My professor says that Dostoevsky was actually a nihilist...

My professor says that Dostoevsky was actually a nihilist. She says that his use of Christianity in his books was ironic. Thoughts on this?

Did she give a an explanation as to why she thinks this?

Literally the opposite.

I wouldn't say he was being ironic. But he does say that he's only a Christian because it's better than the alternative. Not sure if that constitutes him a nihilist but I can see that part of what she is saying at least.

Your professor needs to offer some kind of proof. That sort of claim can't be accepted at face value. Also she is a brainlet, guaranteed. Or pic related, it's her.

It was in reference to C&P. She said that Christianity is introduced as some sort of ex machina that mysteriously fixes everything and that no critical reader could accept this notion with any degree of seriousness, that in reality Dostoevsky is more inclined towards Rodya's initial position of the "superman" while warning of the dangers of grasping onto undeveloped ideas. I'm not sure if I agree with that...

She's a moron
That's not a subjective thought, that's an objective fact

Are you nuts? he's not a fucking nihilist, user...

>"no true Critical Reader..."

What's it like having a shit professor who passes off fallacies as education?

>female professor
>is stupid
Checks out.

Do you think there are no standards of critical reading?

Probably pretty bad since he is paying anywhere from 500-2000 dollars for the class.

No, I was referring to this. She appeals to her own authority as well, that's rich.

This is why I'm not going to college. I could go for free but I don't think I could put up with the retarded students and faculty. But by all means OP don't provoke her, just nod your head and pass the class.

That's really silly. Dostoevsky really believed in Christianity and anyone is welcome to read the hundreds of pages of his journals that support this. A critical or non-critical reading of his novels will even support this, where Christianity is the saving grace in most, if not all of them. It also doesn't support his/her point that Dostoevsky's nihilistic/atheistic characters tend to be physically ill or morally corrupt.

Your professor is actually right.

Quite shocked (in a good way) that somebody said that in this era of Dostoyevskyan fanatism, especially in the Academy.

He was not a Christian at all.

He was always an atheist. During his youth, he was condemned for being part of this Petrachevsky circle.

He then bastardized the Gospels that he read during his imprisonment with his own thought. That did not make him a Christian at all.

Remember that Turgenev was shocked that such a big number of clergymen were grieving over the death of the man he called "the Russian marquis de Sade".

The reason why he's regarded as a very pious and very Christian writer is due to several facts that were combined over the time :

-the friendship with Pobedonotsev (basically behind the conservatist policies from Alexander III until early 1900s) protected him from the officials and from being excommuniated like Tolstoï was in 1899.

-the dissolution of the Russian so-called "Orthodox" Church due to :
=> the Protestantization of the Church caused by Peter the Great's religious policies
=> the appeal of German idealism and theosophy in the late XIXth-early XXth century's intelligentsia and clergymen (Pavel Florensky especially)
=> the destruction by infiltration of the Russian Church after the Bolshevik Revolution
=> the fact that the sole representants of Russian religious thought were soaked with Idealism and theosophy (Saint Sergius Orthodox Institute is the best example) and considered as devilish by monks of Mount Athos

-the place these emigré thinkers took in the intelligentsia of countries such as the US, Germany and France.
We can name as the most typical examples Berdyaev (former marxist, fascinated with the illuminist Böhme) and fr. Bulgakov (attracted by Solovyev's crypto-gnostocism called "sophiology").

These thinkers were usually very attracted by Dostoïevski.

These elements taken together paved the way for a christianization of Dostoyevsky

>believed in christian-socialist fourierist utopia
>therefore he's an atheist
>puritanical Turgenev had a distaste for Dosto's candid descriptions
>therefore he's an atheist
You didn't make a single compelling argument. Reads like shitty A-level coursework.

>She
There's your probelm OP

stay mad

his death sentence in 1849 made him despise nihilism

You did well in cherry picking events from Dostoevsky's era but failed in any form of elocution tying an unbelieving author to your hollow claim.

Dosto. was actually something like a christian existentialist.

Yes, Devils certainly is a celebration of nihilism... Good shitpost attempt, though

>all the butthurt Christians ITT

holy lel. nice bait, OP

your professor is obviously a marxist kike. get (((her))) ass fired

Is her name Maria and are you at a U of M school?

I'd rather not say, user.

>female professor offers contrarian take on established classic

how is this even a questions?
Dosto wrote on this in his speeches/non-fic
he was an anti-western-nihilism pro-orthodoxy activist (altho he himself was always plagued with doubt in god, he thought religion was important to combat nihilsm)

This is why females shouldn't be professors.

>she
Opinion already dropped

She is correct. I don't think anyone here would deny that Dostoevsky was an early Existentialist and in order to be an existentialist you have to be Nihilistic. He probably accepted Christianity in an existentialist way.

if she thinks he is a nihilist then I would LOVE to know what she thought about me.

Not sure. I always come away from his books loving nihilism. You don't need religion, you need a system, and you can supply a system whilst a nihilist.

>She

stopped reading there

this is a mass of info that has no real relation to each other.

you're on the same level as a conspiracy nut.

>_he

stopped reading there