tuesday class post

            Dostoyevski has come up with interesting and accurate ideas concerning human behavior. The first idea that he brings up is that our own cognition hurts us. He uses a mouse and its behavior as a metaphor to explain this human behavior. I believe that the mouse serves as a proper and effective way to convey this idea because a mouse is an animal that is weak and small. Our own thinking at times makes us weak and small. This is also why he states intelligent people can be at a disadvantage. When you think too much at times you begin to doubt yourself by overanalyzing. Regret creeps into your head and you torment yourself with the past. Dostoyevski describes regret as, “tormenting itself with its own imagination. It will itself be ashamed of its imaginings but yet it will recall it all.” Another idea that Dostoyevski brings up is that people of strong nerve, such as Raoul, will continue to back up their own walls until proven otherwise or, as put by Dostoyevski, confronted with the impossible. Dostoyevski argues that people like Raoul will continuously claim that these are the laws of nature and that there is no refuting it. He then goes on to state that these laws mean nothing to him. Yes, these laws of nature and logic in fact rule our world, but it is ok to dislike these limits; these walls; reality in general. We as humans seek to be free and are bothered by the fact that we are so limited and constrained by reality, but we are forced to buy in to it. This is what causes us to be spiteful. We inadvertently create these stone walls that hinder and constrain our reality, and so we rationalize that we are in fact to blame. At the same time though, we are not to blame because we do this inadvertently. Furthermore, we don’t want to blame ourselves for something we don’t like and agree with. This leads us to a search for a scapegoat, but when none can be found, when no target is acquired, we keep this spite to ourselves, and grows inside us slowly but surely, whether we are aware that it is there or not.