Episode #233 ... A philosophy of self-destruction. (Dostoevsky, Bataille)

Hello, everyone. I'm Stephen West. This is Philosophize This. Patreon.com/philosophize This. Philosophical writing on Substack at Philosophize This on there. I hope you love the show today. So We seem to be the only kind of creature on this planet that regularly chooses self destructive behavior on purpose. It should be said, there are some rare examples of this you can find in nature. Elephants apparently have done this sort of thing in captivity. You know, certain bees have to die to be able to sting someone, I guess. But by and large, self destructive behavior is a uniquely human activity. For some reason, people often make a choice to destroy a little piece of themselves just to feel a little bit better in the short term. But why would anybody do this realistically? I mean, if what we are are rational, survival oriented creatures, shouldn't most of this behavior just be unthinkable to us? Maybe that's the problem, that that's a horrible description of what being a human being is, to be rational, survival oriented. There's a lot of theories out there about this stuff, but there's two very interesting ones I'd like to tell you about today that make up what you could call a philosophy of self destruction. One can be found in the work of Dostoevsky in his book, The Gambler. It's a lesser known work of his, and it'll help dramatize all the complex psychology behind this. Give us a more existential take on why we do it. And number two is gonna be the philosophy of Georg Bataille, an absolute legend in the world of philosophy that we've never talked about on the show before. But he has a very interesting way of framing this self destructive behavior, one that comes ultimately from a hidden underlying economics of all places. And it's one that, as your philosophical Sherpa, I think it compliments Dostoevsky really well, and it's definitely gonna be worth your time. So let's get into it. Dostoevsky spent most of his life struggling with different kinds of self destructive behavior himself. He smoked cigarettes, which many people think led to his death. There was alcohol, though it's up for debate how much he actually did that with his epilepsy. But more than anything, without a doubt, there was the total obsession that he had with gambling. That was the big one for him. Roulette was his game of choice, couldn't stop himself from doing it at times. In fact, between the years of 1863 and '65, he had played so much roulette and racked up so much debt with people that he had collectors coming after him threatening to take him to court if he didn't pay them. So to keep these people at bay for a while, he had to sign what can only be described as an extremely predatory publishing contract, where in exchange for some money upfront, the contract said he had to deliver a manuscript to them by …