How Would Dostoyevsky's Underground Man Be Living Today?

Reading one's way through the classics of nineteenth century literature one can scarcely avoid Fyodor Dostoyevsky--and while he is perhaps best known through his thousand-page epic The Karamazov Brothers (one big book that justifies its length far, far better than most in this reader's opinion) I suspect many more who actually read him (rather than lyingly say they do) know him from shorter works. Among the more notable is his Notes From Underground--the first-person confession of a man who, today, might be described as a nineteenth-century hikikomori who has used a modest inheritance to isolate himself in an apartment in the Russian capital of Saint Petersburg for as long as his money will hold out.

Naturally I have found my thoughts turning back to it when taking up the subject of social isolation today. In the course of that I found myself thinking about how technology has changed the situation of someone of similar means attempting to live in such a manner--a point that can seem trivial next to some of the issues with which Dostoyevsky struggles, but have some importance.

In the book the "Underground Man" (as the character has come to be known) was obliged to keep a servant to relieve his household cares (somebody had to go out to get food). Today modern household appliances and online delivery make that rather less necessary.

Meanwhile, Dostoyevsky's Underground Man had little to do in his apartment but read. Today he would have the brave new world of electronic entertainment to keep himself busy--including all the books anyone could handle if he opted to have an e-reader, though I suspect he would have spent a lot of time playing video games. On those occasions when he got the itch to interact with others (which in the book means his barging into the company of people he hates, and who do not want him around, time and again leading to dreadfully humiliating episodes) he could have just done it online--while he would have probably opted for cybersex over his trips to a brothel.

All of this, I think, makes it easier for people to live in isolation--to, while keeping isolated, minimize their contact with others, and keep themselves entertained. And I suspect that many more now do so because of that.

In saying so I render no judgment on "technology"--the availability of which I consider to at least have given people some measure of choice. What seems to me a problem is the condition of a society that makes so many find becoming an Underground Man the least-worst of the options open to them--which is absolutely no testament to its health.