The Devils is the story of a "terrorist" movement in Russia. The intelletual-elite purposed to subjugate the lower class and gain control over the country. Their means of controlling people are predictive of what is happening on a large scale today. I recently wrote a paper that pieced together some of Peter's speech to Nicholai in Devils, so let me first quote the book directly.
To level the moutain is a good idea, not a ridiculous one...We don't want education. We have had enough science. We have plenty of material without science to last us a thousand years. the thing we want is obedience. The only thing that's wanting in the world is obedience. The desire for education is an aristocratic desire. The moment a man falls in love or has a family, he gets desire for private property. We will destry that desire; we'll resort to drunkenness, slander, denunciations; we'll resort to unheard-of depravity; we shall smother every genius in infancy. We shall reduce everything to one common denominator. Full equality...Only what is necessary is necessary; that's the motto of the whole world henceforth. But a shock, too, is necessary; we, the rulers will take care of that. Slaves must have rulers. Complete obedience, complete loss of individuality...there will be no desires. Desire and suffering are for us; for the slaves - the Shigalyov system (Devils 419)
Verkhovensky's vision was that the aristocrats might rule over the people. The only way for them to successfully control the people, though, was for the many to be obedient to the chosen few. The masses must be subdued, so they sought to dumb them down. One cannot unlearn what one has learned, so they must kill the desire for the furthering of their knowledge. All desire for higher things should be killed with drunkenness, depravity, and blind obedience to the intellectually elite.
The Shigalyov System might be defined most simply in one word: mediocrity. Lowering the proverbial bar will create a greater disparity between the inteligentsia and the common man, and thereby render the latter unable to distinguish right from wrong, good from evil. At this point they can be led wherever the former might lead. You might ask, "How could this be accomplished?" or "How could people be so blind?" Allow me to add one more lengthy quotation. (Just one more, I promise)
Verkhovensky continues,
I’ve summed them all up: the teacher who laughs with the children at their God and at their cradle is ours already. The barrister who defends an educated murderer by pleading that , being more mentally developed than his victims, he could not help murdering for money, is already one of us. Schoolboys who kill a peasant for the sake of the thrill are ours. The juries who acquit all criminals without distinction are ours. A public prosecutor, who trembles in court because he is not sufficiently progressive, is ours, ours. Administrators, authors – oh, there are lots and lots of us, and they don’t know it themselves. On the other hand, the docility of schoolboys and fools has reached the highest pitch; the schoolmatsters are full of bile; everywhere we see vanity reaching inordinate proportions, enormous bestial appetites…The Russian God has already capitulated to cheap vodka. The peasants are drunk, the mothers are drunk, the children are drunk, the churches are empty, and all one hears in the courts is: 'Two hundred strokes of the birch or stand us a gallon of vodka.' Oh, let the present generation only grow up! (Devils 421)
Conclusion/Warning: Dostoevsky's vision is as much alive today as he predicted it would be in the 19th Century. Let us be wise and discerning.
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