Some key ideas from Part I. Read this list of ideas. Dostoevsky presents them as fundamental rules of modern thinking. Try to decide whether or not you think Dostoevsky is right, and why he is or isn't. Can you think of contemporary illustrations that support or refute what he says? Try news stories, domestic political campaigns, wars abroad, or personal experiences. Think also of the fictional exploits of well-known movie and TV characters.

1. "An intelligent modern man is morally obliged to be characterless." (See points 5,8,9,11,12,13,&15). This is from page 1106.
2. A decent man can only take pleasure in talking about himself. This is from page 1107. (Note: This is such a peculiar idea that in class we discussed what it might mean. One possible interpretation is that our favorite topics of conversation involve scandalous gossip, and it seems better to gossip about ourselves than to gossip about others.)
3. Consciousness is a disease. (See point # 1.) This is from page 1107.
4. People pride themselves on their illnesses. This is from page 1107.
5. The more conscious your are of goodness, the worse you'll be; the more conscious you are of beauty, the uglier you'll be. This is from page 1107.
6. The most intense pleasures occur in despair. (See point # 10.) This is from page 1108.
7. Men of action are real men; thinking men are mice. This is from page 1109.
8. Men of action are easily satisfied or stopped, but thinking men are never satisfied or stopped. This is from pages 1109-10.
9. Men of action act in accordance with the pursuit of justice; thinking men believe there's no such thing as justice. This idea is introduced on page 1109 and developed on pages 1113-14.
10. People want to suffer. (See rule # 6.) This is from page 1110.
11. Modern thinking men are incapable of experiencing real feelings. Whenever they experience some important sentiment like remorse, gratitude, loyalty, or love, they immediately question the sincerity of the feeling and joke about it. This is from page 1113.
12. Men of action are stupid. (See points 8 & 9.) They believe they can pursue justice only because they fail to see complexity in conflicts and different points of view. This is from page 1113.
13. "Consciousness is the enemy of feeling." (See points 1,3,5,9,& 12.) This is from page 1114.
14. Thinking leads to inertia; the great problem of modern man is boredom. (See points 8, 9, & 12.) This is from pages 1113-14.
15. No good can ever come from men pursuing their own interests because there is no such thing as "enlightened" self-interest. When a man pursues what he sees as an "advantage," he isn't necessarily pursuing something recognizably good, like happiness. (See points 10 & 11.) This is from page 1115.
16. If it were true that man pursues his own enlightened self-interest, then men would have become kinder and less bloodthirsty in modern times, but this isn't so. This is from page 1117.
17. If it were true that man's actions can be explained by science (say, biology and psychology), then man would have no real freedom and no capacity for moral choice. He'd be like a piano key played by nature as part of a tune of nature's devising. (In other words, he'd be nothing but a step in a process or pattern.) This is from pages 1117-18.
18. If it were true that the history of war could be seen only as class conflict over the distribution of resources, as Marx says, then Marxism would bring an end to war and we'd all live in a "crystal palace" society of utopian design. But that's not what's happening. This is from page 1118.
19. The most important "advantage" man seeks is to act exactly as he wants to, not as reason, enlightened self-interest, or the laws of nature dictate. This is from pages 1118-19.
20. The things that make us human are our desires and whims that are not dictated by reason or nature. Without these, we'd be automatons (that is, robots). This is from page 1119.
21. "Reason…satisfies only man's rational faculty, whereas desire is a manifestation of all life…Human life…includes both reason (and) all of life's itches and scratches." This is from page 1120.
22. Man must sometimes desire what's harmful in order to preserve the right to desire what's harmful; that freedom is man's most precious right. (See point 3 19.) This is from page 1120.
23. "The best definition of man is this: a creature who walks on two legs and is ungrateful…His main defect is his perpetual misbehavior…and, consequently, imprudence." This is from page 1121.
24. The only thing no one can find in the course of history is rationality. This is from page 1121.
25. "Man alone can…cause destruction and chaos…it's his privilege and the thing that most distinguishes him from other animals." (See points 19,20, 21, 22, and 24.) This is from page 1122.
26. "Man could go insane deliberately in order not to have reason, but to have his own way!" This is from page 1122.
27. Man is fond of destruction and chaos because "he has an instinctive fear of achieving his goal and completing" his projects (his roads or buildings). "He loves his building only from afar, but not from close up…he only likes building it, but not living in it, leaving it afterward to domestic animals, like ants and sheep…The worthy ants began with the anthill and most likely, they will end with the anthill…But man is a frivolous…creature…Perhaps the only goal toward which mankind is striving consists merely in this incessant process of achieving, or to put it another way, in life itself…a formula…is the beginning of death." In other words, man is not like the ants. They build because they want and need the hill they're making. But man builds for the sake of building. He doesn't care about the hill once it's finished. These ideas are from page 1123.
28. When man at last finds what he's looking for he's frightened because there's nothing left to search for. This is from page 1123.
29. The awful thing about vaudeville (or TV sitcoms, to you) and the crystal palace (utopian societies) is that they trivialize or forbid suffering, which man actually wants and needs. (See rule # 10.) This is from page 1124.
30. "Although…consciousness is man's greatest misfortune…man loves it and would not exchange it for any other sort of satisfaction…(and) suffering is the sole cause of consciousness." (See rule # 10 and rules 3, 5, and 14.) These ideas are from page 1124.
31. "It's better to do nothing! Conscious inertia is better (than building a crystal palace)." In other words, thinking and remaining undecided is better than rational (or rationalized) action. Acting to solve man's problems, get revenge, right wrongs, or achieve justice is misguided. (See points 5, 9, 12, 16, 18, 24, and 29.) This is from page 1125.