“Get Lit” Livestream, 4:30 pm ET: A Most Devastating Chapter of Dostoyevsky's "Demons"
Brad and Matt start with "Ivan the Tsarevich," a ferocious prescription for totalitarian politics
“We’ll extinguish desire: we’ll get drinking, gossip, denunciation going; we’ll get unheard-of depravity going; we’ll stifle every genius in infancy. Everything reduced to a common denominator, complete equality.”
When Brad Pearce and I go on a livestream today at 4:30 PM ET, we’ll be starting with what I think is one of the most dramatic and surprising scenes in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “Demons.” In part 2, chapter 8 — “Ivan the Tsarevich” — the two dominant revolutionary personalities collide and argue. Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky, the deathly serious, scheming, ambitious son of a never-was pseudo-activist, delivers almost a sermon on the goals and methods of his movement. He is going to “stir up trouble,” but on a grand scale, achieving equality through force. “Only one thing is lacking in the world: obedience,” he says.
Young Verkhovensky is trying to convince Nikolai Stavrogin, the aristocrat whose money and inspirational image is needed to round out the plan. It’s a crossroads moment in the book, but Pyotr’s speech could send chills up the spine of anyone following modern politics — even the politics of last week.
Join us at 4:30 PM ET at:
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