Tuesday Discussion

                The majority of this passage is basically a summary of everything we have discussed so far in the story.  From the idea of the wall, to assessing problems from all angles, this passage relates to all of these ideas.  I felt that the most important or central part of the passage was the idea of being the mouse.   I like to believe, (and I feel that most others do as well), that a knowledge and ability to think on a higher level than others puts a person at the pinnacle of society.  I genuinely believed that smarter people were more likely to be rich and prosperous than the average person.  But in this story, Dostoyevsky shows how a higher level of awareness and consciousness can actually be detrimental and hold a person down.  The narrator of this story is on such a high level of understanding that he can see all the sides to a story.  This leaves him action less, as he cannot distinguish a clear, right answer to every problem.  And in doing this, he leaves himself much lower than the average person, because the average person still makes a decision versus doing nothing.  Not only does this higher level of understanding affect his ability to make decisions and conquer life goals, he understands the faultiness of the entire human society today as we know it.  He understands that everything we think about and study, whether it is mathematics, science, or philosophy is man-made, and therefore not proven to be true.  We didn’t receive our knowledge from some powerful being, so we have no way of proving its validity.  He sees past all of humanities attempts to understand a non-understandable universe, and truly sees how little we actually know about not only ourselves, but the universe as a whole.  This leaves him scared, unhappy, and at the bottom of society.  Those who cannot see past the “Wall” or man’s attempts to understand the universe follow these rules and are able to become successful from them.  I was wondering if this has something to do with the fact that many of the super genius people in the world happen to be lonely truck drivers, or people of lowly jobs in society.  Maybe they see past our walls, and just like the underground man, this leaves them with the same feelings.  They would rather be alone, and not participate in a society that doesn’t understand or appreciate their ability to see through society’s walls.