PART 1: UNDERSTANDING THE UNDERGROUND MAN Falsity is defined by the online Oxford dictionary as “the fact of being untrue, incorrect, or insincere”. In the novel Notes from Underground, Fyodor Dostoevsky highlights the falsity, or artificiality of not only Russian individuals, but of Russian culture as a whole. The novel describes falsity as people who are superficial and shallow. While the main character, the Underground Man, did not consider himself a slave to the falsity, he observed it in others he came into contact with. A good example of this is when the Underground Man went to dinner with his “friends” (they were hardly so). At this dinner, he mentions how the individuals are good-looking on the outside but rather unintelligent on the inside. At one point, he even says that one of them has a “handsome but silly face” (Dostoevsky), thus indicating that on the outside, his face was “handsome” but at the same time he was also “silly”, or foolish and shallow. They were not who the portrayed themselves to be. …show more content…
In his younger years, he tried to interact with these false people, but it in fact drove him mad, and as a result he went underground. On page XX, the Underground man explains that: “... ingenuous people and active figures are all active simply because they are dull and narrow minded. How to explain it? Here’s how: as a consequence of their narrow-mindedness, they take the most immediate and secondary causes for the primary ones, and thus become convinced more quickly and easily than others that they have found an indisputable basis for their doings, and so they feel at ease; and that, after all, is the main thing”
Some would argue that the difference between an accomplished and unaccomplished person is confidence. Ralph Waldo Emerson certainly upholds this belief throughout his discourse entitled “Self-Reliance,” with the characterization of a man who holds on tight to what he believes in as being the best kind of man. Emerson argues that original and unique thought is necessary for true education and that conformance and perpetuation are the great hindrances to mankind. By putting the very things that he is advocating on display, Emerson’s contention is well-argued to the audience with his use of inclusive language, allusion, and individualized rhetoric. It is this use of confidence by Emerson, that allows his argument to be well-received and seem
In his article Theodore Levitt points out to several key points that lead to short-sightedness within organizations.
In the short story “The “Other Side” Is Not Dumb” Sean Blanda. The author talks about opening up our minds to see a different point of view. Blanda feels that people intellectual lazy because they don’t open their minds up to be able to see a different point of view. That people tend to just be closed minded and only see their point, even when the other side has true facts about the topic being discussed. The ton is Blanda writing seems very irritated and angry.
To Emerson, each individual possesses their own intelligence, however, “the whole character and fortune of the individual can be affected by the least inequalities in the culture of the understanding”, which can cause insecurities within the individual (Nature 505). He claims that “every great man is unique, and each man has their own gift,” which if presented solely by the specific individual, the gift is completely possessed instead of having only half possession because it is a third party idea (“Self Reliance” 533, 547).
are“street smart” rather than book smart (Graff 198). He speaks of how it is ridiculous that
Gerd Gigerenzer in “Deliberate Ignorance” distinguishes what this self-chosen defiance of knowledge means and what people feel when confining themselves to the situation. When someone willfully decides to remain ignorant even when the answer remains easily obtained, that person has decided to become deliberately ignorant. Gigerenzer understands how systematic ignorance can wreak havoc on large populations and impact people’s daily lives. This systematic production of ignorance deflects, covers up, and obscures facts. He stated a prime example of this “the tobacco industry’s efforts to keep people unaware of the evidence that smoking causes cancer” (Gigerenzer 1). In contrast deliberate ignorance involves a phenomenon where people choose not to have specified information.
idea that social class does not correspond with intelligence. Feste carries the title of a fool, but he
from a certain point of view His father has told him "all the people in the world haven't had the advantages that you've had" (1) Thus, people trust him with secrets and characterize him as reliable. He is more advantageous than others but taught to be humble However, he has a limit, "After boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit" (2).
Also, when people don’t have individuality and are used to doing what they are told, they don’t pay attention to what’s going on around them. In contrast Ellsworth Toohey feels that men should do as they are told and in the end this will make them happier. In Toohey’s eyes thinking is the worst thing possible and people who don’t ask questions are the smart ones. This view is seen in the following lines, “Everything bad comes from the mind, because the mind asks to many questions. It is blessed to believe, not to understand. So if you didn’t get passing grades, be glad of it. It means that you are better than the smart boys who think too much and too easily (Rand 298).” This quote means that people are smarter when they go along with ideas that everyone else has already created. People don’t need to think and create new ideas. Toohey feels that there shouldn’t be any individuality and creation. He feels that people should do what the group thinks and wants.
In “Hidden Intellectualism,” Gerald Graff believes that individuals, who are ot interested in school, have a chance to be intellectual by inspiring them on subjects they themselves are interested in instead of forcing them to correspond with cliché historic figures. Graff begins his essay acknowledging the perception communities have on behavior of streetwise people who are looked at as “anti-intellects.” (264) Furthermore, he explains how society connects intelligence with historic heroes instead of modern subjects like sports or fashion; which Graff emphasizes is the issue. Graff supports his claim by providing a personal experience of growing up; he was that “anti-intellectual” (265) who preferred sports magazines and biographies rather
Jacoby seeks to answer how and why these barriers negatively affect this “Age of American Unreason”. In Jacoby’s book she explain how American’s have become less and less intellectual over the year due to our culture our distraction. In order to understand what constitutes such anti-intellectualism in our culture, we must first understand what it means to be an intellectual. By doing this, it will help us understand why many American’s today lack such intellectualism.
The first man disappeared because he didn’t believe that he was the guy who got paid to tell people what to believe. Evidence of this is “‘(Paragraph 16)A guy that gets paid to tell people what to believe?” he echoed, sounding slightly incredulous. “I’d never buy into that!”’ and “‘(Paragraph 9)Jeez, the people in this place...Couldn’t spot reality if it walked right under their noses!”’.
Mansur Abdulin takes his experiences on the front ranks and shares them in great detail in his book Red Road From Stalingrad. By describing all the things that are happening in the day to day combat, Abdulin is also giving the readers a glimpse at himself. He tells of mental and physical aspects of battle and shows how it effects all involved. His descriptions and feelings bring the readers into his mind and heart and they see the real Abdulin. His intent is to show and share the “real” life of war and battle. He cares for the cause and is a strong passionate Soviet soldier; however he also creates a different kind of hero by letting his loyalty and conscience to be his guide.
When one says that this elderly person has wisdom from various life experiences, he/she is not saying that the elderly person knows much about books and their profession. Instead, one would be speaking about the elderly person’s vast knowledge about what is important in life due to their multitude of experiences. While the elderly person may not be completely wise in the most encompassing form of wisdom, the elderly person does appear to have a more expansive understanding of what is important in life. Simply knowing what matters in life, however, does not satisfy the ultimate form of wisdom, for the wise must know why these things matter in life. That is, a truly wise person must have insight beyond the theoretical, into the practical. Beyond this, a wise person, in this view, must also know how to achieve what matters most, and, in knowing so, do what matters most. I say this because a truly wise person would be able to act upon what they know to be the most important thing in life. It is wiser for a person to act than to merely conceptualize what is most essential in life.
Throughout the essay “Self Reliance”, one of the main concepts the author addressed was that having self empowerment is one of the prominent qualities to have for oneself. Emerson preached, “Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day… Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood” (Emerson). The main point the author tried to convey was that some of the most significant people in history followed their own personal opinions and