Crime and Punishment Part 4 - Fyodor Dostoevsky - Classic Literature - Russian Literature

Raskolnikov finally confesses — but does he ever actually believe he did anything wrong? We're joined by special guest J.F. Ramos to close out Crime and Punishment with hot takes on guilt, redemption, nihilism, and what Dostoevsky was really trying to say in that epilogue. We also get into small talk as a gateway to real connection, why your friend count matters more than your therapist, and somehow end up comparing Raskolnikov to Holden Caulfield.

Next episode, we're reading Paper Roses by indie author Debbie Shaw — drop your Crime and Punishment takes in the comments before we move on.

ABOUT THE BOOK

In the bleak heat of 19th-century St. Petersburg, Rodion Raskolnikov, a brilliant but destitute former student, wanders the streets nursing a dangerous theory. He believes that "extraordinary" men are above the moral law of the masses and have the right—even the duty—to commit crimes for the greater good.

To prove his superiority, Raskolnikov executes a cold-blooded plan to murder an unscrupulous old pawnbroker. The "perfect crime" quickly spirals into a psychological nightmare. Haunted by guilt, paranoia, and the mind games of investigator Porfiry Petrovich, Raskolnikov begins to crumble.

His only hope for redemption lies in Sonya Marmeladov, a young woman forced into hardship who maintains a self-sacrificing faith. As the walls close in, Raskolnikov must choose between a life of mental imprisonment or the path toward spiritual rebirth and confession.

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Host

Jonathan

Host

Slava

What is The Side Quest Book Club Podcast?

If you’re a reader looking for something deeper or an indie author working on your book, The Side Quest Book Club is for you. We skip the usual book reviews and ratings. Each episode turns fun side quests into real lessons, so you’ll leave not just entertained, but with a better understanding of why storytelling matters.

Killed two women and stole their stuff. I declare bankruptcy. You don't want to talk about small talk? Great, neither do I. Let's talk about your deepest fears.

I, unlike you, am not a normal person. Calm down, Raskolnikov. Today we have a special guest joining us for the final episode of Crime and Punishment, Joseph Ramos.

You guys probably know him on Instagram most famously as JF Ramos, who used to be Sword and Spade, right? Yeah. Recently changed. For reasons you talked about on your Instagram.

And then you also have a sub stack, if you guys want to check that out, jframos.substack.com. We will have the, we'll have it right up here. It'll be right up here. You can go check it out.

It'll also be in the description. He is a budding, I don't even, I mean, I'd call you an influencer, but I know that you don't call yourself an influencer. You call yourself a caveman who learned how to read and write, I would say, because you also do some writing on the sub stack here.

It's not just you putting hieroglyphs on a wall. Although maybe you get more likes that way. I'm not sure.

Not an expert in it, but great to have you on the show. I probably would get more likes if I did that, but thank you very much. This is my first time showing up on a podcast talking about my opinions on things.

So just a forewarning to everyone. I do tend to talk a lot and I'm very animated when I talk. I hope I don't take up the whole conversation, but when I'm into something, you'll figure it out really quick.

Excellent. No, we love it. That's wonderful.

That's what we want here. We want a lively discussion for people who read books. We're also, we've decided recently to do an indie author uprising.

So if you're an independent author and you want to help get your books out there, we are working on a program for you to help share your book and get your book in front of the right audience who want to find more independent authors or new books to support. Because a lot of you have really great stories and we want to read them. Dostoevsky here is dead.

So we're reading his book. You know, respect. But you don't have to be dead for us to read your book.

That's true. That's true. Thank you for clarifying that for me, Slava.

You could arrange that probably if they want. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh, my family in Chicago is not to be mentioned.

Okay, what they do and don't do. We can't confirm or deny what they do, actually. That's correct.

Right. They may or may not get an ax from the neighbor's yard and go upstairs. Have you seen Joseph? Have you seen this copy of Crime and Punishment? I know you have an older one.

I picked up a newer one. It's got some really cool art on it. No, I don't.

I just have this one right here. It's plain Jane. But oh, man, that's awesome.

It's cool, right? Yeah, it accurately depicts the madness of someone's mind. Yeah. After they've done something wrong.

So it's great. I buy books like I buy wine. If you got a great cover, I'm probably going to buy it.

Even if I hate your book, China Mayville. Well, I discovered King, Dean Koons, and Michael Crichton. And I posted this on my Instagram account.

I discovered those three authors simply by going, that's an interesting cover. Let me read it. And this was me in middle school.

So I think I have a good excuse for going, huh, interesting. There's a surrogate. I like core stuff.

Let me read about a surrogate, Stephen King. And then that started my journey with Stephen King. So don't judge a book by its cover.

That was me, but with music and album covers. Oh, that looks sick. What's your favorite top couple albums based on their covers? Based on the covers.

Let's see. I know there's one of my favorite ones is, I think it's a death metal album from this band called Obituary. Oh, I know Obituary.

Yeah, so I think it's basically like, I forgot the name of the album. But I don't know, like Chopped in Half is like one of the songs on it. And it's just like, basically, the album cover looks like this really like macabre, like otherworldly, like gory place.

And I know, I think there was like, I think there's like an HP Lovecraft book. Or like a HP Lovecraft, like, you know, compilation book, where it's just like, it used that part as like, the cover of the book as well. So I'll put the link, but I don't know.

Cause of Death? Was it Cause of Death? Yes, that one. All right. Yeah.

I don't know if it's HP Lovecraft, or if it's like one of those like horror, like, like just like, there's like a series like horror novels that they just like use that particular album cover. They use that particular like illustration as like the book cover. And I was like, what's that? It'll get you.

I'm not gonna do two because like, I'm not gonna do two more yet. Cause like, then I'd have to like, really think about that. I would have gone with Blink-182, the cover with the nurse, and Emma of State.

Yeah. Because you picked it in high school. Cause you're like, she's, I'm going to use- Hello nurse.

Yeah. Oi mama. She's pretty.

A really plain one. Another, speaking of music, it's a plain album cover. It kind of actually sucks from a graphic design point of view.

But REM, the one with the yellow, yellow emblem on it. I think it's like just a field and then REM in a yellow box. When I was in the music store back in the nineties, when they had music stores and CDs, I was like, oh, that's interesting.

And that's how I discovered REM. Everybody judges books by their cover, I suppose. And sometimes they do.

And albums, yeah. I can't think of any. No.

No, okay. Chris, Chris, you got none. You're like, let me just- No, I don't really look at too much at album covers.

Like the first thing that popped in my head was the Moody Blues, Days of Future Past. But that's not because of the album, but it's a memorable cover, I guess. But it's not, not something I picked because of the album.

Days of Future Past. That's kind of cool looking. I don't even know how to describe it.

It's other than that, it's a day, night, 360 weird looking painting. Yeah, I'll pull it up here. Aside from that, it looks like a mixture of vomit on a page and something that's intentional.

Honestly, it looks like- Mixed together. Oh, what's the surreal artist? Salvador Dali, like vomited on a page. Yeah, I wouldn't even say it's like necessarily a good cover, but it was just memorable.

It was the first thing that popped in my head. It was him after a binge. It looks like an album from a side project of some famous psychedelic rock band.

Or if The Grateful Dead, if one of those guys did a side project where it was even more acid. They're just like, all right, let's try this. Some people have described them as prog rock, but musical genres don't make sense to me.

So I don't describe things that way. Which is funny because Chris is both a musician and an audio engineer. For those who don't know.

I'm just thinking of a song I was working on. I don't know how to describe this. And I asked other people and they said, oh, I'd call it, what do they say? Like new metal Euro punk fusion acid jazz.

Of course, because- Of course, sure. Why not? It's rock. Exactly.

Yeah. That's what I just thought of in my head. It's like, okay, it's rock, I guess.

Well, and that's what I was just about to ask. Where did we leave off in the last episode? And what did we want to cover in this episode? Well, Cedric Gallows was taking a trip to America. Oh, yeah.

He was about to get on a maiden voyage to the great beyond. One way ticket. That's what it feels like sometimes.

Yeah, that's for sure. Is this your first time reading it, Joseph? Yeah. Oh, okay.

First time I read it, I hated it. But I sent you that video. Yeah, I was like a human.

I was listening to it. I was like, what? How do you not understand? And then I was like, as I was listening more and more into like your reasoning for it. I was like, oh, that makes sense.

Oh, this guy's not just click baiting me. Yeah, I mean, I felt the same way with, like I said, like 1984. I was like, I think I, yeah, like I shared earlier when I read it.

And then I got to the ending. Like all my thematic rage just started like spilling out. I was like, what the fuck is this shit? You know, so yeah.

So it's like 1984. It's one of those books where it's just like, I think it's a great book. But I absolutely hate the story.

Welcome to how I feel about crime and punishment. The most memorable thing about 1984, I remember it was the middle two chapters. When he's reading the journal, I remember I just skipped those because I was in high school.

I was like, I skipped two chapters. I read 1984 in Barnes and Noble. And again, it was one of those things where somebody told me, hey, you know, 1984 is kind of an interesting book.

And back then in the early 90s, I would go to Barnes and Noble, drink coffee and read books and sometimes buy them. But I ended up buying it. But I got to like the middle of the book or just past the middle of the book, just sitting there drinking Starbucks and reading 1984.

And I found it the opposite of what you did, Joseph. But I found it captivating because I, unlike you, am not a normal person. And I like darker stories and where the bad guy wins.

And, you know, I root for Magneto in all the X-Men movies. I root for Loki. I'm just, I just like... He's broken.

They have to be compelling bad guys. They can't be two-dimensional bad guys for bad guys' sakes. But if it's a well-rounded, dark character, I'll root for you.

Not necessarily in life that I believe that they're right or their way of doing things are the correct way. But in world, in story, when I'm immersed in it, I just like them more than the good guys sometimes. And I don't know, you know, that's a fault of the writer or something not right up here.

But I like me some bad guys. I'm going to tell you it's the second one. Oh, thanks.

Having known you for a while. 20 years. Well, okay.

So getting us back into the Crime and Punishment book and I don't know who the hero is, who the bad guy is, who we're rooting for. Sonya's the hero. Sonya's the hero.

Pretty much. But I think where we had left off the last episode, we were talking about Spidley Golov and him coming to... He had a plan to come to America. And then, so he's the character that committed suicide.

That's correct. Going to America. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Spidley Golov convinces Raskolnikov to hold off for a while, not to confess. So he convinces him not to confess. And, you know, a little while later, if you pay this later, he blows his brains out.

And upon hearing that, because Raskolnikov takes him, not his word, but takes his advice for what it's worth and doesn't confess. Then he hears Spidley Golov's suicide, about $3 of suicide. And that forces him to go to the cop's shop.

Like, let's unpack that. What do you guys think? Was that the order of events? Is it? I thought he had already decided to go there. And it's while he's there, he overhears that he shot himself.

And he was in the process of leaving. Yeah, he leaves, yes, I messed up. And then he's like, you know, nope.

Yes, I totally messed up. You're absolutely right, Chris. So he decides to walk out because that shocks him, the suicide shocks him.

But then he sees Sonya across the street or on the street there. And that pushes him to turn back inside the cop station and confess. That's what happened.

So let's talk about that. What I said only wrong, what Chris said. Let's talk about what Chris said.

What do you guys think about the suicide and then Sonya? And it's kind of an obvious answer, I think. But it's still worth talking about that forces him to finally make the decision to confess. Well, I think that Sonya's play part in that is somewhat obvious.

And what I'm more confused about is how Svidrigailov's suicide, well, how that affected him, because it doesn't really go into that. Other than that, it shocked him. It was like, oh, did you know him? Oh, my sister, you know, was governess for his family.

He was only here a few days. I saw him yesterday and he was getting drunk. And I had no idea he was going to do that.

Yeah, I think part of it, the shock to the system. It's not, you know, from point A to point B to point C kind of thing. I think him, meaning Raskolnikov, having this similarity to Svidrigailov.

They both do what they will is right, you know, in their own different ways. And so I think it was just another thing that, again, shocked of the system. Another thing that jolted Raskolnikov, because this guy who repulses him, but he also deep down inside knows that they're the same.

They kind of exert their will on people in the same manner. And he's just killed himself. And so that I don't think Raskolnikov was even contemplating, you know, how to word this.

I don't think Raskolnikov was in shock because, oh gosh, he's committed suicide. I don't know what to do with myself. I'm going to run.

It wasn't like an impulsive thing. I think he was, again, wrestling with Svidrigailov's end, right? And he wasn't thinking clearly. But then when he sees Sonia, he's like, no, I have to do the right thing.

Not that he was thinking about doing the same thing as Svidrigailov. But when he's confronted with Sonia's face, he goes back. No, I will.

Maybe this wasn't exactly what he was thinking. But like for Dostoevsky's head, he goes back inside and says, no, I will have a different end than Svidrigailov. I will not choose nihilism and materialism and selfishness and all that.

It comes with Svidrigailov's worldview. I will do the right thing. So I think it was just there's tension within him.

And Svidrigailov really stressed that him and Raskolnikov were very similar, right? And so maybe he saw those similarities. But like, I'm going to write a different script here in the end than the one that Svidrigailov wrote with his life. That's what I was trying to say poorly.

But yeah, exactly that. Okay. I was just going to say, like, I think... One of my friends, Megha Lee White, she wrote this essay recently on... She kind of compared crime and punishment to the Odyssey.

She compared the two characters, Odysseus and Raskolnikov, in terms of what they were... One of the things that kind of made them similar is actually, oddly enough, the pursuit of heroism. Because if you hear about how Raskolnikov talks about who he wanted to be, he just wanted to dare, right? He wanted to be like the greats, like the Napoleons, like the people that kind of enforce their will to do great things. There's actually like a sense... There's actually a desire, a heroism in there, right? But then the guilty conscience kind of proves that he doesn't have the capacity.

In his mind, what he thinks is like, I don't have what it takes in me to be great. I don't have what it takes in me to be like... I don't know if he uses... I don't know if Dostoevsky used this term, because I'm bad with timelines, but the Ubermensch, he wanted to be like the Ubermensch. But he just couldn't do it.

He couldn't hack it, right? Oh, he hacked it. So what he... So I guess that scene in particular, right? He hacked it, all right? That's him hacking it. Sorry.

That particular scene with Raskolnikov, I didn't really think too much about the shock of Svidrigailov's suicide. But I thought that when he... Because there was so much going on at the station, and he just decides, you know what? I'm cool. I got nothing to report.

So he walks out, and then he sees Sonya's face. And I think... I'll definitely talk about this a lot more in the end, but I think what Sonya represents to him in many ways is just that perfect, unconditional love, but also the ideal. And I think, especially for all of us here, hopefully, who have felt the touch of a woman, right? It's the idea of wanting to be the hero for the sake of someone else.

Hero for beauty. Yeah, I talked about this a little bit, not as eloquently in the last episode, where I asked the question, does anyone else see a... How do I put this, guys? Does anyone else see a connection when Sonya is reading the story of Lazarus as her, like as a maid Marian to... Mary Magdalene? Mary Magdalene. Yeah, not Robin Hood.

Thank you. That's good. I read the Bible.

You sure about that? And Robin Hood. I don't. And he knows more than you.

It's apparently true. Who's Jewish here, you or me? Don't answer that question. Mary Magdalene, who was delivered from demons and was a disciple of Jesus, and then going and doing the same for Raskolnikov.

And so that beauty, that unconditional love, that release from himself, basically, the redemption, like her being Christ unto him, who is a murderer. There's a connection that I saw there. And I like what your friend is making the contrast here, because I might have liked Crime and Punishment more had she talked to me beforehand, instead of Chris talking to me beforehand about Crime and Punishment and giving me a connection of Odysseus, rather than this absolute dweeb bag who can't hold himself together.

Well, it's interesting, because I didn't say much of anything, just that I really liked it and that you should read it. But if we want to speak about dweeb bags and a different direction rather than Odysseus, when I was reading the book, what jumped out to me after finishing it was that on a superficial level, there's a lot in common with this and Catcher in the Rye. But it's also not just on a superficial level, but on the superficial level, there's a different things about, you know, him being expelled or expelled from high school versus drop out from university.

Even him, them both like seeking some kind of solitude or redemption from fallen women in different ways. Obviously, they get different outcomes. And that with, I forgot the character's name.

I haven't read it since high school, Holden Caulfield. He finds his redemption moment of innocence and beauty from his sister on the carousel at the end, crying on a bench. But also in Crime and Punishment, he's with Sonia on a bench crying in the epilogue.

And that's how that ends. But going further from just, you know, that superficial level, they kind of have, I guess they have a commentary about isolation and alienation of a person in the wider culture with Raskolnikov in St. Petersburg and Holden Caulfield in New York. And obviously, they're like almost an entire century apart in their setting and the entire opposite ends of the world.

But that struck me as on a really basic level. That's what jumped out to me. So you think Catcher in the Rye, correct me if I'm wrong, because that was the connection I was trying to make, is like, did one of them take it from the other one? It's like, hey, an homage or something like that.

Yeah, July 16, 1951. Salinger only wrote like two or three books and never did anything else in terms of writing that I'm aware of. Yeah, Catcher in the Rye came out in 1951.

That jumped out as me. I think Crime and Punishment is the far superior book. But the similarities jumped out at me because I had read Catcher in the Rye before.

I hated Catcher in the Rye, at least the character. I was just like, gosh, what a dweeb. Well, that's what made me think it was Josh was saying this dweeb.

You can call me Josh. Jonathan said this dweeb. It's OK.

I call all of the people at work by the wrong name. So I'm sorry. When you've known someone for so long, you just go, hey, you use things that I won't say on here, but endearingly, because you're just like... I still don't know if the security guard's name is Aaron or Adam, and I hate it.

I hate that I don't know. And it's too long. I don't want to ask.

It's been five years. I'm not going to ask him now. I hate that when you have a wrong name in your head for somebody and you know it's wrong, and then you're like, oh, wait a minute.

Is it Adam or Aaron? One is I know is wrong. I actually going back on names, this has been a recurring thing with this book. The ending of this book, he confesses to Ilya Petrovich.

And when the first time five years ago, when I was going through this book, I thought he was confessing to Porfiry Petrovich. Or Porfiry, sorry, Porfiry Petrovich. And his reaction confused me.

And that's why I several times said I thought Raskolnikov hallucinated half of the book the first time I read it, because I just got confused by all the Russian names. Yeah, the names were... And the nicknames. Yeah, yeah.

The formal names, the nicknames, the names that they just call each other for fun. I don't know. It's a wild ride in Russia.

The grammar is insane. The names are insane. There's no articles in the Russian language.

So if to say the noun changes suffixes when you're doing something to it, when there's an action being done to a noun, let's say dog, like the way you pet the dog, give the dog a bone, look at the dog, see the dog run, they'll have different suffixes. So welcome to Russia. From Russia with love.

Yeah. One funny name story. I worked for a trade association a while back and there were two women.

One of them was the secretary or the receptionist. And one of them was a colleague that worked in the adjacent department. I now forgotten their names.

I'm going to give them fake names. One was Christine and one was Julia for the sake of this story. I called Julia Christine and Christine Julia for so long that they started answering to the other name.

And I will tell you that they did not look alike. They were about 20 years age difference. One was black, one was white, one was a little bit heavier, one was a little bit not heavier.

They had nothing in common at all. Except for that they were both women. Well, whatever.

That has nothing to do with the story. They had nothing in common to make me and my brain go, oh, she reminds me of this or they have similarities here or they work in the same department or they look alike or anything. Nothing, nothing about them was similar at all.

Not even mannerisms. And for the life of me, I would call them by the wrong fricking name. And after a while, if I said Julia, Christine would be like, what's up, man? Like, I, damn it, you know, and I would even know when it was coming out of my mouth that I couldn't get it out of my head not to call these women by the wrong name.

Anyway, I digress. And that relates to crime and punishment. Yeah.

Well, it relates to you guys not being able to understand Russian names, I guess somehow in a very tenuous way. It's English names that Slava has an issue with. Slava, thank you for that confession over getting names wrong.

We all learned to love it. Everybody laughed about it after three years of that. Good, good.

Well, a much heavier confession would be that of Raskolnikov. So let's get into that. So before we do, I've picked up my notes, which would have made it better for me to sound more articulate when I was saying this.

So like, when he recoils upon hearing about the suicide of Shigartal Govs, he, in that moment, he is rejecting, like suffering and rejecting redemption. Then upon seeing Sonia again, that to Jonathan's point about her being that object of true love, perfect love or sacrificial love, he realizes that he cannot go the way of Shigartal Govs or he will end up like him. And that's what forces him to go back and confess.

And how does he say it? He comes in and he just declares it. I think it's something like, I killed old pawnbroker and her sister with an ax and I robbed them. So there's no, how do I say, there's no passion in it.

It's not dramatic. He just walks in and declares, here's what I've done, killed two women and stole their stuff. I declare bankruptcy.

Who all, like before this moment, who all really knew about him murdering? Because Fiddley Geilof knew about it because he had overheard him confessing to Sonia. Profiri knew it. But did he know it or did he just have his suspicions? His, I don't know his exact words, but it was that he knew it, but couldn't prove it because the evidence fits the guy that also confessed earlier.

The other painter. Which is also very interesting to me like and believable that the actual person that committed the crime and is confessing also kind of has to prove, no, this is, I am the one that did it, not this other guy that you have. Profiri was telling him to do that, is that like one way it would lessen his sentence and also like you would also clear up this matter of the other guy that wrongfully confessed to something he didn't do.

Yeah, well, I just, I wanted to ask who all knew because I was just thinking about like his mindset also may be that he could get away with this. Like the people that know, like this guy just killed himself, he knew and they have somebody in custody and like, but he really can't escape reality. Like there are repercussions.

There's further repercussions of the act that he did. I think after Svidigailov went to America, I think it's just the three women, well, I don't think his mother knew, so maybe just the two women, his sister and Sonia, I think were the only two. Yeah, yeah, his sister Sonia and then, you know, our traveler Svidigailov.

Random tip, but like, you know, when you were talking about like, like him getting away with it, but then there'd be the repercussions. I think that was the, that was the thing that was really interesting to me was like, there were just so many opportunities for him to just get away with it, right? Whether it was like the confession of like the painter or like, I remember, I think after, I remember that one time, I think when I was reading, it was right after the murder and then he sees the cop, like one of the cops or one of the guys working at the police station and then he just confesses to him, but like he says it in such a way that's like sarcastic or jokingly or like maybe he was drunk or something, but he just straight out says it's like, it was me who killed like the old lady, right? It was me. And it was just so funny where it was like, it was so interesting where it's just like, no matter what he did, even early on, he's just like, I had to tell someone and it wasn't even a matter of glee as much as it was a matter of catharsis.

He's like, someone has to know, like even if they think I'm either crazy or just unwell or if like there's alcohol involved, like someone just has to know. And I think like the internal turmoil was just so much that like he was never, no matter what happened, like he was just never gonna escape the turmoil that came with what he had done. So I don't think he was ever gonna get away with it.

And especially because like it was kind of, in a way there was kind of a meaninglessness in the terms of like who he killed. Maybe it's because like it's in St. Petersburg, like this massive city where there's just like so many people dying left and right. Or there's just like, you know, there's so many like transients that like it's not as if it's like a well-knit community, like a tight-knit community where like deaths were just like so impactful because of like the impact they had on their neighbors and like their larger community.

But it says it's a city like St. Petersburg. It's just like, well, everyone dies here all the time, right? But it was also because of like who she was. She was like a money lender and she wasn't particularly popular, right? So like that's also another reason why like he could have gotten away with it because like to his logic and in many ways because of like the tyrannical, overbearing ambiguity and anonymity of the nature of the city, he really did kill technically like no one.

They were just nobodies at the end of the day. So like he could have gotten away with it but like he couldn't even handle the internal turmoil himself. Well, I was wondering the internal turmoil.

I feel like there are a lot of things probably playing that but the two biggest things that come to my mind was his Christian upbringing, which he's in as growing up, he just has distance or fallen away from. But the other I think is his isolation because like he's all alone and he's just done this great thing. I mean, I'm thinking once again, just both in daily life, but also back in during COVID lockdowns, we're all alone.

You do something, you want to tell your friends about it. And so there's this guy who's alone doesn't have much interaction with other people. He's just done something.

He can't just like outright confess because then he'd go to prison, but yet he still needs to tell somebody about it. So there's still this like I would, I think that that was also probably an aspect of why he couldn't just slip away silently with the money he had stolen. He confesses not because he has been caught legally.

We already discussed that Perferi admits he has no material evidence, only psychology. But because of the isolation that he already was in and the further isolation he feels after the murder because it doesn't give him anything. Nothing comes of it.

Like the Ubermensch did this thing and it turns out meaningless. And then he even killed an innocent bystander. You know, like we talked about the last episode where he killed the old crow, but then he feels more pity for the sister that he killed.

And after the murder, like he can no longer bear the terrible unbridgeable chasm. I think it's, I might be paraphrasing. That's between him and others.

So he is further cut off from humanity. He had this materialistic, nihilistic, secular view of things which already placed him outside of humanity and to say, if he's mine at least. And now he has committed this murder, two murders.

It further isolates him from humanity. He sees the failure of his theory. He's not a great man or Napoleon.

He's a louse. And he steps over moral law and everything begins to crumble. And then finally, you know, he finds Sonia and he finds what he thinks is love.

And it really is. We find that out in the epilogue. And so instead of going the road of Svidrigalov, he decides to choose suffering and repentance and ultimately atonement the right way.

So let's talk about this for a second. What is it about being human to pull up something that Chris said about COVID and like, hey, something happens, you want to share it with someone. What do you guys think is this innate desire that we have to share something? Like let's pick this apart both in terms of Raskolnikov and, you know, I think COVID's a fine time to talk about isolation.

From a Christian perspective, we're going to speak from a Christian theological perspective. We are created in the image of God and we're created in an image of a triune God who's in perfect fellowship within the Godhead. So I think those things are imprinted upon us and the reason we seek community and friendships and even, you know, the, you mentioned the touch of a woman, Joseph, even sexual romantic connections and friendships and brotherhood, sisterhood, all that stuff, that is the consequence, for lack of a better term, of being a creation that has will, intellect, sentience, being a creation of a triune God.

That's the theological, is the dry theological, you know, explanation, if you will. We can extrapolate from that what we will as five guys on the internet. So, because it's more, I mean, that's kind of like maybe the tip of the pyramid, but once you get psychology involved in science, you know, culture, all that stuff, you know, that lives there too and all those things are true.

They're not, that doesn't just like erase everything, you know, that's subservient to it. Oh, and to kind of add onto what Slavo was saying too, because of like, you know, on a Christian perspective too, right, like because God is like three persons in one, it kind of means that like the, it kind of feels like the upper echelon of existence or like, you know, like the perfect example of like what existence should be is like actually like relationship, like, you know, something like, you know, God in relationship with one another. And so because of that, it feels like human beings, if we are called to be an image and likeness of God, we are also called to be in relationship to one another.

And then also because of like, because Driscoll-Nicot kind of like overpasses like the moral law. I think I actually read this from a book from like a Catholic Bishop, Bishop Robert Barron, where the root of the word Satan is actually like, he, like, you know, like the, he who rends us under, right? It's like the nature of evil is that which separates, right? Whereas like the nature of love is that which brings together, like, you know, families, when they're, when they love each other, they come together, they feel close in the communities. And when they love each other, because of like some like shared bond of kinship, they come together and they're like, they feel close.

Whereas like when you feel, when you do wrong against someone, whether it was a personal or like, you know, on a larger scale, what you end up doing is like you separate yourself from everyone. So like, you know, going back to the idea of like wanting to share something, it's because I feel like, you know, when you're in community, when you're in relationship with anyone, whether it's like friendships, families, like, like romantic love, like what you're really doing is like, you're trying to see like, you want, you want to be able to like extend a piece yourself to someone so that they can also extend a piece of themselves to you. And so from there, you kind of create that like bond of kinship with one another.

And there you're like kind of brought closer together. And so, yeah, it's like, that's kind of like, you know, when it comes to like sharing secrets, like you feel closer to someone because you're sharing a secret. When you're sharing, I think there was something that Jordan Peterson said about like, you know, if you want to know who your friends are, or like, yeah, if you want to know who your friends are, like who your real friends are, share good news with them, right? And if they respond well, if they tell you, oh, like they congratulate you, they're happy for you, then they're your friends.

But if they're the kind of person that kind of like either dismisses it or goes like, man, that must be nice. Like, why don't I, you know, get to be in a podcast with like four other dudes and talk about like, you know, my favorite stuff, right? Like that's like that air of resentment, that air of, yeah, it's not even jealousy. It's just envy at that point, right? That kind of goes to show that like that person, he doesn't want to receive the joy that you feel.

He wants to, he kind of spites you for the joy that you feel. So, you know, so I think that's kind of like, you know, going back, like, because of that's what, like that's what true friendship is. Someone that's like happy for your happiness.

Yeah, I think that's kind of like the larger reason as to why we want to share things with each other, even if it's like, and especially like sins too. It's just like, you want someone to be able to kind of like help you carry that burden on like a, you know, on a personal level. And then, yeah, so that's kind of what I was thinking about when you kind of asked that question.

Like, why is it important to share something? So I wanna, I think I've drilled this down before in actually crime and punishment for the audience. Sometimes when you do these episodes week to week, you can forget things that you've spoken about in detail. So it kind of meshes together.

But the point that I wanted to make was, I know that we all have heard people say, I hate small talk, right? And okay, bet. But I challenged that with the fact that like, we all kind of went insane a little bit during COVID when we weren't allowed to see people because we weren't allowed to go to our barista and be like, hey, how's the weather? Okay, so like, I agree with this idea of like connection, theologically, also psychologically. And like, as humans, we need, we have a bid for connection that we need, even if you're an introvert.

And I do air quotes because I have other opinions that I won't get into for this specific book. But you have a bid for connection that you want to make. And you just need a body to receive it.

You need someone there and the barista will do. And that's okay. So like, I don't like small talk.

Yeah, because you're made for more connection. You're made for a deeper connection. And you don't get the fulfillment from small talk that you get from a deeper connection.

But the only way you get a deeper connection is because you've gone through doing small talk. All of you have talked to me in depth. Even Joseph and I spoke recently.

And it's not necessarily at the capacity that I've talked to Slava, who I've known for 20 years. But we got past the small talk and we said, hey, you know what's going on? Like your stuff, blah, blah, blah. And we said, hey, let's have a deeper conversation.

The only way you get to have deep connections and have the fulfillment when you make a bid for connection, whether that's a confession, a secret, or simply like, hey, let's talk about the local sports team that we both like, is to push through the small talk. And we all got isolated in 2020 through 2024-ish, 2023, whatever. So your nonsense, I'm here to call all of you out.

You don't like small talk. Sure, nope, nobody does. But you know what? It's only through small talk that you get to have real connection and feel known.

And to be human is to feel known. And if you don't feel known, then you haven't done the work to show up emotionally and share with someone. And it doesn't mean it's not scary.

It doesn't mean that it's not hard. It doesn't mean that they're not gonna hurt you sometimes. Can I tell you how many times Slava and I bitch at each other about stuff? He's laughing because it's true.

It happens 16, 17 times a day. Sorry, Josh, you have to watch. I was gonna say, I see it all the time on WhatsApp.

Have you complained to him about quotation marks in radios though? No, not yet, not yet. This too, but this is the thing. This is about relationship, guys.

Like the only way that you get to be known, and I'm going off the rails here, so like Josh, you can sharpen me back in a minute, is you have to make yourself emotionally vulnerable and available to the people in front of you to do that. So I don't like small talk. And it just pisses me off if you can't tell that people say that.

And here's the thing. I've also said that when I was younger and stupid. Do you think that I just called you stupid? I did.

I'm sorry. But sometimes we are stupid. Raskolnikov is an idiot, okay? Just, that's what it is.

All right, then back to the show. Not the idiot, just an idiot. That's right, yeah.

Because at some point, all of us have to be idiots so that we can grow. Chris gets it. Okay, someone sharpen me.

Well, yeah, and so in order to get past the small talk, you have to confront, like, you don't know what you're talking about on a given topic or whatever. So you need to stumble through that in order to have that deeper conversation that actually have a conversation with meat, really. And I need people to say, hey, Jonathan, stop being a f***ing moron.

I say it 16 or 17 times a day. You say it doesn't matter. I don't have to listen to you.

No, but I think what you're saying is right. Because everybody hates small talk. I hate small talk.

It's a cultural thing in America where it becomes so trite and banal that people are like, just stop. It becomes like the pendulum swings. But the people you're ranting against, Jonathan, and I agree with you, the pendulum starts to swing the other way.

But nobody does anything really about it. But I'll end that there. But what I want to agree with, to dovetail what you said about a barista.

There's a barista at the office. There's a Starbucks next to the office. And she knows me because I get an espresso every day.

Every day at 2.30, I come by with my buddy, Ed, and we buy an espresso. And over the last year, we've gotten to know her. Her name is Maddie.

And Maddie's 19 years old. We're both grown ass men. So we're not going to be best friends.

But she's a human being that's friendly, that loves her customers, that knows what we want. She sees us. She's already preparing the espressos for us.

Her mom works in the office too. In our office, not in the Starbucks office. So there's this connection where there's these regular customers that come and talk to Maddie.

She tells us about her school. And she tells us about what she's reading and talks about her mom. And her mom is visiting.

And hey, if you stay for five minutes, you can meet my mom. And it's just simple talk with a young person. And it's totally fine.

I look forward to getting espresso because I know Maddie will be there. And she's a pleasant person. And sometimes I think all you have time for is small talk.

Okay, I really don't need to get into this depressive breakdown that you had over the weekend. I just want to hear like, oh yeah, weekend was okay. I don't know.

I just didn't really do anything. Yeah. So yeah.

I think it's people say things. They make declarations. And sometimes they're hyperbolic.

Sometimes they're overdramatic, which could be the same thing, I guess. But they say things like, I hate small talk, but there's nothing behind it. Like, okay, and what? That itself is small talk.

Can I, can I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna dive back in here real quick. Oh no, Chris, go for it. I can close the lid on small talk if you're gonna branch off small talk, Jonathan.

I'm not. I'm gonna stick, I'm gonna put my whole hand back in the cookie jar. Okay, if you're staying on small talk, then great.

I'll put my thing in and you can jump in. Well, it was funny because I, when I was at work, even actually just earlier today, talking with one of my co-workers, and we're just engaging with random small talk. And I was thinking, man, I'm doing small talk.

I hate small talk as I'm engaged in it. But through that, ended up opening the door into like, oh, what are we doing this weekend? And I'm talking about this, the fact that I'm on this podcast with all of you lovely gentlemen and how I'm gonna be doing some writing out, notating some bass guitar and rhythm guitar parts later. And how that got him talking about music, learned about the fact that his son also plays the trombone, which is an instrument that I play.

And that, you know, he's gonna be graduating middle school and, you know, but he also plays football. And so he's not gonna be able to build part of all that. And I got to learn all this other, you know, little things about his family.

Just from starting off with, hey, how's the weather? Just from small talk. Weird, weird how that works. Weird how that works.

I'm gonna put my whole hand back in the cookie jar because it happens to be a gateway, right? Small talk is a gateway to deeper connections. How do we know that? So I will meet people at parties. I'm an extrovert.

I'm like, if you're a big fan of the big five personality test, I am in the 96th percentile, which means for those who aren't familiar with this, that if I was in a room with a hundred people, there are only four people who are more extroverted and assertive than I am. Do with that what you will. Anyway, so people say, oh, well, I don't like small talk.

And then I go, oh, okay. And then I will insert a deep question, whether it's like, hey, what do you love about yourself? Hey, when's the last time you cried? Blah, blah, blah. Like I will ask a question like, okay, you don't want to talk about, you don't want to talk about small talk? Great, neither do I. Let's talk about your deepest fears.

What are you really scared of? And they go, I'm gonna go get some punch. And they leave. And they leave.

Why do they leave? Because you absolutely don't want to tell a random stranger that you met at a party, the deepest parts of your soul. Because small talk is a gateway to having relationship. Says Dr. Razumikin.

Jonathan Razumikin. You are the Razumikin. I feel like, I feel like if there's anyone that you can relate to Jonathan, it would be Razumikin.

Because it's just like, he's got that like, he's got that optimism and that just like intense, like desire for like. I'm not intense. You know, love and like intense desire for like, you know, I feel like he's just so in touch with like the humanity, his humanity.

And it's just like, you know, he tries to bring that out. Everyone, especially Raskolnikov. It's just like, it almost feels like it's like a challenge for him.

That's like, he's like, you know, readily accept. He's like, this is like the most like sour puss curmudgeon ever. I am going to like, I'm going to love him.

I can fix him. The brother I was supposed to. Yeah.

I'm going to get the doctor that lives in the same building as me involved to help make sure he gets nursed back to health. He's just, he does so much stuff. He just goes completely over the moon to just help him with everything.

And yeah, where he, I think in one of the other chapters, like he admits to, I think Dunia that he lied about being bad at something just so he could pass off work to his friend. So his friend would have something to do and make money. Yeah.

Well, real quick too, about like, I think kind of like talking about, like going back to like small talk and like sharing and just like whole like crime and punishment, like the whole story about it is just like, I think when people do say like, you know, I hate small talk. Cause I, I, I'm gonna, I actually love small talk. And, you know, cause it is a gateway to like getting people to like talk more.

Right. But I think the reason people do say it is because like they, what it really boils down to is just like, I want to be seen, but I want you to make the effort as opposed to me. They're mostly lazy.

It's just like, and it's just like, look, man, like I am willing to hear you out as well. And I'm willing to like, you don't get to know you. And I'm willing to, you know, yeah.

Tell me about, okay. Maybe don't tell me about your trauma. Cause it's just like, not like, but you know what I'm saying? It's just like, I want to hear more about you.

Sure. But it's like, if it's going to be a sounding board, dude, oh man, I haven't experienced about this, like this week, but if I want to hear about you, it's just like, I also have this like innate expectation that you also want to know something about me as well. And it's just like, is this a connection or is this just you trying to kind of imprint yourself in my life without me meaning anything in yours? And I think that's kind of the people who, like when they say I hate small talk, it's just like, that's kind of what it comes off as.

It's just like, you don't want to know anything about me. You just want to talk about you, which is great. I'm ready to talk about you.

But it's just like somewhere down the line, like if I'm not going to be able to talk about myself to you about my problems, and yet, like I said earlier about, like when you share good news with people, like how do they respond? Then all it boils down to is like, there is this innate desire in you to want to be seen. But at the same time, it's just like, there's this like solipsistic tendency to not care about the lives of others. And it's just like, I think that's wrong.

And I think that's what like small talk also is a good gauge of, it's like seeing it's like, do you, will you also listen to my, you know, will you, I will hear about like your, you know, like what your plans are for the weekend, but will you hear about mine? And I think that's, that goes into something deeper than just what your plans are for the weekend. Do you guys want to know a little secret that I use through my day-to-day life? What you got? It's on this exact thought process, which is, I will measure the state of a relationship with a person based on how many questions they ask me. Questions reveal that they want to know something about you, to your point, Joseph, right? And if the other person's not asking questions and the thing is I'll leave, I'll leave space.

I'll like ask a question, they'll answer whatever. But if they're not asking questions in return, they don't want a relationship. They want someone to be their therapist, which is okay.

I've told at least Chris this, I think I've said this to the other two guys as well, is I believe that the therapy industry would be much smaller, smaller, much smaller, if everyone had five good friends, just five good friends. And a good friend would be kind of what you described, where it's like a reciprocity that's going on, where it's like, hey, Joseph, what are you going through right now? And you go, man, you know, my mom, this, that, and the other. And like my sister, da, da, da.

And like, I broke up with my girlfriend and you know, and I go, oh man, that's really tough. And then the next time we get a beer, you go, hey, didn't your mom have heart surgery? And didn't this, that, and the other? And then like, there's a reciprocity there, right? But most people, to your point, Joseph, just want to talk about themselves. And it's funny because they don't want to talk about small talk, but they do want to talk about themselves.

And there's like this tension or, confusion's not the right word, juxtaposition of the insanity of humanity that is like, well, I don't want to do this thing, but I absolutely want to talk about me. Chris, why are you smiling? I'm smiling because I'm the opposite of where I want, I don't want to talk about me. I want other people to talk about themselves.

They're all good people here on this podcast. I was going to say it's everybody's favorite subject to talk about themselves. Yeah.

I love talking about myself. I'll admit it. It's cathartic.

It's nice. It's fun. It's enjoyable.

It's, especially when you're doing it from a healthy place of wanting to have connection with someone. Joseph, you quoted Peterson earlier, Jordan Peterson. He says, if people aren't listening to you, talk less.

Oh, yeah. I've done just that, which is why I measure the state of a relationship with people based on how many questions they will ask me. So what questions do we have for Jonathan? It's not what I'm doing here, but okay.

How is your heart? Hmm. Spicy. I married a Latin woman.

What's your favorite spicy pepper? Chipotle has a really great chimichurri right now. And I don't know what's in it, but it's delicious. I don't think chimichurri is supposed to be spicy.

All right. Well, it's delicious. You just answered with the restaurant.

Is that what you just did? Yeah. Like the whitest restaurant in the world. She hates it.

I think it's great. But Chipotle, fix your pepper problem. I show up and you got no peppers.

I've had Carolina Reaper flakes this week because my boss brought in Carolina Reaper flakes. I put them on a rice and chicken dish. It was spicy.

It was spicy. Clear the sinuses. I bet.

What were those tiny, tiny little peppers that we put in that one lamb chili we made like 12 years ago? Piri Piri peppers. What? Piri Piri chicken. Piri Piri lamb.

All right. Yeah, they have them in Portugal. It's delicious.

It's Portuguese food, cuisine. Does that tend to be spicy? No, but I think that they might have invented Piri Piri chicken. I'm not really sure.

It was good though. Highly recommend everyone visit Portugal. Big fan.

The Portuguese Travel Association is not a sponsor. Well, gentlemen, should we move on to the epilogue? I think we've extrapolated all we can from the confession. My confessions.

My hot takes. Also, please feel free to have hot takes as well, other gentlemen on the show. It doesn't need to just be me, but I will go off.

I think I hit my quota last week on spicy. I'm not upset, Chris. I'm just disappointed.

Maybe that's what the police should have told Roscona Coffee. We're not mad. I'm not mad.

I'm just disappointed. I mean, we never meet his father. That's what Porfiry kind of sounded like when he spoke with him in his room.

Yeah, so he receives a relatively lenient sentence for hacking two women to death. What was his sentence? Remind us. I think it was like nine months.

Nine months. Eight years. Or nine years.

Okay. I remember nine. I was like, I thought it was nine months.

I was like, man, four hours of community service. Russia was very lenient before the Civil War, them things. Russia had a lot of people, you know.

We could lose one or two. It was just the pawnbroker. So his good deeds are revealed at the trial or whatever, that he spent his last money caring for... A man who got crushed by a carriage.

Yeah, and somebody else. There was somebody else. He saved some people from a fire.

Oh, I don't remember that one. Yeah. Yeah, rescue two.

Yeah, two children from a burning house. That's gonna get you points, dude. He saved some kids, helped some people with some money.

Did he ever fully admit to his act being morally wrong? Because it seemed like there was this slow... If he does, it's a very slow process where he's like, well, killing the sister is really what he's remorseful of. Yeah. Yeah, does he ever really... In public? In public or internally? I guess more so the internally.

See, I don't think he ever explicitly says what I did was immoral or what I did was a sin. When he first talks about it, and I think it's all in his head, this is an internal monologue. When he first talks about it, he calls it that he killed an idea or something like that.

So when talking about the old crow, and he's really broken up about the murder of the sister, the Zaveta, but explicitly stated by Raskolnikov in world, what I did was wrong. I don't think it's ever explicitly stated because he confesses, and maybe this is a cultural thing, maybe it's a space thing because this was serialized, but Dostoevsky never puts those words in his mouth where like, I am, forgive me, father, for I have sinned or whatever. He doesn't ever makes that kind of confession of sin or immorality.

He just realizes what he did was wrong and his theory is baseless. I don't get that degree of contrition until you really have that, until Raskolnikov gets transformed by love. I don't think you would get that contrition until you kind of experience and actually embrace love first.

So I think that my idea of it would be like, he probably doesn't get that until after the epilogue, but then at the same time though, he'll have like eight more years to kind of contemplate. I pulled up some notes here and crucially with the sources that I looked at, talked about or didn't talk about, maybe I should put it that way, is they don't mention him actually repenting. Like I read some Orthodox writings, I read some Catholic writings, I read some, you know, like Cliff Notes, Spark Notes type of assessments of people's blogs.

None of them actually mention the fact that, here's the part where he makes a turn, like a complete, to use your word, contrition. He doesn't repent in the sense that we would understand the word repent here. He feels, I think he feels ashamed maybe, like about what he did, but ashamed not in the sense of like a great, you know, immorality was committed by me, but like I did something bad maybe or wrong.

I followed the wrong worldview. I participated in things that I shouldn't have, but it wasn't like on any S tier moral, you know, contrition for lack of a better term. I guess to pair it back to something you'd said in an earlier chapter that you're getting about when he was first, you know, going on his ranting confession first with Sonia and tying it in with the end, is that it does seem that he is feeling the initial remorse in the fact of that, not even that his theory was wrong, but that he does not meet the great man in his definition of his theory.

And that, you know, that then starts the cascade of possibly realizing that he did do this wrong thing. Because at the very end, it, he starts thinking about, I was like, well, if my worldview is wrong, he says, can't it in reference to Sonia's, like, can her beliefs become mine? I don't think the exact words is, can her convictions not be my own or something like that. And that being that being, and then it's her love for him that he starts like, okay, can maybe I can actually change is where that seems to where it starts.

So it's like, I don't think we get the repentance, that's where that first hint of the possibility of that happening is right. Like the one very last paragraph. Um, I will say too, like, I feel like this sounds, I don't know, maybe I'm like reading into this too much, but like, I feel like what he is grappling with throughout the book is the guilt, right? And the reason he hates.

Yeah, the reason, like, it's like, you know, he knows like he, or like he, he knows in his heart of hearts, or he knows it in his soul that it's wrong. But I think, but I think the struggle, like the whole great man, like conversation, I think it's because I think the reason, like he'd experiences like the self-loathing in this madness is because like, in his mind, he's not supposed to experience that. To him, he's not supposed to feel guilty.

He's not supposed to feel remorse. He's not supposed to feel apprehension. Yeah, he does.

I don't think like, even though it doesn't explicitly state, like I've done something wrong. I think that's what the whole book was about, was him being like, wait, why do I feel guilty? This isn't supposed to be wrong, right? And a lot of his stuff is incremental. A lot of his coming to terms with things or realizing things is incremental and goes back and forth, back and forth, two steps back, one step forward.

And he has that fever dream, like in the epilogue too. And I think that's supposed to be Dostoevsky's way of showing us, the readers, the inedible outcome of nihilistic philosophy. And then he does cry, right? He breaks down and cries with Sonia.

And it's not explicit confession of anything. It's not explicit contrition, but I think it's Raskolnikov being true to Raskolnikov is this one little step forward. And he now has seven years to continue to atone for things.

And this is just another small moment of him going, okay, so my philosophy was wrong. And therefore what I did wasn't the correct thing. And that left me isolated.

So he's still in an intellectual, like frame of mind. And maybe, maybe this is me, maybe him crying with Sonia at the very end is another one of those little steps that got him there. But that's all speculation on my part.

You mentioned like seven years. He actually explicitly says that with her, those seven years will feel like seven days. And I think that's meant that in a Christian sense of the Sabbath and worshiping God is, I think that number was purposefully chosen by Dostoevsky.

Yeah. And I think what you said earlier, Chris, that her convictions must now become his. Maybe there's more to it than just, you know, kind of a sort of a detachment in his head.

Maybe that's another small step where he knows that's where he needs to be. Right. But right now it's still very intellectual.

To letting go of that, you know, that secular worldview that he was, you know, going on about in his essay that was published of actually like the first step of this is wrong. Yeah. The quote comes after he takes the Bible from underneath his pillow, like under his pillow lay the gospels.

Yeah. It was like he had a copy of it, like in it, like with him in prison. And so that's what he was thinking.

It's like, can her convictions not be my convictions now? Her feelings, her aspirations at least. Yeah. And in one of those assessment blogs, analytic blogs, like literary analysis blogs, I think it's from Cliff Notes.

This is, this is what I, well, I didn't write this down, I copy and pasted it into my notes here. It says the epilogue does not show Raskolnikov becoming a perfect saint immediately. Instead, Dostoevsky describes it as a beginning of a new story.

The slow, difficult process of a man's gradual renewal and regeneration. It is the final victory of the quote, living life and human connection that is Sonia over the abstract deadly theories that imprisoned Raskolnikov's mind. So that's one, one literary person, whatever, whatever their call for the guys who write for Cliff Notes and Spark Notes.

That's what, that's what that says. And I think that's not incorrect. I agree with that.

Also another thing, just another like tidbit, like this kind of made me think about like, I read St. Augustine's Confessions, like I started reading it like, like probably like 14, 13 years ago. And I didn't finish it until like last year, I think. So don't feel bad.

I haven't finished it either. I started like about 10 years ago. Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, Confessions, it's like, it's so funny because like the first, like the first chapter, like the first 10 pages are like, or like the first chapter, just like St. Augustine going like, you know, like I am so very well aware of like the sinful man that I am. And it's only through the grace of God. Like, you know, thanks be to God that like I am not that man.

But like, I was so bad. I remember when I was with my friends and we stole some pears. And I was like, dude, like people have talked about like murdering someone when they were kids.

And here you are like crying about some pears you stole when you were a kid, right? But it's just so funny how like, but it's funny because it's just like, like it's, I think Confessions is actually one of like the first autobiographies ever written, if not the first. And so one of the things, like I think something like the introduction of like that book, like kind of talked about, it's like, this is the story of a man, like everyone knows him as this great saint, the one who wrote City of God and all that, right? But he's reflecting upon, I hope no one heard that. That was my nephew, but you know, he's, I think he should be fine.

He's one of your elephants. He's my elephant, my one-year-old nephew. But so he talks about like, basically he's talking about how like he might be the, he might be known as this great saint now, but like he's reflecting upon a time when he wasn't that, like and how it took him such a, like there's an entire process of getting to that.

And like, it's him reflecting on, upon his own tendencies to sin. And so it's just like, you see this journey from like, this like punk-ass kid to like great saint. And it's just like, it wasn't immediate, right? And it definitely wasn't fast either.

Like we were just lucky that his mother got to see him convert to Christianity before she passed away. So it's, you know, conversion of the heart in general, to be attuned to the right word. It's like, it's funny, cause it's like on the one hand, we believe that everyone has a sense of natural law and natural order written in their hearts, but you do have to cultivate that.

You do have to like constantly like, you know, you constantly have to kind of like deepen that knowledge and you constantly have to like reinforce that in yourself on a personal and societal level. So yeah, so I, maybe it's not a surprise then that if a scholar comes the kind of person that flirted with like rationalistic ideals, then the idea of the dignity of the human being quite, you know, in soul person, like that's going to take a while. Like that's going to take a while, you know, seven years in order to really ingratiate that idea into his soul and to feel like feel complete and to have like the sense of like remorse and contrition feel complete.

It'll take a while, but like, it's definitely not going to take a day or two or a week. So that's kind of- No, and that, yeah, absolutely. That goes for anything, you know, and speaking of patristics, the fathers, they would often write, and it's picked up later by different theologians in different ways, but they wrote about like the discipline of the Christian life and involved, you know, sacraments, which are more mystical or metaphysical if you want, you know, if you want to call it participating in baptism, participating in communion, those are like the more mystical parts of it.

But then each day choosing to do what is right and choosing to live a Christian life. And that doesn't mean that you don't swear and, you know, never listen to the rock station or whatever nonsense we have in modern Western world. But that means living your life in light of something, like viewing things, whether you're doing microbiology or you're washing windows, whatever it is you're doing, you know, babysitting your nephew, doesn't matter.

You do it through a Christian lens. You know, that probably will look different for everybody because everybody's in their own path, their own road, but that's what it means. And I think to extrapolate further from what you said, Joseph, that's where maybe finally Raskolnikov is here crying with Sonya, is he's realizing that he needs to adopt a different worldview to process what he's processing.

Again, from microbiology to cleaning toilets, how you live each day in light of what's been revealed. And Raskolnikov, to him, the revelation is scientism, materialism, nihilism, the isms are what brought him to the depth that he finds himself in. So very similar to something I think we talked about two weeks ago about a response to his great man theory or critique of it.

It was like, well, it's not that great men have right to disregard morality, but it's that more of that a virtuous man doesn't need individual rules because they will just embody a moral life in how they do whatever they do in their daily life. I think when the early fathers were writing stuff that they did borrow a lot from Greek thought, where to live a virtuous life, to live a Stoic life. And I know that means something different on the internet culture now because people figured out the word Stoic, it's ancient and like, oh, everybody's just kind of prim and proper and buttoned up and don't let life get to them.

So not that definition of Stoic, but I think that thread has been picked up by real great men, great thinkers. And they figured it out that, hey, society functions and you get less reskolnikovs when you live a virtuous life, where you live a life dedicated to other people, not just yourself. That's even how you treat the old crow makes a difference instead of taking an ax to her head.

Doesn't mean you have to give her a hug and get along. It does mean that you don't take an ax to her head because you just feel like it. At the least, at the very least.

Don't murder. That's the minimum here. Minimal societal asks.

Don't murder someone just because. Cool, are we all good there? All right, great. Another thing too was, I think another thing my friend, my writer friend was talking about when she compared reskolnikov to Odysseus, something that was very interesting too, is she said that basically the thing with Napoleon is it's like the reason he was great or the reason he was seen as a great man was because civilization was already crumbling.

And so it took someone great to put things back together or at least give it a sense of order. Right? So that's kind of what made them great. Not the fact that they could just kill people with that impunity.

Whereas with reskolnikov, it's like at the end of the day, what was the reason that he killed the old crow and Elizaveta, right? There was no heroic notion or there was no heroic impulse for it. It was just like, you know, if I kill her, all the money will go to a monastery and it'll be good for everyone. But it's just like, you don't care about the monastery.

You know, right? You don't care about where the fortunes go, right? Unless it's in your pockets. And he didn't even do a great job with that. He didn't even take anything.

Like you're not even a good thief, right? So it's this idea of like the greatness, like a lot of it has to do with like, you know, your motive. A lot of it has to do with what's it called? What is it that you're aspiring to do? And like, at the end of the day, it's like reskolnikov was just basically like, he was trying to be a hero in a society that where heroes get punished, right? Or heroes just become like something I just, yeah. So it's like heroes just kind of become like, you know, another face in the crowd, right? Because like you had all the stories about him, like, you know, saving, like, you know, saving burning children or like giving all his money to like, you know, what's it called? Like that, like, you know, Sonia's family and stuff.

But it's just like, I think what it is too, is just like heroes kind of exist in a myth. And myths exist in a culture and a shared sense of people, like shared people, right? And so like, I always kind of go back to this idea of community because like, sometimes like, like, especially in like the last couple of years, I often wonder is like, you know, did Ted Kaczynski have a point, right? In terms of like- Execution, again, the execution part of it was- Right, but like, I think, but I think it's what it really is, it's just like this critique of modernity, right? And how like industrialization kind of like separates people, right? It's just because we don't have like a sense, like a shared sense of like heroism anymore. Then like all the local heroes that you see, they're just like, they're just people that just walk amongst us and they don't get any sense of like, special sense of like reverence or like honor or anything, because it's just like, we don't know.

Like, you know, I might, I might know people in my community that are heroes, but you don't know them, so how can you share them, right? So I think that's kind of what Raskolnikov, maybe that's something that Raskolnikov is also kind of going for, was just like, like he was trying to aspire, like what made Napoleon great was that he could do all these things, but because like it ended up in great outcomes, then like he was great. No, it was the, it was the aspiration behind it. It was like the motive behind like all these great acts.

It's like the desire to like bring civilization back together or to give them a way forward, like to give France a way forward after, I think it was after like the French Revolution, like sometime after that, right? Like, or like maybe that was like the story. I'm really bad with like European history in some points, but anyway, yeah, that's, that's the, I think that's kind of what it boils down to is just like, you want to be a hero, but like you have to be a hero to a certain group of people or a certain group of ideals. So yeah, like brain leak ending.

Well, he, I think he, it's, he obviously had a flawed view of what, what it meant to be a hero in particular, that he was thinking of something outside of his current situation, outside of his place in time, of what a hero, heroic act would be. But I guess what were his aspirations or what do you think they were in trying to be a hero? Because I haven't obviously thought about it as much as you. So I'm curious what you might think if you have something more specific on it, because in the book, we do see different points of him trying to be generous and charitable to people around him.

And, but then he'll, but then he'll, you know, swing back and forth at that. But like what I, my first thought was that maybe he was just actually being very, well, prideful, egocentric. It was that he doesn't want to, he doesn't want to be a hero because of the good things.

He wants to be a hero because he'd be the center of attention. But yet we also still see him being charitable. So I don't, what aspect of his aspirations are, I guess, genuine and how much of it is, you know, self-centered.

They're genuine in the fact that they're self-centered, but not in the fact that you, like, so we read he saves some kids from a burning building and we go, oh, that's objectively good. And it's like, okay, yeah. Saving another human life is objectively good.

Killing two women is objectively bad. Okay, great. We can get into the details of like how we know that, but the point of the matter is you can do both of those for selfish reasons.

You can give all your money to the poor. You can save people's lives and you can literally do it just because you want to feel good about yourself, which is what I would say Raskolnikov is there to represent is he's doing these things 100% for himself. And in that he, to Chris's point, he is still also genuine.

Something that I was going to bring up a little earlier, I don't remember where, is this idea of integrity. Slava and I had an argument about a year ago about the word integrity. And I said, and, you know, people go, well, it's, you know, it's a big argument.

You bring in the Hitler card, but like, was Hitler integritous? Let's have a quick conversation about this. And Slava, I'd love to get your, if you can drum up the conversation we had years ago. To be integritous is to be at one with oneself.

So I propose the claim that Hitler was integritous because integrity is amoral. Amoral meaning that it doesn't, it's not good morality or bad morality. It is just, it's removed from those.

It's just consistent morality. Thank you, Chris. And so like Hitler, because of his belief system and his worldview was integritous because he was at one with himself, which means that integrity is not morally good, morally bad.

Even though when I was raised in school, it was like, well, integrity is doing the right thing when no one's around. And it's like, it's not though. It's just being at one with yourself, which means you have to ask a bigger question, which is like, is the worldview that you're holding a worldview that is correct? Is your worldview bringing life and life abundant or is your worldview selfish? And the thing is, you can't just judge that by your actions of like, well, I give to the poor and I volunteer at the local shelter.

And it's like, yeah, but here's the thing. Deep down, you can just do that stuff for yourself. And you have to be real honest about that.

And people don't want to be honest with themselves. You kind of circled back to where I was getting at, but it's kind of the question. I guess that's what my question is.

I actually don't know how much of it was him being selfish. And that was kind of what my question was for you, Joe, was I guess how much of it do you think was actually a genuine wish to do good as a hero? You said he's like, he wants to be a hero and just he's not and he fails at it. I know what you're getting at, Jonathan, that was like being integritous of like having a integrated so integrated yourself with your belief system and worldview.

And obviously Raskolnikov is not, you know, he's broken up and constantly at war with himself internally. But I was wondering what you thought about that. I actually think I actually disagree with Jonathan in the sense that like, I don't think he's full of shit, actually.

I think he's just, he's almost like he's arrogant. I don't necessarily think he like he's duplicitous, if that makes sense. What I think it is, is just like when I say like he's trying to be a hero, I mean it in the terms of like the classical sense, right? Like the thing of the, you know, your Odysseuses, your Achilles, your Ajax, your Agamemnons, like aspiring for doing things out of glory, not even glory in terms of like, yeah, there's like definitely like the recognition of people, but it's also just like knowing it's like, I did that shit, right? It's kind of like, that's kind of why like Napoleon, like was like his idea of like the great man.

It's like, he did great things. It was just like, it was epic. Like he was about to expand the French, you know, he was about to like, you know, like the French empire, right? In all its glory.

Like that's what he was like, you know, taking over Russia, right? That was, that's like- Made it to Moscow. Right, he made it to Moscow, right? Like it's epic. Like that was like the thing that he was going for.

But like, I don't think like modernity doesn't really give us like things like that, unless like you're a soldier, right? And so like, I think like when he's, like, I think like for him, he's just like, okay, in order for me to do these things, I have to, like, I think he just kind of came to the wrong conclusion about, like, that's what I was saying. Like he came to the wrong conclusion about what made Napoleon heroic. He came to the wrong conclusion as to what made, because like he went on about it in a rationalistic sense, rather than like someone that reads like classical literature and just like, no, it's not the fact that like he got all these resources for Greece or whatever, right? It's... But he feels the same pain as Raskolnikov, right? No, no.

The hero answers a call when there is a need for one. In Raskolnikov's position, there wasn't a call for him to do something. He just asserted himself, oh, I'm going to do this.

Yes, exactly. Well, there was a call though. There was a call.

We talked about this in a previous episode about like the bourgeoisie and like the desire to adopt what the West was doing because there needs to be this revolution, right? I think the point though in the story is that that's not a real calling. That is a delusional calling that wasn't real is... Yeah, I kind of, I want to say something too. And I, first, I appreciate that, Jonathan, you're the Jewish guy bringing these comments or these questions up about Hitler.

And I also kind of want to disagree because like, is he actually being true to himself? And like, what does it mean to be true to yourself? I mean, is it like being true to like who you were created to be and like what was actually put on your life? And so like, if you're given gifts to really lead people and to like generate a movement, well, what is that movement? What was that movement that you were supposed to lead? Is it the Nazi movement? Or is it something else that does build the kingdom, right? So you're coming at integrity from, integrity is morally good as a state of presence or presence and being. Yeah, well, I like that you did bring up this like being true to yourself, but I think it's, then you have to ask the next question of like, what does it mean to be true to yourself? Yeah, and where's the line? And that's exactly my point is like, who gets to set the line? Because if we're going to be, I'm going to put quotes around this, scientific, even if it's like a social science, like psychology or something like that, you need to come at it with like, okay, you need to present evidence, right? Which is why I'm like, integrity as a word is to be at one, integritous, like when something's strong and it's like centralized. And so like Slava, you should chime in on this because we argued about this and you conceded at some point after you did some research.

Yeah, what I want to talk about first though is the conversation between Josh, you and Chris that you guys were having. I don't think that Raskolnikov was doing the heroic stuff, the real heroic stuff, like saving the kids or giving Sonya's family money. He was doing that just for himself.

I think he thought that was the right thing to do. Now we can't really get into Dusty Epstein's head or Raskolnikov's head, but based on the black and white text on paper, I think those things were done because he knew those were the right things to do. Those were good, virtuous things to do.

And I think that's backed up by some of his internal monologue. Raskolnikov, schism man, because he's split in half, he has this other side of him where he believes in the opposite world view that forces him to get burns on himself to save two kids. The complete opposite, juxtaposed, opposing completely world view of nihilism says, yeah, you can crack a woman's head open because she's a bad person and the money she steals from the poor should be given to a monastery because that is the utilitarian, that is the ultimate good.

So that's Raskolnikov split in half. His name literally means schism. So I think his good deeds, Dusty Epstein is saying, this is what is good.

Like what Razumikin is doing. Again, to repeat myself from previous episodes, same situation, social economic situation that Raskolnikov is in, Razumikin is in. And he's the one who is the lovable, happy-go-lucky guy who goes out of his way to help his friends, not kill some rando, right? So that's what I wanted to say about that.

As far as the integrity thing goes, I concede it to you based on your definition of the word integrity. And we could go round and round about this because at some point it's going to be semantics. Well, it's already semantics.

But words matter, so. But if you're going to define a word that integrity means to you, absolutely means only that one is in tune with himself and true to himself, then sure, by that rigid definition, Hitler was integritous. But integrity also, how it's used now, like widely, the other definition of it is somebody who says what he does, I mean, says what he thinks and does what he says.

That's kind of awkward. But what's implied, and maybe, you know, maybe this is where we can have the argument too, what's implied in that, assumed by everybody talking, is those things by themselves are good things. It's not that a serial killer wants to go murder and rape people.

He thinks about it. He does it. Oh, well, that's an integritous guy.

Raskolnikov was not integritous for murdering the old lady. He was doing what he thought was right. And he, in himself, he formalized this idea of the great man, what's the word, immersed himself in it and then acted upon that thing.

So I think at the end of the day, it boils down to semantics, your integritous comment specifically, because there are definitions, and they're very important, categories, the ability to think abstractly, the ability to interact with multiple viewpoints at once. And so all those things coming to this, bringing those things to this conversation, what is assumed by society at large is when somebody's integritous, they're doing good things. They're not murdering 6 million Jews and 4 million other unwanted by society.

So there's no right answer. You know what I mean? Sometimes you're more right. Sometimes the other side is more right, depending on the context.

It comes down to categories. If goodness is proximity to God and evil is distance from God, integritous to being the right thing is not just being one with yourself, but it's being one with God. And so that's where the goodness would come into that, is that the actions have to be good.

And I think that is what most people think of the word as, is that the actions are good. Yeah, it has become that more than just a clinical, you know, technical definition, how most of societies across East, West, South and North, when we hear the word integrity, it is always associated with what that society deems as good and proper and virtuous. It's never associated with the bad guys.

And that's where, like, this conversation will continue to go, you know, go in circles, Jonathan. And again, it boils down to worldview. Which is kind of my point that integrity is amoral, because if it's culturally contextual... I didn't say that.

You did just say that. You said it depends on the culture that you're a part of. So if you were a true... I said morality depends on the culture you are a part of, but across the board, when cultures talk about integrative people, they say those who are with integrity do the good things.

And those good things can be defined by culture. But us humans have agreed, except for you, that, you know, integrity means doing good things. And I'm willing to be like proven wrong or be wrong.

I'm just saying people around dinner tables and walking down the street, not some highfalutin, you know, abstract thinker in the ivory tower going, well, actually integrity, if you look at the ancient Greek and all that shit, by and large, society has decided integrity means people doing good things, thinking good things, and saying good things, and then acting on those things in spite of any, maybe negative repercussions or anything to them. That's... So we can't escape that. We can't just brush all that off because some guy wrote a dictionary, you know.

Which is saying that it's culturally contextual. Because if people are around, if people are around, if people are around dinner tables and they're agreeing to something, but it's like the same dinner table, like example, you said in Russia, as it is in Germany, as it is in America, and they're defining it based on their culture. And like, it's always good guys that the assumption is made toward.

Then it is amoral because you have to zoom out. You have to zoom out to the meta. Like, I don't think that I've mentioned this before.

On the podcast, maybe I have, but like, I try to ask myself about my own beliefs and my own beliefs should apply to 2026 as the same way that they could have applied in 1847 or earlier. I want to try to have a view that could apply across space and time. How well I do that is a different conversation entirely.

But, it sounds like to me, the way that you've explained it is it's culturally contextual. Which brings me back to like, integrity as a state of being is amoral because it's based on, not, now let me put a caveat here because I think that you guys have brought something up that's interesting, is, I believe that capital I integrity, if we can separate like, the way that it is versus the way that it's meant to be, and meant to be would be its truest form, would be to be at one with God like Chris described earlier. I agree with that.

However, to be at one with oneself is with your current worldview, which I would say is like a lowercase I integrity. Well, if we're going to do that, separate capital I to lowercase I, sure. But, fundamentally, fundamentally, and I'll, again, I'll put that asterisk because we have to be intellectually honest.

It is most often by people across the board described as an adherence to strong morals, not just an adherence to a particular thing, or an amoral thing. And then that somehow, somehow that thing is judged by the culture. But who defines morals? Hold on a second.

Fundamentally, it is somebody who acts and on the good things in the culture who has a moral compass. Now, you might not like that, the fact that that's what people, that's how people view the word integrity now. But in our culture, that's what it is.

It's having a moral compass. It's having an alignment of values and actions. When I... And, we'll just want one sentence to address.

And those values, 99% of the time, you know, I'll grant you that sometimes they might be a little bit different. But 99% of the time, those values are the good, the moral, the virtuous things in society. When I think of integrity, I think of integrity farms, South Park.

Thanks, Josh. That was beneficial to the group here. I'm just here to add value as the intern.

Yeah. Intern Sherrick Locke. Unpaid intern.

If we're talking about integrity being alignment with values and actions, where you are, you have a moral code, you demonstrate consistency and honesty. And how do I say this? Acting, like I said before, acting upon your principles, even when facing external pressures. The way society views integrity, it just, it's inescapable.

It links it to moral actions. And we can't escape that. And I'm not, I'm not even taking it as like I'm planting a flag and saying I disagree with you, Jonathan.

I'm just saying it's more complex than, geez, how easy it is. So feudal houses in Japan, Kyoto and Nagasaki are fighting each other. Both of them are their, you know, mafia boss level.

They're fighting each other. And they're both doing it for their own duty, sense of purpose, good morality. Are they both integritous? Give me a more historical context.

Who are we talking about? I think that's a bad question. I just think that's a bad question. Who's more integritous? I think that's a question that doesn't need to be answered, really.

And my ramblings here have been to prove that it's a lot more gray and complex and unanswerable. But what everybody has agreed on is integrity is connected to virtuous actions, not a mob boss fighting another mob boss because, oh, I have a sense of pride. Well, f**k me.

I was going to have a sense of pride. Joseph, did you want to say something? No, I think the only thing I can say, oh, I mean, the only thing I can think about when it comes to integrity is just like, you know, there's like the, there's like the field of morality. And then there's also like the field of like natural excellence.

I think like the mob, that's why like the mob boss or like the two houses question might not work in terms of integrity because it's like, now like you're in the context of war or conflict in terms of like a power grab, right? But I think integrity, like I do have to agree with Slava in the sense it's like when people think about integrity because it's not, because I don't feel like classical, like morality is really, it's like it's only modern, like morality when it comes to like, like, you know, like post-World War II, like that talks about like, you know, being true to the self. Everything has always been about like being true to like a larger cosmic order, whether it's just like, whether it's like, you know, the Hindus, the Chinese, like the Western civilization, like integrity always had to do in relation, I felt like I'm wondering like if integrity also mainly has to do with in relation to like, like the idea of like face, the idea of what's it called? Like who you are on the outside should be like who you are on the inside, which is a very Christian thing to do because it's like, you know, it talks about like the, like Christianity is also a lot about like internal morality as well as it is like external morality. So I think that's kind of what, that's kind of what I think about when it comes to like integrity.

It's like who you are in relation to like, like the good, like the larger cosmic natural order, how you're performing on behalf of it. And then later on, like like or underneath that is like what your internal life is, like what your internal conviction and disposition is. All those three, I don't think, because I don't think you can, I don't think you can, I don't think you can divorce integrity from the larger cosmic order.

So like that's kind of what I think. Yeah, and you can't, you can't divorce it from morality. And let me put an asterisk there for Jonathan's sakes, capital M morality.

So you, let's say you have personal beliefs about, about fraud, right? Financial fraud. So you believe that financial fraud is bad. You judge it because of either your own personal convictions or your worldview, not just because, but let me say that again, you judge that financial fraud is bad based on your worldview.

That's informed by probably external forces somehow. You believe that honesty is important in all situations, even when you're doing your taxes. Therefore, you are integritous or you have integrity when you don't cheat on your taxes, even when you have the opportunity to do it and get away with it.

I guess that would be a better way of saying it than me rambling for the last four, five minutes. But what you believe within yourself and integrity is connected and they have to be aligned to use your more clinical definition. But you can't escape from the morality thing from the ethics part of it.

That's part of the worldview, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, that all plays into it. And again, it's more complicated than... That's why I came up with the example of two shoguns in Japan, because that was before the emperor owned the stuff, which is why I thought it was a decent example. But we don't have to sit on this point any longer.

It's just a question that I ask regularly is... Well, not anymore, because I feel like I've found an answer on how I define integrity. But what about you guys in the audience? Am I wrong? I want you to leave me some hate comments. It's another YouTube channel.

It's another YouTube channel where you can tell me that I'm wrong and I'm here for it. I'm good with that. Or are they wrong? Am I right? Do I have a small army of people who want to defend similar causes on the internet? Going back to the topic that I guess Joseph and I were hitting on before Jonathan took us away somewhere else on a little side quest.

Well, with that side quest, with that side quest, well, whether it's completed or abandoned, we're done with it for now. Yes. We got some XP.

We got some experience out of it. That's right. I guess there was a thought I'd had actually, and the talk of integrity actually did kind of make me think of it too, was that going back to heroism and you're referencing the Odyssey, I'd mentioned the Catcher in the Rye earlier.

And I actually think that there's something similar between Raskolnikov and Holden in that Holden has a fantasy of being a hero who they mentioned about, you know, being a Catcher in the Rye, you know, stopping all of the children from losing their innocence and preserving that. And like Raskolnikov, it's a malformed idea of what a hero is. And so your actions are floundering when trying to pursue this flawed idea of what it is to be a hero.

And I realized that there's actually what my offhand comment of what was superficial similarities between the books might've actually been less superficial. It was a thought I had. No, you're right.

I agree with that sentiment. It's just like, they're both, they're all, it's like, man, it's like, we're all aspiring to be heroes in our own sense. And it's like, that's kind of why like I'm, you know, even like if you were to, if I were to rank like, you know, all like the literature of like the Western canon together, it would be like the Bible first and then like first place.

And then the second place, 2A and 2B would be like the Iliad and the Odyssey. Because I feel like those two books, like really like Homer's epics really capture the idea of like natural excellence. But it's also like the idea of like, the Iliad is about like us pursuing glory of us wanting like, you know, desire for like arite, for excellence, right? Like to be the Achilles.

And to, but also at the same time, we also understand like the, like the, what's it called? Like the ephemeral nature of like heroism because it can fade just as quickly as it could be like gotten. And then we also like want to return home, right? Like all Odysseus wants to do is like go home. And I think sometimes I feel like that's kind of what Raskolnikov was trying to do is just like, he was trying to be the, he was trying to be a hero for the sake of, it's kind of like Holden too.

It's just like, you want to be a hero for the sake of something beyond like, like that's what like, you know, braving the Cyclops and this, the like Scylla and Charybdis, all that was for was just like, like it's to have these adventures in order for like the one greater like thing, which is like in the Odysseus case, like family. And in the case of like Raskolnikov, it's just like, I feel like, I feel like the idea- He doesn't have something tangible. Well, Raskolnikov doesn't have a tangible outlet of being a hero.

And that's why he invents killing the pawnbroker. Yeah, because to him, it would mean like, I have like, I have done something great, which will like contribute to something greater. But I also think, I know like, we're kind of like at the end of the novel, but like, you know, I feel like that, now that I'm thinking about it, the idea of heroism too, is like why he hates the idea of his sister Dunia, like marrying someone else for his sake, so that he can like, you know, he can kind of like a comfortable life.

Cause it's just like, it's repugnant to him as the great man, like Napoleon shouldn't have, like his sister marry someone just so that he can have like a comfortable life. Like it's the Napoleon to create and take the comfortable lives for themselves. I think ironically though, I believe it was Napoleon who married the Prussian princess and then ended up being betrayed with his choice of wife, if I recall my history correctly.

Not everyone. Well, that's why you shouldn't, you know. Marry Prussian women? I don't know anything about Prussian women, but I do know that- They're gone, so it's fine.

You've never felt a touch of a Prussian woman? We're, at least in terms of the modern marriage, values and beliefs are far more important than interests and looks. Not that interests and looks aren't important, but you need to have a core shared values. Yeah, foundation.

And this gets into what Slava and I talk about all the time is like worldview. Like, you know, integrity conversation aside, your worldview matters. Like, you know, I don't disagree with you, Joseph, that you mentioned earlier, where it's like you can't divorce things from the greater cosmic whole, but I believe that there's, there are still definitions of things when people choose to divorce themselves from the greater definition of the cosmic whole.

Anyway, I'm just dragging this back to the old conversation. So Sherpa, Sherpa, Sherpa, that's you. Is that me? No one else is responding.

Land this plane for the love of all that is holy and cosmic. Well, you know, the novel ends with Russ Konnikov in Siberia, right? It feels like Siberia outside here. Or in the Midwest, covered in blizzard.

In the Midwest, yeah. The East Coast too, guys. So I was like, I got a half inch out here, guys.

It's terrible. It also ends in Siberia saying that, oh, there's more to this story, but we're not going to tell it in this story. What'd you say, Joseph? I'm in California.

I can't relate. I was going to say, I don't know where you're all located. But no, a note for editor.

If you wanted to segue that into the book ending in Siberia, because it also says the book also ends saying that, hey, there's more to this story, but we're not going to tell it. That seems like a way to close the episode out to me. Yep.

Ain't that true to all of our lives? Yep. Amenta Mori. Cool.

Did you do an outro already? No, nobody did an outro. I've been waiting for some. Am I, you want me to do the outro? You guys do that.

Yeah, I can't. I can't think anymore. I was going to have Josh do the outro.

Well, I don't know what we're, what you're going through. What's next in the calendar? Doesn't matter. Just join us next time for another book.

It's an indie author. Her name's Debbie something or other. Debbie Show.

Paper Roses. Paper Roses. Okay.

I can do the outro. Make sure you thank everyone for being here too. Yeah.

Well. If they've made it this far, they deserve a hero prize. I meant me and Joseph.

Thank me for being here. Yeah. Let me be prideful a moment here.

Calm down, Raskolnikov. Oh my gosh. Okay.

I really enjoy talking about crime and punishment. I thought that this was a great, it's a great classic piece of literature. Um, and I think we had a great conversation, great discussion on the book.

Thanks, Chris, Joseph, and myself for joining. I'm not, I'm not. You work here.

I work here. You work here. I'm not on every episode.

You still work here. You don't get any thanks. I remove Josh's thanks.

Well, all right. Well, thanks to the audience for putting up with us. And I hope they can join us in the next episode talking about Paper Roses by Debbie Show.

So. Who's sister's a scam artist? Is she being integritous? Let's find out in the next episode. I'm going to America.

So did she, and Japan. See you guys next time. Thank you for having me here.

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