Raoul's Wednesday Response

In today's reading of Notes From The Underground, I found three new and slightly unique arguments brought up by Dostoyevsky. The first (chronological), is mans inability to create a new path. We like sheep follow the path that every one else goes on. The truth is that it is easier to go through the usual path than to try and create your own. I see this correlating strongly to the modern education system. Many people follow the set and established plan of high school -> college -> grad school, in which we are herded along like sheep. Few people break out of the system; however, those who do sometimes revolutionize the world (a perfect example of this would be Steve Jobs). The second idea, is the impossibility of describing all human advantages. The fact that we try to categorize and organize something that is not orderly is simply futile. The human advantages are curves they are in fact from nature; however, humans can really only understand lines. Egro, humans try to set strict lines and establish a clear (man made) distinction between prosperity and wealth between freedom and peace, without seeing the shades of gray in-between. (If you don't believe that humans are a creature of lines look at a city everything is linear, then go look at a garden every thing is curved; however, our brains do not like curves because in fact they are infinite lines. The third idea is man's tendency to fall so in love with an idea or a view of the world, that he inevitably denies all other views as illogical or wrong. After this "friend" has made his view (wall) of the universe he will go against logic and reason in order to prevent his wall from being broken because it gives him comfort to have a wall. In the end, I believe it might be this "friend's" desire to not be wrong that is causing him to deny reality and facts. This goes back to the idea of someone denying the statistical fact that jews are the smartest race, for no reason other than the fact that their belief is different.