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Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective

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Re: Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective

#51
post #25

As someone coming from social sciences, I agree with author’s assessment that scientific method used in academia isn’t suitable in explaining human nature or behaviour. However, a lot of at least sociologists are aware of that. I would suggest to author to read Wallerstein’s Herritage of Sociology [1]. Wallerstein thinks that social sciences had to imitate the method of natural sciences in order to survive (meaning t…

I guess

[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0011392199047001002

with the option to download the PDF directly.

Re: Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective

#52
I wish the author the best on their reading journey! I feel like this article shares a valuable experience, and I would encourage anyone who's on the fence or who views literature as a waste of time to give it an earnest try.

Jumping straight into the classics can be hard due to the differences in language, cultural assumptions, and even just the fact that some of them are over-hyped, and it's tough to enjoy a book on its own terms when it's presented as "one of the best books ever."

Find some recommendations on the internet, go to the library, and check out a couple. If they don't strike your fancy, don't worry about it, and move on to the next recommendation until you find something you connect with and you want to keep reading.

Re: Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective

#53
Having read about 1 to 2/3rds through most of Dostoyevsky's books: I really believe they're over-hyped.

Same with Pushkin, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, and so on -- with the only exception of Solzhenitsyn.

I think the difference is I'm Slavic, speak a few of the languages, and come from the cultures that succeeded those authors; so they read mostly as sentimental, overly-emotional, and superstitious, i.e. what I feel are the worst parts of the mythologized "Russian soul." Their works don't feel new, novel, and original: I've seen parts and pieces of it, reflections of its essence, expressed all over the average Slavic person.

> Dostoevsky's genius lies in his deep understanding of human nature and of spelling out truths about it in ways that inspire reflection.

If you resonate with this statement, perhaps you should also watch Tarkovsky's The Mirror.

But for me, the only truth Dostoyevsky has shown me is that people are very flawed, are the source of all of their own problems, and that Fyodor was a deeply emotional person. But I am not, and I find his expression of those emotions to be grating.

I resonate more with the quotes in the Wikipedia article for Idyot:

> However the chief criticism, among both reviewers and general readers, was in the "fantasticality" of the characters. The radical critic D.I. Minaev wrote: "People meet, fall in love, slap each other's face—and all at the author's first whim, without any artistic truth." V.P. Burenin, a liberal, described the novel's presentation of the younger generation as "the purest fruit of the writer's subjective fancy" and the novel as a whole as "a belletristic compilation, concocted from a multitude of absurd personages and events, without any concern for any kind of artistic objectivity."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Idiot#Reception

Re: Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective

#54

Besides Dostoevsky, there is abundant wisdom and deep truths to be found in the classics of Christianity. The apologetics of C.S. Lewis (Screwtape Letters, The Problem with Pain, The Great Divorce), Augustine's Confessions and City of God, Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton and G.K. Chesterton's Everlasting Man. These are seldom read (or known) by young people today and I see that as a tragedy. Western spirituali…

I re-read Screwtape Letters some 10-12 years later at the age of 40 and was floored by how accurately depicted the various maladaptive behaviors (eg sins) within myself.

Sometimes, I’d have to put the book down and do something else because it hit so close to home.

A beautiful, timeless work.

Re: Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective

#56
post #17

> Some deep truths about human nature require instead the reflection provoked by the classics. Yes, read Dostoevsky and the classics. There is so much to learn and to enjoy. But remember that great authors didn't discover deep truths of human nature from books alone, but from their attention to the experiences of real life. “When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. In learning…

I feel like there’s a lot to be gleaned here, but all I can focus on is how this - especially the last line - could be easily misrepresented to spread an anti-education message.

To me it reads like anti-consumerism.

If you only consume and don’t create, your mind gradually loses its capacity for creativity [and you will eventually have to reacquire it, the same way a comatose patient needs to relearn walking].

Re: Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective

#57

I met a young and apparently highly intelligent AI researcher the other week who confessed to me that he thought fiction (books but also movies etc) was a waste of his time: there was nothing to be gained there. Being a lover of fiction myself, I huffed and puffed and he challenged me to name him a book that would change his mind. Usually when people ask me where to start in literature, I advise them to start at the…

You aren't going to change his mind. What needs changing is his heart.

Re: Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective

#59
post #17

> Some deep truths about human nature require instead the reflection provoked by the classics. Yes, read Dostoevsky and the classics. There is so much to learn and to enjoy. But remember that great authors didn't discover deep truths of human nature from books alone, but from their attention to the experiences of real life. “When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. In learning…

I feel like there’s a lot to be gleaned here, but all I can focus on is how this - especially the last line - could be easily misrepresented to spread an anti-education message.

You could say similar of any technology, as they all extend and amputate ourselves in some way. I read the Schopenhauer line as a sentiment against technosolutionism; technology like books are fine in moderation, but they are not replacements for the reality of lived experience.

See Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman for better arguments.

Re: Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective

#60
So he only read 1.5 books of Dostoevsky, and now he telling everyone to read his books. I get it, I also had a religious experience when I read Crime and Punishment, but one cannot assume all his books will be that great without actually reading more of them. Call me back when you get through a few more. Or maybe change the title to "Why read Crime And Punishment".
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