“When reason fails, the devil helps!”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
Berman is not the first and is not the last one to be intrigued by the question of development and if and how it influences the human faith. I quite like that he has chosen a literature character and does the analysis of the destiny of one particular hero to then make an analogy to the modern world situation, placing the character in the 'modern person shoes'. Even from school I remember Dostoevskiy`s hero Raskolnikov that was obsessed with the thought: 'Am I a trembling creature, or have I the right?' Both authors develop the same topic of the process of development and the extent of personal involvement in it, the difference is in the fact that Dostoevsky analyses the routes of becoming a 'great man', whereas Goethe takes it from the point where the hero is already a 'chosen one'. But the common thing is that both heroes pursue the same target - find self-assurance.
The tragedy of development of 'Superman' or 'history-making man' (according to Norman O. Brown) is consonant to the theory of the "great man" in Russian literature. To remind briefly, in 'Crime and Punishment' Raskolnikov believed that people were divided into the "ordinary" and the "extraordinary": the ordinary are the common rabble, the extraordinary (notably Napoleon or Muhammad) must not follow the moral codes that apply to ordinary people since they are meant to be great men. An extraordinary man would not need to think twice about his actions. Raskolnikov had been contemplating this theory for months. He believed himself to be one of these extraordinary men and was thus "allowed" to commit murder. However, his plan went wrong; before he was able to make his escape from the pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna's flat, her meek-tempered half-sister (Lizaveta Ivanovna) arrived and stumbles across the body. Raskolnikov, in a panic, murders the pawnbroker's sister as well, a crime which, for some reason, does not weigh on him anywhere near as heavily as the initial murder. Although, the fact of the murders themselves did not particularly torment him. What tormented him was the fact that he had "transgressed", and that he was not able to be the "great man" he had theorized about.
His grand failure was that he lacked the conviction he believed to accompany greatness and continued his decline into madness. After having confessed to the prostitute Sonia Marmeladova, she guided him towards admitting to the crime, and he confessed. Raskolnikov was sentenced to exile in Siberia, accompanied by Sonia, where he began his mental and spiritual rehabilitation.
Both texts show us the emerging of self-awareness of a human being. While Dostoevsky shows us self-destruction, Goethe`s Faust ends up destroying everything else, himself inclusive. It is quite obvious that Faust did not have that intellectual fever and from the very beginning thought himself to be the 'great man'. He takes the thought even further and seeks for action that is at the end turns out to be worthless.
What is totally different is that in Goethe`s version the subject and the object of transformation is not only the hero, but the whole world. Faust is led to murders by the desire for creation, Raskolnikov is driven by self-soul searching idea. Both characters commit murder, but the difference is that Faust does not even notice it, as for him the goal justifies the purpose. What is important Raskolnikov is guided by love that saves his soul, whereas for Faust love is something he can`t get a priori and turns into selfish monster. However, sheer desire for development does not lead anywhere and does not bring any fruitful results. Faust`s mistake is that he thinks only of the dynamic process and has a very vague concept of the impact of the outcome. Self-destruction becomes an important part of self-development, the powers of his mind turn against him. He ends up sacrificing himself for the phantom idea. It is absurd and paradox that undergoing self development from despair in his little world -to confronting it in the love stage, he ends up being a destroyer in his final, 'developer' phase. He gets to the underlining principles of forces that drive the world (economical, political, social) and learns how to build and destroy. Even the devil gets lost with Faust`s large-scale ambitions of moving the world. What we see is that depending desires, the scale of devastation enlarges. Moreover, on Faust`s example we see that once any self-conscious evil act is committed, there is no turning back, all the following deeds are becoming even more cruel. What is forgotten is the underlying human principles, moral grounds are lost.
What is frightening is that 'the deepest horrors of Faustian development spring from its most honourable aims and its most authentic achievements'. Hopefully, we are still able to 'develop a critical perspective on historical period' and the subject of moral context of any deed will continue troubling the mankind at least for next couple of centuries and people will reach the enlightenment even if it has to be done through the crisis. I believe there is not and shouldn`t really be any prescribed way of achieving goals and each particular person develops differently, however the goal is to find the way for developing that starts bringing fruitful results, not destruction, and that those results become as important as the process. 'As members of modern society we are responsible for the directions in which we develop, for our goals and achievements, for their human costs'. Unfortunately no one so far has come up with new models of development, but what is important is the revolution in the human nature itself. One should learn to get satisfaction from his actions, only than the results will become advantageous. There should be a point when one ceases the moment in the constant run for future success.
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