What Would Alyosha Karamazov Do?

Alyosha Karamazov

Alyosha Karamazov

I continue to turn to The Brothers Karamazov almost as a meditational practice to guide me through the turmoil I am experiencing over the Arizona shootings. Yesterday I quoted Zosima, the elder in the book, about how we must look to ourselves if we want others to change. I spoke approvingly of those who, rather than becoming defensive or blaming others, choose rather to engage in self reflection.

I count on Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish to keep me apprised of those who are doing so. Yesterday he cited one story of conservatives Joe Scarborough and Patrick Buchanan calling upon the right to tone down their rhetoric, and of Roger Ailes, head of Fox News, doing so as well.  Conservative columnist Michael Gerson, meanwhile, imagines how the right would be responding now if the victims were conservatives rather than liberals as he too calls for calm.  On the left, Howard Kurtz of The Daily Beast and Jonathan Chait of The New Republic are among those who are urging fellow liberals not to automatically link the killings to Sarah Palin’s “cross hairs image” or Tea Party anger.  Rev. Al Sharpton is particularly sensitive when he talks about an incident a number of years ago where his words may have enflamed an already volatile situation:

My initial response was to defend the fact that I had never condoned such violence, and never would. But the fact is, if I in any way contributed to the climate – which was clearly more volatile than I had thought – I had to be more careful and deliberate in my public language rather than sharpen my defenses.

Are these calls for moderation sincere or calculated and will they stick? Hopefully they are sincere and we won’t just revert to our old ways once the shock has subsided.  But maybe it doesn’t matter whether they are sincere are not.  Maybe once it becomes seen as unacceptable to talk extremist language, then the culture will start to shift.  Maybe then people will be more likely to start listening to each other rather than resorting to demonization.

By the way, two prominent columnists who refuse to give an inch, preferring instead to lash out in self-righteous fury at the other side, are liberal Paul Krugman of The New York Times and neo-conservative Charles Krauthammer of The Washington Post. Both are thoughtful men with a fair degree of intellectual integrity—we’re not talking about Rush Limbaugh here—and neither is entirely wrong.  This makes them both particularly illustrative.  Depending on your political leanings, it is very easy to be drawn into a spasm of indignant anger after reading one or the other.  The pleasure is a seductive one and therefore all the more dangerous. That’s because neither man invites us to examine our own frightened fears or look at why those we disagree with might be frightened. To apply the passage from Dostoevsky’s Zosima that I quote on Sunday and again on Tuesday, both men seem uninterested in finding how they themselves are guilty of the wrong they ascribe to the other side and neither seems interested in being a light to their opponents. (“If you had been a light, you would have lightened the path for others too and the evil-doer might perhaps have been saved by your light from his sin,” Zosima says.)

Consider, as an alternative, the path taken by Alyosha Karamazov, the spiritual brother.

When Zosima dies, Alyosha, a disciple, witnesses people in all their smallness.  Those who have long resented Zosima or felt judged by him begin to blacken his name. Their words take on extra credibility when, soon after his death, his corpse begins to stink. Alyosha is so distressed by the venom that he finds himself questioning his beliefs. It doesn’t help that, a little earlier, he has been shaken up by the immense pessimism of his brother Ivan. At that point he is pounced upon by Rakitin, a cynical and self-centered seminary student.

Long angered at what he regards as both Aloysha’s and Zosima’s “holier than thou” stances (which is a comment on his own insecurities rather than anything about them), he sees his chance to morally compromise Aloyasha and takes him to Grushenka, a woman of loose morals. In fact she, out of related motives, has long wanted to seduce Aloysha and has offered Rakitin payment of 25 rubles if he can deliver him. Dostoevsky has us expecting Aloysha to fall as they converse in her apartment.

But Alyosha, who has seen her viciously humiliate a vulnerable woman the previous night, notices something else in Grushenka this time. Here’s Dostoevsky:

She gaily sat down beside Alyosha on the sofa, looking at him with positive delight.  And she really was glad, she was not lying when she said so. Her eyes glowed, her lips laughed, but it was a good-natured merry laugh.  Alyosha had not expected to see such a kind expression in her face. . . . He had hardly met her till the day before, he had formed an alarming idea of her, and had been horribly distressed the day before by the spiteful and treacherous trick she had played on Katerina Ivanovna.  He was greatly surprised to find her now altogether different from what he had expected.  And, crushed as he was by his own sorrow, his eyes involuntarily rested on her with attention.  Her whole manner seemed changed for the better since yesterday, there was scarcely any trace of that mawkish sweetness in her speech or that voluptuous softness in her movements.  Everything was simple and good-natured, her gestures were rapid, direct, confiding, but she was greatly excited.

What has happened is that the man who once ruined her is coming back to ask her to marry him and, kept woman though she has been, she is beginning to imagine a better future. Because Aloysha sees this hopeful side of her, he rediscovers his own ground. As he says to Rakitin, who is enjoying the prospect of his fall,

I came here to find a wicked soul—I felt drawn to evil because I was base and evil myself, and I’ve found a true sister, I have found a treasure—a loving heart.  She had pity on me just now. . . .Agrafena Alexandrovna [Grushenka], I am speaking of you.  You’ve raised my soul from the depths.

Because he finds his own grounding, Alyosha gives Grushenka a chance to rediscover hers. She hasn’t been sure how she will respond to her old love. She even considers humiliating him or killing him. Because Aloysha sees the best side of her, he gives her the support she needs to step into her own better side.  When she leaves with her love, we share Alyosha’s confidence that all will be well.

And where is the cynic through all this? All he can hear is his own small-mindedness and guilt:

As they leave Grushenka to go off with her soldier, he turns on Alyosha:

“Well, so you’ve saved the sinner?” he laughed spitefully.  “Have you turned the Magdalene into the true path?  Driven out the seven devils eh?  So you see the miracles you were looking out for just now have come to pass!”

“Hush, Rakitin,” Alyosha answered, with an aching heart.

“So you despise me now for those twenty-five roubles?  I’ve sold my friend, you think.  But you are not Christ, you know, and I am not Judas.”

“Oh, Rakitin, I assure you I’d forgotten about it,” cried Alyosha, “you remind me of it yourself . . .”

But this was the last straw for Rakitin.

“Damnation take you all and each of you!” he cried suddenly, “why the devil did I take you up? I don’t want to know you from this time forward.  Go alone, there’s your road!”

We are none of us Christ and neither is Alyosha. But when we can push past our own darkness, we open up a space for others to push past theirs. We won’t reach everyone, the Rakitins of the world.  But if we ourselves can see past partisan venting to the frightened person that is often to be found behind attack—and if we feel sympathy for the frightened person who lies behind our own venting—then there is hope.

In any event, such human sympathy accomplishes more that does directing self-righteous and vengeful attacks against those who don’t agree with us.

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