxwith him and a lot of these guys
, birdie, birdie, ev and uh,chesterton too, with paradox,
but kierkegaard loved hisexploration of despair and
(14:42):
inwardness and then, yeah, thatwas it.
I don't actually have a quotefrom him, but then Nietzsche
said the quote that you said.
Dostoevsky is the onlypsychologist from whom I have
anything to learn.
He respected his deep analysisof human psychology, especially
the darker sides of desire andmorality.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (14:59):
Yeah.
Travis Mullen (15:00):
Though Nietzsche rejected, obviously,
Christianity, he saw Dostoevskyas a keen observer of the will
and suffering.
And then Chesterton had aunique take Dostoevsky is a man
who knew everything except howto be a good man.
And it says Chestertonappreciated Dostoevsky's
spiritual intensity and insightinto evil and suffering, but
(15:22):
noted his tragic wrestling withfaith and redemption.
Chesterton viewed Dostoevsky asa profound but tortured
Christian thinker who dramatizedthe battle between good and
evil within the soul.
Tortured is right.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (15:36):
Yeah, and I don't know.
You know Chesterton puts hisfinger on this, but Dostoevsky
thought that there was a reasonwhy the dark side came up first,
as a response to runawayrationality of the enlightenment
and scientism.
He said it, you know, I I don'tthink there's a specific place
(16:01):
that he puts it, but it's sortof it's sort of like that that
there was a kind of rebellionthat came up.
That was the dark side first.
It was sort of like you know,you can have your crystal
cathedrals and your engineeringmasterpieces and they will serve
(16:24):
as targeting markers for Naziplanes in another 20 years,
markers for Nazi planes inanother 20 years.
You could split the atom and inanother 40 years they'll be
using that atom to destroy120,000 people in cities in
Japan.
So it was sort of likeDostoevsky thought that this
(16:48):
dark side has to be dealt withfirst, that you can't just you
know, spiritually bypass andjump into goodness.
And how does he know this?
Well, I think probably it hasto do with his experience right
of being betrayed and being sentto a camp and of having to
(17:13):
survive and having to admire thedark side of man as much as the
positive side.
But then, seeing that it washis task to try to create the
image of the transcendent, andit is a kind of an anthropology.
It isn't a theology create theimage of the transcendent, and
it is a kind of an anthropology.
(17:34):
It isn't a theology, it is akind of spiritual anthropology
of how do you bring the goodinto the world of the bad.
And that becomes the story inthe Brothers Karamazov and what
(17:55):
happens to Alyosha and what helearns from Father Zosima.
And what happens to FatherZosima in terms of his learning,
you know, beginning his life asan underground figure and then
finding God and joining themonastery, and how far he got on
(18:16):
his journey, becomes positive.
You know it's, it's.
And so when in his last yearsit looked like he wasn't, it
looked like he wasn't.
(18:37):
Bratislava was supposed to bepart one of a two volume book
and part one was was supposed tobe the origins of Aliosha and
part two was going to be hiscurrent reality, and so it was
going to take place in thepresent Russia, not like a
retrospective, and he never gotaround to writing it, but he was
able to give some speeches andtalk about where he was taking
(19:00):
it and it was all sort of in thehopes of making aliosha a
exemplary, heroic figure in anew way, that the hero is not
going to be the exceptional man,the hero is going to be the
good man.
(19:23):
And the good man is not special,is not special.
The good man is only special inthe sense that he knows enough
of the underground to love thepeople that are victimized by it
and to love them back intohealth.
Yeah, so he becomes a kind ofhealing force, even though the
(19:48):
stories he tells are filled withtrauma and disingenuousness and
greed and all of the all ofthose things and unbridled
passions and all of these thingsthat become the mark of a great
dostoevsky story.
But they, but he also has allthe people in between, and
(20:11):
that's one of the things youdon't get it like in succession,
right, you don't.
You don't get a spectrum aspectrum and you don't.
I mean, there was one guy, the,the, the guy who was married to
the daughter, who had somemoments of normality, I guess
(20:34):
you'd say a less of a person whowas living out his traumatic
self-doubts and hatred, but notenough to really fight back or
give you know, show how youmight respond to this in a way
(20:55):
that could help heal rather thanjust survive.
But that might be.
You know, if they do a seasontwo, that would might be a great
.
It probably wouldn't be aspopular because we find the
underground more like a taxidriver.
(21:19):
You know that whole movie isjust a journey into the
underground.
Yeah, and the same with a lotof scorsese's movies.
And now that he's, you know theone, the one, uh, filmmaker who
, who tried to reconcile hischristianity with his modernism
(21:43):
was fellini.
And uh, if you, if you look ateight and5 through a Christian
lens, you see a Dostoevskianattempt at bringing the
(22:04):
underground, coming out of theunderground into the light.
In what are you talking about?
There's a Fellini's movie,eight and a Half.
Travis Mullen (22:18):
Oh, I don't know that.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (22:20):
It's about an advertising executive
who has to deal withmanipulating people to buy these
consumer goods in post-warItaly and he's having a
spiritual crisis and he's tryingto reconcile his Catholicism
(22:41):
with his job.
And he's making a movie inwhich he reconciles faith with
commerce and succeeds from hisown point of view, and it's one
(23:04):
of Fellini's best movies.
It's called eight and a halfbecause it's, uh, the eight and
a half year of his work as adirector and it symbolizes for
him his halfway mark and histurn to more uh, uh, explicitly
(23:27):
positive uh stories and things.
But he doesn't keep up withthat that.
So eight and a half, it wasreally kind of the apex, uh, for
Fellini, for my money, but uh,that's just my opinion yeah, um,
I want to transition to a fewpieces here that I've got and
(23:48):
I'm going to obviously ask youfor your commentary.
Travis Mullen (23:51):
Okay, one is well , actually I'll just put this
one to you as a question.
Yeah, does underground likeaccording to Dostoevsky, does
his underground concept relateto you know how?
Is it saying somethingdifferent than the Bible?
(24:12):
Or is it just proving the Biblein the sense of our hearts are
deceitful we are.
There is no one who does good.
So the Bible has a pessimisticview of human fallen, human
fallen humanity, of human fallen, human fallen humanity.
(24:34):
And for the, for the audiencethat is, the main emphasis of
most evangelical christians, andmaybe catholics too, is the
fallen nature of man, whichoftentimes eclipses the original
goodness of like.
Man was created very good, sothere's an original goodness
that gets completely thrown outthe window.
This is in a theological sense,but it totally relates to what
(24:55):
dos jfc is doing here.
So there's original goodness.
And then there's the heavyemphasis on the fallen nature,
which verses in the bible thatyou know, mike, drop, verses
like all have sinned, not no onewho does.
No one does good, not even one.
Jesus saying why do you call megood?
There is no one good but God.
So it's very the Bible ispretty clear that there's a
(25:19):
fallen nature to humanity.
My wife and I were listening toa parenting book the other day
and this lady said the wholepremise of her book is that
everyone is good and we are allgood.
Our children are good inside.
The book's called Good Inside,yeah, and I said we can probably
learn something from this book,but I definitely do disagree
(25:40):
with the premise.
And she said the whole bookdepends on that premise.
But yeah, it's the exactopposite of the Bible and
Dostoevsky.
Obviously.
Yeah, it's the exact oppositeof the Bible and Dostoevsky,
obviously.
But my question to you,professor, is you know we have
drug cartels, politicalcorruption, sex trafficking,
child abuse, murder, even childpornography about as evil as you
(26:01):
can possibly get.
What is Dostoevsky saying youknow different, or is he proving
it out in more complexity?
Or how would you?
How would you frame that?
Well with the underground.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (26:15):
Yeah, that's a great question and we
don't have volume two of theBrothers Karamazov where Aliosha
will be able to put his faithinto practice, his faith into
practice.
But one of the things, one ofthe clues we have in part one is
that at a certain point hegives up on his brothers as
(26:43):
being beyond him in terms of himbeing able to get them out of
the underground.
Is because zossima as a, as aspiritual director and in one
way of reading the brotherskaramazov, it's that it's a
manual and spiritual direction,and there's plenty of scenes
(27:05):
where where zossima iscounseling families and
counseling people with tragicevents in their lives and
traumatized, and his response tothem in every case is whatever
you do and you're going to haveto make your own decision but
(27:27):
whatever you do, do don't gounderground zossima says that
explicitly in different ways todifferent okay but.
But basically it translates todon't go underground, and what
going underground means is don'tnurse a resentment.
Travis Mullen (27:51):
Wait, are you saying he actually uses that
terminology in the book?
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (27:54):
Yeah.
Travis Mullen (27:55):
Okay, so notes from the underground.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (27:58):
He doesn't.
Travis Mullen (27:59):
Ideas like the idea of underground gets
imported into Brothers K.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (28:03):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Travis Mullen (28:04):
I didn't know that I'm not there yet, I guess.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (28:11):
For example, there's a woman who
comes to Father Zosima veryearly in the book like oh, I
might have read this one whereshe's lost her third child.
Who's who's done?
Travis Mullen (28:20):
her husband didn't care and stuff like that.
He's like oh, get over it, he'sin heaven yeah, and woman.
Get over it.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (28:26):
He's in heaven and she can't get over it
.
He's in heaven and she can'tget over it.
Travis Mullen (28:31):
Yeah.
She goes to her pastor and saysthat was the last part I
listened to.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (28:36):
Yeah, I can't get over the death of the
child.
Travis Mullen (28:42):
And she said she could get over the first one she
lost and the second one.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (28:46):
Yeah.
Travis Mullen (28:46):
But this third one she can't.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (28:48):
Right, second one, yeah, but this third
one she can't right.
And so father's Zosima sayswell, the, the guy who told you
you know that that you, thathe's in heaven is, is right, you
know.
And then he was.
He was trying to get you to seethat there, that that there's
an order, there's goodness inthe universe, you know, but
(29:09):
you're not feeling it.
And because he doesn't knowsomething I know because Zosima
is the only monk who allowswomen to come to the gates of
the monastery to receivespiritual direction.
None of the other monks willtalk to women to receive
(29:30):
spiritual direction.
None of the other monks willtalk to women.
So he says well, because theydon't talk to women, they don't
understand this that every childthat dies has a different
degree of mourning.
They want from their parents,and some want you to mourn for a
week, some a day, some years.
And it sounds to me like thislittle child for a week, some a
day, some years.
And it sounds to me like thislittle child wants you to mourn
(29:56):
a long time.
And you can do that.
And that doesn't mean you'velost your faith.
In fact, you have faith.
That's what allows you to carrythe grief, and so you carry
that grief as long as you haveto, and one day he'll give you a
(30:22):
sign.
Now what did he do?
He gave that woman hope and hegave her a way of carrying her
grief and he gave herexpectations someday I'll
receive a divine sign from mybaby.
(30:42):
So he was basically giving hera way to not go underground,
right, not to lose her faith,not blame herself, not blame God
for the death of her child.
(31:04):
And so she says oh, thank youso much, thank you so much, you
know, I can live with that,right?
Yeah, he didn't say you know,I'll raise your child from the
dead or something you know, oryou'll have a baby that looks
(31:32):
just the psychological realitiesthat she was struggling with.
And then immediately becauseDostoevsky loves to work in
parallels then immediately therich woman with little faith
comes in and talks to FatherZosima, and she has a different
(31:55):
problem.
Her problem isn't that she'shad three babies that have died.
Her problem is that she can'tconceive of eternal life and
knows that it's one of thedoctrines of the faith.
And so this has really botheredher, because she would like to
(32:19):
believe in eternal life, becausewithout eternal life, all her
money and all her parties seemmeaningless, all her money and
all her parties seem meaningless.
But if she could know that theparty goes on forever and the
road never dies, it never endswas that Willie Nelson song?
(32:41):
Then she could enjoy her wealthand her money and her parties.
And so, zazima, you know wellwhat does he say to that does he
say oh yeah, you're going tolive forever and you'll have
parties forever.
(33:01):
Go home and enjoy your nextparty.
You know which is kind of whatshe wants to hear party.
You know which is kind of whatshe wants to hear.
But he, he wants to sort ofsober her up but at the same
time not drive her underground.
So he says to her you knowyou're asking me to explain to
(33:23):
you the doctrine of eternal life, and eternal life is not an
idea.
You believe that.
It's not an idea that youaccept and therefore believe.
It's more of a concept that'sgiven to you as a grace by God
(33:47):
and you can't just believe it bywanting to believe it.
You come to it as a grace.
Now, how do you come to it as agrace?
Well, you live an eternal lifein this life and I happen to
know a woman who's just lost herbaby, and she could really do
(34:09):
with a nice dinner.
And she and her poor family,you know, they haven't had much
food ever since the baby diedand you could invite her to one
of those parties.
And the wealthy woman says Iknew you would have nothing to
(34:37):
tell me.
You frogged.
I came here wanting to know,can you give me this bullshit?
And then gets in her littlecart and drives away.
Wow, now, who's the underground?
Who's above ground?
What's hope?
What's despair?
(34:58):
You carry your despair into theconfessional with you.
You carry it or you carry yourfaith in with your despair with
the other woman.
I mean, this is the humancondition and Dostoevsky's
giving you these incredible, youknow, 3d goggles by which to
(35:21):
view it.
You know, the wealthy womanisn't bad because she's rich.
The wealthy woman isunderground because she's rich
and it really isn't her fault.
But she, even when we give hera hand up, she doesn't take it.
(35:42):
And how do you deal with that?
Even the most saintly spiritualdirector couldn't pull her out.
Travis Mullen (35:54):
Yeah, that was what he was trying to do was
like Jesus and the rich youngruler.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (36:00):
Yes.
Travis Mullen (36:02):
He's putting salvation right in front of him
and he can't see it and thatlady couldn't see it.
The salvation meaning like thegrace and the mystery of like
stepping out of the undergroundyes, and so is man a sinner or
is man innately good?
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (36:21):
well, he's both.
Uh, that's uh either.
Or theology that makes you feelsecure in an ambiguous
spiritual reality.
That should not make you feelunambiguous.
(36:43):
You should be able to say, forexample, the kids, for example,
like you know, my daughter is anursery school teacher and you
know it is a rule, it is a anaxiom, that there's nothing
(37:06):
wrong with those babies.
They are God's gift and youtreat them with the love and
respect that you know theypossess in their eternal souls,
right.
But that doesn't mean, whenthey become teenagers, that
(37:26):
they're not going to want tohave lunch with their father and
their mother, that they'regoing to want to hang with the
good-looking kid with the fancyhaircut, and it doesn't mean
that they are innately evil now.
It means that the undergroundis making its way into the
junior high, is making its wayinto the junior high, and the
(37:56):
spiritual directors have to givethe kids tools so they do not
go underground.
And the way you do that is youdon't punish them for wanting to
go to the party, right?
You sort of say I know why youwant to go to the party.
When I was your age, I wantedto go to the party, right?
You sort of say I know why youwant to go to the party.
When I was your age, I wantedto go to the party too, but we
(38:17):
have rules about going to theseparties.
There's a scene in the BrothersKaramazov where he's dealing
with teenagers, with teenagers,and there's one teenager that
tried to fed a dog a piece ofmeat with a needle in it to try
(38:37):
to kill him, and all the otherteenagers want to beat up this
little boy that did this.
And Alyosha is trying to bringreconciliation, but he's pretty
taken aback by the, by the evilof this kid.
But he doesn't want him to gounderground and identify with
(38:58):
that.
So he goes.
He asked the kid to take him tohis home and he goes over to
and finds out that the kid comesfrom this family with a poverty
stricken family, with a fatherwho's an alcoholic, who beats
the kid, but not because he'she's like a twisted guy, but
(39:23):
because he's just, you know, hasno control.
So he goes back to hisgirlfriend and asks you know, do
you have any advice on what todo with this kid?
And so now, see, now we'regetting into what would be the
plot of a of a secession episodethat tried to say how do you
(39:49):
heal the underground?
I mean, how do you get theseguys out of the underground
Right?
And it's not going to be a onestep thing and it's not going to
be easy, and we don't reallyknow how to do it ourselves.
We don't even know how to do itin our own desire.
I know that when I'm workingreally hard and really good, I
know I could go another hour,but damn it, I'm going to have a
(40:12):
cup of coffee first, and I knowit's a capitulation to my side
that says treat yourself, youdeserve it.
You've been working hard,whereas if I just stayed on the
job, I'd have it done in 20minutes.
And so now Aliosha is okay.
Well, what do I?
How do I deal with this?
(40:33):
Right, so he runs into one ofthe other kids who's who's in
the this gang that are torturingthe boy, you know?
And?
And throwing things at him, youknow, for, for having tried to
kill the dog.
And he talks to the boy who'sthe leader and he says you him,
you know, for having tried tokill the dog.
And he talks to the boy who'sthe leader and he says you know,
do you know this boy that youguys are throwing things at?
(40:56):
And he says, yeah, he goes toour school.
He says, do you know where helives?
And he takes the boy over tothe house and shows him how the
boy lives in poverty and hisdad's a drunk and his mother has
like 15 kids that she's tryingto raise and doesn't have any
time for the boy.
And he shows the kid this houseand then the kid says, oh gee,
(41:23):
you know, I'm sorry, I didn'trealize this.
I'll talk to the guys and we'llback off on him for a while.
And so that's the beginning ofhow these little seeds of
(41:43):
goodness, you know, begin toinfiltrate an underground
situation.
But if you had just taken thatboy out of his family and given
him to a foster home, that thatwouldn't have been as organic a
reconciliation to his communityas aliosha discovers just by
(42:06):
getting his hands dirty, right,yeah, and suffering the whole
thing out.
That's a good word.
And so that's like a scene in aDostoevsky novel.
Travis Mullen (42:20):
Yeah.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (42:20):
And you go.
My God, I'm learning about whatlife is.
Why didn't anybody tell me this?
They give me these formulaicanswers for everything in the
modern world that all derivefrom Kantian imperative, and the
Kantian imperative doesn't takeinto account the dual nature of
(42:41):
man.
He's not fallen, he's not saved.
There's a dual nature.
He moves in and out of theunderground and he's tempted by
the underground.
And I named it and I said thisis not a perpetual state of man,
this is an aspect of humannature that the modern world is
(43:01):
bringing up for examination.
And where, where all theseschool shooters come from,
that's the underground.
It's like the world telling you, fix the underground, get
people out of the underground,and we don't listen to it.
Travis Mullen (43:18):
Yeah.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (43:21):
And so that's his message.
And so you know you, you readDostoevsky and you know you'll
be surprised when you know, justtalking about it, today, you
start reading that just thebackground history of the
families of the Karol Mazov'sfamily.
You know where he goes through,the like all novels of the 18th
(43:44):
century.
Did they give you the familyhistory?
Yeah Well, in a Dostoevskyfamily history, it's the history
of trauma.
Travis Mullen (43:54):
It's a trauma tree which is, which is reality
too, which is reality.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (43:59):
And then this is where this came from.
And you and you're thinkingthis dostoevsky, what a dark
bastard.
You know why does he have totell us every dark thing that
happened to every family memberin the Karamazov's family tree?
(44:23):
Because they were a little toohands-offish when it came to
dealing with the dark side, aswell as the light side of human
existence.
Travis Mullen (44:40):
Kind of like a problem with Disney and a
problem with Hallmark.
Yes, and probably 80% of popculture.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (44:53):
Yes, and then when you want to have the
evil, it's.
It's a caricature, it's justone guy who's just absolutely
evil.
Yeah, that this new.
I think it's pixar movie or Idon't know what it is.
The bad guys too.
I hear it's an animated movieabout these cartoon.
The cartoon bad guys getrestorative justice.
Travis Mullen (45:17):
That's a funny concept.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (45:19):
Yeah, and they're brought back into
harmony with their world.
I can just imagine it being avery funny movie, because, you
(45:40):
know, restorative justice issomething that Dostoevsky is
into, but not necessarily in aprogrammatic way, and I'm sure
that this movie probably playswith that.
You know what restorativejustice would really look like
for a cartoon bear or something.
Travis Mullen (45:50):
You know what would that and the results would
be pretty funny but I think the, I think the, the underground
kind of exposes, like you know,as we still see, it's completely
active, the underground.
It's maybe more, maybe alwaysbeen just as active or maybe
(46:11):
more active than ever, um, aslike a chaos agent in our, in
our world, because now you hearabout so many more things
happening because of socialmedia and phones recording
things and and such.
It may have always been thesame level all along, but we're
more aware of it now because ofall of that.
And I think in the traditionalchristian view, you know, the
(46:33):
way out of the underground.
To me as an evangelical pastor,all these years was like people
just need to hear about jesus,they just need to repent and
receive grace and they'll betransformed.
It was almost, almost thatformulaic, yeah, but to modern
people that are not necessarilyevangelical or Christian in any
(46:55):
sense, they've tried with theirways, which has been like
education being the number oneprobably through all the years,
where people think education isthe answer.
Yeah, technology, in some ways,now we see it more as a problem
.
Um, economic reform, you knowpeople think, oh, if people
(47:16):
weren't poor, um, if peopleweren't in bad situations, they
wouldn't.
You know, all this bad stuffwouldn't happen.
And then, obviously, politicalrevolution.
People think, oh, it's becauseof these policies, so it's all.
It's all blaming something onexternal.
Yes, and it seems likeDostoevsky's saying you know
there's no formula for this.
That's all sounds really naive.
(47:36):
Even if you fix externalconditions, what we have here is
a problem that's veryirrational and proud and
self-destructive in the humanheart.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (47:47):
Right, and so you.
The first step and and that'swhy you know conversion, or you
know, giving yourself over toJesus, is a great first step
because it it reverses the fieldon the underground right.
It's like I'm not going tofollow my will over my reason,
(48:08):
or even my will over my faith.
Travis Mullen (48:10):
I'm going to give myself over to a larger power,
not my own agenda, my own chaosrule, chaos rule, which it does
affirm the idea of AA, wherepeople who have lived chaos A
word that I hear in thisunderground concept lived chaos.
Well, a word that I hear in inin this underground concept is
(48:33):
chaos.
So the chaos of your own will,impulsive, will like doing what
you want in the moment, and itmay not even make sense to even
yourself or your conscience.
And we've all done that, youknow, you've had, we've all had
a time where we did something.
We're like I don't know why Idid that, I don't know why I?
did that or I don't know why Isaid that, and you know,
teenagers and children do thatespecially, but we do even as
(48:55):
adults, and I know there's timeswhere I did something that
really hurt someone and I'm likeI literally don't know why I
did that.
I'm really sorry and where Iwas going with that is that one
of the movies it referenced.
Like, when I looked up whatmovies represent Dostoevsky's
concept of underground, theJoker comes to the top too,
(49:17):
along with Taxi Driver oh yeah.
So Joker, the movie from 2019with Joaquin Phoenix, oh yeah.
And it's a guy who's like veryemotionally disturbed and
socially awkward and starts tofind, you know, find vision and
(49:40):
being chaotic.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (49:42):
Yeah.
Travis Mullen (49:42):
Um and same as the other Joker movie, and the
dark night rises, rises um thatjoker he.
He says his motive is is chaosyeah which you know, I was
telling my son the other day.
We were talking about villainsin in all the movies, all the
all the comic movies, and weboth agreed that joker was the
best and I said you know what Isay?
(50:03):
You know what I think aboutjoker is that, um, most villains
have, like something they'retrying to get, like gold or
money or um control or power.
And to the joker in that movie,it was none of that, it was
just chaos, and I think that'svery real.
To like a shooter, a massshooter or a it's like that
(50:28):
impulsive curiousness where it'slike what would happen if I do
this?
Well, I'm going to do that.
And they start building this,this plan, in the underground of
their, of their heart and mind,and literally on the dark web
of the internet.
And what it, what it tells meabout?
Like the human heart has thispropensity to total chaos.
(50:50):
That isn't right and isn'trational.
And that's like what?
What dosius?
He's actually like affirmingthat.
He's almost like proving thebible more true than we ever
thought, because we thought sinmeant like disobedience to god's
law, but he's saying he'ssaying it's like rebellion
against meaning itself yeah verywell put, which that's pretty
(51:12):
gnarly.
Um, and then another contrastevil.
In the bible evil is likedeviation from good, but it
sounds like in dosieski saying,evil can be conscious revolt
against good for the sake ofasserting self-will.
So it can be like activelyrevolting against good, not just
(51:32):
deviating right and that's, andthat's what one of aliotia's
brothers does, and then one ofthe other contrasts was like in
the biblical view, all havesinned and need grace.
But in dociowski's underground,humans often sin deliberately,
irrationally and pridefully,even knowing it will hurt them
(51:54):
or others.
Right, so it's almost like a.
It's almost like sin in colorand the and the bible's giving
you the basic framework and thendosiowski's filling it in with
color.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (52:07):
Yes, yes, boy, that's well put.
One of the things that FatherZosima, who's you know, dealing
with the underground and theubiquitous nature of the
underground, I mean it'severywhere to some degree,
(52:33):
everywhere to some degree.
I mean it's, you know, notevery family has a criminal or
you know a willful personrebelling, but there's always
conflict and there's alwayswillfulness, and imperfection
and dysfunction and dysfunctionand and this is part of the
human condition it shouldn't beanything that scares you.
And Alyosha and Zosima is theone who said you know, I mean,
(52:55):
he began his life as anunderground figure and then,
when he saw through it, sawhimself through the eyes of the
people that were suffering underhis willfulness.
That's when he had hisconversion.
And so one of the things thathe says and this is a way of
(53:16):
thinking of it, if you're aphilosopher out there that the
Kantian imperative, you knowthat I should act in a way that
if it were a universal law, youknow it would be good to all
people.
Right to treat others as youwould like others to treat you.
(53:37):
I mean evil in 3D or evil intechnicolor I guess that's what
Nazism is or the cult movementsof history that have destroyed
(54:00):
people.
Zosima says his rule of thumbis I am responsible for not only
myself, but for everyone else,and I more than anyone else.
Travis Mullen (54:20):
Can you say it again?
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (54:22):
I am responsible not only for my
behavior but for the behavior ofeveryone else.
And what does he mean?
Well, what did I contribute tothe fact that we live in a
technological society wherechildren are are made vulnerable
(54:49):
to visions of darkness thatthey are not psychologically
prepared to defend themselvesagainst?
Or what didn't I do that madethat possible?
Right, yeah, so for Zosima, thekind of like Christ figure in
the novel, christ figure in thein the novel, it's sort of like
that's a question to askyourself when, when you're
(55:23):
confronted with a problem likeyou know, okay, my, my kid wants
to go to the party and I don'ttrust the kids that are at that
party.
Oh well, what did I do tocontribute to this?
Right, I did.
I.
Did I like talk about how Ilove my parties I went to when I
was a kid, you know, am I, am Iin some way contributing to
(55:44):
this?
And, and that becomes part ofthe spiritual discernment
there's that scene in Gandhiwhere the woman comes to Gandhi
and says you know, my son won'tstop eating sugar.
And could you tell him not toeat sugar because it's
(56:04):
destroying his teeth?
And Gandhi says, yeah, but youhave to give me two weeks.
And so two weeks go by and hetells the kid you shouldn't eat
sugar.
And the mom says well, why didyou make me wait two weeks for
you to tell him that?
And he says, well, because Iwas eating sugar and I had to
(56:30):
fast for two weeks in order tocleanse myself.
To say that with some authority, that's awesome and that's what
Jesus in the Bible, you knowright, he spoke with authority.
He didn't speak like thescribes and the Philistines, or
Pharisees.
Pharisees who memorized theaphorisms, but then you know the
(56:50):
Philistines who, the Pharisees,the Pharisees who memorized the
aphorisms, but then you knowwhere are they carrying the
disease with them?
Or the?
You know the human stain, andwe're all carrying the human
stain.
Travis Mullen (57:09):
Thank you for listening to Subversive
Orthodoxy.
If today's conversation stirredsomething in you, whether
you're a skeptic, a believer orsomewhere in the middle of
deconstruction, know this thisisn't about reclaiming an old
religious philosophy.
It's about realizing that thereare ancient constants that
challenge the very things inculture that are dehumanizing us
.
As we speak, we're going tocontinue exploring what it means
(57:31):
to live a life of deep meaningin this world that often feels
fragmented and nihilistic, andthis prophetic imagination
doesn't seem to come to us fromthe expected places.
It's not confined to pulpits orseminaries.
The prophetic voice is breakingthrough in novels, poetry,
charity work, art and theunexpected corners of culture.
We hope you'll continue to joinus in this ongoing conversation
(57:53):
.
Until then, thank you forlistening.
If you found this meaningful.
Please leave a five-star review, subscribe and share with
anyone who might resonate withthis conversation.
Adios.
This has been the SubversiveOrthodoxy Podcast with Travis
Mullen and Professor Nchasti.
(58:13):
Adios.
they give me these formulaic answers for
everything in the modern worldthat all derive from Kantian
imperative.
And the Kantian imperativedoesn't take into account the
dual nature of man.
He's not fallen, he's not saved.
There's a dual nature.
He moves in and out of theunderground and he's tempted by
(00:23):
the underground.
And I named it and I said thisis not a perpetual state of man,
this is an aspect of humannature that the modern world is
bringing up for examination.
And where all these schoolshooters come from, that's the
underground.
It's like the world telling you, fix the underground, get
(00:46):
people out of the underground,and we don't listen to it.
Travis Mullen (00:57):
Welcome to the Subversive Orthodoxy Podcast.
I'm your host, travis Mullen,and I'm excited to have you with
us.
This is a podcast aboutphilosophy and meaning.
It is about how we as humanswithstand the challenges of our
cultures.
It is about the generalJudeo-Christian revelation of
God in the world and how thebloodiest century ever recorded
(01:18):
couldn't kill that revelation.
It's also about how thatrevelation, tossed aside as
archaic, outdated and obsolete,may be the very life-giving
power we need to resist thisdistracted techno state we're
living in full of anxiety,depression and teenage suicide.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (01:38):
It's great entertainment, thrilling
entertainment.
Travis Mullen (01:54):
It's the Inside Story pack with I'm not that far
in, but I've got a.
I've got a pretty good dose ofeach character and I found the
father to be a lot like.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (02:09):
Or there's a show called succession
yes, of course, that great,great movie.
Travis Mullen (02:13):
That's very ghost of skin would you think, yeah,
but what's what's interesting?
It's so underground because Imean almost makes I'm later.
I'm going to ask you where'sthe redemptive?
You know, stuff come throughabout the underground or in
spite of the underground, butbut like that movie, my, I've
told a few friends this, thatmovie or that show, and another
(02:35):
show called All the Light youCannot See.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (02:37):
Uh huh.
Travis Mullen (02:38):
Have you seen that one?
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (02:39):
No, I haven't seen that one.
Travis Mullen (02:40):
It's about a blind French girl using Braille
to read classic novels throughcode for the US to bomb parts of
Paris against the Nazis.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (02:51):
And it's super powerful.
That's very Dostoevsky and hecould get behind that kind of
novel.
Travis Mullen (03:00):
Well, what was unique about these two shows
juxtaposed to each other?
Because I watched them back toback you know, somewhat back to
back.
My thought from Succession wasyou know, we couldn't stop
watching it for one thing, butsecondly, why can't we stop
watching it?
Every one of these charactersis morally bankrupt.
There's no hero.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (03:21):
Right.
Travis Mullen (03:22):
It is zero.
Like you start to sympathizewith a couple of them and then
they turn and then, but nobodyis good, like there is no good
person in it.
They are all out for themselves.
They're literally morallybankrupt.
It is.
It is kind of like can youwrite a show Like, can you write
(03:42):
a story like this?
I mean, is that even mean, isthat even, is that even
believable?
And then then you go to all thelight.
You cannot see it's exactopposite.
Yes, all these good, beautifulpeople.
You know nazis being thecaricature of evil in the
situation.
Yeah, and then.
But even one of the nazis isgood yes and he's he and he's
(04:04):
functioning in a deceitful wayagainst his own army in a good
way with the people he's notwanting to kill.
So it's a really I don't know.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (04:16):
I don't know what I'm saying, but I just
noticed skides and brotherscare miles off, which is his
masterpiece, which comes asclose as he ever came to
defining the underground andthen defining the way out of the
underground in a believable way, at least for some of the
(04:36):
characters some of the time, andwith that it becomes a
transcendent work of art.
And so if you want to do that,you could combine those two
movies would be a dostoevsky andcreate.
You know, you have the darkcharacters who are running the
(04:57):
world and then you have the, thecharacters of light who are
trying to redeem it right out ofthe mouths of the underground,
and that becomes the story ofthe Brothers Karamazov.
(05:19):
In being fair to all thedifferent points of view and
still having Alyosha come out asan exemplary Christian figure,
some critics argue well, no, theAlyosha doesn't come out as an
(05:40):
exemplary Christian figure.
The hero of the novel is theatheist and the story is really
about the impossibility of ahonest intellectual to believe
in God.
I think that's a grossmisreading.
It certainly violatesDostoevsky's own goals for the
(06:02):
work, but you know if you're anatheist critic and you're
reading Dostoevsky's own goalsfor the work.
But you know if you're anatheist critic and you're
reading Dostoevsky andDostoevsky's being true, being
fair to all sides of theargument, you get to pick who
you follow, right, it's apolyphonic novel, so you
identify with the guy who's mostlike, you Pick your hero and
(06:25):
pick your hero, kind of thing.
Whereas if you know dostoevsky'slife, you know the other books,
you know the things hestruggled with and the story
he's been trying to tell hiswhole life.
And then you know about aliosha, and if we have a show where we
talk about the brothersKaramazov, there's so many
(06:46):
allusions to Alyosha that relateto Dostoevsky's own search for
meaning in his own life that youcan't miss that.
This is the story he wants totell of how somebody could
navigate the underground withoutfalling victim to its tricks
(07:11):
and its evils.
Yeah, now I wanted to read youa couple of quotes here from
Berdanev, because we didBerdanev on one of our episodes
and not that you have that, youhave had to have watched that.
I heard that episode.
But once you sort of hear whatBerdenev says about Dostoevsky,
(07:34):
you might want to go back afteryou read Dostoevsky or we talk
about Dostoevsky to see whereBerdenev was coming from but he
wrote a very interesting book onDostoevsky, uh, to see where
burdenia was coming from.
But he wrote a very interestingbook on dostavsky, and oh, he
wrote a whole book on him yeahand uh uh, and he was.
He was betrayed by the RussianRevolution.
(07:55):
Burdenia was a supporter of theRussian Revolution and then
when the Bolsheviks took overand Stalin took over, they
arrested him for treason and hewas exiled to the philosopher's
ship in the middle of the oceanand later exiled to Paris and
lived in Paris and wrote aboutChristian existentialism until
(08:17):
the Nazis took over Paris.
And then he was driven out ofParis and found his way back to
the Ukraine.
And there's a couple of quoteshere where he's talking about
Dostoevsky and he says that he'stalking about Russia and how
(08:41):
Russia could have had thisrevolution against the Tsar that
turned into an authoritarianstate that created a prison camp
system.
History.
Russia has made absolutely nopositive contribution to world
history.
Her only purpose is to serve asa negative example, except for
(09:20):
the possible contribution ofFyodor Dostoevsky and Leo
Tolstoy.
Travis Mullen (09:31):
Berdiv said that.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (09:33):
Yes, and this is what he says about
Dostoevsky In the finalparagraph of the book on
Dostoevsky.
He says so great is the worthof Dostoevsky that to have
(10:00):
produced him is by itselfsufficient justification for the
existence of the russian peoplein the world, and he will bear
witness for his countrymen atthe last judgment of nations for
all their crimes.
Whoa, now that was.
(10:23):
You know you could see that hewas probably, uh, you know, very
emotional at that point,because he's probably riding in
the 20s, you know, at the heightthat, in 30s, at the height
that said well, no, maybe evenlater, maybe in the 40s um, he's
extremely angry at russiaextremely angry.
Um and uh, you know, anddosevsky and tolstoy were not
(10:48):
read by the communists.
I mean they were.
They were tolerated as kind oflike precursors to the great
communist novels, which were allpropaganda tracks, until you
got to uh, solzhenitsyn and the,or the viscid writers like
Pasternak.
But this is another quote from,from that sort of explains what
(11:13):
we've been talking about.
He says Dostoevsky's novels arenot properly speaking novels at
all.
They are parts of a tragedy,the inner tragedy of human
destiny, the unique human spiritrevealing itself in its various
(11:35):
aspects and at different stepsin its journey, and the reader
is carried along into thehurricane.
Dostoevsky was, more thananything else, an anthropologist
, an experimentalist in humannature, who formulated a new
(11:55):
science of man and applied it toa method of investigation
hitherto unknown.
His artistic science, themodern novel, his scientific art
, studied that nature in itsendless convolutions and
limitless extent, uncovering itslowest and its most hidden
(12:18):
layers.
He subjected man to a spiritualexperiment, putting him into
unusual situations and thentaking away all the external
stops, one after another, tillhis whole social framework had
gone.
Dostoevsky pursued his studyaccording to the methods of
(12:41):
Dionysian art.
And when he has made his wayinto the deep places of human
nature.
He took his whirlwind with him.
His work is an anthropology inmotion, in which things are seen
as such an atmosphere of flameand ecstasy that they have
meaning only for those who arethemselves involved in the
(13:05):
spiritual tempest.
A careful reading of Dostoevskyis an event in one's life from
which the soul never fullyrecovers.
It receives its baptism of fire.
Baptism of fire.
The person who has lived for atime in Dostoevsky's world has
(13:27):
seen it, as it were, has seen,as it were, the unpublic forms
of being, for he is above all agreat revolutionary of the
spirit, opposing himself toevery kind of cliche, lie,
(13:48):
stagnation, fraud and hardeningof the human soul.
So that's, you know kind ofabstract language, to put it,
and I think we're preciselypersuading, uh, we're praising
dostoevsky for his ability totake it, that out of abstract
(14:10):
language and put it into theconcrete I have a couple quotes
of other people talking abouthim yeah so kierkegaard?
Travis Mullen (14:21):
he never wrote extensively about him, it says,
but his themes resonate closelyespecially.
I noticed, obviously paradoxwith him and a lot of these guys
, birdie, birdie, ev and uh,chesterton too, with paradox,
but kierkegaard loved hisexploration of despair and
(14:42):
inwardness and then, yeah, thatwas it.
I don't actually have a quotefrom him, but then Nietzsche
said the quote that you said.
Dostoevsky is the onlypsychologist from whom I have
anything to learn.
He respected his deep analysisof human psychology, especially
the darker sides of desire andmorality.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (14:59):
Yeah.
Travis Mullen (15:00):
Though Nietzsche rejected, obviously,
Christianity, he saw Dostoevskyas a keen observer of the will
and suffering.
And then Chesterton had aunique take Dostoevsky is a man
who knew everything except howto be a good man.
And it says Chestertonappreciated Dostoevsky's
spiritual intensity and insightinto evil and suffering, but
(15:22):
noted his tragic wrestling withfaith and redemption.
Chesterton viewed Dostoevsky asa profound but tortured
Christian thinker who dramatizedthe battle between good and
evil within the soul.
Tortured is right.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (15:36):
Yeah, and I don't know.
You know Chesterton puts hisfinger on this, but Dostoevsky
thought that there was a reasonwhy the dark side came up first,
as a response to runawayrationality of the enlightenment
and scientism.
He said it, you know, I I don'tthink there's a specific place
(16:01):
that he puts it, but it's sortof it's sort of like that that
there was a kind of rebellionthat came up.
That was the dark side first.
It was sort of like you know,you can have your crystal
cathedrals and your engineeringmasterpieces and they will serve
(16:24):
as targeting markers for Naziplanes in another 20 years,
markers for Nazi planes inanother 20 years.
You could split the atom and inanother 40 years they'll be
using that atom to destroy120,000 people in cities in
Japan.
So it was sort of likeDostoevsky thought that this
(16:48):
dark side has to be dealt withfirst, that you can't just you
know, spiritually bypass andjump into goodness.
And how does he know this?
Well, I think probably it hasto do with his experience right
of being betrayed and being sentto a camp and of having to
(17:13):
survive and having to admire thedark side of man as much as the
positive side.
But then, seeing that it washis task to try to create the
image of the transcendent, andit is a kind of an anthropology.
It isn't a theology create theimage of the transcendent, and
it is a kind of an anthropology.
(17:34):
It isn't a theology, it is akind of spiritual anthropology
of how do you bring the goodinto the world of the bad.
And that becomes the story inthe Brothers Karamazov and what
(17:55):
happens to Alyosha and what helearns from Father Zosima.
And what happens to FatherZosima in terms of his learning,
you know, beginning his life asan underground figure and then
finding God and joining themonastery, and how far he got on
(18:16):
his journey, becomes positive.
You know it's, it's.
And so when in his last yearsit looked like he wasn't, it
looked like he wasn't.
(18:37):
Bratislava was supposed to bepart one of a two volume book
and part one was was supposed tobe the origins of Aliosha and
part two was going to be hiscurrent reality, and so it was
going to take place in thepresent Russia, not like a
retrospective, and he never gotaround to writing it, but he was
able to give some speeches andtalk about where he was taking
(19:00):
it and it was all sort of in thehopes of making aliosha a
exemplary, heroic figure in anew way, that the hero is not
going to be the exceptional man,the hero is going to be the
good man.
(19:23):
And the good man is not special,is not special.
The good man is only special inthe sense that he knows enough
of the underground to love thepeople that are victimized by it
and to love them back intohealth.
Yeah, so he becomes a kind ofhealing force, even though the
(19:48):
stories he tells are filled withtrauma and disingenuousness and
greed and all of the all ofthose things and unbridled
passions and all of these thingsthat become the mark of a great
dostoevsky story.
But they, but he also has allthe people in between, and
(20:11):
that's one of the things youdon't get it like in succession,
right, you don't.
You don't get a spectrum aspectrum and you don't.
I mean, there was one guy, the,the, the guy who was married to
the daughter, who had somemoments of normality, I guess
(20:34):
you'd say a less of a person whowas living out his traumatic
self-doubts and hatred, but notenough to really fight back or
give you know, show how youmight respond to this in a way
(20:55):
that could help heal rather thanjust survive.
But that might be.
You know, if they do a seasontwo, that would might be a great
.
It probably wouldn't be aspopular because we find the
underground more like a taxidriver.
(21:19):
You know that whole movie isjust a journey into the
underground.
Yeah, and the same with a lotof scorsese's movies.
And now that he's, you know theone, the one, uh, filmmaker who
, who tried to reconcile hischristianity with his modernism
(21:43):
was fellini.
And uh, if you, if you look ateight and5 through a Christian
lens, you see a Dostoevskianattempt at bringing the
(22:04):
underground, coming out of theunderground into the light.
In what are you talking about?
There's a Fellini's movie,eight and a Half.
Travis Mullen (22:18):
Oh, I don't know that.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (22:20):
It's about an advertising executive
who has to deal withmanipulating people to buy these
consumer goods in post-warItaly and he's having a
spiritual crisis and he's tryingto reconcile his Catholicism
(22:41):
with his job.
And he's making a movie inwhich he reconciles faith with
commerce and succeeds from hisown point of view, and it's one
(23:04):
of Fellini's best movies.
It's called eight and a halfbecause it's, uh, the eight and
a half year of his work as adirector and it symbolizes for
him his halfway mark and histurn to more uh, uh, explicitly
(23:27):
positive uh stories and things.
But he doesn't keep up withthat that.
So eight and a half, it wasreally kind of the apex, uh, for
Fellini, for my money, but uh,that's just my opinion yeah, um,
I want to transition to a fewpieces here that I've got and
(23:48):
I'm going to obviously ask youfor your commentary.
Travis Mullen (23:51):
Okay, one is well , actually I'll just put this
one to you as a question.
Yeah, does underground likeaccording to Dostoevsky, does
his underground concept relateto you know how?
Is it saying somethingdifferent than the Bible?
(24:12):
Or is it just proving the Biblein the sense of our hearts are
deceitful we are.
There is no one who does good.
So the Bible has a pessimisticview of human fallen, human
fallen humanity, of human fallen, human fallen humanity.
(24:34):
And for the, for the audiencethat is, the main emphasis of
most evangelical christians, andmaybe catholics too, is the
fallen nature of man, whichoftentimes eclipses the original
goodness of like.
Man was created very good, sothere's an original goodness
that gets completely thrown outthe window.
This is in a theological sense,but it totally relates to what
(24:55):
dos jfc is doing here.
So there's original goodness.
And then there's the heavyemphasis on the fallen nature,
which verses in the bible thatyou know, mike, drop, verses
like all have sinned, not no onewho does.
No one does good, not even one.
Jesus saying why do you call megood?
There is no one good but God.
So it's very the Bible ispretty clear that there's a
(25:19):
fallen nature to humanity.
My wife and I were listening toa parenting book the other day
and this lady said the wholepremise of her book is that
everyone is good and we are allgood.
Our children are good inside.
The book's called Good Inside,yeah, and I said we can probably
learn something from this book,but I definitely do disagree
(25:40):
with the premise.
And she said the whole bookdepends on that premise.
But yeah, it's the exactopposite of the Bible and
Dostoevsky.
Obviously.
Yeah, it's the exact oppositeof the Bible and Dostoevsky,
obviously.
But my question to you,professor, is you know we have
drug cartels, politicalcorruption, sex trafficking,
child abuse, murder, even childpornography about as evil as you
(26:01):
can possibly get.
What is Dostoevsky saying youknow different, or is he proving
it out in more complexity?
Or how would you?
How would you frame that?
Well with the underground.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (26:15):
Yeah, that's a great question and we
don't have volume two of theBrothers Karamazov where Aliosha
will be able to put his faithinto practice, his faith into
practice.
But one of the things, one ofthe clues we have in part one is
that at a certain point hegives up on his brothers as
(26:43):
being beyond him in terms of himbeing able to get them out of
the underground.
Is because zossima as a, as aspiritual director and in one
way of reading the brotherskaramazov, it's that it's a
manual and spiritual direction,and there's plenty of scenes
(27:05):
where where zossima iscounseling families and
counseling people with tragicevents in their lives and
traumatized, and his response tothem in every case is whatever
you do and you're going to haveto make your own decision but
(27:27):
whatever you do, do don't gounderground zossima says that
explicitly in different ways todifferent okay but.
But basically it translates todon't go underground, and what
going underground means is don'tnurse a resentment.
Travis Mullen (27:51):
Wait, are you saying he actually uses that
terminology in the book?
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (27:54):
Yeah.
Travis Mullen (27:55):
Okay, so notes from the underground.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (27:58):
He doesn't.
Travis Mullen (27:59):
Ideas like the idea of underground gets
imported into Brothers K.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (28:03):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Travis Mullen (28:04):
I didn't know that I'm not there yet, I guess.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (28:11):
For example, there's a woman who
comes to Father Zosima veryearly in the book like oh, I
might have read this one whereshe's lost her third child.
Who's who's done?
Travis Mullen (28:20):
her husband didn't care and stuff like that.
He's like oh, get over it, he'sin heaven yeah, and woman.
Get over it.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (28:26):
He's in heaven and she can't get over it
.
He's in heaven and she can'tget over it.
Travis Mullen (28:31):
Yeah.
She goes to her pastor and saysthat was the last part I
listened to.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (28:36):
Yeah, I can't get over the death of the
child.
Travis Mullen (28:42):
And she said she could get over the first one she
lost and the second one.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (28:46):
Yeah.
Travis Mullen (28:46):
But this third one she can't.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (28:48):
Right, second one, yeah, but this third
one she can't right.
And so father's Zosima sayswell, the, the guy who told you
you know that that you, thathe's in heaven is, is right, you
know.
And then he was.
He was trying to get you to seethat there, that that there's
an order, there's goodness inthe universe, you know, but
(29:09):
you're not feeling it.
And because he doesn't knowsomething I know because Zosima
is the only monk who allowswomen to come to the gates of
the monastery to receivespiritual direction.
None of the other monks willtalk to women to receive
(29:30):
spiritual direction.
None of the other monks willtalk to women.
So he says well, because theydon't talk to women, they don't
understand this that every childthat dies has a different
degree of mourning.
They want from their parents,and some want you to mourn for a
week, some a day, some years.
And it sounds to me like thislittle child for a week, some a
day, some years.
And it sounds to me like thislittle child wants you to mourn
(29:56):
a long time.
And you can do that.
And that doesn't mean you'velost your faith.
In fact, you have faith.
That's what allows you to carrythe grief, and so you carry
that grief as long as you haveto, and one day he'll give you a
(30:22):
sign.
Now what did he do?
He gave that woman hope and hegave her a way of carrying her
grief and he gave herexpectations someday I'll
receive a divine sign from mybaby.
(30:42):
So he was basically giving hera way to not go underground,
right, not to lose her faith,not blame herself, not blame God
for the death of her child.
(31:04):
And so she says oh, thank youso much, thank you so much, you
know, I can live with that,right?
Yeah, he didn't say you know,I'll raise your child from the
dead or something you know, oryou'll have a baby that looks
(31:32):
just the psychological realitiesthat she was struggling with.
And then immediately becauseDostoevsky loves to work in
parallels then immediately therich woman with little faith
comes in and talks to FatherZosima, and she has a different
(31:55):
problem.
Her problem isn't that she'shad three babies that have died.
Her problem is that she can'tconceive of eternal life and
knows that it's one of thedoctrines of the faith.
And so this has really botheredher, because she would like to
(32:19):
believe in eternal life, becausewithout eternal life, all her
money and all her parties seemmeaningless, all her money and
all her parties seem meaningless.
But if she could know that theparty goes on forever and the
road never dies, it never endswas that Willie Nelson song?
(32:41):
Then she could enjoy her wealthand her money and her parties.
And so, zazima, you know wellwhat does he say to that does he
say oh yeah, you're going tolive forever and you'll have
parties forever.
(33:01):
Go home and enjoy your nextparty.
You know which is kind of whatshe wants to hear party.
You know which is kind of whatshe wants to hear.
But he, he wants to sort ofsober her up but at the same
time not drive her underground.
So he says to her you knowyou're asking me to explain to
(33:23):
you the doctrine of eternal life, and eternal life is not an
idea.
You believe that.
It's not an idea that youaccept and therefore believe.
It's more of a concept that'sgiven to you as a grace by God
(33:47):
and you can't just believe it bywanting to believe it.
You come to it as a grace.
Now, how do you come to it as agrace?
Well, you live an eternal lifein this life and I happen to
know a woman who's just lost herbaby, and she could really do
(34:09):
with a nice dinner.
And she and her poor family,you know, they haven't had much
food ever since the baby diedand you could invite her to one
of those parties.
And the wealthy woman says Iknew you would have nothing to
(34:37):
tell me.
You frogged.
I came here wanting to know,can you give me this bullshit?
And then gets in her littlecart and drives away.
Wow, now, who's the underground?
Who's above ground?
What's hope?
What's despair?
(34:58):
You carry your despair into theconfessional with you.
You carry it or you carry yourfaith in with your despair with
the other woman.
I mean, this is the humancondition and Dostoevsky's
giving you these incredible, youknow, 3d goggles by which to
(35:21):
view it.
You know, the wealthy womanisn't bad because she's rich.
The wealthy woman isunderground because she's rich
and it really isn't her fault.
But she, even when we give hera hand up, she doesn't take it.
(35:42):
And how do you deal with that?
Even the most saintly spiritualdirector couldn't pull her out.
Travis Mullen (35:54):
Yeah, that was what he was trying to do was
like Jesus and the rich youngruler.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (36:00):
Yes.
Travis Mullen (36:02):
He's putting salvation right in front of him
and he can't see it and thatlady couldn't see it.
The salvation meaning like thegrace and the mystery of like
stepping out of the undergroundyes, and so is man a sinner or
is man innately good?
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (36:21):
well, he's both.
Uh, that's uh either.
Or theology that makes you feelsecure in an ambiguous
spiritual reality.
That should not make you feelunambiguous.
(36:43):
You should be able to say, forexample, the kids, for example,
like you know, my daughter is anursery school teacher and you
know it is a rule, it is a anaxiom, that there's nothing
(37:06):
wrong with those babies.
They are God's gift and youtreat them with the love and
respect that you know theypossess in their eternal souls,
right.
But that doesn't mean, whenthey become teenagers, that
(37:26):
they're not going to want tohave lunch with their father and
their mother, that they'regoing to want to hang with the
good-looking kid with the fancyhaircut, and it doesn't mean
that they are innately evil now.
It means that the undergroundis making its way into the
junior high, is making its wayinto the junior high, and the
(37:56):
spiritual directors have to givethe kids tools so they do not
go underground.
And the way you do that is youdon't punish them for wanting to
go to the party, right?
You sort of say I know why youwant to go to the party.
When I was your age, I wantedto go to the party, right?
You sort of say I know why youwant to go to the party.
When I was your age, I wantedto go to the party too, but we
(38:17):
have rules about going to theseparties.
There's a scene in the BrothersKaramazov where he's dealing
with teenagers, with teenagers,and there's one teenager that
tried to fed a dog a piece ofmeat with a needle in it to try
(38:37):
to kill him, and all the otherteenagers want to beat up this
little boy that did this.
And Alyosha is trying to bringreconciliation, but he's pretty
taken aback by the, by the evilof this kid.
But he doesn't want him to gounderground and identify with
(38:58):
that.
So he goes.
He asked the kid to take him tohis home and he goes over to
and finds out that the kid comesfrom this family with a poverty
stricken family, with a fatherwho's an alcoholic, who beats
the kid, but not because he'she's like a twisted guy, but
(39:23):
because he's just, you know, hasno control.
So he goes back to hisgirlfriend and asks you know, do
you have any advice on what todo with this kid?
And so now, see, now we'regetting into what would be the
plot of a of a secession episodethat tried to say how do you
(39:49):
heal the underground?
I mean, how do you get theseguys out of the underground
Right?
And it's not going to be a onestep thing and it's not going to
be easy, and we don't reallyknow how to do it ourselves.
We don't even know how to do itin our own desire.
I know that when I'm workingreally hard and really good, I
know I could go another hour,but damn it, I'm going to have a
(40:12):
cup of coffee first, and I knowit's a capitulation to my side
that says treat yourself, youdeserve it.
You've been working hard,whereas if I just stayed on the
job, I'd have it done in 20minutes.
And so now Aliosha is okay.
Well, what do I?
How do I deal with this?
(40:33):
Right, so he runs into one ofthe other kids who's who's in
the this gang that are torturingthe boy, you know?
And?
And throwing things at him, youknow, for, for having tried to
kill the dog.
And he talks to the boy who'sthe leader and he says you him,
you know, for having tried tokill the dog.
And he talks to the boy who'sthe leader and he says you know,
do you know this boy that youguys are throwing things at?
(40:56):
And he says, yeah, he goes toour school.
He says, do you know where helives?
And he takes the boy over tothe house and shows him how the
boy lives in poverty and hisdad's a drunk and his mother has
like 15 kids that she's tryingto raise and doesn't have any
time for the boy.
And he shows the kid this houseand then the kid says, oh gee,
(41:23):
you know, I'm sorry, I didn'trealize this.
I'll talk to the guys and we'llback off on him for a while.
And so that's the beginning ofhow these little seeds of
(41:43):
goodness, you know, begin toinfiltrate an underground
situation.
But if you had just taken thatboy out of his family and given
him to a foster home, that thatwouldn't have been as organic a
reconciliation to his communityas aliosha discovers just by
(42:06):
getting his hands dirty, right,yeah, and suffering the whole
thing out.
That's a good word.
And so that's like a scene in aDostoevsky novel.
Travis Mullen (42:20):
Yeah.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (42:20):
And you go.
My God, I'm learning about whatlife is.
Why didn't anybody tell me this?
They give me these formulaicanswers for everything in the
modern world that all derivefrom Kantian imperative, and the
Kantian imperative doesn't takeinto account the dual nature of
(42:41):
man.
He's not fallen, he's not saved.
There's a dual nature.
He moves in and out of theunderground and he's tempted by
the underground.
And I named it and I said thisis not a perpetual state of man,
this is an aspect of humannature that the modern world is
(43:01):
bringing up for examination.
And where, where all theseschool shooters come from,
that's the underground.
It's like the world telling you, fix the underground, get
people out of the underground,and we don't listen to it.
Travis Mullen (43:18):
Yeah.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (43:21):
And so that's his message.
And so you know you, you readDostoevsky and you know you'll
be surprised when you know, justtalking about it, today, you
start reading that just thebackground history of the
families of the Karol Mazov'sfamily.
You know where he goes through,the like all novels of the 18th
(43:44):
century.
Did they give you the familyhistory?
Yeah Well, in a Dostoevskyfamily history, it's the history
of trauma.
Travis Mullen (43:54):
It's a trauma tree which is, which is reality
too, which is reality.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (43:59):
And then this is where this came from.
And you and you're thinkingthis dostoevsky, what a dark
bastard.
You know why does he have totell us every dark thing that
happened to every family memberin the Karamazov's family tree?
(44:23):
Because they were a little toohands-offish when it came to
dealing with the dark side, aswell as the light side of human
existence.
Travis Mullen (44:40):
Kind of like a problem with Disney and a
problem with Hallmark.
Yes, and probably 80% of popculture.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (44:53):
Yes, and then when you want to have the
evil, it's.
It's a caricature, it's justone guy who's just absolutely
evil.
Yeah, that this new.
I think it's pixar movie or Idon't know what it is.
The bad guys too.
I hear it's an animated movieabout these cartoon.
The cartoon bad guys getrestorative justice.
Travis Mullen (45:17):
That's a funny concept.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (45:19):
Yeah, and they're brought back into
harmony with their world.
I can just imagine it being avery funny movie, because, you
(45:40):
know, restorative justice issomething that Dostoevsky is
into, but not necessarily in aprogrammatic way, and I'm sure
that this movie probably playswith that.
You know what restorativejustice would really look like
for a cartoon bear or something.
Travis Mullen (45:50):
You know what would that and the results would
be pretty funny but I think the, I think the, the underground
kind of exposes, like you know,as we still see, it's completely
active, the underground.
It's maybe more, maybe alwaysbeen just as active or maybe
(46:11):
more active than ever, um, aslike a chaos agent in our, in
our world, because now you hearabout so many more things
happening because of socialmedia and phones recording
things and and such.
It may have always been thesame level all along, but we're
more aware of it now because ofall of that.
And I think in the traditionalchristian view, you know, the
(46:33):
way out of the underground.
To me as an evangelical pastor,all these years was like people
just need to hear about jesus,they just need to repent and
receive grace and they'll betransformed.
It was almost, almost thatformulaic, yeah, but to modern
people that are not necessarilyevangelical or Christian in any
(46:55):
sense, they've tried with theirways, which has been like
education being the number oneprobably through all the years,
where people think education isthe answer.
Yeah, technology, in some ways,now we see it more as a problem
.
Um, economic reform, you knowpeople think, oh, if people
(47:16):
weren't poor, um, if peopleweren't in bad situations, they
wouldn't.
You know, all this bad stuffwouldn't happen.
And then, obviously, politicalrevolution.
People think, oh, it's becauseof these policies, so it's all.
It's all blaming something onexternal.
Yes, and it seems likeDostoevsky's saying you know
there's no formula for this.
That's all sounds really naive.
(47:36):
Even if you fix externalconditions, what we have here is
a problem that's veryirrational and proud and
self-destructive in the humanheart.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (47:47):
Right, and so you.
The first step and and that'swhy you know conversion, or you
know, giving yourself over toJesus, is a great first step
because it it reverses the fieldon the underground right.
It's like I'm not going tofollow my will over my reason,
(48:08):
or even my will over my faith.
Travis Mullen (48:10):
I'm going to give myself over to a larger power,
not my own agenda, my own chaosrule, chaos rule, which it does
affirm the idea of AA, wherepeople who have lived chaos A
word that I hear in thisunderground concept lived chaos.
Well, a word that I hear in inin this underground concept is
(48:33):
chaos.
So the chaos of your own will,impulsive, will like doing what
you want in the moment, and itmay not even make sense to even
yourself or your conscience.
And we've all done that, youknow, you've had, we've all had
a time where we did something.
We're like I don't know why Idid that, I don't know why I?
did that or I don't know why Isaid that, and you know,
teenagers and children do thatespecially, but we do even as
(48:55):
adults, and I know there's timeswhere I did something that
really hurt someone and I'm likeI literally don't know why I
did that.
I'm really sorry and where Iwas going with that is that one
of the movies it referenced.
Like, when I looked up whatmovies represent Dostoevsky's
concept of underground, theJoker comes to the top too,
(49:17):
along with Taxi Driver oh yeah.
So Joker, the movie from 2019with Joaquin Phoenix, oh yeah.
And it's a guy who's like veryemotionally disturbed and
socially awkward and starts tofind, you know, find vision and
(49:40):
being chaotic.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (49:42):
Yeah.
Travis Mullen (49:42):
Um and same as the other Joker movie, and the
dark night rises, rises um thatjoker he.
He says his motive is is chaosyeah which you know, I was
telling my son the other day.
We were talking about villainsin in all the movies, all the
all the comic movies, and weboth agreed that joker was the
best and I said you know what Isay?
(50:03):
You know what I think aboutjoker is that, um, most villains
have, like something they'retrying to get, like gold or
money or um control or power.
And to the joker in that movie,it was none of that, it was
just chaos, and I think that'svery real.
To like a shooter, a massshooter or a it's like that
(50:28):
impulsive curiousness where it'slike what would happen if I do
this?
Well, I'm going to do that.
And they start building this,this plan, in the underground of
their, of their heart and mind,and literally on the dark web
of the internet.
And what it, what it tells meabout?
Like the human heart has thispropensity to total chaos.
(50:50):
That isn't right and isn'trational.
And that's like what?
What dosius?
He's actually like affirmingthat.
He's almost like proving thebible more true than we ever
thought, because we thought sinmeant like disobedience to god's
law, but he's saying he'ssaying it's like rebellion
against meaning itself yeah verywell put, which that's pretty
(51:12):
gnarly.
Um, and then another contrastevil.
In the bible evil is likedeviation from good, but it
sounds like in dosieski saying,evil can be conscious revolt
against good for the sake ofasserting self-will.
So it can be like activelyrevolting against good, not just
(51:32):
deviating right and that's, andthat's what one of aliotia's
brothers does, and then one ofthe other contrasts was like in
the biblical view, all havesinned and need grace.
But in dociowski's underground,humans often sin deliberately,
irrationally and pridefully,even knowing it will hurt them
(51:54):
or others.
Right, so it's almost like a.
It's almost like sin in colorand the and the bible's giving
you the basic framework and thendosiowski's filling it in with
color.
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (52:07):
Yes, yes, boy, that's well put.
One of the things that FatherZosima, who's you know, dealing
with the underground and theubiquitous nature of the
underground, I mean it'severywhere to some degree,
(52:33):
everywhere to some degree.
I mean it's, you know, notevery family has a criminal or
you know a willful personrebelling, but there's always
conflict and there's alwayswillfulness, and imperfection
and dysfunction and dysfunctionand and this is part of the
human condition it shouldn't beanything that scares you.
And Alyosha and Zosima is theone who said you know, I mean,
(52:55):
he began his life as anunderground figure and then,
when he saw through it, sawhimself through the eyes of the
people that were suffering underhis willfulness.
That's when he had hisconversion.
And so one of the things thathe says and this is a way of
(53:16):
thinking of it, if you're aphilosopher out there that the
Kantian imperative, you knowthat I should act in a way that
if it were a universal law, youknow it would be good to all
people.
Right to treat others as youwould like others to treat you.
(53:37):
I mean evil in 3D or evil intechnicolor I guess that's what
Nazism is or the cult movementsof history that have destroyed
(54:00):
people.
Zosima says his rule of thumbis I am responsible for not only
myself, but for everyone else,and I more than anyone else.
Travis Mullen (54:20):
Can you say it again?
Prof. Larry Inchuasti (54:22):
I am responsible not only for my
behavior but for the behavior ofeveryone else.
And what does he mean?
Well, what did I contribute tothe fact that we live in a
technological society wherechildren are are made vulnerable
(54:49):
to visions of darkness thatthey are not psychologically
prepared to defend themselvesagainst?
Or what didn't I do that madethat possible?
Right, yeah, so for Zosima, thekind of like Christ figure in
the novel, christ figure in thein the novel, it's sort of like
that's a question to askyourself when, when you're
(55:23):
confronted with a problem likeyou know, okay, my, my kid wants
to go to the party and I don'ttrust the kids that are at that
party.
Oh well, what did I do tocontribute to this?
Right, I did.
I.
Did I like talk about how Ilove my parties I went to when I
was a kid, you know, am I, am Iin some way contributing to
(55:44):
this?
And, and that becomes part ofthe spiritual discernment
there's that scene in Gandhiwhere the woman comes to Gandhi
and says you know, my son won'tstop eating sugar.
And could you tell him not toeat sugar because it's
(56:04):
destroying his teeth?
And Gandhi says, yeah, but youhave to give me two weeks.
And so two weeks go by and hetells the kid you shouldn't eat
sugar.
And the mom says well, why didyou make me wait two weeks for
you to tell him that?
And he says, well, because Iwas eating sugar and I had to
(56:30):
fast for two weeks in order tocleanse myself.
To say that with some authority, that's awesome and that's what
Jesus in the Bible, you knowright, he spoke with authority.
He didn't speak like thescribes and the Philistines, or
Pharisees.
Pharisees who memorized theaphorisms, but then you know the
(56:50):
Philistines who, the Pharisees,the Pharisees who memorized the
aphorisms, but then you knowwhere are they carrying the
disease with them?
Or the?
You know the human stain, andwe're all carrying the human
stain.
Travis Mullen (57:09):
Thank you for listening to Subversive
Orthodoxy.
If today's conversation stirredsomething in you, whether
you're a skeptic, a believer orsomewhere in the middle of
deconstruction, know this thisisn't about reclaiming an old
religious philosophy.
It's about realizing that thereare ancient constants that
challenge the very things inculture that are dehumanizing us
.
As we speak, we're going tocontinue exploring what it means
(57:31):
to live a life of deep meaningin this world that often feels
fragmented and nihilistic, andthis prophetic imagination
doesn't seem to come to us fromthe expected places.
It's not confined to pulpits orseminaries.
The prophetic voice is breakingthrough in novels, poetry,
charity work, art and theunexpected corners of culture.
We hope you'll continue to joinus in this ongoing conversation
(57:53):
.
Until then, thank you forlistening.
If you found this meaningful.
Please leave a five-star review, subscribe and share with
anyone who might resonate withthis conversation.
Adios.
This has been the SubversiveOrthodoxy Podcast with Travis
Mullen and Professor Nchasti.
(58:13):
Adios.
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