COULD A modern student spend hours in a feverish state, in thin clothes, lying on a sofa in a dark, dank, poorly furnished room, turning over in their mind some vague halfformed ideas about lice and Napoleon? Could they then plan and execute the bloody murder of a mean pawnbroker and moneylender? Would they use an axe? Could they then undergo a conversion experience under the influence of a beautiful but delicate girl called Sofia?
Isn’t it a shame that they couldn’t?
The historian Arnold Toynbee claimed that conditions of “ease” hinder the development of civilisation. The thesis has been widely criticised, but when it comes to creativity he might have had a point, even if he never realised it. How many great writers, intellectuals and artists have spent their intellectual formative years getting pissed? Several, perhaps, but they all did it in the spirit of genuine wanton self-destruction which is in itself a form of artistic expression, and which is sadly rare nowadays.
You see, modern students have it far too easy. Instead of worrying about whether they have enough money to pay their months-overdue rent to their evil landlady without pawning their last possession apart from their threadbare winter coat, they worry about whether they can afford to get pissed tonight. And they always “can,” even when they can’t. When they go out, they go out together in groups of friends, socialising and engaging in such frivolous activities as having fun and relaxing. The Nietzschean superstudent on the other hand “goes out” in the following manner.
What is wrong with today’s students?
i) Wanders out of sub-sub-let room without putting on coat (despite cold air and weak chest), because in feverish daze.
ii) Walks down streets of European city, without noticing where he is going.
iii) Enters dingy bar where various archetypal low lives are assembled.
iv) Spends last penny/centime/kopek/pfennig/forint on drink.
v) Engages in conversation with one of aforementioned low lives. This will illuminate some aspect of student’s life, art or thought.
etc.
I do not necessarily endorse Raskolnikov’s particularly homicidal brand of nihilism. However, it does occur to me that, unlike Dostoevsky’s most famous protagonist, modern students fall sadly short of the standards demanded of the uberkursteilnehmer (super-student) by Nietzsche in his classic work on the subject, Kampf und die Kursteilnehmer.
Why go the pub, drink too much, and fall over, when you can follow in the footsteps of the great, and step-over?