The following post by Austin Benedetto, an undergraduate student at Northwestern University, is the first in a new series of posts highlighting exemplary work by undergraduates with interests in Russian Philosophy and Religious Thought. The NURPRT Forum welcomes any undergraduate student to submit academic writing related to these fields to be considered for publication.
What happens when two Karamazovs walk into a bar? Well, that greatly depends upon which two. In the case of Alyosha and Ivan, the answer is one of the most prescient passages of modern literature.
Ivan, finally trying to acquaint himself with his brother, recites his “poem called ‘The Grand Inquisitor,’” which he correctly deems “an absurd thing.”[i] This tale has the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition speaking with a captured Jesus or some impossible lookalike. Whether or not it really is God’s son is unimportant to Ivan, so let it be, as he explains to Alyosha, whichever the reader wishes.
In this story, The Grand Inquisitor addresses his enigmatic prisoner and reprimands him for the freedom which he had preached while previously on Earth. The Inquisitor laments the “horrors of slavery and confusion” that freedom has unleashed upon humanity.[ii] However, worry not the Inquisitor proclaims, he and the Church “have finally overcome freedom, and have done so in order to make people happy.”[iii] This is the crux upon which the rest of the passage is built and is what I consider “The Inquisitor’s Gambit” – in other words, the binary choice between freedom and happiness. To the Inquisitor, they are exclusive entities, and all people must make the decision between one or the other.
Why are these two ideals of freedom and happiness, which nowadays are often spoken of together, portrayed as exclusionary? This is because, as the Inquisitor declares, “without a firm idea of what he lives for, man will not consent to live and will sooner destroy himself than remain on earth.” In an era of widespread liberalism and agnosticism, this sounds too extreme, but there appears to be a kernel of truth hidden in the absolute. Victor Frankl, the famous psychiatrist, based his modern philosophy of logotherapy on the dangers of freedom without meaning. The term itself finds its root in the Greek word “logos,” and thus literally means remediation through meaning. Like the Inquisitor, Frankl believed that pain and suffering ends “at the moment it finds a meaning.”[iv] Something about this idea arouses the sentiments and seems agreeable, yet the Inquisitor, unlike Frankl, believes that humanity should not be left to individually choose their meaning. Instead, he asserts there must be a “universal union of mankind.”[v] For peace and happiness to be widespread, a general concordance with and submission to greater authority is necessary.
The greater authority, the Inquisitor not so humbly declares, will be himself and other church leaders, who “have agreed to suffer freedom and rule over them.”[vi] Evidently, the Inquisitor has some form of a savior complex, but is he right? Is having freedom to choose meaning a form of suffering? David Brooks, in a recent Atlantic article, argues yes. Emotivism, the philosophy of “whatever feels good to me is moral,” is indeed responsible for the current sadness and loneliness epidemic.[vii] When people are freely allowed to do whatever they fancy, there are no universals that can sustain large communities amid tragedy and hardship. As questions and teachings about shared moral and communal systems became academic anathema, Brooks, citing the General Social Survey, evinces how happiness in America has trended downward, reaching an all-time low in 2022. There seems to be something behind the Inquisitor’s Gambit; empirically, complete freedom is, at the least, linked to unhappiness.
Given this data, it may seem that humanity should submit to the Grand Inquisitor and avoid the “present terrible torments of personal and free decision.”[viii] However, Aldous Huxley’s polemic Brave New World illuminates the danger present within the other extreme, namely that of complete submission. In the penultimate chapter, John the Savage speaks with Mustapha Mond, the ruler of the novel’s totalitarian society. Mustapha, like the Inquisitor, believes freedom, science, and truth are a threat to society and thus banned them. John, perhaps like many readers, finds these sentiments repugnant and asserts otherwise:
“I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
“In fact,” said Mustapha Mond, “you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.”
“All right then,” said the Savage defiantly, “I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.”[ix]
Many in the West are likely sympathetic to John the Savage. There seems something profound in choosing truth and personal freedom despite the accompanying suffering. However, Dostoevsky’s Underground Man would argue the word “choice” is a misnomer: humanity “has always and everywhere liked to act as he wants, and not at all as reason and profit would dictate.”[x] There is no choice in this operation; instead, it is hard-wired into all humans to behave with an irrational freedom.
This innate desire to live freely and accept unhappiness compels the Inquisitor to insist “Man was made a rebel.”[xi] This, along with Ivan’s innumerable allusions to the story of Sisyphus, makes the introduction of Albert Camus’ Myth of Sisyphus necessary. Ivan can be seen as one of the original Absurdists as he wants to live “even if it be against logic.”[xii] He, as Camus would commend, makes no leap to God or any universal; he lives, rebelliously and sensually (like a Karamazov) even without believing there is any reason to do so. These free actions, in accord with the Inquisitor’s Gambit, condemn Ivan to unhappiness, but he accepts his fate. Camus goes as so far to claim that Dostoevsky himself takes the godless positions. This is because the chapters affirming God and free faith took “three months of effort whereas what he called ‘the blasphemies’ were written in three weeks in a state of excitement.”[xiii] Yet, Camus is oversimplifying here. It is not easy to live without meaning, and just because one path was fast with little resistance does not necessitate its veracity.
John Stuart Mill’s distinction between higher and lower pleasures illustrates Camus’ failure. It is quick and easy to scroll through TikTok and gain a quick, pleasurable dopamine rush, but almost all who undertake the journey of a long classic novel find it, despite the strenuous and sometimes painful reading process, more gratifying. Thus, the same outlook may lead us closer to Dostoevsky’s opinion. Belief in complete immorality came easier to him, but as he writes to N.D. Fonvizina after leaving prison: “sometimes God sends me moments in which I am utterly at peace.”[xiv] Importantly, this is the God that the Inquisitor condemns as unnecessary and even a hinderance to his machinations for universal happiness. Ostensibly, Dostoevsky’s real thoughts on God and freedom do not fully align with the Grand Inquisitor’s or Camus’ misrepresentation.
As Aristotle would have done, a search for Dostoevsky’s “golden mean” between freedom and happiness can now be embarked upon. Complete freedom is alienating; it takes away that vital togetherness that gives people meaning and joy. Yet, as John the Savage and the Underground Man evince, people are not able to live in complete submission; necessary to humanity is some level of freedom.
In search of a more sustainable freedom, Jonathan Haidt, a prominent social psychologist, provides an escape from the Inquisitor’s dichotomy. Haidt, in The Righteous Mind, explains that underlying many different philosophies are common moral foundations about “how to have a humane and flourishing society.”[xv] These foundations, Haidt claims, appear transculturally despite dissimilar customs. Therefore, by allowing differences to arise from common values, both freedom and happiness can flourish. Instead of jumping to negative and derisive conclusions when confronting opposing viewpoints, people can first observe their root similarities. By practicing sincere empathy, a powerful force manifests itself: the love of one’s neighbor. These affections can help guide humanity through the terrifying labyrinth of freedom. Yet this is not a return to hedonism or emotivism; it is a call to actively practice love and kindness.
No action manifests the potency of love better than the dual kisses that end the Karamazovian meeting. As the Inquisitor finishes his diatribe, the prisoner gets up and “gently kisses him on his bloodless, ninety-year-old lips.”[xvi] This elusive, universal love is proclaimed “the answer.”[xvii] It operates beyond all descriptors and explanations. The action is transcendent and goes beyond the Inquisitor’s Gambit, becoming that which is both freely chosen and joyful. There is no longer the need for highfalutin propositions; love overcomes freedom’s disunion and provides meaning where it was previously absent.
Alyosha, at the end of Ivan’s rapturous ravings, does the same as the prisoner and kisses him. To which, Ivan responds both by accusing him of “literary theft” and thanking him.[xviii] This moment that appears unexplainable is just that. Ivan cannot even decide if he should be offended or grateful. Yet, this powerful action of love provides the ammunition for life and the escape from the Inquisitor’s Gambit. Underneath the facade, it is the universal life-force from which spring freedom and true, uncontaminated happiness. It is the pillar upon which freedom can sustain meaning and securely persist. As Ivan ends:
“I shall not stop wanting to live. Is that enough for you? If you wish, you can take it as a declaration of love.”[xix]
Austin Benedetto is a Northwestern undergraduate student majoring in Economics. His interests include a wide range of literature and philosophy but is the most intrigued by the 19th century Russian authors. He is currently focused on questions regarding emotivism, suffering, and how Russian literature helps address the problem of meaning and death in modern thought.
Image: Franz Stuck, Sisyphus 1920
[i] Fyodor Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov: A Novel in Four Parts with Epilogue. Translated by Larissa Volokhonsky and Richard Pevear. (New York: Picador, 2021), 262.
[ii] Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 274.
[iii] Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 267.
[iv] Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Boston: Beacon Press 1962).
[v] Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 274.
[vi] Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 269.
[vii] David Brooks, “How America Got Mean.” The Atlantic (2023): https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/09/us-culture-moral-education-formation/674765/.
[viii] Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 276.
[ix] Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (Project Gutenberg Canada 1932), chap. 17, https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/huxleya-bravenewworld/huxleya-bravenewworld-00-h.html.
[x] Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground. Translated by Larissa Volokhonsky and Richard Pevear. (New York: Vintage, 1994), 25-26.
[xi] Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 267.
[xii] Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 244.
[xiii] Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus. Translated by Justin O’Brien. (New York: Vintage 1955), 111.
[xiv] Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov, xv.
[xv] Jonathan Haidt, “Why The Righteous Mind may be the best common reading for incoming college students.” The Righteous Mind (2017): https://righteousmind.com/why-the-righteous-mind-is-the-best-common-reading/.
[xvi] Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 279.
[xvii] Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 279.
[xviii] Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 280.
[xix] Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 280.
I am grateful to Austin Benedetto for this deeply thoughtful and carefully reasoned essay. You have brought such an important group of people into conversation with each other–all in a clear and and natural way. May I suggest, Austin, that you send this essay–or even this posting as an email–to David Brooks? I expect he would find it wonderfully interesting and that he would be proud to be included among the gallery of writers and thinkers you consider.