Classics and the Western Canon discussion

Notes from Underground begins with a famous confession from an unnamed narrator: "I am a sick man." And the confession continues for some time.

He seems to know himself well, and he is brutally honest about what an awful, miserable man he is. He doesn't seem to be interested in doing anything about it though, and even takes a kind of masochistic pleasure in his despair. What is the nature of the this man's disease?

The narrator says he quit his job after he came into some money and has settled into his corner of a room. The Russian word for "underground" can also mean the crawlspace under a floor. (Vladimir Nabokov suggested the title "Memoirs from a Mousehole".) What does he mean by "underground"?

In Section XI he invents a discussion between the reader and himself and says "To be sure, I myself have just made up all these words of yours. This too is from underground. I've spent forty years on end listening to these words of yours through a crack. I thought them up myself, since this is all that would get thought up. No wonder they got learned by heart and assumed a literary form."

Who is he speaking to? Sometimes he addresses a group of "gentlemen," sometimes he addresses the reader, but he seems to be speaking for his own benefit. What kind of "literary form" is this?

Thomas wrote: "Who is he speaking to? Sometimes he addresses a group of "gentlemen," sometimes he addresses the reader, but he seems to be speaking for his own benefit. What kind of "literary form" is this?.."

I think it is a confessional literary form.

It sounds to me as if the speaker has conducted extensive conversations with himself--imagining an audience, anticipating its objections, and addressing those objections. He seems to have had very little meaningful interaction with actual people and spends a lot of time in his head. He comes across as someone who has spent time in solitary confinement who, in order to assuage his loneliness, fantasizes about having conversations with others.

Our hero leaves a lot of undeveloped ideas and sentiments in Part I.
One that attracted my attention is a concept of so-called 'ingenuous people/active figures' (in Pevear translation). (Supposedly people who live above the ground?).
In the Forward of his translation Pevear mentions that at least partly NFU is an artistic response to Chernyshevsky's novel What's to Be Done, and quotes Chern-y from that novel:
"Yes, I will always do what I want. I will never sacrifice anything, not even a whim, for the sake of something I do not desire. What I want, with all my heart, is to make people happy. In this lies my happiness. Mine! Can you hear that, you, in your underground hole?"
Maybe in our hero's mind Chern-y is a classical representative of those so-called active figures?

I would never make the connection with Chernyshevsky myself but now when you say it, it makes sense. I know that Chernyshevsky wrote his book in response to the Turgenev book Fathers and Children. It seems they had a very lively discussion back then in Russia.

I also wondered what was meant by underground.
At first I thought he is dead and buried underground and is he talking to "gentleman" angels hearing his side of things. But he says

I used to live in this corner before, but now I’ve settled down in it.
~Katz Translation

I like the suggestion that it sounds confessional in nature.

I also wonder why some editions are titled Notes from Undergound and others are titled, Notes From The Underground Is there a difference with or without The?

David wrote: "I also wonder why some editions are titled Notes from Undergound and others are titled, Notes From The Underground Is there a difference with or without The?.."

I read The underground as an actual location, a physical space under the ground, as in, for example the tube in England; an underground tunnel.

I read underground minus The as a metaphor for psychic space, as in, for example, I'm going into myself; I'm withdrawing.

However, I have a propensity to see metaphors all over the place, so I maybe reading too much into it.

David wrote: "...I also wonder why some editions are titled Notes from Undergound and others are titled, Notes From The Underground Is there a difference with or without The?"

There is no 'The' in the original simply because Russian does not have grammatical articles. Same as Latin and probably half of other Indo-European languages. The subtlties in meaning are conveyed by other means.

One can regard the grammar of a language as a set of tools applied upon its vocabulary. In different languages the sets are different. There is always a significant overlap, but differences is what most exciting and hardest to master especially if you are learning a new language when already an adult. But that's a diifferent topic....

Tamara wrote: "David wrote: "I also wonder why some editions are titled Notes from Undergound and others are titled, Notes From The Underground Is there a difference with or without The?.."

I read The undergroun..."

Interestingly, modern Russian speakers understand “подполье” almost exclusively as an 'underground organisation', maybe in some villages it is still a 'basement' or a 'crawling-space'. But in the 19th century it was different. I'm not sure what metaphor the author meant; the narrator has yet used it in the sense of crawling-space only, which is a quite different image from what I expected reading the title alone.

What does he mean by "underground"?
One idea I had is that he is doing some digging in his own subconscious. He writes in the end of part I, that his aim is to try to be completely honest with himself, even though he doubts one can really do that. So maybe underground is the ground under his conscious thought? Or the ground under all the lies we tell ourselves, because we are afraid to face or find out the truth (that 2+2=4). Btw I adore his humor/irony.

One thing I found interesting is his idea that men love chaos, and demolition, and at the same time, building and progressing, but not for the sake of arriving or finishing (men are afraid of arriving), but I guess, because it gives them something to do? And the love of chaos and demolition stems from this same fear of finally arriving. We cannot stand the idea of perfect harmony, and even if we had it, our need to distinguish ourselves and to show our individuality would prompt us to act out, against our own interest in fact, only so that we would go against the grain, and not take the "prescribed" road.

I found the narrator’s wish to “become an insect” interesting. It is not the familiar “wishing to be a fly on the wall” idea of secretly observing others, but is a longing to reduce consciousness and overthinking which he thinks is a disease. He says,

I’ll tell you solemnly that I wished to become an insect many times. . .I swear to you, gentlemen, that being overly conscious is a disease, a genuine, full-fledged disease. Katz, (I.II)

The “insect” here seems to symbolize a simple, instinctive life free from the torment of overthinking. In his view, thinking and acting seem inversely proportional: the more one reflects, the less one can act, and vice versa. He does seem to be one that may suffer from paralysis by analysis.

It made me wonder: is this contrast between the “man of thought” and the “man of action” at all like our familiar geeks vs. jocks divide? The highly reflective but socially paralyzed vs. the instinctive doer? Or is that too much of a stretch?

David wrote: "I found the narrator’s wish to “become an insect” interesting...

The “insect” here seems to symbolize a simple, instinctive life free from the torment of overthinking."

He suffers from what we might call "analysis paralysis" today. Since this group just read the Gita we could say he might be like Arjuna on the battlefield, unable to just act. He instead is too conscious, all thought. If he could be like an ant, he would just do the things he expected to do (dharma?) like the overwhelming majority of people.

I don't think he read the Gita or is even referencing it. It is more likely the insect trope is tied to something like Vergil's fourth Georgic.

...an inborn love of possession impels the bees
Each to his own office. The old are the town's wardens,
Who wall the honeycombs and frame the intricate houses.
Tired, as the night deepens, the young return from labor,
Their legs laden with thyme: they feed afar on the arbute,
The silvery willow, the spurge laurel, the fire-blush saffron,
The lime blossom so rich, the rust-red martagon lily.
For one and all one work-time, and a like rest from work.
At morning they hurry from the hives, all helter-skelter: again
When the Evening Star has told them to leave their meadow pasture,
They make for home, they refresh themselves. What a murmuring
You hear as they drone around their policies and doorsteps!
Later, they settle down in their cells for the night, a silence
Falls, a drowsy fatigue falls.

This idea of a thoughtful, 19th-century person being unable to contribute in the traditional ways feels to me like a midpoint between the idea of being a worker in a society like Vergil's idealized hive and a fully assimilated borg-like slave from Star Trek.

This passage caught my attention:

But, gentlemen, who could possibly be proud of his illnesses and want to show them off? But what am I saying? Everyone does that; people do take pride in their illnesses, and I, perhaps, more than anyone.
~Katz (I.II)

I can understand having some pride in surviving an illness. Since he redefines consciousness, or too much of it, as a disease, I can even see how one might prefer that kind of “illness” to the opposite. But is pride in an illness a real thing, or just another case of the narrator being spiteful and contrary?

David wrote: "But is pride in an illness a real thing, or just another case of the narrator being spiteful and contrary?."

Could pride in illness be a way of generating sympathy? A way of standing above the crowd? The narrator is convinced and tries to convince his "audience" that he stands above the crowd in terms of his intelligence and analytical abilities. He says he, more than anyone else, takes pride in his illness. Maybe this is nothing more than his attempt to set himself apart from the rest of us.

David wrote: "I found the narrator’s wish to “become an insect” interesting. It is not the familiar “wishing to be a fly on the wall” idea of secretly observing others, but is a longing to reduce consciousness a..."

I think that may be a part of it. But I also think he is convinced the outside world perceives him as an oddball, a weirdo. The insect immediately brought to my mind Kafka's Metamorphosis--a creepy, crawly creature that generates horror and disgust from all who see it.

Alexey wrote: "But in the 19th century it was different. I'm not sure what metaphor the author meant; the narrator has yet used it in the sense of crawling-space only, which is a quite different image from what I expected reading the title alone."

In section XI the narrator says,

To be sure, I myself have just made up all these words of yours. This, too, is from underground. I've spent forty years on end there listening to these words of yours through a crack.

The image of the narrator listening through a crack made me think that he might be under the floorboards. metaphorically of course. The underground seems to be a place of degradation, the opposite of the Crystal Palace that he rejects so forcefully.

Xaph wrote: "Btw I adore his humor/irony."

I'm glad to learn I'm not the only one... he is so stubbornly ornery and his delivery is so histrionic that it's hard not to laugh sometimes. I feel a little guilty about that because he's so miserable, but he likes being miserable!

The narrator reminds me of Groucho Marx in Horsefeathers: "Whatever it is, I'm against it."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHash...

The narrator seems to have no principles on principle. He even resents natural law because it limits him. He speaks several times about a wall, but the wall seems to be something that is simply necessary, like the fact that 2 x 2 equals 4. Why does he object to that?

I read a few chapters in an English yesterday, because I wanted to read again the part about sickness and being proud of it and thought how endearing the narrator is to me. I think we would have been friends maybe.

I love how he sees his own dark side (like when he catches himself trying to come off smart for example), and then punishes himself for it (he will not delete something he wrote even though after the fact he sees his joke was not funny etc)

I think this is special about him because it's very hard to see our own faults; we are usually blind to them until someone points them out or a life event teaches us a lesson.

I wonder if others feel positive about the narrator as well or do you find him annoying/irritating/weak?

I don't feel positive about the narrator but I understand him because I sometimes think and act like him. I am not proud of it but we all have our own dark side. Maybe that man who lives in the underground is part of us, part of our own being. The fallen part we are trying to hide.

It's interesting what you say Sinisa, I'm not an expert on Jung, but from what I did read, I think he encouraged an acknowledgement and integration of one's dark side, rather than trying to hide it, pretending it isn't there, or worst of all, being unaware that we have it.

What I like about the narrator is that he is trying to be honest with himself.

That makes us two. I don't know anything about Jung except that he was a famous psychologist.
I can identify with the narrator in many cases. For example when he says that he is smarter than anyone else. I felt like that many times, but in the end life always proved me wrong.

The Underground Man seems to be going through an existential crisis, not in the modern, Sartrean sense, but in a post-Enlightenment world where reason and progress have failed to deliver on their promises and are perceived as instead decreasing meaning and purpose. He rails against the Age of Reason to the point of championing irrationality out of spite.

That made me think of this line from Moby-Dick:

For, say they, when cruising in an empty ship, if you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least.
~Melville, Moby Dick, Ch. 101, “The Decanter”

Ishmael treats this as stoic sailor wisdom, if the world offers no grand meaning, at least enjoy its smaller rewards. By contrast, the Underground Man refuses that kind of consolation. When his “ship” feels empty, he would rather suffer than take any small pleasures, as though any comfort would betray his self-awareness or dignity.

It made me wonder: are these two authors describing the same condition, a world that feels empty of higher meaning, but with opposite responses? Melville’s perseverance versus Dostoevsky’s despair? Or is the Underground Man’s refusal of a good dinner really just about how unbearable consciousness can become?

David wrote: "Or is the Underground Man’s refusal of a good dinner really just about how unbearable consciousness can become?"

Does he ever say what is unbearable about consciousness? I'm having a hard time seeing any specifics in his complaint. It all seems manufactured. His "heightened self-consciousness" is how he tries to make his misery sound noble, but he knows that it isn't. (If it were he would reject it out of spite!)

The only endearing thing I find about the narrator is that he's honest, and so far I don't think he's blamed anyone but himself. He's so self absorbed that he can't see beyond his despair, which looks to me like clinical depression. I know Dostoevsky was not trying to present a medical case here, but it sure looks like one.

Xaph wrote: "I wonder if others feel positive about the narrator as well or do you find him annoying/irritating/weak?"

Sometimes I play this silly game with myself: Which literary character from the modest list of books I've read represents me the most?
The first prize is easy, it goes to Oblomov. 50% of me is him.
The second I'd say would be the Underground Man. Maybe 25%.
(numbers not calculated, but felt, of course).
For the third place there is a very crowded fight.

Thomas wrote: "Does he ever say what is unbearable about consciousness? I'm having a hard time seeing any specifics in his complaint. It all seems manufactured."

He can't. If he could, he would dismiss it as a lie.
I think for him, being conscious of life itself is itself unbearable.
I think it's impossible to find good logic in his naration. Maybe D. wrote it that way to avoid any verbal quasilogical debate; instead, he tried to hit readers with narator's emotions, hoping to resonate similar vibrations in our souls? It looks that for the UM the fundamental nature of consciousness is beyond verbal discription, and since language seems to be the only tool we have at hand, he is doing this awkward wordy dancing, just to get under the reader's skin...... Actually, that probably was D's goal, not the narator's.
The narator looks ever so slightly to bear caricatured features.
And, maybe because of that, if taken seriously, he seems to show symptoms of a depressed one?
For me, personally, to feel is more than to think. And maybe because of that, I feel for him and partly feel him.

Bigollo wrote: "Xaph wrote: "I wonder if others feel positive about the narrator as well or do you find him annoying/irritating/weak?"

Sometimes I play this silly game with myself: Which literary character from t..."

Thank you for explaining Bigollo, I think how we feel about this character can tell us something about ourselves. I haven't yet read Oblomov, but I have it on my TBR, I'll move it up the list.
If I were to play this game I think Stoner by John Williams would come first to my mind.

Thomas wrote: The only endearing thing I find about the narrator is that he's honest, and so far I don't think he's blamed anyone but himself.

Isn't this more than we can say for most people? He's trying even if it's unpleasant. He prefers digging in the mud (of his own mind) to get to the truth, to the easy way out (blaming others or similar). And once we see ourselves better, we can be better with others as well, and maybe then we start being less self absorbed. (Γνῶθι σεαυτόν)

Thank you Thomas. Really interesting to read everyone's reactions.

Thomas wrote: "Does he ever say what is unbearable about consciousness?"

Primarily, he feels that thinking displaces action; he is acknowledging his own paralysis by analysis. He treats this as an illness; an awareness that never stops interrogating itself. This is most telling when he states,

Can a man possessing consciousness ever really respect himself? (I.IV)
~Katz

This condition consumes him so completely that he identifies himself by it and “men of action” by their lack of it. Yet his awareness dissolves every label, leaving him undefined, except as one tormented by his own consciousness (I.VI). He is proud of this “disease” because it makes him feel intellectually superior to the “men of action” who do not, will not, or cannot think. At the same time, he admires the men of action because would like to take a break from his thoughts but cannot stop the process. He even wishes himself an insect in order to escape awareness (I.II). He craves a fixed identity — even a base one.

He reminds me of Cassandra, who's gift of prophecy was cursed by being doomed never to be believed. Instead of seeing the future, the Underground Man’s gift of awareness of the present is a curse by being doomed to disapprove of himself and of the world.

He fears determinism will annihilate zest and personhood, he distrusts utopia because it would eliminate freedom, and he rejects rational advantage or any clear path of “best choices.” He champions caprice as the antidote. All this overthinking makes him a disturbed man, though I am beginning to see how his consciousness leads to his conclusions. He wishes he could stop thinking about it, but instead of finding healthy ways to cope, he hides underground. To reuse my earlier comparison, he is hiding out in the hold of an empty ship instead of at least trying to get a good dinner out of it.

He is probably caught in a cycle of clinical depression and lacks the coping skills to get out of it.
1. Negative emotions: guilt, hopelessness, sadness. which yield
2. Depression, which yields
3. Fatigue, low energy, and lack of motivation, which yield
4. Decreased activity, neglect of responsibilities, and isolation (living underground), which yield
1. Renewed negative emotions…

Bigollo wrote: "...instead, he tried to hit readers with narator's emotions, hoping to resonate similar vibrations in our souls?."

I'm beginning to think D is using the voice of the narrator to jolt the reader into questioning himself/herself. The narrator ricochets from one extreme to another, contradicts himself, rejects reason, denigrates himself then claims he is more intelligent than others, etc. etc. It is like a game being played on the reader. Any time we think we have a handle on the narrator, he sweeps the rug away from under our feet. His introspection is designed to unsettle us and to get us to question our own assumptions and self-image.

Is this supposed to be a novel? It doesn't have much of a plot.

A forerunner of the modernism, they say.

I'm a bit behind the group as I've just finished this section.

I very much appreciate how in section vii he begins calling out how disturbing the idea of humans being rational actors in an economical model, a la Adam Smith Wealth of Nations, is. The idea that "...all human actions will then be calculated..." reminds me of the use of statistics to predict the future in Asimov's Foundation.

Then he hits us, in a long description I've sampled below, with the idea that our self-destructive behavior is an act of self-preservation and that something human in us needs to go beyond the math and science -

...there is only one case, one only, when man may purposely, consciously wish for himself even the harmful, the stupid, even what is stupidest... it preserves for us the chiefest and dearest thing, that is, our personality and our individuality... he will even risk his gingerbread... with the sole purpose of confirming to himself that human being are still human beings adn not piano keys... two times two is four has a cocky look; it stands across you path, arms akimbo, and spits. I agree that two times two is four is an excellent thing; but if we're going to start praising everything, the two times two is five is sometimes also a most charming little thing.

On a side note, this "two times two is five" business reminds me of the "how many fingers" (four or five) situation from 1984. Two different sides of needing to deny reality.

There's a scene in The Age of Reason by Sartre (and this is not a recommendation) where one of the characters tries to drown a litter of kittens just to prove to himself that he is free. Underground Man reminds me of him. He is willing to both inflict cruelty and endure cruelty for the sake of an idea, that human freedom is absolute. He thinks his identity as an individual requires independence from his own nature as a human being, which actually makes him something other than human. It makes him inhuman.

Thomas wrote: "He thinks his identity as an individual requires independence from his own nature as a human being..."

This is quite a thesis. I can't say whether it is correct for Underground Man. It feels more likely true of later existentialist thought. Maybe Underground Man is a precursor? I'm out of my depth on the topic, so reallym as Underground Man might say, I'm just "spitting."

Michael wrote: "Thomas wrote: "He thinks his identity as an individual requires independence from his own nature as a human being..."

This is quite a thesis. I can't say whether it is correct for Underground Man...."

I think Underground Man skips the struggles of existentialism and goes straight to the suffering that is explained by it. In some ways this makes sense, because he has no interest in rationalizing his rejection of reason. I'm not sure if Dostoyevsky had any interest in explaining it either, at least not in the way the philosophers would. He obviously didn't write Notes to encourage people to think or be like UM.

In any case, I think you're right that UM is a precursor, a rough sketch for the existentialist characters that come later. Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment could be a more developed version of UM.

Thomas wrote: "I think you're right that UM is a precursor, a rough sketch for the existentialist characters that come later."

I am in agreement with this thesis. I think Notes from Underground describe the symptoms of a proto-existentialist condition. The UM doesn’t struggle toward existential insight; he begins in the very condition that later existentialists will analyze, exaggerated self-consciousness that paralyzes both action and belief.

I will suggest however, that UM does rationalize his rejection of reason. He argues that to preserve freedom, one must assert the right to be non-rational. For him, reason and determinism go hand in hand.: if human behavior can be reduced to rational laws, then genuine freedom disappears. I think he rationalizes it in part when he writes,

One’s very own free, unfettered desire, one’s own whim, no matter how wild, one’s own fantasy, even though sometimes roused to the point of madness—all this constitutes precisely that previously omitted, most advantageous advantage which isn’t included under any classification and because of which all systems and theories are constantly smashed to smithereens. Where did these sages ever get the idea that man needs any normal, virtuous desire? How did they ever imagine that man needs any kind of rational, advantageous desire? Man needs only one thing—his own independent desire, whatever that independence might cost and wherever it might lead. I.VII
~Katz translation

In other words, for all the advantages rationality provides, the one most advantageous advantage that UM is so proud to have identified is the advantage of non-rational thoughts and impulses because he has concluded they preserves freedom.

Dostoevsky’s purpose, wasn’t to recommend this stance but to expose it. The Underground Man’s freedom exists only in negation, and his “rational irrationality” leads to misery, not liberation. Later existentialists will inherit that same tension but try to move beyond it by seeking authenticity or meaning in the face of despair.

The pardox above kind of reminds me of Russell’s Paradox:

Does the set of all sets that do not contain themselves include itself?

If it does, it doesn’t; if it doesn’t, it does. The self-reference destroys the logical system’s consistency.

UM commits a similar contradiction:

Does the principle of acting always in one’s “rational advantage” include the advantage of rejecting rational advantage?

If it does, then irrational action becomes rational; if it doesn’t, then human freedom is excluded. Either way, the system collapses.

It also reminds me of a time when I used to flip a coin to decide between two trivial options, I would chose the opposite of what the coin indicated as a form of protest against leaving my choice to chance. That impulse feels like a miniature version of the UM's rebellion: the desire to assert will, even when there’s nothing to gain but the proof (delusion) that one can still choose.

A friend of mine that knew I did this once called me on it when I went the coin toss, "Aren't you going to do the opposite"? I said, "No, if I go against the coin every time it becomes just like the random chance of going with the coin, you have to mix it up a bit to retain some independence." Like UM, I am not a stranger to overthinking things. 🙂

Which brings me to my question, how much of the Underground Man’s defiance do you recognize in yourself? Do you ever feel that same impulse to prove freedom by resisting whatever seems to dictate your choice, even when it makes no rational sense?

David wrote: "Which brings me to my question, how much of the Underground Man’s defiance do you recognize in yourself? Do you ever feel that same impulse to prove freedom by resisting whatever seems to dictate your choice, even when it makes no rational sense?"

Yes, I'm a proper prick-kicking, kick pricker. I both need routine and bore of it.

Which brings me to my question, how much of the Underground Man’s defiance do you recognize in yourself? Do you ever feel that same impulse to prove freedom by resisting whatever seems to dictate your choice, even when it makes no rational sens

Yes, I almost always avoid doing something obvious or expected. For some reason the obvious choice repulses me.

I think it's a combination of not wanting to be read or defined too easily, (if you know what I'm going to do, I am like a machine) and a want to assert one's individuality and uniqueness. Thinking about this is a bit disturbing to be honest. Why is it so important to be unique?

David wrote: "The pardox above kind of reminds me of Russell’s Paradox:
Does the set of all sets that do not contain themselves include itself?
If it does, it doesn’t; if it doesn’t, it does. The self-referenc..."

UM's complaint seems to be about his existence as a determinate creature, limited by nature and reason, so Russell's paradox is an interesting comparison. It looks to me like UM rejects "set theory" altogether because it would limit him to the theory. It would be similar to your coin toss if you continued choosing the opposite of the opposite of the opposite... ad infinitum. The game can never have a satisfactory conclusion. What he wants is endless "wanting," as he puts it, not satisfaction. It reminds me of a gambling addiction, where the possibility of winning is more powerful than winning itself. What he achieves is not freedom, but guaranteed dissatisfaction. And the result is that his existence has no meaning, literally. And he knows it.

Not just wicked, no, I never even managed to become anything: neither wicked nor good, neither a scoundrel nor an honest man, neither a hero nor an insect. And now I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and utterly futile consolation that it is even impossible for an intelligent man seriously to become anything, and only fools become something. Yes, sir, an intelligent man of the nineteenth century must be and is morally obliged to be primarily a characterless being; and a man of character, an active figure -- primarily a limited being. Pt 1 section 1

David: Which brings me to my question, how much of the Underground Man’s defiance do you recognize in yourself? Do you ever feel that same impulse to prove freedom by resisting whatever seems to dictate your choice, even when it makes no rational sense?

Great question! I recognize his defiance as a mood more than anything else. I will admit to spending some time underground, where nothing has any meaning, but like all moods it passes. On the other hand, actually thinking like UM on a consistent basis is a symptom of disease, and to UM's credit he recognizes that from the first sentence. I would hope that most of us wouldn't suffer from Underground Disease for very long without seeking help.

Thomas wrote: "On the other hand, actually thinking like UM on a consistent basis is a symptom of disease."

From a personality type perspective, MBTI, Enneagram, etc., some of us are more prone to these thoughts and behaviors than others. The personality types models have a lot of problems and that is a whole other conversation. I'm bringing the idea up because that line between what some call a personality type and a disorder or a disease is sometimes fuzzy. Maybe UM is what happens when there's no counterbalance to some impulses.