He preferred a Russian spiritual approach that did not quantify and "dehumanize- (Smith). Through the characters of his book, the author makes his persuasions known. When Raskolnikov first encounters a drunken Marmeladov, the civil service officer rambles to quote Lebezyatnikov's contemporary ideas: " the science of our day has actually declared compassion a social evil, and that this notion is already being put into practice in England, where they have no political economy- (Dostoyevsky 45). Raskolnikov also criticizes Western preference for statistics when he speaks of the prostitution trend:.
They say that each year a certain percentage has to go off down that road in order to give others fresh hope and not get in their way. A percentage! Nice little words they use, to be sure: They're so reassuring, so scientific. Just say: percentage' and all your problems are over (Dostoyevsky 85). .
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Crime and Punishment's central character, Raskolnikov, is a Western sympathist who has an awakening similar to Dostoyevsky's. Raskolnikov's justification of his crime is the principal example of his radicalism. His theory of the extraordinary being' having a "private [right], to allow his conscience to step across certain obstacles if the execution of his idea requires it- (Dostoyevsky 312) is that of a liberal extremist. In discussing his published article with Porfiry Petrovich, Raskolnikov argues that "human beings in general may be divided into two categories: a lower one (that of the ordinary), that is to say the raw material which serves exclusively to bring into being more like itself, and another group of people who possess a gift or a talent for saying something new- (Dostoyevsky 313). Throughout history, extraordinary people such as Kepler, Newton, Lycurgus, Salon, Mahomet, and Napoleon have instilled their new ideas only by violating the old (Dostoyevsky 313).!.
Raskolnikov believes that it is the responsibility of these progressive future thinkers to challenge the masses that suppress them.