F. Dostoievsky and Agust D: defining humanness in times of crisis

How does one understand “Am I a good person?” when we forget what it means being a human

Many have tried to define what being someone is and the concept of a perfect self, especially in philosophy and literature, has changed a lot through the years; from the rational man, to the rebellious and romantic one, to the one limited by society. Up until the last one, what was emphasized was the image of a man who has good or 'honorable' values that were worthy being perpetuated. The focus was put so much on these good sides that people forgot about the coexistence of good and bad, so that the 'negative' aspect of human existence had been entirely suppressed. No one knew how to approach it, or even more, how to accept it, but the ninetyth century seemed to have brought this change through the perspective of some writers.

In our days and age, I have first found this approach in Agust D’s lyrics "Am I good person? Or a bad person? I am just a person, after all, " from his song 'People’. Undeniably, this song shifted my mindset completely and became a pioneer in my approach to life. And, honestly speaking, I think that I would have barely understood "Notes from the Underground" by F. Dostoievsky had I not listened to this song and made it a constant in my life.

Agust D summarized the essence of human existence so simply that now reading more complex works regarding it, they feel almost unnecessary. But this is actually the advantage of such art. Next, I will try my best to make parallels between these two works of art that will remain principles and rules that I will always follow in my approach to life and I highly believe that these are universal rules that should be understood by each person who wants to stay sane in this world. Surely, the book goes further than the humman essence, touching political topics and, in the context of the revolutionary society of the ninetyth century, giving not only criticism to politics, but also to currents before it like illuminism and romanticism. And I think that here, in this political context, is where the importance of the book actually relieves itself. In such times, what thoughts, attitudes, and actions make someone human and make them invincible in the face of the so-called progress of society.

Dostoievskk in his works largely defined the concept of human nature. He was, maybe, one of the first to define it in its entirely - good and bad. But, due to the fact that, at that time, the society had been so entirely brainwashed by all the 'good' and 'positive' aspects of human nature, Dostoievsky, in his book, doesn’t strike a balance between these in the, but puts all the focus on the dark side of human nature and allows all the pure hate to be shown and externalized. This externalization is highly conditioned by the unacceptance and denial of our shadow, of the fact that we left it neglected so many years and generations. And in a social context, this shadow is contured by oppression. However, this doesn’t mean that in this book Dostoievsky intends to show us how horrible we are as human beings or that at our core, we are all bad people. Rather, I believe he shows just how damaging the denial of this side of us could be and what could look like the future of a society which, by putting the same amount of emphasis on the side that promotes the image of a 'good citizen' of an era, could lead back to a society which is entirely defined by our shadows.

What actually drives the main character of the story to understand and define, maybe without realizing, what it means to be a human, is the fact that he starts to question his existence and the essence of human nature in the context of the industrial revolution at that time, highly criticizing all the rationalism, arguments and facts people were putting forward or willing to ignore in order to maintain what was promoted by society. One of my favorite quotes in this context is "so what is the use that two plus two equals four if it is against my will". On the same note, this topic of social and/or political correctness hasn’t been excluded from Agust D’s works either, his biggest question, which I believe has not only been a part of his reflection of the social or political world we are living in and he tries to understand, being in 'Polar Night’:

수많은 진실들과 수많은 거짓들 사이
Between countless truths and countless lies,

우리는 제대로 세상을 바라보는가
are we looking at the world the proper way

Also from 'Polar Night', we can draw some other parallels from the book.

"But man is so attached to the system and the logical conclusion, that he is ready to distort the truth with good knowledge, he is ready to pretend to be blind and deaf, just to justify his logic"

정의의 반대는 또 다른 정의 [jeongui]
The opposite of justice is another justice

선택적 위선과 불편한 태도 [taedo]
Selective hypocrisy and uncomfortable attitude

오직 내 기분에 맞춰 버리는 해석 [haeseok]
Interpretation is made only to cater to one’s mood

진실과 거짓도 입맛대로 [ibmatdaero]
Even truths and lies are assessed according to one’s taste

시선은 진영에 갇힌 채로 [chaero]
Perspectives are brought from within one’s ideological ground

But in order to be able to see and understand all these, you have, with all your courage, to be human first and understand and accept these realities.

Touching only briefly on a detail from the beginning that I encountered in Agust D’s lyrics, too, is the concept of illness. In ‘Strange (feat. RM)’ he says:

병든 세상에 병들지 않은 자
The one who isn’t sick in the world that is sick

되려 돌연변이 취급해 이상하지 않은가
gets treated as a mutant, isn’t it strange

The main character starts by lamenting his illness, which is a spleen condition. Beyond the literary meaning of this illness, in literature, it got introduced as that illness/ condition that creates “a kind of melancholy, profound boredom and overall dissatisfaction, often stemming from the tragedy of life.” and, as we can see, in this state of agony, you are able to see the agony outside too, working as a reflection of the outer world in yourself, or even, vice versa. So, maybe, indeed, only the ones who are sick, on a certain level, are able to understand or see the world differently, contrary to what everyone sees, which sometimes is the right way to see the world. Carl Jung commented on the modern man, that those who seem sick are actually more sane than the ones who are ‘normal’.

There are a lot of other things I would rant about this book and I am sure that if we loo deeper into Agust D’s discograph too we will find even more paralles, but, in the end, not to make it long, I want to emphasize, in my opinion, the main parallels between the song and the book when it comes to understanding the essence of human being / experience as this is what it is truly and indeed needed in order to be able to stand proudly against everything that isn’t human.

(From now on, all the paragraphs will be from the book and the lyrics which have the Korean version above them are from the song 'People')

"Not bad, but I didn't manage to be any other way: neither evil, nor good, nor scoundrel, nor an honest man, nor a hero, nor an insect"

"Because in reality, maybe you didn't even know what you were pretending to be"

스쳐가는 사람
One that brushes past

스며드는 사람
One that soaks into my heart

나는 어떤 사람
What kind of person am I

나는 좋은 사람?
Am I a good person?

아님 나쁜 사람?
Or a bad person?

"Perhaps the whole goal towards which humanity is aiming on earth consists only of this continuity of the process of realization, in other words - from life itself, not from the proper goal, which is natural, it can only be something like two-times-two-make -four, meaning a formula"

물이 흘러가는 대로 흘러가
Flow along the way the water flows

저기 끝은 뭐가 있을지도
Maybe there’s something at the end

특별한 삶 평범한 삶 그 나름대로
A special life, an ordinary life, each of them on their own

좋은 게 좋은 거지 뭐
It’s all good

좋은 게 좋은 거지
It’s all good

*English translation of the lyrics: https://doolsetbangtan.wordpress.com/?s=strange+