O Idiota: Dostoievski

Most of us operate like the novel’s antagonist, Parfyon Rogozhin, or the cynical Ganya Ivolgin. We think in terms of transactions. We know that to survive, you must hide your cards, manipulate perceptions, and never, ever admit you are lonely or scared.

How do the "clever" people react to the Idiot? They lose their minds.

Dostoevsky calls it hell.

Because Myshkin’s compassion is a mirror. When you look at a truly good person, you don’t see their goodness; you see your own flaws. Myshkin doesn’t judge anyone—he pities them. And nothing enrages a guilty person more than unearned pity.

We are all trying very hard not to be idiots. o idiota dostoievski

Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin is the "idiot." He has epilepsy, he has spent the last four years in a Swiss sanitarium cut off from society, and he returns to the corrupt, hyper-competitive world of Russian aristocracy with zero practical knowledge of how to lie.

He tells a woman she is beautiful when it is socially awkward to do so. He forgives an enemy before the enemy has apologized. He offers help to the man who just tried to ruin him. Most of us operate like the novel’s antagonist,

We have pathologized kindness. We tell our children, "Don’t be a pushover." We tell our friends, "They don’t deserve your empathy." We have decided that to be good is to be naive; to be moral is to be a mark.

Don’t be the Underground Man—spiteful, isolated, and clever to the point of paralysis. Be the Idiot. Be vulnerable. Be kind. Risk the fall. How do the "clever" people react to the Idiot

Perhaps being an "idiot" today means logging off. It means saying "I love you" first. It means admitting you don't understand the crypto market. It means crying at a movie. It means choosing sincerity over satire.

And in Dostoevsky’s world (and perhaps in ours), sincerity is indistinguishable from insanity.