My dear readers, I would like to share a good book with you although I've not finished the book yet. (It's only 656 pages long, a little light reading for those lazy summer days :P)
It's called "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (No I can't read a bloody word of Russian, the book has been translated into English)
When the main character kills two women, one premeditated and one in the heat of the moment, totally unplanned. I'm barely a quarter a way through the book and he is already battling his conscience.
But it got me thinking whether or not there is such a thing named "conscience" or is it a socially learnt behaviour ? When I was at Catholic school I was taught that stealing is wrong and that I would expected to be caught, NO MATTER WHAT.
So I decided to test this little theory out by stealing a pen from one of those cheapie $2 shops when I was 10. As I tucked that pen in my pocket, sure enough, those voices had started to drive me nuts.
"What the fuck are you doing ? Don't you know that you will be caught, remember what the sister said at School. Oh shit, you might as well as go to hell now you sinner !!!!"
At the same time I was desperately trying to calm myself down.
"Be cool, don't do anything out of the ordinary, just walk outside the shop and wait for mum"
Despite that schizophrenic threatening episode, my heart was thumping like a turbo charged WRX and my eyes were wide like an owl on the lookout for the security guard waiting to pounce on me to accuse me of theft. I just followed my mother outside the shop as she didn't buy anything.
Fuck me!!
It wasn't until I realised I had got away with it and the threat of being caught had eased that my thoughts were finally brought under my control.
Interesting !!
I wonder if the whole episode had been played out differently if I hadn't been taught that stealing is wrong and the possible consequences of committing it. Hmmmmmm... this train of thought can keep me going for a little while..
In the mean time.. please feel free to discuss this...
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1 comment:
Woah! Heavy reading mate. Woah!
Still waters run deep! Woah! RFLOL.
I've read that book, ooh years ago, can't remember the detail, but I do remember the pervading bleak atmosphere and karma.
Yeh but when Catholic Skools teach you summat, it's usually one rule for you and another for the priests... so I wouldn't put too much stock in what Catholic church has to say about ethics and morality.
Your own instinct is far more reliable!
BTW got this "Nice guys create situations in which they do not have very much good sex." by following that NICE GUY link in yer LINKS SECTION. Is this describing you?
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