Psychologists of Evil: Nietzsche and Dostoevsky on the Darkness of the Soul

Introduction: “The Light Shines in the Darkness . . .“

The study of politics presupposes the study of man. The study of man demands we consider the nature of being as ensouled flesh. This leads us into the realm of philosophy and, by extension, given that we are interested in man as a political being, political philosophy. In our search for wisdom, we discover that we cannot rest content with conceptions of man that fail to consider the depth of his soul or the heights after which he strives. Yet we recognize in horror that modernity contently rests on partial, fragmented, or false conceptions of man, which fail to grasp the categories of good and evil or the meaning of a world beyond both. We witness the suffering man incurs when the systems “thinkers” devise to fulfill man’s deepest needs and yearnings murder the body or lull the soul to sleep.

We mark the need for foundational thinkers, who are keen to remove the encrustation of ignorance, misunderstanding, and lies and reawaken man to the truth of existence. We stumble upon Nietzsche and Dostoevsky as two such foundational thinkers, akin in spirit as explorers of the depth in search of truth, yet divergent in their respective ways unto light and life. We understand the need to vicariously wander with them, and in so doing we discover that the timeless agon between good and evil reveals the meaning of “Dionysus versus the Crucified.” We discover the meaning of great politics as a war of spirits — ein Geisterkrieg.

In what follows, Nietzsche and Dostoevsky are our guides through the fractured landscape of modern philosophy, for they begin their philosophic wanderings with the foundational questions plaguing man as he strives for understanding, namely the existence of the good and God and evil and the Devil. We follow these underground men as they illuminate the dark night of nihilism enshrouding modernity and modern man and discover that the death of Father God reveals the timeless struggle between divine-demonic sons, between Christ and Anti-Christ. Perplexed by the meaning of this struggle in the lives of men, we follow these psychologists of the soul as they disclose the spiritual struggle in the heart and mind between good and evil.

In their respective ways unto life, we find commonality in their battle against evil, even as one would vindicate the Good and the other would vindicate the freedom of man to live beyond the evil that constitutes the very dichotomy. As we contemplate their arguments, we glimpse that something demonic and divine is with us and we fall upon literary analogy to understand real horror and awe. Ascending from the depth, we are not the same vicarious wanderers we were at the outset, for we understand the need to rightly order ensouled flesh. Then and only then can we begin to contemplate the meaning of order in a political world that is ever fleeting.

Nihilism and the Confession of Underground Men

Talk of spiritual warfare in an age of material progress under the sway of materialism produces a discordant and disturbing sound, like a hammer falling on a crystal palace. Not only do God and the Good sound antiquated but even more so Evil and the Devil. Of course, we can invoke evil if we confine it to the realm of behavior (or repackage it as the “bad”) and in so doing neglect, for practical and instinctive reasons, to gaze into the depth of the soul and contemplate the root and meaning of all actions. Goethe’s Mephistopheles understood the difficulty of being the Evil One when evil is no longer in vogue. In his retort to the witches, who proclaim the return of, “Noble Satan,” he disavows the name since it has “long been written in the book of fairy tales”:

Alone man is not better off,

They have rid themselves of the Evil One, the evil ones remain.

You call me Baron, then the matter is well;

I am a cavalier like other cavaliers.

https://voegelinview.com/psychologists-evil-nietzsche-dostoevsky-darkness-soul/

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