November 06, 2018 Tuesday
Bedtime Story
Dostoevsky's Solution Not to Camus Satisfaction
Optina Monastery served as an important
center for Russian men to convert themselves or attain the status of starets
(Russian word which in English stands for “Elders” or “spiritual fathers”).
Unlike in other churches of the West
starets are not appointed by authority but simply recognized by believers and
faithful as being spiritual and ascetic and perhaps also knowledgeable.
The entire plot mostly revolves and made to
develop around the relationship between this debauched father and his four
sons.
Though this is the overlying summary it is
what is discussed through the dialogues of the cast of characters about the
idea of god, free will, morality, ethics, doubts and reason that has made this
work of fiction a supreme achievement in the world of literature.
Dostoevsky passed away barely four months
after publishing it.
What Camus points out through these
masterpieces of Dostoevsky and is perhaps being critical of the great writer is
that even though the Russian writer tackled the paradox of absurd and the
nihilism that arises out of it the solution that his protagonist arrive at to
resolve it is highly unsatisfactory.
The solution that Dostoevsky offers through
his fictions is that the paradox of absurd can only be reconciled for human
mind through religious faith and god which in the eyes of Camus make all these
masterpieces absurd creations.
Mon Ami too perhaps would agree with him.
With this finally Camus moves on the last
chapter that has the very same title as that of the book.
The chapter starts with narration of the
story of Sisyphus who manages to cheat Death but is eventually assigned to a
meaningless and never ending task of rolling a boulder up the mountain.
Camus compares this pointless and
meaningless toil of Sisyphus with the menial and regular tasks done by all us
but exemplified by office clerks and assembly line factory workers.
Keep in mind that even though
industrialization had come quiet a long way by the time this book was published
but the concept of industrial assembly line was not that old.
The first industrial assembly line appeared
in the United States in the meatpacking industry of Chicago somewhere around
1867.
Mass production of automobiles using the
assembly line was pioneered not by the Ford Motor Company as believed by most
but by Ransom Eli Olds who is the little known pioneer of the American
automotive industry.
He was the founder of the Olds Motor
Vehicle Company in Lansing, Michigan and the first mass produced automobile
that he churned out was the Oldsmobile Curved Dash in 1901.
In 1908 the Olds Motor Works was taken over
by General Motors.
I will try to get you an image of this
vintage vehicle.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic engineer
and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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