Alyosha Karamazov’s Plea for Straight Talk

obama-state-of-union-2009

Is it just because I’m an Obama supporter or has political rhetoric reached new levels of inanity? And the rhetoric I have in mind is not that of Tea Party supporters, which is not new. I saw such self-indulgent calls for revolution coming from the left in the early 1970’s. No, I’m thinking of the talk of respectable Republicans.

To blow President Clinton’s surplus through President Bush’s tax cuts, then to say our most pressing concern is deficit reduction, and then to insist that those tax cuts be extended. To blame Demorats for the deficits when most of the debt was accrued under a Republican administration and a Republican Congress. To blame the Democrats for the TARP bailout when it occurred under Bush (although Democrats did sign on). To call for Congress to “repeal and replace” Obamacare with no plan to replace. To promise $100 billion cuts to the budget and then take everything off the table except for symbolic small programs.  To say all this with the volume turned up full blast.  President Obama must feel like Alyosha Karamazov when he is trying to make sense of the drama queens in his life.

I particularly have in mind Dostoevsky’s sensitive protagonist dealing with Katherina Ivanovna, who loves his brother Dimitri (who is a bit of a drama queen himself). In a chapter entitled “A Laceration in the Drawing Room,” Katherina is ricocheting from one stance to another, throwing Alyosha into utter confusion. Here’s a passage from the scene:

“I can’t understand it!” Alyosha cried suddenly in distress.

“What? What?”

“He [his brother Ivan] is going to Moscow, and you cry out that you are glad. You said that on purpose! And you begin explaining that you are not glad of that but sorry to be—losing a friend. But that was acting, too—you were playing a part—as in a theatre!”

“In a theatre? What? What do you mean?” exclaimed Katerina Ivanovna, profoundly astonished, flushing crimson, and frowning.

“Though you assure him you are sorry to lose a friend in him, you persist in telling him to his face that it’s fortunate he is going,” said Alyosha breathlessly. He was standing at the table and did not sit down.

“What are you talking about? I don’t understand?”

. . . “I really don’t know how I dare to say all this, but somebody must tell the truth . . . for nobody here will tell the truth.”

That’s how I feel much of the time. “Somebody must tell the truth . . . for nobody here will tell the truth.”

While many of the adults in Dostoevsky’s novel are playacting, however, there is a thirteen-year-old who shows us another way of being. His name is Kolya and he is a precocious adolescent who often mouths half-baked ideas just to see how they will sound or to watch their effect on others. Unlike the adults, however, he has an excuse: he is thirteen. Nevertheless, when he meets someone who calls him out on his playacting, he realizes that he would much rather be standing on the solid ground of truth.

Alyosha is the one who challenges him, but not in a way that shames the hypersensitive boy. While gently pointing out that some of Kolya’s ideas are just designed to impress, Alyosha adds,

You really are not like every one else, here you are not ashamed to confess to something bad and even ridiculous. And who will admit so much in these days? No one. And people have even ceased to feel the impulse to self-criticism. Don’t be like everyone else, even if you were the only one.

Kolya recognizes a worthy goal when he sees one. “Do you know, Karamaov,” he says in a “bashful and melting” voice, “our talk has been like a declaration of love. That’s not ridiculous, is it?”

To which Alyosha replies with a smile, “Not at all ridiculous, and if it were, it wouldn’t matter.”

I understand Kolya’s gratitude and his relief. When we take words seriously, holding ourselves accountable for what we say, new possibilities open up before us. Language becomes not just something to abuse but something we can build on.  It’s all right to disagree–in fact, it’s often necessary–but can we begin having conversations that at least make sense?

That’s not ridiculous.  That’s a way to seriously address our country’s problems.

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