Man is a creature that can get used to anything - so said Dostoevsky, and he documented that amply with specific examples in the
House of the Dead.
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| Лидия Вележева, Идиот, 2003 |
These days, it seems as if the human species is in danger of losing its self-consciousness entirely amid a never-ending stream of self-administered electronic dopamine jolts transmitted from one mass hive to the next. And we seem to be just fine with that - after all, as long as there is still ice left to melt, your drink stays cool, right? Only one with the stubbornness of a Nastasya Filippovna -- one who can be self-directed along an independent path even at the risk of unreason -- has a chance of breaking out of those patterns. As her example shows, however, there are costs and dangers to that path.
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