paragraphs are relatively unrelated
Raskolnikov is burdened by his intelligence because it obligates him to do something extraordinary with his one opportunity to live. He will have wasted his life and the unique consciousness he inherited if he doesn't use it to rise above the world and to be an eternal light that the people aspire to resemble. He had to "become a Napoleon" (415). An "Ubermensch." This need to self-actualize is actually a product of conscience. But in running from the pangs of his conscience, he found himself prostrate under its scathing. Yes, he wanted to be extraordinary - to make the most of life - but he was also brutally resentful and naive (or cynical) enough not to pay mind to this fact. A vision produced by his unconscious resolved both problems for him at once. The unconscious is a sophisticated matrix, and it derives solutions with stunning acuity. This vision, if he acted it out, would simultaneously make him extraordinary (or it would at least reveal to him whether or not he was, in fact, extraordinary) and it would satisfy his resentment with the glory of justice. But, if he only wanted to be extraordinary, he would have done so through a plethora of alternative avenues. If he wanted only to ease his resentment... well... he would have done exactly what he did anyway. So clearly the latter can be attributed primacy in his intentions. So he wasn't aiming up. And I'm sure he knew this (or at least felt it). But he covered it up in a facade of rationality. He silenced his conscience. However, the conscience isn't silenced the way a radio is silenced. It doesn't just stop. It sends its soldiers, armed and noble, to the gates of consciousness to invade and destroy all the chaff with their flaming swords of judgement. When they're stopped, it's only a matter of time before the gates capitulate under their pressure and allow the swords to destroy entirely the false construct that consciousness has been protecting. The larger this false construct, the greater the proportion of chaff, and the more chaff, the more pain. For this, Raskolnikov's suffering felt infinite. Don't allow the visions you develop to hide behind deceptively positive facades. Be skeptical about your own intentions and motivations - you don't form them completely consciously. A vision is always a part of a story. Stories inhabit and animate you through sequential scenes. Once you let them in, you're almost always at their mercy. It's hard to be extraordinary - it must be earned.
Order vs chaos, present vs future, traditional vs intellectual, dogmatic vs spiritual, conventional vs post-conventional, bound by norm vs unbounded, ordinary vs extraordinary (man vs overman). It isn’t difficult to make a logical deduction in which all of these dichotomies are the same. And in this logical deduction the proud, self-determined superman finds his right to set the world toward the New Jerusalem atop a path of death and destruction. Does he want the world to prosper or is he merely too cowardly to challenge the convictions of his lofty, self-obsessed intellect? Has he set his own life in such harmony that his only remaining obligation is to do so for the rest of the world? Has he decided this role for himself, with his own rationality, or is he justified by the Divine? Can beauty and prosperity not find a better home but one built upon innocent bodies? Can the superman - still thinking of himself as such - not work with the man instead of above him? Can the superman be sure of his logic when his still-human mind can only address a handful of a near-infinite set of presuppositions? Does his conscience speak the language of robotic rationality or that of the human soul? Where is his sophistication - being such an intellectual - that he hates the past and present and obsesses over the future? Where is his gratitude and his humanity? Ask Raskolnikov. A mind that falls in love with itself and its own creations is a cancer to its host and to the world.
As for crime and punishment. Crime -> punishment (force) [tit for tat] -> invitation into long-term cooperative endeavor = Justice. Here, the use of force is accompanied by an invitation to pursue long-term prosperity, and, therefore, the use of force is not merely a manifestation of power but rather a prerequisite to the proceeding invitation that creates justice for both the perpetrator and the victim. If there is no invitation after the expression of force, power is being used for its own sake and we ought to be skeptical of both the judgment and the judge itself. The invitation that transforms this process from the use of force to the execution of justice does not need to be accepted for the process to be deemed just. If the perpetrator rejects the proposition that ethical, cooperative behavior on their behalf ought to replace their former criminal behavior, the process of justice is unable to continue past the use of force. This doesn’t mean that force alone can constitute a just process, it means that sometimes just processes are halted at this point because the perpetrator is unwilling to negotiate/ not remorseful/ psychopathic. Force accompanied by an invitation is to be regarded as something entirely different from the use of force itself. The intent of the former is to establish the voluntary pursuit of future prosperity while the intent of the latter is merely to punish/ to dominate/ to use an outcasted person as a medium for the expression of one’s own resentment and hatred. Be skeptical of force that 1. Is not tethered to an invitation and 2. Does not ease your conscience (assuming the force being exerted on you follows a violation that you have committed). Also, note that the use of force is only justified here in the process of crime and punishment, and even then, it’s not force alone that is being justified, there is a set of preconditions.
As for the criminal who awaits his punishment. He awaits it not because he fears it, but because if he has a conscience, he needs it. The superego would rather see justice be realized than watch the ego live blissfully at the expense of justice. It’s as if Raskolnikov shows that the need for justice is deeper than the need for freedom, or that we at least know implicitly that being positioned in contrast to justice makes freedom impossible. The working human conscience is the most powerful force conceivable. It is the only thing that can consume you whether you acknowledge or deny it and can uplift you but only at your own expense. To counter the brutal reality of the conscience, we should acknowledge the intrinsic goodness of the human endeavor as allowed by the conscience. The evidence of this goodness lies in what is, in fact, often used as an argument to the contrary: psychological egoism. It is probably true that pure altruism is impossible. You receive a reward (in some sense) any time you commit an act of service. Some say this is because we only do things to accrue rewards for ourselves. This may be true, and it may not be. It does, however, show that what is good for me is to do good for others. This is programmed into the superego. If this is the case, and the pursuit of what is truly good in one’s life coordinates with what is good for everyone else, then the human endeavor is fundamentally good - assuming goodness is the established target. What is the “Good”? It almost doesn’t matter what exactly it is. We know what its opposite is. It was demonstrated plentifully in the 20th century and we have an inbuilt radar that signals to us as we approach it. Start at the bottom and aim up.
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