Episode 156: Notes From Underground (Pt. 1)

[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist, David Pizarro, having

[00:00:06] an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics.

[00:00:09] Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and knowing

[00:00:14] my dad, some very inappropriate jokes.

[00:00:17] Here he comes.

[00:00:19] Here comes John Wayne.

[00:00:21] I'm not gonna cry about my pa.

[00:00:24] I'm gonna build an airport.

[00:00:26] Put my name on it.

[00:00:27] Why Michael?

[00:00:28] So you can fly away from your feelings.

[00:01:09] Anybody can have a very good man.

[00:01:17] Just a very bad wizard.

[00:01:20] Welcome to Very Bad Wizards, I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston.

[00:01:24] Dave, now that the APA, your organization, has said that being male is a disease,

[00:01:30] I just have one question.

[00:01:32] Are we gonna get some good drugs out of this?

[00:01:35] Yes, they're gonna actually, as part of the guidelines, estrogen therapy for all men.

[00:01:45] I was thinking more of some Norco Tens.

[00:01:48] You give me some Norco Tens and my toxic masculinity just melts away.

[00:01:54] The listeners who are druggies will get their mouth watering when they hear it.

[00:02:04] You can always tell whoever has enjoyed paying killers.

[00:02:08] If you bring up...

[00:02:10] Do you have any Watsons?

[00:02:13] I got a little excited to hear you say Norco Tens.

[00:02:19] I know, we might just have to stop right now and go out.

[00:02:25] Thank God for Kratom.

[00:02:27] Yes.

[00:02:28] And thank you to the listener who gave us all that helpful Kratom advice.

[00:02:34] That's right.

[00:02:35] Before we get into that, we will talk about that in the first segment.

[00:02:37] We should just say, because we always forget to do this, that on today's episode, we will

[00:02:41] be talking about notes from underground.

[00:02:46] This will be the first of a two-part episode on Notes From Underground by Dostoevsky.

[00:02:51] Oh God, we're probably gonna have to announce the results of the vote.

[00:03:00] In the second segment, we make a bet about what percentage of listeners...

[00:03:05] We've already recorded that.

[00:03:07] So in the second segment, we make a bet of what percentage of listeners have read Notes

[00:03:10] From Underground.

[00:03:12] I bet a little high.

[00:03:13] I said over 50%.

[00:03:16] And Dave bet lower than that.

[00:03:20] And he won and he won fairly significantly.

[00:03:23] It was, I think, at end of it like 25 or 26% something like that.

[00:03:27] 75 to 25.

[00:03:29] With all the caveats of the nature of a scientific Twitter poll.

[00:03:33] But yeah, you thought like most actually.

[00:03:36] I feel like your gut was telling you over 50%.

[00:03:42] I'm disillusioned.

[00:03:45] I don't know what to say.

[00:03:47] Fortunately, me losing the bet wasn't that bad.

[00:03:50] No.

[00:03:51] Now we get to record Pulp Fiction.

[00:03:52] Where are we gonna do that?

[00:03:53] Yeah.

[00:03:54] We gotta do a flash episode on Pulp Fiction coming soon.

[00:03:57] I really have to rewatch it for the 38th time.

[00:04:03] So yeah, thank you for your Twitter support for once again, hashtag David was right.

[00:04:08] But before we get to that, let's talk about being a man.

[00:04:14] What's what?

[00:04:16] Traditional masculine ideology.

[00:04:19] Okay.

[00:04:20] So the APA, the American Psychological Association, every once in a while they

[00:04:24] issue these guidelines for clinicians.

[00:04:29] So the APA is largely made up of practicing clinical psychologists, people who actually

[00:04:37] do therapy.

[00:04:38] There's obviously the experimental and the other scientific psychologists in it, but

[00:04:43] more of those are in our other organization.

[00:04:45] APA is really, really for historical reasons kind of dominated by the clinical side of

[00:04:51] things.

[00:04:52] And they every once in a while publish practice guidelines.

[00:04:57] So it's basically like you're practicing clinical psychologists and you might be providing

[00:05:03] therapy to a client or patient who you don't know much about their background and their

[00:05:11] experience.

[00:05:12] So in the past, they've published guidelines for specific populations like gay, lesbian,

[00:05:18] bisexual clients, racial and ethnic minority clients, older adults and girls and women.

[00:05:22] The Girls and Women was published in 2007 is just a bunch of information based on the

[00:05:27] research and advice for how to like what are the common problems you might see in

[00:05:35] a population like this?

[00:05:37] What's the background that you might not be aware of that, you know, what are

[00:05:40] the particular mental and physical health issues that these, these populations more

[00:05:46] likely to face relative to other populations?

[00:05:50] So they just published a guideline for psychological practice with boys and men.

[00:05:57] And there was a bit of a kerfuffle.

[00:05:59] At first I thought it was a psychological analysis of how to deal with boys, two men,

[00:06:04] but then...

[00:06:05] I still got it.

[00:06:06] Anyway, sorry.

[00:06:07] Moving on.

[00:06:09] So this upsets some people.

[00:06:13] I think some of the reaction was some accusation or fear that the American Psychological Association

[00:06:22] was basically pathologizing masculinity because this is the document itself, which is

[00:06:27] basically the pathological reaction.

[00:06:29] The American Psychological Association was basically pathologizing masculinity because

[00:06:36] this is the document itself, which is available online for everybody, which we'll put a link

[00:06:42] to, is focused largely on masculinity.

[00:06:48] And what it says often, the way it describes it is traditional masculine ideology.

[00:06:56] Right.

[00:06:57] So actually I'll read the one sentence where they even define what they mean here.

[00:07:04] Masculinity ideology is a set of descriptive, prescriptive and proscriptive of cognition

[00:07:11] about boys and men.

[00:07:13] Although there are differences in masculinity ideologies, there is a particular constellation

[00:07:17] of standards that have held sway over large segments of the population including

[00:07:21] anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal, eschewal?

[00:07:27] Eschewal of the appearance of weakness and adventure, risk and violence.

[00:07:32] These have been collectively referred to as traditional masculinity ideology.

[00:07:37] So that is sort of their target.

[00:07:40] Like, okay, you're practicing clinician.

[00:07:42] You have to deal with men.

[00:07:44] What are some of the things that you should look out for in treating men?

[00:07:49] And what are some of the causes of mental illness that might be specific to men?

[00:07:58] Now, I get why it might sound like this is pathologizing male traits.

[00:08:07] So to include for instance anti-femininity and adventure seeking in the same constellation

[00:08:15] kind of sounds like a very sort of politically oriented attack on what many people might view as a positive set of traits.

[00:08:29] You know, I talked about this in my book that because there was this psychologist at Oklahoma

[00:08:37] who was writing about honor ideology, what he called it.

[00:08:41] And also, but he explicitly referred to it as a kind of pathology.

[00:08:47] And one of the things that he was saying as a negative aspect of the honor orientation

[00:08:55] is that it leads to more adventure seeking and that they were higher in risk taking,

[00:09:05] irrational risk taking.

[00:09:07] But then when you looked at how they defined adventure, you know, like the excessive risk taking,

[00:09:15] it included things like bungee jumping, backcountry camping, walking home alone at night.

[00:09:23] It was like, you know, so there is this concern.

[00:09:28] I am sensitive to the concern of taking things that should,

[00:09:32] that are certainly open to question whether they're bad or good and turning them into something that is a problem that needs to be treated.

[00:09:41] Right. So the, if that is in fact what is going on in this document, I, you know, would be a bit concerned too.

[00:09:52] So let me just tell you what I did.

[00:09:54] I saw the kerfuffle like a lot of people complaining about this.

[00:10:01] And I said, well, and we got some requests to talk about it.

[00:10:06] What I tried to do is read, go to the original document without any of, without reading any of the criticisms.

[00:10:14] Go into it fresh.

[00:10:15] Yeah, to the extent that I could go into it fresh.

[00:10:18] Even like, you know, putting my cards on the table, probably going into it with a lot more sympathy than the complaints.

[00:10:28] But in particular, I wanted to see what, like what research they were talking about.

[00:10:34] Like what the point was, what their conclusions were and what was this really an attack on masculinity and men in a way that should, should, and I just found right now.

[00:10:51] So I read an article saying that the APA is masculinity guidelines now are facing a title nine challenge.

[00:11:01] So there's been a title nine complaint from somebody at Harvard University.

[00:11:09] So they filed a title nine complaint against Harvard University on Thursday, arguing that a title nine violation exists by way of Harvard's relationship to the APA according to the complaint.

[00:11:18] And they're informed by the APA code and that essentially this is actually leading men to get treated in a biased manner.

[00:11:28] Therefore, fair.

[00:11:30] So I have a lot of, I have a lot of thoughts about this document specifically.

[00:11:36] But I wanted to get you like what's your general sense.

[00:11:41] Like you read a little bit about it.

[00:11:43] You're at the background.

[00:11:44] I don't think you read the actual document.

[00:11:45] I read it.

[00:11:46] I looked through it.

[00:11:47] I mean, I don't have strong feelings about it one way or the other really.

[00:11:51] You know, it seems there are parts of it that are doing what people worry about pathologizing certain masculine traits.

[00:11:59] I think there's a sympathetic way of understanding it, which is they're worried about men and the high rates of suicide among men as relative to women.

[00:12:12] They're worried about certain destructive behaviors to self-destructive and also destructive to others.

[00:12:17] And they're offering clinicians ways of approaching men who have some of these traits and where some of those traits are leading them in a bad direction.

[00:12:30] I also, like I have a very, I also understand why some people are reacting to certain aspects of the document.

[00:12:37] And like I said, there's parts of it that I object to.

[00:12:41] I will say that a couple things, the calling masculinity and ideology, and I know that there's a big tradition in doing that.

[00:12:51] It strikes me as something that's odd and not clear to me that it's grounded in something real or at least not as I understand the term ideology.

[00:13:05] That's the first thing.

[00:13:06] And then the second thing, this is a criticism that Pinker has raised against it.

[00:13:13] And it's one that you might expect him to raise that it is assuming the dogma of the blank slate that rejects biological and genetic factors.

[00:13:24] This is a quote from him.

[00:13:27] The word testosterone appears nowhere in the report and the possibility that men and women's personalities differ for biological reasons is unsayable and unthinkable.

[00:13:36] And there, the rhetoric might be exaggerated but it's true.

[00:13:39] There is no real mention of any kind of genetic basis or biological basis, I should say, for some of these differences.

[00:13:48] And I don't know, that seems like an omission.

[00:13:51] But I wanted your take on that because I could also see a reply saying, well, look, that's what we're not talking about.

[00:13:56] We're not talking about the causes of this.

[00:13:58] We're talking about, you know, how to deal with what it is.

[00:14:02] But they don't talk like that.

[00:14:04] The first guideline, right, is that masculinity is socially constructive.

[00:14:10] Yeah.

[00:14:11] So yeah, I didn't see that comment from Pinker but it was glaring.

[00:14:18] The omission was glaring.

[00:14:19] They have one, I found one sentence where they say something about the complex set of factors that are involved in it and they just do a laundry list of, you know, social, economic, and they put the word biological in there.

[00:14:41] That was the one mention.

[00:14:43] So I, okay, like first the good of it.

[00:14:50] Like I think that reading this does not muster too much outrage in me at all because it's a fairly balanced document in the sense that it is not, it's going out of its way not to condemn aspects of masculinity.

[00:15:12] At least not in the way that people are straw manning it.

[00:15:15] Like I wonder how many people actually read it.

[00:15:18] A little bit, right, like that even some people have, I've heard comments like what if the APA published guidelines on how to treat girls and women.

[00:15:29] And it's like, well yeah, they did, right?

[00:15:31] Like you're missing the point.

[00:15:32] That is exactly, they've exactly done that.

[00:15:34] And one of the reasons that they published this is because they thought that men were getting short shrift that a lot of attention is has been given to the special needs of various other populations.

[00:15:48] racial, ethnic minorities, women, gay, lesbian, bisexual and that men were have particular needs themselves and that they were being left out.

[00:15:59] So I think to read this in good faith, you have to like acknowledge that these by and large are people who are trying to help whoever they are treating and that they think that men face specific problems that are worth pointing out as specific to men.

[00:16:16] But specific to a certain kind of man.

[00:16:19] Yeah.

[00:16:20] Who embraces this idea of what a man should be.

[00:16:26] Right.

[00:16:27] So this is, they go out of their way the authors of this document multiple times to say where we actually are talking about masculinity is plural in that there are a whole bunch of different, different aspects of whatever psychology that might be labeled masculinity and this might differ

[00:16:51] across cultures and all that it's it's actually, it is super wishy washy like you never get a sense that they are coming down firmly on anything that caveats from like are longer they make up more of the document than the actual statements themselves.

[00:17:08] Like a philosophy paper.

[00:17:10] It's, yeah, except for that.

[00:17:12] That this is where like if the criticism is that politic, like politically correct language like sort of the fear of offending somebody is interfering.

[00:17:21] Well, like it's very much interfering in the flow in the flow of the writing for this.

[00:17:29] So like whenever they, they dare make any, any claim about men being different.

[00:17:37] They say, well, but we acknowledge that not all men are like this and we acknowledge this might differ substantially across culture and we acknowledge that the experience of gay men or transgender men are different.

[00:17:52] They, they like add a whole paragraph saying like basically preempting any criticism about their general statement.

[00:17:59] So they'll make general statements and then fill it with a bunch of caveats so that you actually don't get a sense that they're willing to say anything actually general about about men.

[00:18:10] But the second good thing I was going to say about it is that, that they point out something that that is, I think, clearly true which is that men do have like the like we die earlier.

[00:18:26] But for all sorts of reasons we die earlier we you know 90% of the people in prison are men.

[00:18:33] Right. It's very obvious that that men are more likely to engage in violence.

[00:18:39] Suicide addiction.

[00:18:40] Suicide and addiction. Yeah, so more more completion of suicides even though women attempt it more.

[00:18:48] There are all kinds of reasons to think that that you might want to focus on on these problem.

[00:18:56] So, so like there's what puzzled me is that there could be a way in which like a men's rights activist.

[00:19:04] Right. Like it's like a could could read this as as something good as something like yeah like men we're getting we're getting ignored by all of these like super liberal like concerns about all the protected classes and nobody's actually looking out for for just your average white masculine dude.

[00:19:24] And I don't see how you you couldn't at least ascribe some of that desire that good that positive intention in this document given how often they talk about about really trying to deal with the fact that men suffer and disproportionate rates from these things that we've just mentioned.

[00:19:42] But all right it's all that said, and like and the document itself is nuanced in a way that they say, okay, okay, you've said you've made all your caveats.

[00:19:53] Can you just get to your.

[00:19:55] Okay, the, the, the shitty part of this document is that it is conceptually all over the place. It's never clear what they mean specifically by masculinity other than that one sentence we talked about.

[00:20:12] All the caveats make it sound like they're saying both men are like this and men.

[00:20:19] It's a mistake to think that all men are like this. It's unclear whether they're talking about actual traits of men, or they're talking about stereotypes that people hold about men.

[00:20:30] So, on the one hand they're talking about like men getting treated unfairly because of the stereotypes about how men are. And on the other hand they're talking about the actual differences in men say like about emotions and

[00:20:42] emotionality.

[00:20:46] On Pinker's point, they never talk about the actual causes they never specifically lay out whether or not the cross cultural research shows that say emotional suppression is true for men across all cultures.

[00:21:00] Like they never write like you would have a very different approach to treating something if it were the case that in the US, it happens to be that men are taught to not show emotions but in Italy, they're taught to be very emotional.

[00:21:15] There's no real discussion about that there's no discussion. There's no acknowledgement as Pinker says of that the heavy role that testosterone plays in in aggression violence.

[00:21:27] And those biological differences are clearly endorsed on indirectly like when they talk about about the differences in men like it's pretty clear in many cases that they're talking about these biological differences but they're afraid to say it.

[00:21:43] And often they say things that sound like the opposite of that talking about the social construction.

[00:21:48] Yeah, so they constructed nature of masculinity is an over and over again they'll say something and unsee it.

[00:21:54] They'll say something and say the opposite.

[00:21:56] In this case they don't really say the opposite they just they focus when they say anything at all about the causes it's usually focused on the social construction.

[00:22:04] Whenever they explicitly mentioned something that yeah they say they keep referring to social construction.

[00:22:09] They spend weirdly way more time talking about when they make a statement about about men and masculinity.

[00:22:19] They'll dedicate so much time to why this might not be true for gay men or for men of different ethnicities or for transgender men.

[00:22:31] They spend so much time talking about that that it really does read as if they're afraid of saying anything that will offend anybody like they it reads so poorly and so sloppy.

[00:22:46] Because they're afraid to say anything like indoors that if you really think that men are emotionally stifled dedicate a whole section to all of the research showing that like men actually suppress their emotion more often than women.

[00:22:59] And you know what like those gender differences aren't that strong like those are more like stereotypes right like if you actually look at the literature on the experience of emotionality like I don't think the gender differences are that strong.

[00:23:11] But they don't go into that they just they're saying it's a lot a whole lot of saying nothing so like I can't even get mad at anything they're saying because they're saying such such not like nothing there.

[00:23:21] So here's what I think is fueling the backlash and preventing people from taking a more sympathetic view of at least their intentions.

[00:23:30] I think it comes across as having a like a one flu over the cuckoo's nest you're taking a person who now society has deemed their behavior to not be in line with what society and the ruling classes want.

[00:23:47] And so you are turning his natural behavior into something that is a pathology that needs to be treated and that needs to be cured.

[00:23:58] And in the end we're all going to be subject to electroshock therapy as you know have a large Native American man put the pillow over our head killing us because they can't bear to see us like this.

[00:24:12] That's I think the fear that is is driving.

[00:24:16] And so the idea is if you want to the issue and I don't say I'm not defending this perspective but the idea is men would be fine if you weren't trying to turn us all into if you know if you weren't trying to turn us into lobotomized like androgynous creatures like that.

[00:24:40] Like it's so it's more society's fault that men are struggling and now you're trying to cure natural male traits.

[00:24:50] Again I don't think this is a fair way of looking at this document but I do think it's it's driving some of the backlash and it's driving some of the resentment against it.

[00:25:02] Yeah it's funny because I was reading looking out for that kind of language and because they are because they were so wishy washy almost by the end I wanted to hear something like that.

[00:25:15] Like I think it might not be a crazy thing to say that you know what like aggression and competition have been traits that have that were adaptive for for men and now in modern society.

[00:25:31] The degree of violent impulses and aggression that you see in men is no longer beneficial and in fact leads to short ass lives because of heart disease because anger cause right like so we should treat.

[00:25:45] We should teach men to better regulate these tendencies if they were have said that I would have respected the document a bit more right the fact that like there is just all there is is this sort of circling around this problem without ever addressing it.

[00:26:00] Then I at least think that you could have a real disagreement you could say well to what extent is it a problem in modern society to be aggressive and dominant or desire to be dominant right.

[00:26:12] And when under what conditions does it actually harm people like I think it's perfectly plausible that that being taught to not show any emotions can fuck with your relationships later in life.

[00:26:24] And that's just clearly true of some people and most and it does seem more prevalent among men.

[00:26:33] And that's what actually another thing that I'd like to see is it just the stereotype because I know a lot of women who suppress emotion quite a bit.

[00:26:40] I would like to know whether or not this is if that's at the heart of the problem like I want to know well should we just treat like failures to process emotions properly and and not do not say that it is a male problem.

[00:26:53] Like it's sort of endorsing stereotypes weirdly.

[00:26:55] But then you know there's this other aspect of masculinity that you might think is positive.

[00:27:00] This idea that actually controlling your emotions is a good thing it's a healthy thing and that if you keep flaring up with anger and accepting your anger rather than trying to keep it under control or even keeping it down and repressing it.

[00:27:18] Pinker actually talks about this to he calls it the second dogma of the report is that repressing emotions is bad and expressing them is good.

[00:27:28] He says that is contradicted by a large literature showing that people with greater self control particularly those who repress anger rather than venting lead healthier lives they get better grades have fewer eating disorders drink less.

[00:27:43] Let's see how this is good have fewer psychosomatic aches and pains and are less depressed anxious phobic and paranoid have higher self esteem.

[00:27:53] I don't know to what extent any of that is true but it does strike me and again I'm not one of those people that represses emotions people around me wish I would repress emotions more but it I could see it being an open question whether that's necessary.

[00:28:12] It's literally a bad thing.

[00:28:14] Yeah, and there are like there's a good there's a big literature on emotion regulation and the different strategies like it's not either or it's not either like you know fly off the handle or never talk about your emotions.

[00:28:27] Sometimes it is finding ways to cope with with emotions in in healthier ways that don't fall neatly into the two and I can see why like you know I didn't read the report on women and girls.

[00:28:39] But there you do get the sense that it would be probably not something in that document to say that like women traditionally let their emotions get let me take the best of like get the best of them.

[00:28:53] And so in therapy just make note that like it's unhealthy for them to be so emotional yourself under control.

[00:28:58] Yeah, that that wouldn't you wouldn't see such claims made here for instance they in this document they talk about the traditional masculinity ideology discourages men from being intimate with others and is the primary reason men tend to have fewer close friends than women.

[00:29:18] And right it might be that failure to express your emotions does lead you to a more lonely life which ties maybe into notes from underground.

[00:29:31] Which we should get to.

[00:29:33] Yeah, which actually there is a there is there is a link there I think and there was also a link as you mentioned earlier to two notions of honor which are often tied in with masculine ideals that not always.

[00:29:47] Whether or not there are true differences between male and female or men and women in some of these traits.

[00:29:55] The idea that men are like have to conform to some of these ideals like being a coward is a horrible horrible thing.

[00:30:03] If your man like force majeure would be a different movie if the protagonist was a woman.

[00:30:08] Right, it's not.

[00:30:09] It's just so yeah but it would be a movie.

[00:30:11] It would be a different movie.

[00:30:13] Maybe there is a lot to be said about changing societies use about what men ought to be because nobody can be Gary Cooper.

[00:30:24] So maybe trying to be like that is bad for us, but I don't know that it's a special problem like I think everybody has expectations.

[00:30:36] I don't know.

[00:30:38] I think this document is not worth much in the guidelines for girls and women.

[00:30:45] Does it talk about the tendency to be shrill?

[00:30:50] I think that was edited out because they don't want to offend anybody.

[00:30:54] I mean, I'm curious to read them.

[00:30:57] I can see.

[00:30:59] I mean, I put money on that there's very, very careful language in that as well.

[00:31:03] But I both can't.

[00:31:05] I can't be outraged by this document, but that's because I find that it's not saying anything.

[00:31:10] It does seem like it's a no win document.

[00:31:13] Like there's really nothing it could do and not piss off like multiple different camps of people.

[00:31:20] And it's also a little unclear why they're doing the document like why release this.

[00:31:24] But I guess the idea, the best thing I read that somebody, I can't remember where this where I saw this.

[00:31:31] It was an interview with one of the people and they say, look, we're putting all this stuff out there for because exactly to get responses to get critics to react to it and tell us what how to improve it.

[00:31:45] And that's why we put it out there.

[00:31:47] There's sort of an implicit recognition that they might be in a kind of bubble where certain ideas are just accepted about because you see like the stuff about traditional masculine ideology.

[00:32:01] There's always a bunch of different citations where people just take for granted that there is this ideology.

[00:32:06] And so the best thing you could say about it is they are opening themselves up to this for the express purpose of improving it and making it something that is helpful to the people who are treating patients.

[00:32:24] Yeah.

[00:32:26] I, I the point that you made at the very beginning the assumption that this is an ideology is something that I wish they had fleshed out because like the parts that are ideology and that our culture cultural and that might actually be affecting men because of the beliefs of society like for instance the reluctance to get treatment.

[00:32:48] The reluctance to seek treatment because you're perceived as weak that that might be something that's that's really, really important right like men not seeking mental health treatment is probably is a problem.

[00:33:02] It sucks though that in framing it this way I feel like men are going to be wary that they're going to be treated pathologically like even though this document I don't think it says it so in this title nine.

[00:33:15] In this article about this title nine case, the person who's filing it says that using a page guidelines Harvard University has adopted bias training materials which rely upon sex stereotypes, and that in doing so the school discourages men from seeking counseling services.

[00:33:33] No reasonable male person would seek counseling at a clinic where his sex is considered to be a form of mental illness or driving factor for mental illness, which I think is a really poor reading of the document but if that's what comes out of it, then that sucks because that's the whole like part of their stated goal is to get men to.

[00:33:50] You know what, the right reaction to the fact that there are a lot of bullshit title nine lawsuits isn't to make your own bullshit title nine lawsuit.

[00:34:03] You know, yeah. Also like I'm not sure I don't even know where people stand anymore so this person is upset that there are sex stereotypes being used.

[00:34:14] But that person would probably like in another discussion argue that there are real biological differences and they're not just stereotypes. So like I don't know which one you want.

[00:34:22] I know. There's a lot of strange bedfills that these debates make. All right, well, that's the best we can do on this when we come back. We will talk about a man who is definitely suffering from a kind of pathology and issues with masculinity although they don't typically involve not expressing emotions. So yeah, we'll be right back.

[00:34:52] Today's episode of Very Bad Wizards is brought to you in part by a new sponsor that actually I'm really excited about. It's Eero. Eero is a Wi-Fi router basically but it's a different kind of Wi-Fi router one that works a lot better than the traditional sort because it creates a mesh network.

[00:35:14] So what this means is that if you have a house like Tamler has for instance where Wi-Fi can't get to hard to reach spots. Eero is a router that creates a bunch of little spots that connect to each other allowing you to blanket your whole house in internet in places where you couldn't otherwise.

[00:35:35] And so Tamler, you actually got one because you have a garage apartment. Right? So we've often talked about recording there and how your Wi-Fi is bad.

[00:35:46] Yeah, I don't know what he means by mesh network but what I do know is I could not get Wi-Fi reliably at all in the garage apartment. I have a very small house and then I have this garage apartment.

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[00:36:16] I now can record in the garage apartment. My family doesn't have to hear when we record. Well, it gives us a lot more freedom when we can record. It's great.

[00:36:25] And you set it up, right? I set it up in like, yeah and I know I'm not tech savvy but I set it up in 20 minutes at most. Like it was really, really easy. They have a very nice setup system.

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[00:37:51] Welcome back to Very Bad Wizards. This is the time of the show where we like to thank our wonderful listeners for all of their support, for all of their communication to us. We really appreciate it all. If you do want to get ahold of us for any reason, complain, give us ideas for a show, give us links to cool shit that we can talk about.

[00:39:23] Please do. You can do it by emailing us verybadwizards at gmail.com or you can just tweet to us at Very Bad Wizards or at Tamler or at P's. You can join in the lively discussions on the subreddit, join our Facebook discussions. You can even follow us on Instagram at Very Bad Wizards.

[00:39:49] Rate us on iTunes.

[00:39:50] Oh yeah, rate us on iTunes. We haven't read it in a while.

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[00:40:49] Additional content.

[00:40:50] Additional content.

[00:40:52] And Tamler you wanted to talk a little bit about Patreon.

[00:40:55] So just that right now I think we're in the last few days. Maybe we'll leave it up for one or two more days after this episode comes out of our Patreon members suggesting topics for an episode.

[00:41:10] And then you and I probably in the opening segment for the next episode will select a list of finalists for our $5 and up, our beloved $5 and up patrons to vote.

[00:41:23] And they will vote on one of those five or six finalists and that will be an episode that we do, that topic.

[00:41:32] But like this time can we just pick one where Tamler has to do all the research?

[00:41:37] It's true. They have focused more heavily on you. I think that's just because they know that I always do most of the research so they're trying to balance it out. They're a fair-minded group.

[00:41:49] One quick thing that I wanted to say, because this will air in time perhaps.

[00:41:54] I tweeted this out but for our annual Social Psychology Conference Society for Personality and Social Psychology that's to be held in Portland at the beginning of February.

[00:42:05] Michael Sargent, host of the Tattered podcast, put together a symposium to talk about podcasting and scholarship.

[00:42:13] Podcasting is a form of scholarship and UL Imbar, formerly friend of the show, and now host of the two psychologist four beers podcast.

[00:42:24] BFF with myself, mother.

[00:42:26] Yeah, and Alexa Tullet from the Black Goat podcast. We're all going to be on a panel there.

[00:42:34] If you're going to the conference, say what's up, attend the panel.

[00:42:38] But we'd really love to hear any questions you might have because I don't know what to talk about.

[00:42:43] All right, let's get to Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

[00:42:49] It's considered, I guess, his first novel from his later period that includes all the Dostoevsky novels that you've heard of like Crime and Punishment and Demons and Brothers Karamazov and The Idiot.

[00:43:03] And this is the first in that period.

[00:43:06] And what's interesting about it, I mean there's no struggle to find philosophical themes in this,

[00:43:13] but it's written in response to a historical movement that was taking place in Russia at the time and a book by, and I'm not going to pronounce this right,

[00:43:25] Nikolai G. Chernychevsky, this kind of utopian novel What Is To Be Done that had appeared in the spring of 1863,

[00:43:37] which is just, I think, six months before this was published.

[00:43:42] And he was originally Dostoevsky going to write a review of it, but couldn't get right a review.

[00:43:48] We certainly can relate to that feeling.

[00:43:52] He couldn't get himself to actually write the review, and this is instead the sort of form that his response took.

[00:44:02] So even though it's tailored towards a very specific time and place and a very specific position, which we'll talk about, it has never failed to seem relevant.

[00:44:15] And this was true in the 20s, especially in the time of the existentialists who claimed the underground man as paradigm of the existentialist idea

[00:44:31] or value involving freedom.

[00:44:34] And I think today, having reread it, I hadn't read it in 10, 15 years, having reread it, I was struck by how it kind of sounds like,

[00:44:45] and this is especially true in part one, that he is reacting against this kind of utilitarian technocratic fantasy of human beings becoming good

[00:45:00] and happy by following these rules that science and reason have discovered.

[00:45:09] This could just be a reaction against that mindset.

[00:45:14] Yeah, so this is something that everybody I think responds to.

[00:45:19] And I think, you don't think, I think most of our listeners have already read it at some point in their lives.

[00:45:27] Because it's just such a classic.

[00:45:31] It also has elements of college being a college kid or in your early 20s, angry and alienated.

[00:45:39] There's so much here that is relatable.

[00:45:43] So I'm going to do a Twitter poll because I think that this is a case of projecting.

[00:45:49] Would you want to bet?

[00:45:51] Yeah, what would we bet?

[00:45:53] If I win, I think most.

[00:45:55] If it's over 50%.

[00:45:58] You agree to rewatch Straw Dogs.

[00:46:02] Oh, fuck. What if I win then?

[00:46:05] Well, you got to decide that.

[00:46:07] We immediately do a flash episode on Pulp Fiction.

[00:46:11] Fine.

[00:46:13] Alright.

[00:46:15] So it will be a Twitter poll. How long do we leave it? Two days?

[00:46:20] Sure.

[00:46:21] And we got to do it before this episode, before they know it's a bet.

[00:46:25] Before this gets released.

[00:46:27] Oh yeah, because they might be motivated one way or the other.

[00:46:33] Yeah, I mean, if first of all, I think there's no way that a plurality or majority have read any Dostoevsky.

[00:46:42] And if they have read Dostoevsky, it would be Brothers Karamazov or Crime and Punishment.

[00:46:47] Okay.

[00:46:49] I think I clearly have a higher opinion of our listeners than you do.

[00:46:53] But you've always had contempt for them.

[00:46:56] This is why Trump won, because you underestimated how many normal people are in the country.

[00:47:03] How many normal people are listeners of ours.

[00:47:05] Your hoity toydiness is...

[00:47:08] I agree that this is why Trump won, but it's because you elites disdain the common person.

[00:47:15] Oh, you're such an elitist.

[00:47:18] Oh, by the way, and we can cut this and add it to the intro.

[00:47:22] When your mom, your stepmom went on Robert Wright's thing and blasted you for all of your hoity toydiness,

[00:47:28] going to Tahiti and reading whatever, whatever, I was like, oh my God, there goes any dream that you have of being considered sort of a non-elite everyday working man's kind of man.

[00:47:41] First of all, if you're listening, Christina, and I love you,

[00:47:47] I'm putting my personal shit out in public.

[00:47:50] Hey, man, I'm glad you did that.

[00:47:52] She's been doing this since I was in college.

[00:47:54] Thank you, Christina.

[00:47:56] We get to know the real Tamler because you get this.

[00:47:58] I didn't hide that.

[00:48:00] I think I've probably said that I had this time, but this was not family money.

[00:48:06] This was me camping and going, ah, it was great.

[00:48:11] And actually not reading Somerset Mom at that time.

[00:48:15] She got the periods confused.

[00:48:17] Thank you, Christina, for the honesty.

[00:48:19] No.

[00:48:20] Keep my personal shit out of your podcasts.

[00:48:24] And just my life.

[00:48:26] I swear to God, in college, when I was studying abroad and just don't even make a comment about that,

[00:48:32] she went to my student newspaper and bitched about comments on my paper that I had gotten in English class

[00:48:41] by a two feminist professor or something like that.

[00:48:45] And then I come back and everybody's making fun of me because my mom complained about my grade.

[00:48:50] That's how it was spun among my friends.

[00:48:55] Back to the book.

[00:48:57] I think this is a tripe point, but obviously like the historical context matters and all,

[00:49:02] but this wouldn't be a great work if one couldn't read it devoid of context and get something universal from it.

[00:49:09] And that I always when I read something like Dostoevsky and I love Dostoevsky,

[00:49:13] although I haven't read this probably since college,

[00:49:16] it's this keen understanding of human nature that even though I guiltily sort of knew nothing about Russian culture

[00:49:27] Russian history and I know that he's very much a product of his time.

[00:49:32] Dostoevsky to me was one of the reasons that I really got interested in psychology.

[00:49:37] I thought that he just captures, especially neuroticism,

[00:49:43] just captures this aspect of certain aspect of the human spirit that's so good.

[00:49:50] And the hyper self-consciousness is real.

[00:49:53] I don't think there's any character in literature that expresses that feeling when you're just inside your head

[00:50:01] way too much about everything and it's both paralyzing and anxiety inducing and agitating.

[00:50:09] Agitating is the right word. It is agitating to its core.

[00:50:13] Before we get too much of talking about it, do you want to just lay out the structure of these two parts

[00:50:19] and just give a little overview?

[00:50:22] Sure. You want me to or you want to?

[00:50:25] Yeah, well I mean I can although you might be better prepared.

[00:50:28] The first part you could almost read as a idiosyncratic work of philosophy.

[00:50:34] It's about a man we never learn his name.

[00:50:38] He's just turned 40 although he thinks it's bad manners to live past 40.

[00:50:43] That part hurt.

[00:50:44] I know. And he's writing what seems like in part one some sort of reaction against this utopian rationalist vision

[00:51:01] that has connections with utilitarianism and has connections with Plato.

[00:51:06] So this idea that one science and reason can fully understand human nature

[00:51:14] that we will always just act in ways that are beneficial for us and beneficial for society.

[00:51:22] He is rebelling both against the deterministic aspect of this view

[00:51:29] and also against this idea that we should always do what's in our rational self-interest.

[00:51:36] And you know again in a very comic and idiosyncratic way it seems like a philosophical objection to that view

[00:51:48] that had become popular not just in Russia but this is something that's going on in Europe at that time.

[00:51:56] And so this first part is all first person it's all stream of consciousness kind of writing.

[00:52:03] It's like a dialogue too.

[00:52:05] Oh you know what it's very Mr. Robot.

[00:52:08] A little bit yes that's right I didn't think of that but I think that's absolutely.

[00:52:14] He's breaking the fourth wall or whatever you call it in literature.

[00:52:17] He very much so.

[00:52:19] Opening lines very famous opening lines.

[00:52:22] I am a sick man.

[00:52:24] I am a spiteful man and unattractive man.

[00:52:27] And yeah he's talking to us as we're readers.

[00:52:30] Oh speaking of fourth wall those actually aren't the opening lines.

[00:52:35] The opening line is that Dostoevsky footnote.

[00:52:39] Yeah which is the author of the notes and the notes themselves are of course imaginary.

[00:52:45] Nevertheless it is clear that such persons as the writer of these notes not only may but positively must exist in our society when we consider the circumstances in the midst of which our society is formed.

[00:52:54] I have tried to expose to the view of the public more distinctly than is commonly done one of the characters of the recent past he is one of the representatives of a generation still living in this fragment entitled underground.

[00:53:06] The person introduces himself in his views and as it were tries to explain the causes owing to which he has made his appearance and was bound to make his appearance in our midst in the second fragment there added the actual notes of this person concerning certain events of his life.

[00:53:19] So Dostoevsky's footnote here begins the text and also ends the text and that seems very significant and especially some of the language there you know not only may but positively must exist in our society.

[00:53:35] How he is bound.

[00:53:37] There's all sorts of like these meta textual sort of interplays with the underground man's own stories.

[00:53:46] So just really quickly then part two which I think we're going to do this in two episodes because there's so much to talk about.

[00:53:52] So in part two he talks about three specific memories that sort of continued to obsess him.

[00:54:01] The second one is really rough it is a story of him kind of inviting himself to a dinner of these four friends who he doesn't respect and feels both insecure and superior and contemptuous of but also feels very resentful towards and jealous of

[00:54:21] and he invites himself to a dinner gets very drunk and has about the most this is like you know what this reminded me of is like the British office it was like squirmy humor kind of like just so humiliating and he and just just kept digging himself deeper

[00:54:41] and deeper and he couldn't help it like he couldn't help but dig himself deeper and deeper.

[00:54:46] So it's both funny and also really just you know like it's squirmy is awkward and painful.

[00:54:52] Yeah, I mean it's such a good job of capturing that feeling of someone digging themselves into a deeper deeper hole.

[00:55:00] Your worst experience is in high school or something.

[00:55:03] Yeah, you know and then the last is his interaction that same night and subsequent days with this prostitute Liza which you get the sense is the real thing that got him to write these notes and the real sort of engine behind what he's doing right now.

[00:55:24] You know, I think there's so much to talk about in the first part which I want to talk about like the philosophy but I think then when you read the second part and then you realize that this all happened 15 years before something like that that

[00:55:39] before he writes it before he's writing the first part you see it in a new light.

[00:55:45] Yeah right.

[00:55:46] So the first part being this sort of first person's dream of consciousness. It does introduce a whole bunch of ideas that are as you say a bit elucidated once we learned that person's character in part two, but our pretty good standalone as well like I don't think this would suffer as a piece of literature had part to never come about we would have filled in the gaps about who this is, but maybe not.

[00:56:10] I mean maybe it does add you I think you think that it adds value.

[00:56:13] I mean I think it definitely adds value as a work of art but I also think the way you this is where we disagree.

[00:56:22] Like I think the way you understand part one at first is changed when you read part two. So if you just had part one you would understand part one differently.

[00:56:33] Okay.

[00:56:34] Yeah, interesting.

[00:56:36] The first thing that I get from this and maybe this is from having read other just as he is spiteful I cannot imagine that is that that word would be anything else. I mean this guy seems to be full of bile.

[00:56:51] The worst kind of full of bile, because he seems full of bile and full of himself. It is somebody who is petty somebody who is who at the same time thinks that everybody thinks about him and mourns the fact that nobody pays attention to him.

[00:57:11] Right.

[00:57:12] Every interaction with other human beings. He imbues it with some importance that those interactions can't possibly have. He's Benny Blanco from the Bronx, right?

[00:57:27] It always comes back to Benny Blanco.

[00:57:33] It's somebody probably unwittingly ignores him and this is identity shaking. It must have been that they hate me and that this is why they so clearly did this on purpose.

[00:57:49] And so you it's full of contradictions, explicit contradictions in his own writing. I mean it also reads to me like the ramblings of an incel.

[00:58:01] No, totally. Like an alienated young man who just isn't for whatever reason able to fit in social situations always finds themselves kind of either humiliated actively like or worse just ignored and you know not noticed which is the thing that seems to bother the underground man the most.

[00:58:27] Right. And he takes the not noticing as an active as an active antipathy toward him and it's because it seems to be because he cannot see a world in which he's not central to that world and the world is purposefully ignoring him rather than nobody gives a shit.

[00:58:45] Yeah.

[00:58:46] There are a couple of things that come.

[00:58:47] But it's like an insult to be ignored in a society where other people aren't being ignored.

[00:58:52] Right.

[00:58:53] So it is an insult to some degree at least you get the sense and some at some points like this is a sign of a certain lack of respect.

[00:59:04] Yeah, no, you're right.

[00:59:05] I mean in fact, honor, honor, some notion of honor plays a large role in this and I really wanted to get your thoughts on this because to me this is a path a lot pathological sense of what honor is.

[00:59:16] And the reason that I say that is you do get the sense that he's ignored.

[00:59:23] But what you so one, he reads a lot of omission.

[00:59:29] I'm sorry.

[00:59:30] He reads a lot of commission in what are clearly just acts of omission like people walking by him in the street.

[00:59:35] He takes as an insult because but to he doesn't seem to.

[00:59:40] You know, in a society like this, a gajillion people are ignored and all he's looking at is like, you know, the officers right above him who seem to get more respect.

[00:59:48] He treats and we'll learn maybe.

[00:59:51] Yes, we learned this in part two.

[00:59:53] He himself does not have any sympathy for people who are below him.

[00:59:57] He does not go out of his way to give other people the benefit of not being ignored or to be treated with dignity and respect in the same way that he wants it.

[01:00:07] So so it's sort of like a pathological one thing.

[01:00:09] One thing we should add also about him.

[01:00:11] He's a very or he considers himself, but I think he's also this is true about him.

[01:00:16] He's intelligent and he's very well read.

[01:00:20] I was going to read a quote.

[01:00:21] Can I read?

[01:00:22] Sure.

[01:00:23] I read a little quote that I highlighted for this because this I think does capture it at least he thinks he's intelligent.

[01:00:28] He's well read.

[01:00:29] There's a lot of illusions to also to that's right.

[01:00:34] So he says in the first place to blame because I am cleverer than any of the people surrounding me.

[01:00:41] I have always considered myself cleverer than any of the people surrounding me and sometimes would you believe it have been positively ashamed of it at any rate I have all my life as it were turned my eyes away and could never look people straight in the face.

[01:00:54] So he thinks this is owing to him being so much smarter than everybody else.

[01:01:00] So the thing that he thinks his intelligence has given him he says is this disease of too much consciousness and he thinks any amount of consciousness is a disease but too much consciousness is like a disastrous disease.

[01:01:16] And he is so he contrasts himself with a man of action what he calls a man of action who's they have little to no consciousness.

[01:01:25] And he's very decisive about what justice requires what honor requires what morality requires what's best for them.

[01:01:32] And it's and he says it's just because they're stupid.

[01:01:35] They're stupid.

[01:01:36] That's what allows them not to but if you start if you have consciousness you start to reflect on what the basis for those things are what honor demands or what what morality demands or what's best for you.

[01:01:53] And he and he says that just leads to inertia actually I'll read a quote there which I highlighted on the bottom of page 15.

[01:02:02] He says after all the direct legit right we have different after all the direct legitimate immediate fruit of consciousness is inertia that is conscious thumb twiddling.

[01:02:14] I have referred to it already I repeat I repeated emphatically all straightforward persons and men of action are active just because they are stupid and limited.

[01:02:24] How can that be explained this way as a result of their limitation they take immediate and secondary causes for primary ones and in that way persuade themselves more quickly and easily than other people do that they have found an infallible basis for their activity and their minds are at ease.

[01:02:41] And that you know is the most important thing to begin to act.

[01:02:45] You must first have your mind completely at ease and without a trace of doubt left in it.

[01:02:50] Well how am I for example to set my mind at rest where are the primary causes on which I am to build what are my basis where am I to get them from.

[01:02:59] I exercise myself in the process of thinking and consequently with me every primary cause at once draws itself another still more primary and so on to infinity.

[01:03:10] This actually reminds me of the Thomas Nagel the absurd thing which was this which was getting at that same quandary is if you start asking what justifies this and what justifies that it could the justification chain can go on forever.

[01:03:26] And this is what the underground man is saying it's at sometimes it sounds like an excuse is is the explanation for his inaction and paralysis and just never being able to decide on pretty much anything.

[01:03:42] Right. And this is so characteristic of his character that it's hard to tease apart what is an excuse and what is in reality something that that naturally springs forth from this this increased consciousness and I I'm sympathetic to that I feel like like there is a sense in which being hyper aware of everything does make

[01:04:11] you does paralyze you and it reminds me sort of of the you know when when people who study emotions describe the value of emotions right so that the reason and this is this is Bob Frank sort of central thesis in the reason that emotions are good is because they by enlarge bypass too much deliberation.

[01:04:36] A lot of emotional reactions anger fear. These are valuable because they they bypass too much conscious deliberation and not surprisingly these are the emotions that that are the kind of that allow you to challenge somebody to a dual right and allow you to just confidently do it and

[01:05:00] not understand kind of the wait isn't this silly isn't this petty isn't there something that's gone out of style isn't this like it like is there really like I could die for what like for nothing right.

[01:05:13] An insult to your honor has to become the most important thing that needs to be yeah you know that needs to be satisfied in that moment you are willing to risk every single thing.

[01:05:24] And you ignore you ignore any calculation of cost and benefit.

[01:05:29] No this is like I mean we all can relate to this to some degree like you know ordering at a restaurant.

[01:05:34] You know like sometimes I will you know if I let's say my family is out and I want to go and I want to watch a movie.

[01:05:43] I can get so like wrapped up in what is the right movie for me right now and what's good that I will like I'll end up never like not having time to watch it because I've spent so much time sort of trying to justify the choice among all these choices.

[01:06:02] That's him writ large in in like some of the most crucial decisions you know that he would make day to day and also like very morally charged decisions.

[01:06:15] Have you ever read Antonio Damasio's Descartes error.

[01:06:19] Yes I love that.

[01:06:20] Yeah so yeah it's great book and although there is you know disagreement about the interpretation for a lot of things by by more modern neuroscientists.

[01:06:29] I think that the example that he gives of a patient named Elliot is great.

[01:06:34] Elliot is somebody who has had a particular area of his brain receive a lot of damage.

[01:06:40] It is the area of the brain that at least Damasio thinks is what connects your emotional reactions to your to your planning.

[01:06:47] So it's not that they don't experience emotions it's just that they don't use their emotions as input into decision making and Elliot gets completely paralyzed when having to make the most trivial of decisions.

[01:06:57] So when he says OK when should you know when's our next appointment.

[01:07:02] He has to deliberate between whether it should be on a Monday or Tuesday even though it doesn't matter what he doesn't have is the ability to say this this is a decision that doesn't matter.

[01:07:13] Let me just go.

[01:07:15] So he is bird in his ass kind of right exactly exactly.

[01:07:19] And that so this all just to say that I think that it is a right interpretation that if you are too hyper conscious aware or whatever we want to call it that that decision making becomes an action becomes a very very difficult thing to do.

[01:07:37] And in that sense it's a disease and the Damasio like it's a patient right.

[01:07:41] Right.

[01:07:42] Now to the extent that this is true of the underground man is you know open to questions.

[01:07:49] Right.

[01:07:50] To what extent it's true.

[01:07:51] But he's saying it's it's true.

[01:07:54] And like anything this is this is something that I like this is what is so like even though he's a he's a character that hopefully we don't relate to too much but all of us can relate to.

[01:08:10] The aspects of what he's saying and experiences that he's describing.

[01:08:17] And that's one of the things I think that keeps this you know something that people continue to read and then our listeners will have read the majority.

[01:08:27] Absolutely.

[01:08:30] Flash episode on Pulp Fiction coming soon.

[01:08:34] Dave watching straw dogs again.

[01:08:37] Maybe a patreon discussion.

[01:08:39] Fuck I want to announce it before.

[01:08:42] Okay well then you'll definitely win that's the problem they will willingly deny that they have read a classic because they're on my side.

[01:08:55] The no I've never really been able to relate that much to just a of skis protagonists like the depths of their neuroticism are something that is scary and you know maybe you can relate a little bit more.

[01:09:09] Because you're neurotic but I'm more than you.

[01:09:12] I don't think yeah.

[01:09:14] But but but in the extremes you see truths about the human condition.

[01:09:23] Yeah and I was going to say do you think it's this this.

[01:09:27] The underground man's claim that knowing the reality being keenly aware of what existence is.

[01:09:38] Is that what makes this referred to as perhaps the first existentialist novel.

[01:09:43] I think it's which we haven't talked about but we're about to get to it's this rebellion against the deterministic worldview and this pricing of freedom above all else.

[01:09:56] As the thing that defines modern man that's what I think.

[01:10:02] And I think you're right and it's something that perhaps comes about because of this so-called increased consciousness.

[01:10:09] But what's not clear is that it is something Dostoevsky is championing as some people have claimed or something that he is a condemning or something that he is very ambivalent about which is the view that.

[01:10:26] I came down at the end.

[01:10:29] This is we should take a break.

[01:10:32] We'll be right back to continue talking about part one of Notes from Underground.

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[01:12:01] Welcome back to Very Bad Wizards.

[01:12:03] We're continuing our discussion of Dostoevsky's part one of Notes from now you say Notes from Underground.

[01:12:08] And I know that that's how some translations have it.

[01:12:12] My translation just says Notes from the Underground.

[01:12:15] It does sound more Russian to say Notes from Underground.

[01:12:20] It's also I think like yeah that's kind of been settled by translators.

[01:12:25] You just happen to be reading like a shitty translation.

[01:12:29] Yeah well I mean like you know this constant scar net this old this British woman who you know was like writing.

[01:12:34] She did all of them and it's like the most impressive translation feat of all time.

[01:12:40] She did like all of Tolstoy she did all like so much of Dostoevsky but and they were all the world had for a while.

[01:12:48] But you know like she's writing in a different time.

[01:12:51] Although Notes from Underground just is not a grammatically.

[01:12:55] I just doesn't.

[01:12:58] Yeah it does.

[01:13:00] Why is it any worse than Notes from the Underground?

[01:13:04] Because Underground is a like it's not like a proper place.

[01:13:09] You'd say like I'm writing you from America.

[01:13:11] I'm writing you from the bridge.

[01:13:14] No but the Underground sounds like a movement.

[01:13:17] Notes from Underground is like like note like if I'm writing in a cellar I'm underground so Notes from Underground.

[01:13:26] Yeah you're right.

[01:13:28] I grant you or like you are you are more educated than me.

[01:13:34] I'm more educated than you are.

[01:13:36] So this starts the way he sets up this critique of a certain worldview that was fashionable at the time and still is.

[01:13:47] The reason the bridge to get to that from these opening just remarks that are just funny like he's fucking with us at first.

[01:13:56] Then it becomes the it takes a more serious turn and when he describes how he there are times where he comes home and he's humiliated himself.

[01:14:07] But it feels good that he's humiliated himself.

[01:14:10] He says he revels in his degradation.

[01:14:13] He enjoys his degradation.

[01:14:15] And he says at that point that he's writing these notes to get to the bottom of how that's possible why he would enjoy his degradation.

[01:14:29] How could you enjoy being humiliated and degraded like this?

[01:14:32] And I think you get a roughly although you have to tease it apart kind of coherent answer to that question when he starts talking about the two views that he's fighting against.

[01:14:48] So the first thing he's fighting against is this kind of deterministic worldview.

[01:14:53] He says but really they will shout at you there is no use protesting it is a case of two times two makes four.

[01:15:00] Nature does not ask your permission your wishes and whether you like or dislike her laws the laws of nature.

[01:15:07] Whether you like or dislike her laws does not concern her.

[01:15:10] You are bound to accept her as she is and consequently also all her conclusions a wall you see is a wall etc etc.

[01:15:19] Good God but what do I care about the laws of nature and arithmetic when for some reason I dislike those laws and the fact that two times two makes four.

[01:15:26] Of course I cannot break through a wall by battering my head against it but if I really do not have the strength to break through it but I am not going to resign myself to it simply because it is a stone wall and I am not strong enough.

[01:15:39] So he's painting himself as kind of a heroic figure.

[01:15:42] So the metaphor he's using is the laws of nature the stone wall that prevents him from being free.

[01:15:47] Yeah and he paints it I mean we have to talk we should talk about this because yeah this is combined with this.

[01:15:53] So the deterministic worldview is combined with this idea that once we understand the laws of nature and once we understand human nature we can build a society where everyone will act in their own interests and everyone can be happy.

[01:16:10] And this is you know this is a kind of utopianism that started probably with Plato and has continued to this day but the idea is something and this is what he calls the world of the crystal palace.

[01:16:27] We can with science and reason knowing what we know we can gain overwhelming profit and prosperity as long as we do what's in our self interests which we will do.

[01:16:44] And that's the thing that he says no we won't.

[01:16:46] And he says oh tell me who first declared who first proclaimed that man only does nasty things because he does not know his own real interests.

[01:16:55] And that if he were enlightened if his eyes were opened to his real normal interests man would at once cease to do nasty things.

[01:17:02] Would at once become good and noble because being enlightened and understanding his real advantage he would see his own advantage in the good and nothing else.

[01:17:10] And we all know that not a single man can knowingly act to his own disadvantage. Consequently so to say he would begin doing good through necessity.

[01:17:20] Oh the babe the person who first said this oh the pure innocent child.

[01:17:24] So he's saying that's not how we are we don't act that way.

[01:17:28] We're not just concerned with our own advantage in fact we will sometimes knowingly act against our own advantage and the reason we'll do that is to prove that we're free.

[01:17:40] And this is I think that why the existentialists claim it.

[01:17:43] Like we have to prove that we're free and if everything has been pinned down and engineered in such a way that that's the only way to prove that we're free by acting against and that explains human beings

[01:17:55] because we're not just penchant for destruction and immorality and that's something that we will never give up.

[01:18:04] And he has it to the extreme but he's saying this about human nature itself.

[01:18:10] This is an indelible part of us. We don't want to be an equation. We don't want to be a piano key. We don't want to be an organ stop.

[01:18:16] And so we will if it comes down to it we will knowingly perversely act against what our rational self interest tells us is the right action just to assert our freedom.

[01:18:31] So I mean he's combining those two ideas one that determinism is true and two that understanding the laws of nature that that cause every action to occur that we that we are free.

[01:18:46] That understanding the laws of nature will make us act in our self interest or is it that he thinks the laws of nature are that human beings act in their self interest.

[01:18:54] Yeah but human beings only do bad things because they don't know their own real self interest and that so if you want to explain why human beings do destructive bad things it's just because they don't understand what their true interests are.

[01:19:10] And once enlightened they will. So it's a psychological claim that he's reacting against and he's saying is so blatantly false just so obviously false if you look at the history of humankind.

[01:19:24] Right. And it's this is the part that I got a little tripped up on because there's nothing in determinism that needs that requires self interest that in fact the laws of nature are such that we understand exactly why people so often.

[01:19:40] Violate their own self interests right why why people do such irrational things and maybe this is just a later a later understanding of human nature I take it that rationality was wrapped up in in determinism somehow.

[01:19:57] No no no no so like they're two distinct views but the idea is right yeah right now people behave in ways that are irrational and that is part of human psychology.

[01:20:10] But once you tell them that oh this is like once confirmation bias is revealed and people understand it they'll be on the lookout for it once all these biases and you know once you guys have p hacked your way to a full understanding.

[01:20:27] Of all of human nature and all the ways in which we act in ways that are not in our self interest and the self interest of others.

[01:20:37] Like we'll just now be like oh okay you know right yeah you know it's like if you've been drinking bad beer all your life and then someone shows you this is actually good beer you don't have to drink.

[01:20:49] Natty lights anymore and so it is for him it is the act of drinking bad beer is qualitatively different once you already been enlightened about the fact that you're drinking bad.

[01:21:02] So then before you were doing it ignorantly yes now the laws of the you know whatever that I mean this is again not quite determinism but but now that that it's been made clear to you that that you ought not right that rationality dictates that you ought not.

[01:21:18] Then you're continuing to drink bad beer is your shaking your fist at the universe exactly that then it's asserting your freedom drinking bad beer just because you've now been enlightened at what kind of beer that you would like and of course this this this has many permutations like he says but but science will take that into account to.

[01:21:39] And he's grants right he's not being stupid about this he grants that that well if determinism really is true than any none of what I'm saying matters.

[01:21:48] Yeah but he's saying that we will always I'm speaking he says at one point like I'm speaking from my own perspective like I'm like this is my own experience and I will at any point when site wherever science is and whatever science tells me I will always out of sheer perspective.

[01:22:08] I will always be at a very high level of my own curiosity and because the thing I value most is my freedom and and a capriciousness I will do something to go against it and he thinks that's something human beings share.

[01:22:22] And that explains why people do degrading things and and again this ties back to why he enjoys or why he says he enjoys his degradation and his humiliation.

[01:22:35] He's painting himself as kind of a heroic figure here. Yeah and hilariously heroic in in a way that from external observation is indistinguishable from kind of a weak man.

[01:22:47] Exactly I wanted to get a little bit into the as I was reading this it came to my attention why you suggested that we read this why you love this story so much.

[01:22:59] And it's all in this quote. This is still a this is in part seven I say gentlemen hadn't we better kick over the whole show and scatter rationalism to the winds simply to send these logarithms to the devil and to enable us to live once more at our own sweet foolish will.

[01:23:20] I say gentlemen.

[01:23:23] I say gentlemen.

[01:23:25] I say gentlemen.

[01:23:27] Haven't we better kick over the whole show.

[01:23:30] It's immediately followed up with that would not matter.

[01:23:34] But this is very this is Tamler in a nutshell right anytime we bring up anything like algorithms improving on on human decision making anytime we bring up the power of logic and consistency.

[01:23:49] You're always shaking your fist in the way that the underground man is and I think that you really relate to this.

[01:23:56] Well so I also have a quote that I highlighted in part seven so it's funny that you mentioned that's not that one though.

[01:24:02] He says before I mentioned this advantage to you I want to compromise myself personally and therefore I boldly declare that all these fine systems all these theories for explaining to mankind its real normal interests so that inevitably striving to

[01:24:17] obtain these interests it may at once become good and noble are in my opinion so far mere logical exercises.

[01:24:27] Yes logical exercises after all to maintain even this theory of the regeneration of mankind by almost by means of its own advantage is after all to my mind almost the same thing as to claim for instance with buckle although it could be with pinker that through civilization mankind becomes softer

[01:24:47] and more importantly less blood thirsty and less fitted for warfare logically it does not seem to follow from his arguments but man is so fond of systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally is ready to deny what he can see

[01:25:05] and here just to justify his logic that to me is like I couldn't have said it better myself.

[01:25:11] That's music that last bit I have highlighted as well man has such a production for systems and abstract deductions that he's ready to distort the truth intentionally and he's ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic that has shades of.

[01:25:26] Talon Uqbar or yes teresha that's right exactly like and that's which I said was like my spirit story and that's like my spirit passage.

[01:25:36] Yeah you know.

[01:25:38] Yeah so I understand your psychology better from understanding just but I mean I think this part is the part that Dostoevsky at least has a big side of him that agrees with he really thinks that and because of the book ends with this like.

[01:25:55] This idea that we need to generalize ourself we're ashamed of our individuality and we need to generalize ourself is something that is that really bothers him.

[01:26:07] And this is the tension and it wouldn't be an interesting read if it weren't for the tension that Dostoevsky is no fool he knows that the truth of determinism if it is true if the laws of science and the laws of nature dictate all of our actions.

[01:26:23] That he is being incoherent.

[01:26:27] Right that he's actually that that his shaking his fists is merely one of the aspects that was determined right and that it matters not that he does and in fact well is determined from day one that he would be the sort of person to do it.

[01:26:43] So but what would be undermined is this idea that human beings once they're enlightened about their true self interest will act in that way.

[01:26:55] And that's what he says is like we'll never do that because we don't want to be reduced to a mathematical equation and so even if this is the law ultimately of human nature it's a tragic law.

[01:27:07] It is a and like he makes it almost like a problem of evil right.

[01:27:12] It's like yeah why would we why would we be created in such a way that when we're enlightened to our true interests through science and reason we would want to rebel against that but that's just our personality.

[01:27:28] And yes it could be determined but it what it does do is like take any idea of this kind of utopianism and make it seem like very naive.

[01:27:41] Right well I mean but this is the thing is that if that's the case then it would just simply be the wrong the wrong theory of human nature that they have right one could say as I think is true you know if you are to take.

[01:27:57] Some ultra rational view like the the sort of straw man economy economists view that people are driven solely by self interest or that or the the view say something like a Josh Green view that once people realize the consequentialism is true then we won't we won't do these these we won't make these silly errors of deontological logic or.

[01:28:21] That that that is a separate claim from the claim of determinism and it is one that I think does drive did drive people's desire for this utopia that oh if we learn enough about human nature we can we can make everybody act good behave well.

[01:28:43] Right you could be a total pessimistic determinist.

[01:28:47] Yeah I don't think he is so it's these two things that are conjoined that he's rebelling against but in some ways the thing that he's rebelling rebelling against most because he agrees I can't break the stone wall.

[01:29:00] So but he says the thing that he's rebelling against most or that he says he is is this idea that we will always act in our own self interest.

[01:29:12] No we are designed and maybe deterministically so in such a way that we will act perversely just to prove that we're not piano keys.

[01:29:24] Right which is which is a different take than what some people have argued which is that by by unlocking the ability to reason we are shaking our fists at our human nature that that it is only upon realizing that we are capable of say determining the most rational way to act that we have something that the animals don't.

[01:29:48] We're exerting our humaneness and our freedom by failing to fall prey to stupid biases but but clearly you know the underground man finds these constraining that the that the the mathematical analogy is is the is the great one like he wants to plus two to equal five yeah fuck you.

[01:30:09] But but but so to be clear though the reason I think that he's against that view that you're describing that the thing that is our rebellion is acting according to reason instead of our ingrained is because we would be like everybody else.

[01:30:25] We would be we would lose our individuality right and that's the thing that he says at least again all this I think is is kind of undermined or at least you know.

[01:30:39] It's there's counterpoints when you read the second part but like I think that what he says is no we want to be individuals and the only way to retain that is to go against reason and have unlike our and let our own idiosyncratic irrational desires.

[01:31:00] Guidance right so another quote from parts of and but very often and even most often choices utterly and stubbornly opposed to reason and and do you know that that too is profitable sometimes even praise worthy yeah.

[01:31:14] Exactly and I love is the best definition of man is the ungrateful biped.

[01:31:21] So so this whatever that tension is that between between this this view this utopian deterministic rationalist view of the world and his sort of understanding that that maybe perhaps we are constrained but he's going to do whatever he can at least to not feel constrained.

[01:31:44] Does become hilarious when you realize that his acts of rebellion are behaviorally indistinguishable from the acts of like a dumb ass.

[01:31:53] It's not even just a dumb ass it's it's like somebody that's like a petty sort of like yeah like that just never got laid in yeah a small person.

[01:32:04] Yeah he's a small person and full of Rosanti mom I mean like I think this is this guy cash or French for resentment.

[01:32:12] It's the Nietzschean term that I'm referring to there but like like this is what he's doing right and you I think you see this clearly in part one although I think you see it even more clear clearly it comes out but like he is taking vices of his and turning them into virtues.

[01:32:29] He is taking his weakness and his insecurity and his vanity and making it heroic and making it virtuous.

[01:32:38] That is the kind of Nietzschean idea of what Rosanti mom the idea of slave morality but this is like slave existentialism or something this is like you are taking your own personal pathologies and making them into some sort of heroic rebellion against the laws of nature.

[01:32:58] Like that's like you said it would just be it would be self morric if it didn't have that element throughout like again even in part one you see that but in part two I think it becomes even more that part become more clear.

[01:33:13] Right but it is a very very good if you want to just take it as a an objection like a description of why people object to determinism when they're told yes that that human behavior is much like twice to.

[01:33:28] Makes for so at the very last very last paragraph of part seven good heavens gentlemen what sort of free will is left when we come to tabulation and arithmetic when it will all be a case of twice to makes for twice to makes for without my will.

[01:33:44] As if free will meant that right as if free will meant that right that's such a key like as it like that's what they're saying that so he's acknowledging your definition of freedom.

[01:33:55] That you said it's like no what makes us free is that we're rational like no like I'd like this would be rational without me right like right.

[01:34:06] And I'm constrained if there's a if there is only one if the you know if the shortest route to the grocery store is the logical one to take you have made me only have one route to the grocery store so I'm going to go the fucking long way.

[01:34:19] Yeah exactly.

[01:34:21] We you know by the way we for loyal listeners will know this but on episode one fifty we talked with Paul a bit about this and you you alluded to notes from the underground.

[01:34:32] I know it's from underground notes from underground but notes from the underground sounds cool because it sounds like he's a rapper you know who wears a backpack and doesn't sell a lot of albums right but that's like not what he is.

[01:34:45] Yes well he doesn't sell out of albums.

[01:34:49] Another another quote twice makes for twice to makes for is a cocky young man who stands with hands on hips barring your path and spitting.

[01:34:59] I admit that twice to makes for is an excellent thing but if we were to give everything it's due twice to makes five is sometimes a very charming thing too.

[01:35:06] And this is what I think is absolutely absurd.

[01:35:10] This is an embracing of the absurd but I get it right.

[01:35:14] I mean I get what he's saying I get the sentiment I think that at the end of the day.

[01:35:19] Dostoevsky has to know that he's he's only reacting to a truth that he cannot possibly there's nothing in this in the world that can actually make twice to make five.

[01:35:32] But so that's the thing but he's saying this is that problem of evil things so that he says like I look I would love to just accept and be happy with the fact that twice to makes stop not twice to that should tell you that your translation is bad.

[01:35:48] Two times two more poetic two times two makes five maybe who's the elitist now Russian Russian listeners.

[01:35:55] And then he says but like I can't like that's not who I am and he's saying that's not what human beings are like we're not satisfied with that and he says why then am I made with such desires.

[01:36:15] Can I have been made simply in order to come to the conclusion that the whole way I am made is a swindle.

[01:36:20] Can this be my whole purpose.

[01:36:23] And I actually read about this like I guess he had put some stuff that you know Dostoevsky has a Christian side and apparently he had some stuff that was cut out by sensors which he didn't like that was saying gesturing towards a Christian solution and Dostoevsky was saying they left all my like nihilistic atheists stuff in but they didn't leave the gesturing towards like what's wrong with them you know.

[01:36:49] It reminded me of like when South Park the movie.

[01:36:55] Uh huh.

[01:36:57] The first title was South Park one hell of a movie and like MPAA wouldn't accept that and so then they did South Park bigger longer uncut which is much dirty.

[01:37:10] And that's right.

[01:37:14] But they were okay with that he was like they just allowed him the one that was way dirtier and more sexual you know I don't know if this is an apocryphal story I just quickly try to look it up but but you know in Dostoevsky was imprisoned.

[01:37:30] That he.

[01:37:32] That's not funny.

[01:37:33] No I know but you know what this is reminding me of is the office where David Brent is like going to the guy talking about Dostoevsky and then the guy knows more than him and so he always kind of leaves and then comes back with some new fact.

[01:37:50] Yeah so that's how you see you see me as David Brent.

[01:37:54] Well now both of us probably.

[01:37:56] I have a fact.

[01:37:57] I have a fact.

[01:37:58] Yeah.

[01:37:59] That that apparently he asked somebody for Kant's critique of pure reason and they sent him the New Testament instead.

[01:38:10] So this is supposedly the heart the heart of his Christianity or at least his familiarity with Christianity but also clearly he liked Kant.

[01:38:21] Well I mean I have to think that this is this is.

[01:38:24] That's like the Josh Green secret joke of console you know like he was just telling Christians that they were right.

[01:38:37] So yeah so I think I'm convinced now that that part two does add an important layer to the story that this what he does.

[01:38:53] You know what he does with this mindset this this rebellion against twice to makes five is very different in practice than what you might expect from his from his self described heroism in part one.

[01:39:15] And it's also like yeah and I think it can be seen as a kind of we'll talk about this more next episode but like a kind of rationalization.

[01:39:25] Absolutely there was when we read one of the Borges the Library of Babel and we there was a phrase there about justifying one's life looking for the book that would justify one's life.

[01:39:36] There is a phrase here in part two as well about justifying and and might call it rationalizing.

[01:39:46] But it's like he has he smart enough to have constructed a philosophical position to kind of be able to live with himself in his actions.

[01:39:57] Exactly that's I think and I think so that's one I think way like we'll go into details on that next time but.

[01:40:06] So I mean one of the things I want to think about is what is the underground man's if he has a true position.

[01:40:14] I mean he's called by Dostoevsky a paradoxicalist at the end which I think is a very good way of describing him but does he have a coherent position and then I think a more interesting question than that because I think that one is more that I don't think he has one.

[01:40:31] That's that's the problem of his consciousness like he keeps going back and forth.

[01:40:36] He's never settled but what is Dostoevsky doing with this and is he taking sides here or is he taking a coherent view and what's the import of the fact that he puts himself at the beginning and the end of this is a really interesting question that I'm excited to talk about.

[01:40:54] Yeah agreed you know I kept meaning to say this but it reminds me of you know when William James was confronted with what he thought was the truth of determinism right he thought the science of psychology can't exist unless determinism is true.

[01:41:11] Yeah he famously said that his first act of free will would be to believe in free will.

[01:41:15] Yeah that was his rebellion.

[01:41:18] That was his rebellion and again a very internally inconsistent way of rebelling but somehow the same sentiment with less literary.

[01:41:29] Less kind of self degradation.

[01:41:33] Next time we will be back to talk more about part two there's just a lot in there also just.

[01:41:40] I love the structure of these three stories of my life.

[01:41:43] Yeah and they're all so uncomfortable so uncomfortable for different reasons.

[01:41:49] I mean it's the first two are for similar reasons the last one is where yeah it's very hard.

[01:41:58] Hey does it bother you that the prostitute's name is Liza.

[01:42:02] You know until you said that.

[01:42:04] But now.

[01:42:06] Yeah you know it's funny I guess Eliza you know also Eliza do little like it is this kind of like comes up from a very like working class environment where their father like sells them essentially was willing to sell them to slavery in order to.

[01:42:30] What the fuck.

[01:42:31] You're prepping her you're unwittingly prepping her for the inevitability of just selling her off to pay your debts.

[01:42:40] Well so join us you know support us on Patreon save lives.

[01:42:44] Free lives.

[01:42:46] Just join us next time on Very Bad Rage.