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Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky

theatlantic.com

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Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky

#231

Post by the_af »

bitcurious wrote: post #103
lbrito wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm baffled how this seems only to apply to the Ukraine this one time. Any meaningful discussion is labeled "whataboutism" and dismissed. You will surely agree with me that Russia is not the world's pioneer in wars of aggression. What about (oh no, whataboutism! We can safely dismiss the argument without thinking now) all the other countries that did, and do the same? Should we also dismiss their cultural output? I'm…

> That is not the point. I want to know why you think we should dismiss Dostoevsky but not Shakespeare. Basically every great artist and intellectual was part of a war-waging genocidal empire, and many of them pro-regime in varying degrees (Dostoevsky being a good example of the "varying"). I’m not on the “boycott dead Russians” train but the difference is timeliness. Russia is today engaged in a colonial war of aggr…

Is Russia-Ukraine the only military conflict going on in the world?

Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky

#232

Post by jevgeni »

ROTMetro wrote: post #158
barrikad wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solzhenitsin was also a right wing Russian nationalist who was absolutely part of the problem. That "realism that approaches Tolstoy's" you mentioned is actually mostly folklore and vastly exaggerated for propaganda purposes (see https://www.nytimes.com/1974/02/06/archives/solzhenitsyns-ex... ). > Solzhenitsyn's Greater Russian, Orthodox-driven nationalism, Elder notes, "once made him appear sorely out of touch, but…

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Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky

#233

Post by jevgeni »

azangru wrote: post #223
Veen wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does his compassion to Ukranians, or lack thereof, change that? Surely you can understand why it matters to Ukrainians?

I don't think I can, not really — it's like throwing away the whole corpus of Kipling's works for his imperialist verses, cancelling J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter because of her feminist tweets, or calling to boycott Noam Chomsky's linguistic works because of his political statements — but I can pretend that I do :-) However, I don't think the commenters in this thread are all Ukrainians.

I mean when the Russian president makes a televised speech before the invasion saying that he is going to “find the solution to the Ukrainian question” another author and another book seems a more appropriate comparison…

Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky

#234

Post by the_af »

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #66
Ma8ee wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m quite certain a very similar article could be written about, say, UK and Ireland with quotes from famous authors. It’s not that the English lack an imperialist past and feelings of superiority.

If UK will take weapons and go on a killing spree to “restore the great empire”, I’m gonna boycott them just as much.

The UK has plenty of great authors, I'll make sure to keep reading them even if the UK decided to go on a genocidal rampage. That's because I understand that not all British people are the same, and especially not the same at all times, and also know that literature has ties to the present, but it doesn't necessarily cause the present. In fact, many times the leaders who decide to go to war deride the classics, or would have imprisoned/executed them had they lived during the same time.

Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky

#235

Post by jevgeni »

cudgy wrote: post #89
lbrito wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm baffled how this seems only to apply to the Ukraine this one time. Any meaningful discussion is labeled "whataboutism" and dismissed. You will surely agree with me that Russia is not the world's pioneer in wars of aggression. What about (oh no, whataboutism! We can safely dismiss the argument without thinking now) all the other countries that did, and do the same? Should we also dismiss their cultural output? I'm…

Well said. The blinders that ignore the equally abhorrent wars and policy of NATO and the US placed upon much of the discourse regarding the Ukraine situation are glaringly obvious yet somehow ignored.

NATO and US don’t invade because your schools don’t teach Ezra Pound.

Re: Don’t Blame Dostoyevsky

#240

Post by Ma8ee »

_glsb wrote: post #226
Ma8ee wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To survive? I don’t think cultures have points. They survive or die, and it’s a bit strange to use a specific cultural value as a measure of success of all other cultures.

The point of spammers or ransom ware authors is to survive as well. Doesn’t mean they are valuable. If you say that russian culture is valuable, you must set the context why. It doesn’t communicate anything particularly original. It’s not especially beautiful (arguably). It didn’t stop and some might argue even enabled the carriers of that culture to either tolerate a genocidal regime or actively support it. What’s t…

You can certainly say that you don’t think Russian culture is valuable, or that you just don’t plain like it, and that is certainly understandable given the current circumstances. But that is something very different from saying that it has failed.

And you have clearly not read and understood Dostoyevsky if that is what you got out of Crime and Punishment. Maybe you shouldn’t be that fast to condemn a whole culture if your understanding of it is on the level your last paragraph reveals.

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