Because in the end, the only thing worse than being called an idiot for loving too much... is being praised as a genius for not loving at all.
The tragedy of The Idiot is that Myshkin cannot save anyone. The world isn't broken because people are ignorant; the world is broken because people choose the lie over the truth. We prefer Rogozhin’s violent passion to Myshkin’s gentle clarity because passion is exciting and clarity is boring.
Myshkin ultimately fails. His story ends in ruin. He returns to the sanitarium, his mind shattered by the cruelty he witnessed. It is a bleak ending. But it is also a challenge. o idiota dostoievski
Most of us operate like the novel’s antagonist, Parfyon Rogozhin, or the cynical Ganya Ivolgin. We think in terms of transactions. We know that to survive, you must hide your cards, manipulate perceptions, and never, ever admit you are lonely or scared.
And in Dostoevsky’s world (and perhaps in ours), sincerity is indistinguishable from insanity. Because in the end, the only thing worse
I think about Myshkin every time I see a post about "toxic positivity" or when someone says "you’re too nice."
Myshkin walks into a room where everyone is performing. The aristocrats are performing virtue. The businessmen are performing power. The desperate are performing dignity. Myshkin looks at them, sees straight through the performance, and does the one thing polite society cannot tolerate: The world isn't broken because people are ignorant;
We call this "being street smart."
He tells a woman she is beautiful when it is socially awkward to do so. He forgives an enemy before the enemy has apologized. He offers help to the man who just tried to ruin him.
But Dostoevsky offers a terrifying counter-argument: Maybe the "idiot" is the only one who has solved the puzzle.