F.M. Dostoevsky And Freedom Of State Discretion

Abstract

Analyzing the works written by F. M. Dostoevsky, the authors discover the origins of the tradition of the omnipotence of the state in modern conditions, which is expressed in the relations of the center and the public entities forming the state. Before F. M. Dostoevsky, the standards of the human community were formed for centuries. Humanity has slowly adopted these standards. That is why the established social normativity successfully functioned and cemented a civilization. But in the period of writing the works by the writer entered another era. Relative freedom, the spread of literacy have formed a fashion for the denial of existing foundations, the search for new truths and fascinating meanings. And there was a prerequisite for such a search: inefficient and corrupt governance in Russia. However, the discovery of new truths by a small part of society, usually the intelligentsia, does not oblige the rest of society to recognize them as generally binding. At the same time, the intellectual leaders, the creators of new values do not want to wait for their gradual introduction, adaptation to the conditions of reality. They do not even allow a critical discussion of their own recipes for future happiness. Happiness should be given to people today. And this requires a "sermon", a demand for the immediate transformation of new ideas into normative attitudes, a new morality and law, despite the obvious lack of their practical and theoretical maturity. This inevitably leads to violence, crime, and forms a tradition of arbitrary power.