Weirdest trivial thing I've learned about Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor: Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton both like it, for oppositely-misconceived reasons. From The New Yorker, October 2009:
In 2001, The New York Times reported that Laura Bush’s favorite piece of literature was the “Grand Inquisitor” scene from Dostoevsky’s novel. She saw it as an affirmation of faith:
In the dialogue with the Inquisitor, Jesus remains silent, and the chapter has two endings, the first tragic, the second a victory for Christianity.
For Mrs. Bush, there was no ambiguity. ”It’s about life, and it’s about death, and it’s about Christ,” she has said. ”I find it really reassuring.”
Then, Hillary Clinton revealed this week her fave is also “The Brothers Karamazov.” She had exactly the opposite take—for her, the chapter was a testament to the virtue of doubt, not certainty:
Asked to name the book that had made the biggest impact on her, she singled out “The Brothers Karamazov.” The parable of the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoyevsky’s novel, she said, speaks to the dangers of certitude.
“For a lot of reasons, that was an important part of my thinking,” Mrs. Clinton said. “One of the greatest threats we face is from people who believe they are absolutely, certainly right about everything.”
I'm pretty sure Dostoevsky was not intending to issue just another standard liberal protest against dogmatic certitude, any more than he meant to reinforce his readers' conventional pieties of faith.
What exactly he was saying is still a bit murky to me, but the dubiety of "Miracle, Mystery, and Authority"* has to be at the heart of it. That, and the credulity of so many humans who don't have it in them to heed Immanuel Kant's plea for enlightenment.**
Do you wonder what Melania thinks of the Inquisitor? Me neither.
*We corrected and improved Thy teaching and based it upon "Miracle, Mystery, and Authority." And men rejoiced at finding themselves led once more like a herd of cattle, and at finding their hearts at last delivered of the terrible burden laid upon them by Thee, which caused them so much suffering.
**Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! "Have courage to use your own reason!" -- that is the motto of enlightenment.
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