Dostoyevsky, Hitchcock and Meaning
Let me ask you this.
Dostoyevsky and Hitchcock- what do they have in common?
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| Fyodor Dostoyevsky on my bookshelf Credit: My bookshelf |
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| Alfred Hitchcock Credit: India Today |
As it turns out, everything.
With reference to two specific
works, anyway.
I’m talking about Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1866 classic ‘Crime
and Punishment’ and English director Alfred Hitchcock’s underrated masterpiece
‘Rope’. Worlds apart they may seem, but both these works explore a crucial and
fundamental question about who we are, our ideas about ourselves, and our
individual worth as humans.
The story of Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov: Ex law student and self-proclaimed Übermensch
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| My softcopy of Crime and Punishment Credit: My Kindle |
Crime and Punishment tells the story of a destitute Russian
law student, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, who is struggling as much with
himself as with the rest of the world- oppressed by the duality of his mind and
the abject poverty of his situation, where he is unable to pay for his lodging
and meals. Raskolnikov demonstrates himself to be rather generous and
magnanimous in certain situations, and has been known to donate to charity, but
he ultimately reasons out a system that divides humanity into two stratas- at
the top, extraordinary men (such as himself and Napoleon- who he fancies his
equal), and the rest of us- ordinary people.
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| Dragging a sense of superiority to its heinous conclusion Credit: Medium |
Borrowing from the philosophies of Utilitarianism and
Rationalism, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov decides that the lives of these
extraordinary men are more valuable than the rest of the ordinary masses, and
it is the prerogative of these superior men to transcend certain moral and
human laws to fulfil their objectives.
“I simply hinted that an ‘extraordinary’ man has the right … that is not an official right, but an inner right to decide in his own conscience to overstep … certain obstacles, and only in case it is essential for the practical fulfillment of his idea (sometimes, perhaps, of benefit to the whole of humanity).”
In thinking this way, Raskolnikov surrenders his own
humanity and blinds himself to his connection with fellow beings. He murders an
old, mean pawnbroker (who he compares with a louse) with the intention of
stealing her money so that he may put himself through law school and help his
family out of poverty.
What he discounts is his own overwhelming emotional response
at the hideousness of the act he committed, and the resulting intractable
guilt. He discovers he is not the Übermensch he thought himself to be- he is a
human being with proper feelings. This, he believes to be his only weakness. I
have a different opinion, however; his guilt demonstrates his humanity and his
conscience.
As a side note, an interesting contrast to Rodion Romanovich
in the book is his friend, Dmitry Prokofyich Razumíkhin, who toils hard and
hopes to make a better life for himself through more honest and just means. He
does not succumb to any notions concerning his own superiority, and as a
result, remains in touch with his humanity.
And now, on to Hitchcock.
Superiority, Inferiority and the perfect murder
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| On set for Rope (1948) Credit: Pinterest |
Rope
(1948) tells the story of how two men, Brandon Shaw and Phillip Morgan,
strangle to death their former classmate from Harvard on the grounds of
intellectual superiority.
A
secondary motive is to commit the perfect, ‘aesthetic’ murder- they stuff the
body in a wooden chest and host a party in which guests are served from what is
essentially, the young man’s grave.
The
foundation for this murder, as it turns out, had been unwittingly lain a long
time ago by their prep school headmaster, Rupert Cadell. Cadell had taught them
about Nietzsche’s Übermensch, and the two men had decided to ‘live what he
taught them’, by strangling their former classmate who they deemed ‘an inferior
being’. It was their belief that “moral concepts of good and evil and
right and wrong don’t hold for the intellectually superior”.
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| Wanderer above the Sea of Fog Credit: Wikipedia |
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| We are connected by our shared humanity Credit: Pinterest |
Apart from the question of what constitutes ‘inferiority’, and who can judge and deliberate in this matter, the grisly murder horrifies their former mentor, who expresses his shame and ire at the deed and emphatically affirms the worth and value of every human being.
“Now I know that each of us [is] a separate human being, Brandon…with the right to live and work and think as individuals, but with an obligation to the society we live in. By what right do you dare say that there’s a superior few to which you belong?”
A few final words on meaning and existence
Countless
religions and schools of thought have pondered on the questions of worth,
meaning and existence. Even after 2000 (and most likely more) years, we are
still no closer to the answer than we were when we started. It seems each of us
gets to decide what the answer is, for ourselves and ourselves alone.
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| The Thinker Credit: Brittanica |
But
that is the way the world is. Some of us seek to render our own existence more
meaningful by trodding on another’s, while others declare the universe meaningless
in its entirety (cough*Albert Camus*cough).
One
view that I really liked is Optimistic Nihilism, which acknowledges the
meaninglessness of the universe, but combines nihilism with existentialism, in
that we get to choose our paths and our own meaning. Kurzgesagt: In a nutshell
has a great video on this subject (linked here).
The humbling experience of looking at the stars
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| Paranal Observatory in Chile Credit: ESO |
I’ve discussed a lot of astronomy on this blog, and one
thing that astronomy does, in my opinion, better than any other science, is imbue
the rest of the universe, and indeed out lives, with meaning.
Studying astronomy, I feel like a little 'carbon unit’[1] exploring the cosmos. In this
view, everyone and everything are equal, as components of an ever changing,
ever expanding, dynamic universe.
We are each little bits of the universe, and seeking to
understand and explore is the highest, most noble endeavour, and the greatest expression
of our humanity.
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| So take a chill pill and study math and physics Credit: University of Pennsylvania |
So,
here at the end, I’ll leave you with this quote attributed to Albert Einstein:
“Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
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