What is Dostoevsky trying to convey here?

Can we discuss these monologues?

Since I have a limited philosophy background I feel like i'm only getting surface level stuff.

So is Dostoevsky is basically arguing against secularism, atheism and possibly multiculturalism/multiple religions (implicitly)? Is Dostoevsky red-pilled?

Shatov is arguing about the necessity of God and the church is Russia, but then when Stavrogin asks him if he actually believes in God he spergs out and admits he doesn't.. yet. It sounds like Shatov only ironically believes in God and religion because he believes it is necessary for the survival of the state, since it gives a basis for morality and a higher purpose for the people to follow.

...

>red pilled

I'm sorry I cannot discuss this thread with you. I haven't read Brothers Karamazov (which is what I'm assuming the book is, probably something else Dostoevsky that I haven't read.) Piece of advice tho: Don't use meme terms like that, it's pretty crude.

Side note. Hope you get a good thread though.

>Meme terms.
>On a meme boards.

I'm sorry I upset you.

>the leftist who hasn't read the book and has nothing to add anyway interjects to inform you of his outrage at your choice of words

Thats not Brothers Karamozov commie.

>Shatov
>Stavrogin
This is Demons right?

Yes

Its quite a lot harder to read than TBK and C&P was.

can someone redpill me on why this user is such a cuck?

Yes I remember reading this one, but I am not familiar enough with the monologues and the story to remember the true meaning.

The Underground Man was another good (but short) read.

You should take note that these people are all crazy. Dostoevsky's thesis is: Ignorance is Bliss. Shatov is a crazy nationalist, Stavrogin is a crazy romantic, the engineer is a crazy nihilist, Pyotr is a crazy anarchist. Their brains are rotten from the presence of European devils. None of them are to be trusted because they have lost their contact with God and tried replacing it with logic and reason. Even here Shatov is trying to justify a belief in God which is actually blasphemy because it denies the power of faith over reason.

The Underground Man is basically /r9k/

I think part of it comes from the fact that Shatov is a former nihilist/revolutionary. His beliefs are a reaction to those of Pyotr and Stavrogin, and he's supposed to personify the 19th century Slavophiles.

If you read further into the book, you'll find some more commentary on the belief in religion despite no belief in god and vice versa.

>reading Dosto in English translation
Just skim over sparknotes and be done with it, monolingual cиcк.

Three things:

One, Notes From Underground is written largely as an attack on Chernyshevsky, a predominant Humanitarian Socialist. Several of the parables from Part Two are direct references or subversions of parables from Chernyshevsky's socialist dissertation, "What is to be Done?" Part One is concerned more with the Social Nihilism era which arose, in Dostoevsky's eyes, from the widespread popularity of Socialist intellectualism in the years preceding it.

Two, the narrator of Notes from Underground is not Dostoevsky himself. He is a character with unique experiences and ideas similar to, but significantly divorced from, Dostoevsky. This is made most evident in the opening letter of Part One which Dostoevsky uses to frame the Notes as a response to he and his brother's magazine, Epoch. It's also been noted by some Dostoevsky critics and translators that passages of the text contain an alternative style which seem to be Dostoevsky interrupting the fiction to address his magazine's audience directly.

Three, as with nearly all of Dostoevsky's serialized work, significant amount of text has been cut by the censors and (for reasons either aesthetic or marketable) never restored at final publication. The most notable instance in Notes is in Part Two, during the explanation of mankind's need for God.

OP's pic is from Demons, not Notes From Underground.

No he's not you revisionist sperg. 99% of what he says that those types relate with him is vitriolic sarcasm to spite the Humanitarians.

The key idea seems to be that nations are built on a set of moral values, so they can't be founded on science and reason because they can't tell us what those moral values should be.

>learning the language of the niggers of the white race to read several books
nyet

Seems like a dumb statement imo. I think we can all generally agree (using our reason) that murder, theft and propety rights produce a functioning society. You don't need to those things to be set it stone, unquestionable values for them to exist and be maintained in the first place.

They can inform our views, but I'd imagine he'd argue that the agreement you'd reach is based on values you've already assumed are preferable.

What objections are there to having a totally lawless society instead? Why should we even care about those objections?

>Is Dostoevsky red-pilled?

> he'd argue that the agreement you'd reach is based on values you've already assumed are preferable.

True, but those values (such as refraining from theft and frivolous violence etc) that we innately find preferable are probably preferable due to learned custom and habit. We don't need God to guarantee those habits and customs, just decent parents/education insitutions to instill them into the population. Also a justice system to coerce people into acting nice to eachother.

>What objections are there to having a totally lawless society instead?
So I can do whatever I want to do

>Why should we even care about those objections?
Society is nice and comfy. The alternative is a mad max movie.

Sure, but that wouldn't be good enough for Shatov in the context of giving an impetus for a "great nation" that makes some impression on history. idk what Dostoevsky's actual views were.

>Is Dostoevsky red-pilled?
Yes, some trench-coated black burst his half-mongol carcass out of the matrix, and together they led a ragtag bunch of sexually confused tartars to secure the existence of zion forever.

I have that very same edition of Demons!