dostoevsky & dreyfus on existential christianity

{The beginning of a response to Jake who responded to me, about my response to an old question/comment about Issac, which came from a much larger conversation about Kierkegaard, Faith, and Hubert Dreyfus’ lectures.}

I have been reading The Brothers Karamazov—though I feel like I have been reading it for years, I am still only a quarter or so through it, Russian literature seems to have the ability to do that to a person—this will be my second time going through the book—the first time was for a class, the last book of the semester, while we were supposed to be working on a 15 page paper also—needless to say the first time was a rushed read. Having had a few years now since reading Dostoevsky’s works, I am totally blown away by the brilliance of it. I am reminded of why some say it is the best novel ever written.

The teacher, Dr. Janet Tucker, who taught the class was an expert on the works of Dostoevsky. She taught me a lot about Russian literature, especially Dostoevsky. I haven’t got to listen to Dreyfus’ lectures yet, so I will just comment on how she viewed Dostoevsky’s writings instead of the ideal case of comparing the two.

For Dr. Tucker, interpreting Dostoevsky had to be done through the lens of a {Russian} Orthodox Christian. Any other understanding is missing the forest or the trees. Religion—that is Russian Orthodoxy, because there is no other true Christian Church—played a very large role in much of, if not all, Russian literature during the 19th century, and it even seeps into the writings during the period of Communist Russia.

There is much which could be said about the influence of the Orthodox Church, within Dostoevsky’s writings, but I will {try} limit it to one idea: Russian Orthodox community opposed to Western influenced individualist culture. I want to bring this idea up, because it seems so important as a juxtaposition that Dostoevsky has against Kierkegaard—that is if Dreyfus is correct in his interpretation of Kierkegaard, which I have already discussed.

For Dostoevsky, the Orthodox Church church is the all important institution for Russia. During his life, he saw a lot of changes happening around him; Russia was in the middle of a great upheaval. This was partly due to Western Europe’s heavy intellectual & cultural influence . Much of his work deals directly with these influences, which he hated. Many of the Russian intelligentsia around him were totally enamored with European, especially French, thought and decadence; Dostoevsky scoffed at such things and instead wrote about how one needs to come back to the Orthodox community—the only true community.

This is so very basic to the storyline of The Brother’s Karamazov, Alyosha is doing all he can to mend his family which is broken because of sensuality(Fydor & Dmitri) & Western thought (Ivan). This same story line is played out in his other great novel Crime and Punishment, which deals with a one man’s attempt at going above the law and the community, only to be redeemed through the Church in the person of Sofia.

I would like to think that these works, of Dostoevsky & Kierkegaard both, are better thought of as works of apologetics or prophecy rather than existential philosophy. They both were writing to a specific audience about specific problems which they saw occurring. This seems very similar to the prophets of the Old Testament, not to philosophers of Greece or Germany. So it could be said, in that sense it is a lot more existential and less philosophic. They saw certain philosophic systems leading ‘their people’ down a wayward path just like the Baal idols and the Israelites.

I would say that Dostoevsky had a much greater disdain for philosophy than Kierkegaard. It seems to say a lot about Dostoevsky in that he never really ‘philosophized’ in-itself. What he did instead was to create characters who enveloped a certain philosophy, which he then would unleash on the world. This is maybe most pronounced in the novel The Possessed where you see philosophic ideas wrecking havoc on a town.

This is beginning to go far afield from my original point, so I will table this discussion, until I have reviewed the Dreyfus lectures on The Brothers Karamazov.