Myshkin’s Higher State of Being

 From Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "The Idiot."

A bit later in the book, Myshkin thinks, "Compassion is the chief and perhaps only law of human existence." (Page 250 in my Signet edition) This line might be the key to why the Prince has such a peculiar effect on such a range of types of others in the book.  This deserves more thought... But for now what's intriguing me is something he thinks a few pages before this, while he considers one peculiar effect of his epilepsy. 

Among other things he fell to thinking that in his attacks of epilepsy there was a pause just before the fit itself (if it happened while he was awake) when suddenly in the midst of sadness, spiritual darkness, and a feeling of oppression, there were instants when it seemed his brain was on fire, and in an extraordinary surge all his vital forces would be intensified. The sense of life, the consciousness of self were multiplied tenfold in these moments, which lasted no longer than a flash of lightning. His mind and heart were flooded with extraordinary light; all torment, all doubt, all anxieties were relieved at once, resolved in a kind of lofty calm, full of serene, harmonious joy and hope, full of understanding and the knowledge of the ultimate cause of things. But these moments, these flashes were only the presage of that final second (never more than a second) with which the fit itself began. That second was, of course, unbearable. Thinking about this moment afterward, when he was again in health, he often told himself that all these gleams and flashes of superior self-awareness and, hence, of "a higher state of being" were nothing other than sickness, the upsetting of the normal condition and, if so, were not the highest state of being at all but on the contrary had to be reckoned as the lowest. And yet he came finally to an extremely paradoxical conclusion. sickness?" he asked himself.  "What if it is sickness?" he asked himself.  "What does it matter if it is abnormal intensity, if the result, if the moment of awareness, remembered and analyzed afterward in health, turns out to be the height of harmony and beauty, and gives an unheard-of and till then undreamed-of feeling of wholeness, of proportion, of reconciliation, and an ecstatic and prayer-like union in the highest synthesis of life?"  These cloudy expressions seemed very comprehensible to him, though too weak. That it was really "beauty and prayer," that it was really "the highest synthesis of life," he could not doubt and moreover could not ever admit the possibility of doubt. For be did not see abnormal and fallacious visions during this moment, as from hashish, opium, or wine, debasing reason and distorting the soul.  He could judge this sanely when his attacks were over. Those moments were nothing less than an extraordinary intensification of self-awareness- -if the condition was to be described in one word-- self-awareness and at the same time an extreme consciousness of existence. If in that second--that is, in the last lucid moment before the fit- he had time to say to himself clearly and consciously: "Yes, one might give one's whole life for this moment!" then that moment by itself would certainly be worth the whole of life. However, he did not insist on the dialectical aspect of his conclusion: for mental stupor, spiritual darkness, idiocy, appeared all too clearly as the consequences of those "higher moments"; he would not, of course, have seriously disputed this. In retrospect when he thought about that minute there was unquestionably a mistake in his conclusion, but the reality of the sensation somehow troubled him. What, after all, was to be made of reality? For that very thing had happened; he had actually had time to tell himself at that very second that the infinite happiness he had felt in it might indeed be worth a whole life. “At that moment," as be once told Rogozhin in Moscow when they used to see each other there, "at that moment somehow the extraordinary words there shall be time no longer'* become understandable to me. Probably,'" he added, smiling, "this is the same second the epileptic Mohammed's water pitcher had tipped and not yet spilled, and in that time he beheld all the dwellings of Allah."

Who doesn't want intense vital forces? Who doesn't want this:  "His mind and heart were flooded with extraordinary light; all torment, all doubt, all anxieties were relieved at once, resolved in a kind of lofty calm, full of serene, harmonious joy and hope, full of understanding and the knowledge of the ultimate cause of things."  Light, calm, serene, joy, hope, understanding.  

It's an attractive state of being, not fraught with anxiety, torment, sadness, oppression, darkness.  Not fraught with "the everyday."  

I had this image the other day where humans were lead by, dragged along by, as if we were roller coaster cars being dragged up the first hill, cogs in gears, by our habits... or by our need to be a certain way ("cool"? "safe"? "in control"? "dignified"? (maybe 'safe' covers them all?)).  We don't even know it. I don't just mean "humans I don't like," but everyone:  Jennie, me.  Call this conditioning.  Call this nature + nurture.  Call this psychology.  Call it our cage.  Call it cultural or social determinism.  (Althusser's stance, in Marxist theory, that ‘individuals are always-already subjects’)

Character, I read recently in George Saunders, A Swim in the Pond, creates action.  A character -- a human -- acts in a certain way, creates action, because of the way s/he typically responds.  

We are -- we have always-already been -- completely conditioned.  So, changing happens at a geological rate (water carving a canyon in bedrock day by day).  And the desire to change happens so slowly... because the image of what we can think to be is also conditioned.  The images of what seems attractive and worthy appear only at the rate/ability of what appears on OUR horizon.  (Your horizon and my horizon look different.  If we both watch the same TV commercial, we will 'want' perhaps different things.)

This brings me back to Myshkin's point at the top about compassion being the only law of human existence.  

from wikipedia:

"Always already" literally translates the German phrase immer schon that appears prominently in several 20th century philosophical works, notably Martin Heidegger's Being and Time. The phrase is not specific to philosophy in German, but refers to an action or condition that has continued without any identifiable beginning. Heidegger used the phrase routinely to indicate that Dasein, the human experience of existence, has no beginning apart from the world in which one exists, but is produced in it and by it.

On the strength of Heidegger's influence, French and later English philosophers adopted the literal translation of the phrase. In the Marxist tradition, Louis Althusser observed that "individuals are always-already subjects" within an ideological structure before they perceive themselves as such—indeed, even before birth

also Wikipedia:

Ideological state apparatuses (under Louis Althusser)

Because Althusser held that a person's desires, choices, intentions, preferences, judgements, and so forth are the effects of social practices, he believed it necessary to conceive of how society makes the individual in its own image. Within capitalist societies, the human individual is generally regarded as a subject—a self-conscious, "responsible" agent whose actions can be explained by their beliefs and thoughts. For Althusser, a person's capacity to perceive themselves in this way is not innate. Rather, it is acquired within the structure of established social practices, which impose on individuals the role (forme) of a subject.[212] Social practices both determine the characteristics of the individual and give them an idea of the range of properties they can have, and of the limits of each individual. Althusser argues that many of our roles and activities are given to us by social practice: for example, the production of steelworkers is a part of economic practice, while the production of lawyers is part of politico-legal practice. However, other characteristics of individuals, such as their beliefs about the good life or their metaphysical reflections on the nature of the self, do not easily fit into these categories.

In Althusser's view, our values, desires, and preferences are inculcated in us by ideological practice, the sphere which has the defining property of constituting individuals as subjects.[213] Ideological practice consists of an assortment of institutions called "ideological state apparatuses" (ISAs), which include the family, the media, religious organizations, and most importantly in capitalist societies, the education system, as well as the received ideas that they propagate.[214] No single ISA produces in us the belief that we are self-conscious agents. Instead, we derive this belief in the course of learning what it is to be a daughter, a schoolchild, black, a steelworker, a councillor, and so forth.

Despite its many institutional forms, the function and structure of ideology is unchanging and present throughout history;[215] as Althusser states, "ideology has no history".[216] All ideologies constitute a subject, even though he or she may differ according to each particular ideology. Memorably, Althusser illustrates this with the concept of "hailing" or "interpellation". He compares ideology to a policeman shouting "Hey you there!" toward a person walking on the street. Upon hearing this call, the person responds by turning around and in doing so, is transformed into a subject.[217] The person being hailed recognizes themselves as the subject of the hail, and knows to respond.[218] Althusser calls this recognition a "mis-recognition" (méconnaissance),[219] because it works retroactively: a material individual is always already an ideological subject, even before he or she is born.[220] The "transformation" of an individual into a subject has always already happened; Althusser here acknowledges a debt to Spinoza's theory of immanence.[220]

To highlight this, Althusser offers the example of Christian religious ideology, embodied in the Voice of God, instructing a person on what their place in the world is and what he must do to be reconciled with Christ.[221] From this, Althusser draws the point that in order for that person to identify as a Christian, he must first already be a subject; that is, by responding to God's call and following His rules, he affirms himself as a free agent, the author of the acts for which he assumes responsibility.[222] We cannot recognize ourselves outside ideology, and in fact, our very actions reach out to this overarching structure. Althusser's theory draws heavily from Jacques Lacan and his concept of the Mirror Stage[223]—we acquire our identities by seeing ourselves mirrored in ideologies.[224]