YT YouTube2Text

YouTube2Text → Transcripts → The Harder You Try, The Worse It Gets - The Philosophy of Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Harder You Try, The Worse It Gets - The Philosophy of Fyodor Dostoevsky — Transcript

by Pursuit of Wonder · 3,108 words · 506 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

Open in transcriber Summarize with AI Download SRT/VTT

Full transcript

0:00this video is sponsored by blinkist the
0:02app that condenses thousands of
0:04nonfiction books into 15-minute
0:05summaries use the link in the
0:07description and receive one free week
0:09and 25 off a premium membership
0:12theodore dostoevsky is widely regarded
0:14as one of the greatest novelists in
0:16history his fictional work is so rich
0:18with deep insights into human psychology
0:20particularly its interplay with various
0:22social and political structures of the
0:24modern world he is equal parts renowned
0:26psychologist and philosopher his work
0:29brings into question how well we truly
0:31know ourselves what we really want and
0:34how we go about considering and
0:35attaining these things in the world as
0:37well as the consequences of following
0:39false delusions and impossible ideals
0:42his insights and warnings about humanity
0:45both individually and collectively were
0:47not only ahead of his time but in many
0:49ways they are still arguably unheated
0:51warnings immensely relevant to today
0:56dostoevsky was born in 1821 in moscow
0:58russia to a well-off orthodox christian
1:00family his father was a successful
1:02doctor and his family lived on the
1:04hospital grounds where his father worked
1:06while in his teens however his mother
1:08died of tuberculosis and while
1:10dostoevsky was away at school studying
1:12to become an engineer his father died
1:14without definitive cause although it was
1:17reported and speculated that he was
1:19murdered by his own serfs in an act of
1:21vengeance against his abusive tendencies
1:24young dostoevsky's proximity to the
1:26conditions of a hospital his upbringing
1:28in a strong faith family and the early
1:30deaths of both his parents especially
1:32that of the mysterious possible murder
1:34of his father likely all culminated into
1:37some amount of the early foundation of
1:39what would go on to become his unique
1:41but tragic voice as a writer
1:44after graduating from a military
1:45engineering institute dostoevsky would
1:47work as an engineer however as a means
1:50of engaging in his budding passion for
1:52literature and humanities he also began
1:54translating books on the side during
1:55this time
1:56as this passion for literature soon
1:58increased further and further he would
2:00resign from his engineering career and
2:02focus solely on writing himself
2:04in 1846 he published his first book
2:07titled poor folk right away this work
2:10received commercial success and was
2:11reviewed favorably by literary critics
2:13of the time deemed as russia's first
2:15social novel however dostoevsky's
2:18subsequent works just following this one
2:20would struggle to find any similar level
2:22of success and he soon found himself
2:24mostly just experimenting and failing as
2:26a writer quickly falling into financial
2:28distress
2:29partly as a consequence of his financial
2:31situation in 1847 while in his late
2:34twenties dostoevsky became associated
2:37with a radical group of writers and
2:38intellectuals focused on utopian
2:40socialism this however would soon lead
2:43him to being arrested when the
2:44government went after those associated
2:45with these types of groups
2:47in 1849 as punishment dostoevsky was
2:51sentenced to death by firing squad on
2:53december 22nd of the same year he stood
2:56facing the barrel of a gun pointed at
2:58his head the remainder of his life was
3:00now counted in minutes as the officials
3:02held their aim and steadied to pull the
3:04trigger suddenly at the last moment a
3:06message arrived and dostoevsky was
3:09pardoned
3:10the execution would turn out to be a
3:11mock execution used merely as a
3:13psychological tactic to instill fear in
3:16the prisoners
3:17following this dostoevsky was instead
3:19sent to siberia where he was forced to
3:21wear grueling labor and horrible
3:23conditions for four years
3:25in 1860 dostoevsky returned from siberia
3:29but returned a very different man he
3:31would soon begin writing again but now
3:34his voice would contain a new tone of
3:35pessimism realism and a highly
3:38perceptive understanding of the human
3:39psyche he was now turned away from
3:41utopian ideals of society and instead
3:44his focus was now turned inward towards
3:46spiritual and psychological explorations
3:50over the following 20 years before dying
3:52of a lung disorder in 1881 dostoevsky
3:55would produce several successful
3:56masterpieces many of which are still
3:58regarded as some of the most important
4:00works of literature to this day
4:02including notes from underground crime
4:04and punishment the idiot demons and the
4:07brothers kara matsoff
4:10one of the more prominent themes
4:11established in much of dostoevsky's work
4:13was his insights on an assessment of
4:15human suffering more particularly the
4:18means by which and the consequences of
4:20humanity trying to overcome and rid
4:22itself of suffering especially in
4:24relation to a time in which religious
4:26and spiritual anchors were cut loose and
4:28individuals and societies were left to
4:30create and defend their world views
4:33through an increasing thrust of
4:34rationality and technology toward the
4:37ideal of perfect well-being
4:40in notes from underground published in
4:411864 dostoevsky explores and critiques
4:44these modern western ideals rationality
4:47and technological progress as a means
4:49toward perfect happiness and goodness
4:52in the novel we follow an unnamed
4:54retired civil servant often referred to
4:56as the underground man through a series
4:58of diary entries the man is deeply
5:00angered and unhappy and he possesses a
5:02disdain for others and the delusions in
5:04which others live he wants to make other
5:06people see the truth and acknowledge the
5:08same discontent and absurdity he knows
5:10and feels in life
5:12for dostoevsky suffering is a
5:14fundamental tenet of human life it is
5:16infused in the blood thus there is no
5:19life nor social or material condition
5:21for life that can exist without
5:23suffering and so for dostoevsky all
5:26efforts and accomplishments of progress
5:27both individually and collectively can
5:30merely change the particular things that
5:31we derive our suffering from but cannot
5:34eliminate our suffering comprehensively
5:36man only likes to count his troubles he
5:38doesn't calculate his happiness
5:41rotostevsky
5:42for dostoevsky since there can never be
5:44a social or material structure that rids
5:46humanity of unhappiness or suffering any
5:48objective of improving the world toward
5:50an idealistic utopian version of itself
5:53is doomed to fail
5:54through the underground man dostoevsky
5:56largely critiques and warns about
5:58humanity pursuing these sorts of ideals
6:00while operating within the increasingly
6:02prevalent worldviews of nihilism
6:04utopianism rationalism and egoism which
6:08essentially culminate into the beliefs
6:09that there is no inherent or
6:11transcendent meaning to life and that
6:13actions and morality should be based on
6:15reason and knowledge with self-interest
6:17as the driving force
6:19dostoevsky argued however that with a
6:21void of religious faith and a deeply
6:23flawed irrational human nature this
6:25worldview would become destructive in
6:27the process of resolving suffering
6:29toward perfection solutions to old
6:31problems will inevitably create new
6:32problems in need of new solutions and
6:35the more grandiose the solutions the
6:37more complex and perhaps destructive the
6:39new problems
6:41this is not necessarily to say that
6:43efforts of social technological or
6:45self-improvement are useless or
6:47inherently bad
6:48but rather they are not capable of
6:50attaining what they often set out to
6:52accomplish and if not considered within
6:54the constraints of the human condition
6:55their incessant motion can serve to only
6:58fan the flames of problems
7:00in notes from underground dostoevsky
7:02wrote
7:03now i ask you what can be expected of
7:05man since he is of being endowed with
7:07strange qualities shower upon him every
7:09earthly blessing drown him in a sea of
7:12happiness so that nothing but bubbles of
7:14bliss can be seen on the surface give
7:16him economic prosperity such that he
7:18should have nothing else to do but sleep
7:20eat cakes and busy himself with the
7:22continuation of his species and even
7:24then out of sheer ingratitude sheer
7:26spite man would play you some nasty
7:29trick he would even risk his cakes and
7:31would deliberately desire the most fatal
7:33rubbish the most uneconomical absurdity
7:35simply to introduce into all this
7:37positive good sense his fatal fantastic
7:40element it is just as fantastic dreams
7:42his vulgar folly that he will desire to
7:45retain simply in order to prove to
7:47himself as though that were so necessary
7:49that men still are men and not the keys
7:52of a piano
7:54for dostoevsky humanity is irrational
7:56and incessantly desires a sense of
7:58self-agency not perfect happiness thus
8:01even if a perfect life or society in
8:03which happiness could be of a formulaic
8:05ease to everyone humanity would rather
8:07go mad or destroy its perfect conditions
8:10than live as if it fit into a mechanical
8:12system
8:13we think we want happiness but we don't
8:16not really we know this every time we
8:18could be happy but aren't every time we
8:20find something to dwell on or complain
8:22about or sabotage our conscious mind
8:24appears to tell us that we want
8:26happiness and peace with perfect
8:28equality but our whole being our
8:30behaviors our history show us that we
8:33quite often want the opposite we don't
8:36know ourselves as well as we think and
8:38often when we do we struggle to accept
8:40the truth
8:42in dostoevsky's subsequent masterpiece
8:44crime and punishment published in 1866
8:47he further explores this notion of
8:49self-knowledge or the lack thereof
8:51the novel centers around a young former
8:53law student living in poverty named
8:55droughtion ruskonikov raskonikov's
8:57mother and sister are sacrificing a
8:59great deal to try and help ruskanikov's
9:01situation and facilitate his success his
9:04sister even setting up to marry a
9:05wealthy man in order to help this
9:07however all further upsets and shames
9:09roskonikov
9:11additionally he is deeply affected by a
9:13nihilistic rationalistic and atheistic
9:16view of the world because of his views
9:18without needing to answer to any
9:19religious or spiritual principles
9:21raskolnikov decides to kill and rob a
9:24wicked abusive old pawn broker woman
9:26whom he has become aware has a lot of
9:28cash he believes that moral decisions
9:30ought to be based on what one can
9:32determine through reason produces the
9:34highest net good on society or the
9:36greatest happiness for the largest
9:38number of people
9:39because of this he believes that he
9:41deserves the money more than the old
9:42woman as he can do far more good with it
9:45he can help his sister and mother and he
9:47can become a lawyer and can then go on
9:49to do even more good in the world
9:51moreover he thinks of himself as an
9:52individual of greatness powerfulness and
9:55ruthlessness and in his mind
9:57extraordinary men are allowed to commit
9:58crimes for the common good and so he is
10:01able to rationally justify murder and he
10:03proceeds to kill the pawn broker and
10:05then her half-sister when she walks in
10:07during the act
10:09throughout the rest of the novel
10:10resconiko finds himself tormented and
10:12riddled with guilt and horror because of
10:14his actions he is not who he thought he
10:17was he is not a man of ruthless power he
10:19is a tender and feeling man
10:22eventually he turns himself into the
10:24police in order to essentially avoid
10:25going insane
10:28through raskonikov's guilt and torment
10:30dostoevsky critiques the notion of
10:32reason and self-interest as complete
10:34methods of determining morality and
10:36selfhood raskonikov had every reason to
10:39do what he did and yet what he did was
10:41wrong and it causes him to feel immense
10:43pain and suffering like in notes from
10:45underground dostoevsky is again
10:47critiquing the views of nihilism
10:49utilitarianism rationalism and egoism in
10:52which all faith and relevance is placed
10:54solely on the individual and all efforts
10:56to maximize a life and society are done
10:58through self-interest and rationality
11:01also like in notes from underground
11:03crime and punishment focuses on the
11:05complexity of the human mind and how we
11:07as the conscious observers and orators
11:09of who we think we are are often
11:11detached from and inconsistent with who
11:14we really are
11:15moreover our perception of who others
11:17are is often even further removed from
11:20the truth dostoevsky not only shows how
11:22raskolnikov has a completely inverted
11:24false self-perception but he also allows
11:27the reader to relate to and empathize
11:29with raskonikov a cold-blooded murderer
11:32rather than purely showing how a bad
11:34character becomes bad dostoevsky shows
11:37how a bad character isn't purely bad and
11:40is in many ways a lot like us
11:43extremely confused and misguided by the
11:45conflict of their inner psyche and their
11:47misunderstanding of said psyche
11:51for us all the complex interplay between
11:53our conscious mind unconscious mind and
11:55the world outside of ourselves is
11:57chaotic muddled contradictory and
12:00perhaps impossible to ever truly
12:01understand
12:02none of us are that far from those we
12:04fear or dislike in them is some amount
12:06of us and in us is some amount of them
12:09we don't know ourselves as well as we
12:10think we chase things that we don't want
12:13and we often dread what we truly want we
12:15are far less rational than we think we
12:17exhibit a sort of madness every day in
12:19every generation christianity and
12:22idealistic philosophy set us up to fail
12:24science cannot save us and technology is
12:27not a means to escape our problems but
12:29merely an efficient transformation of
12:31them
12:31dostoevsky believed all this to be the
12:33case and arguably on at least some level
12:36he was right however at the end of crime
12:39and punishment raskonikov is in prison
12:41serving just an eight-year sentence for
12:43doing good deeds
12:44the novel ends alluding to the prospect
12:47that roskonikov's story will continue
12:49suggesting dostoevsky's belief that
12:51through suffering faith acceptance
12:54compassion and repentance redemption is
12:57still possible
12:59although dostoevsky's work is largely
13:00dark and tragic it also contains a sort
13:03of epilogue of redemption in spite of
13:05itself at least redemption of a sort
13:08in his novel the idiot published in 1869
13:11through the main character prince
13:13michigan dostoevsky reflects on some of
13:15his own personal experiences and ideals
13:17in life in one instance prince mishkin
13:20discusses an anecdote about a man
13:21recounting having been arrested and
13:23sentenced to a mock execution by firing
13:26squad mirroring almost exactly
13:28dostoevsky's own experience many years
13:30prior
13:31prince mishkin says
13:33he had about five minutes left to live
13:35not more
13:36he said those five minutes seemed like
13:38an endless time to him and enormous
13:40wealth he reckoned up the time for
13:42bidding his comrades farewell and
13:44allotted two minutes to that then
13:45allotted two more minutes to thinking
13:47about himself for the last time and then
13:50to looking around for the last time he
13:52was dying at the age of 27 healthy and
13:55strong
13:56bidding farewell to his comrades he
13:58remembered asking one of them a rather
13:59irrelevant question and even being very
14:01interested in the answer
14:03then after he had bidden his comrades
14:05farewell the two minutes came that he
14:07had allotted to thinking about himself
14:09he knew beforehand what he was going to
14:11think about he kept wanting to picture
14:13to himself as quickly and vividly as
14:15possible how it could be like this
14:18now he exists and lives and in three
14:20minutes there would be something some
14:23person or thing
14:24but who and where
14:26he wanted to resolve it all in those two
14:28minutes there was a church nearby and
14:30the top of the cathedral with its gilded
14:32dome shown in the bright sun he
14:35remembered gazing with terrible fixity
14:36at that dome in the ray shining from it
14:39it seemed to him that those were his new
14:40nature and in three minutes he would
14:42somehow merge with them
14:44the ignorance of and loathing for this
14:46new thing that would be and would come
14:48presently were terrible yet he said that
14:50nothing was more oppressive for him at
14:52that moment than the constant thought
14:55what if i were not to die what if life
14:57were given back to me what infinity and
15:00it would all be mine then i'd turn each
15:02minute into a whole age i'd lose nothing
15:05i'd reckon up every minute separately
15:07i'd let nothing be wasted
15:09he said that in the end this thought
15:10turned into such anger in him that he
15:12wished they would hurry up and shoot him
15:16in this dostoevsky arguably alludes to
15:18the idea that although life is so often
15:20tragic purity and perfect goodness is
15:22impossible and suffering is fundamental
15:25the conscious awareness of being but
15:27moments away from losing it all is so
15:29overwhelmingly horrible that one would
15:31literally rather hurry up and die than
15:34steep in the knowledge of just how
15:35beautiful everything truly is and that
15:37they are just about to lose it all
15:40forever
15:41whether we agree with dostoevsky or not
15:43his deep insights and brilliant works of
15:46literature can help remind us and allow
15:48us to feel the same beauty and depth in
15:50life
15:51while there's still time
15:58this video was sponsored by blinkist
16:01with so much stimulation and distraction
16:03in the modern world it certainly seems
16:05that at least for many of us it has
16:07become more difficult to engage in
16:09consistent and extensive reading habits
16:11the value of learning from books however
16:13has of course not gone down at all the
16:16book summary app blinkist helps resolve
16:18this problem by bridging the gap between
16:20our sensitivity to time and the value of
16:22learning from wide ranging collections
16:24of books by taking the best non-fiction
16:26books pulling out the key takeaways and
16:28forming them into 15-minute text and
16:30audio summaries blinkist allows you to
16:32easily learn from and navigate across
16:34various books and authors far more
16:36efficiently and comprehensively spend
16:38five minutes discovering that you are
16:40not interested in a book not three hours
16:42learn from 40 books on a subject not
16:44just one refresh yourself on topics
16:47quickly and easily blinkist provides
16:49over 5000 titles in 27 categories as
16:52well as summaries of popular podcasts
16:54and a wide selection of audiobooks
16:56meaning you can easily go straight from
16:57summaries to audio books all in the same
16:59place if you're interested in philosophy
17:01blinkist has fantastic titles like
17:04beyond good and evil by friedrich
17:05nietzsche i am dynamite by super doe and
17:08the story of philosophy by will durant
17:11philosopher friedrich nietzsche once
17:12said that dostoevsky was the only person
17:14who has ever taught me anything about
17:16psychology in these titles you can
17:18discover how nietzsche as well as other
17:20philosophers around dostoevsky's time
17:22were influenced by him and dealt with
17:24similar topics of suffering religious
17:26decay and redemption use the link in the
17:29description and you'll receive one free
17:31week of unlimited access as well as 25
17:33off a premium membership the free
17:35seven-day trial can be cancelled at any
17:37time within the trial period and of
17:39course as always thank you so much for
17:41watching in general and see you next
17:44video
17:46my own book of my collected works on
17:48various philosophers and philosophies
17:50titled the art of living a meaningless
17:52existence is also out now and you can
17:54find the link in the description below
17:56as well

About this transcript

This page contains the full transcript of The Harder You Try, The Worse It Gets - The Philosophy of Fyodor Dostoevsky by Pursuit of Wonder, generated from the public captions YouTube serves with the video. The transcript has 3,108 words across 506 segments, with the original timestamps preserved so you can click any line to jump to that moment in the embedded player.

What you can do with it

Use the transcript to take notes, quote the speaker, build a study guide, generate a summary with ChatGPT or Claude via the YouTube Summary tool, or export it as a timed subtitle file with YouTube to SRT. You can also re-open it in the transcriber to choose a caption track available on the video.

Free YouTube transcript tool

YouTube2Text is a free YouTube transcript generator — no signup, no daily limit. Paste any YouTube link and get the full transcript instantly, with timestamps, click-to-jump, caption language selection, AI prompts for ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, or Markdown.