Reading through it, Notes from the Underground seems to predict both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany as natural outcomes of the "rational" 19th century.
Two things in particular that he mentions in the chapter I just finished were:
1. That people aren't math equations where you can just explain to them how to live optimally and they'll do so, and
2. That people in rational and civilized ages are no longer bloodthirsty and in fact may be more bloodthirsty than in less civilized times.
It seems that both regimes failed to account for or were themselves an example of these issues. In the case of the soviet union, it turns out that just making everyone a cog in a machine will ultimately fail because people don't want to be optimal cogs in a machine. In the case of Nazi Germany, it turns out that the rational western world of the 19th and 20th century hid monstrous capacity for bloodshed right under the surface.
While it doesn't necessarily directly predict the two regimes, where they would occur, or the specifics of why, I find it interesting how closely these two themes in notes for the underground predict both regimes. While it isn't perfect, it's a long way from the way people claim nobody expected any of these outcomes could have come about. World War 1 was supposedly this huge shock to the "civilized" Europe and that was one of the shocks that led to the development of modernism. World War 2 was supposedly another huge shock, and that led to the development of postmodernism. Meanwhile, if people understood what the outcomes would be, I don't think anyone would have willingly chose the path of the soviet union.
Two things in particular that he mentions in the chapter I just finished were:
1. That people aren't math equations where you can just explain to them how to live optimally and they'll do so, and
2. That people in rational and civilized ages are no longer bloodthirsty and in fact may be more bloodthirsty than in less civilized times.
It seems that both regimes failed to account for or were themselves an example of these issues. In the case of the soviet union, it turns out that just making everyone a cog in a machine will ultimately fail because people don't want to be optimal cogs in a machine. In the case of Nazi Germany, it turns out that the rational western world of the 19th and 20th century hid monstrous capacity for bloodshed right under the surface.
While it doesn't necessarily directly predict the two regimes, where they would occur, or the specifics of why, I find it interesting how closely these two themes in notes for the underground predict both regimes. While it isn't perfect, it's a long way from the way people claim nobody expected any of these outcomes could have come about. World War 1 was supposedly this huge shock to the "civilized" Europe and that was one of the shocks that led to the development of modernism. World War 2 was supposedly another huge shock, and that led to the development of postmodernism. Meanwhile, if people understood what the outcomes would be, I don't think anyone would have willingly chose the path of the soviet union.
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