How To Have Your Own Views – What "The Brothers Karamazov" Tells Us About It

Information is everywhere today. You can search for anything on Google. You can find tremendous thoughts expressed via Facebook or Twitter. In such a world, it's important to think with your head and have your view.

The problem is that you sometimes accept someone else's view without deep thought. In that case, "your view" may not be yours.

The Brothers Karamazov, a famous literary work by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, gives us hints of how to have our own view.

Photo by Elisa Calvet B. on Unsplash

Before starting

What is a view? When is a view yours?

First, I would like to clarify what I mean to say by the phrase view. A view is what a person thinks based on what the person experienced in their life and the knowledge they have.

If you have a view and you can explain why you can say that in your words, the view is your view. On the other hand, "your view" is not yours if you can't explain why. In that case, you have an unconscious unfounded assumption. You may also believe what someone says is correct.

Views that you have have an influence on your behavior. Having only someone else's views means that you live your life passively. To live your life actively, you should have your view.

About The Brothers Karamazov and Book X

The Brothers Karamazov is a literary work about God and humans. The story goes with a snobbish, philandering, and insane Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his three sons, Dmitri, Ivan, and Alexei. Alexei is usually called Alyosha in the story. I'll call him Alyosha in this post.

In Book X, the story goes with schoolboys and Alyosha. Ilusha is a schoolboy with a fatal disease and won't live long. Kolya is also a schoolboy who is brilliant and hates to be emotional. Kolya goes to see Ilusha for the first time since Ilusha fell ill. After seeing Ilusha, Kolya talks about his belief with Alyosha.

Book X tells us thought-provoking things about having our own views.

"Your view" may not be yours

"When you are older, you'll understand for yourself the influence of age on convictions. I fancied, too, that you were not expressing your own ideas,"

The above is Alyosha's line to Kolya. Alyosha says that line when Kolya is speaking of his belief.

Alyosha doesn't care about Kolya's actual age. He doesn't treat him as a boy. He indeed communicates with the schoolboy as if talking with an adult. What he cares about is whether Kolya's "ideas" are his ideas based on deep contemplation. It would sound to Alyosha that what Kolya's speaking of is not his idea but the information he has just gotten from books.

His line reminds us; what you think is "your view" isn't possibly yours but just someone else's.

In this case, things are simple because the author depicts Kolya as if he were showing off his knowledge rather than claiming his view. In reality, however, things are more complicated because you are usually unaware that you speak of someone else's view as yours. Kolya also doesn't realize he takes someone else's view as his own until he talks with Alyosha.

How can we avoid mistaking someone else's view for yours?

Be humble and keep learning

"Not long ago I read the criticism made by a German who had lived in Russia, on our students and schoolboys of to-day. 'Show a Russian schoolboy,' he writes, 'a map of the stars, which he knows nothing about, and he will give you back the map next day with corrections on it.' No knowledge and unbounded conceit — that's what the German meant to say about the Russian schoolboy."

The above is Alyosha's line. He says that to Kolya. Kolya unconsciously shows off his knowledge. He speaks of everything as if he knew many things about it, so Alyosha says the line.

There are many things you haven't yet known. As Dunning-Kruger Effect indicates, you tend to overestimate your understanding level when you've just started to learn something. If you feel you know a lot about something, you should learn more instead of feeling complacent.

Don't be afraid of admitting your ignorance

"And what does ridiculous mean? Isn't every one constantly being or seeming ridiculous? Besides, nearly all clever people now are fearfully afraid of being ridiculous, and that makes them unhappy. All I am surprised at is that you should be feeling that so early, though I've observed it for some time past, and not only in you. Nowadays the very children have begun to suffer from it. It's almost a sort of insanity. The devil has taken the form of that vanity and entered into the whole generation; it's simply the devil,"

The above is Alyosha's line. Alyosha says that when Kolya admits he showed off his knowledge and he's afraid of being disdained.

Don't worry if you realize your ignorance. You're in a phase of conscious incompetence. If you hesitate to admit ignorance, you'll never go forward. What is important is to admit your ignorance honestly and to keep learning.

Learn from your experience

"Oh, how I regret and blame myself for not having come sooner!"

The above is Kolya's line. He doesn't realize that he should visit Ilusha sooner until he does so.

Kolya finally visits Ilusha after putting off coming all the time to train a dog. He instructed the dog to surprise Ilusha or just for complacency.

When he sees Ilusha for the first time since he has got a disease, he knows with his own eyes that Ilusha's condition is far worse than he had imagined. He plans to see Ilusha and meets him as designed. Still, he emotionally understands that he should have come sooner when he meets Ilusha.

This part tells you that you can and should learn from experience. There are things you can't understand only with your thinking. Your own experience tells you a lot.

Talk about your view to someone

Talk about your view to other people. They may give you a perspective you didn't have.

In the conversation with Alyosha, Kolya understands himself. In telling Alyosha about "his view," Kolya gradually realizes that he is merely speaking of the knowledge he has gained from books rather than presenting his own views. Kolya also realizes he doesn't understand enough of the books he has read. Alyosha naturally asks Kolya how Kolya gets his ideas, and Alyosha's questions make Kolya realize he doesn't know why.

Talking helps you organize your thoughts. Also, the person listening to you would ask, "Why?" which gets you noticing assumptions you are unknowingly making. To answer the questions, you'll ask yourself, "Why?" and understand you have assumptions. You'll also realize many things you haven't yet understood well.

When no one is around you, talk to yourself. When you come up with an idea, ask yourself why you think so. You may find your unfounded assumptions.

Conclusion

It's more difficult to have your view than to take someone else's view as yours. You need to know various people's views from multiple perspectives, understand those views with your head, extract the essence from those views, and form your view combined with your experiences and values.

In short, having our own view is thinking on our own, but the ability to think makes us human. We should have our own views to be human.