The Grapes of Wrath vs. Notes from Underground

When I finished Notes from Underground (which is a masterpiece), the first thing that struck me was how, despite living in the nineteenth century, the Underground Man acted a lot like somebody who is chronically online in the modern world. (Probably because I’ve struggled with being that way myself)

“We [the Underground] are oppressed at being men—men with a real individual body and blood, we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace … We are stillborn, and for generations past have been begotten, not by living fathers, and that suits us better and better… Soon we shall contrive to be born somehow from an idea.”

Those who are really, really online often come to the point where they abandon their relationships and physical needs, and their devices, usernames, and profile photos become the new medium of their life and being. In essence, they stop being “men with bodies and blood” and become mere ideas. Drifting around the Internet, discussing imaginary worlds and imaginary problems with those who are similarly detached from reality.

Such people, despite often being extremely opinionated online, also rarely do anything with those opinions in real life. This is the same case with the Underground Man. All his thinking, reading, and reasoning has made him a very educated person, but with all his knowledge, he doesn’t choose to improve his life whatsoever, all he does is rot in his apartment, thinking and thinking. Terminally online people are the same, they talk so much about anarchy, race wars, culture wars, revolutions, and so on, but for all their sources, reasons, and citations, their opinions do not very often manifest into something truly useful or meaningful. Just as with the Underground Man, their ideas just float uselessly around in their heads, making no change in their real-life circumstances.

The characters in The Grapes of Wrath are the polar opposite of the U.M. They’re a family of farmers, the Joads, deep in rural Oklahoma; they live in the 1920s and most of them don’t even know how to write. They don’t document their lives and ideas like the Underground Man does in his “Notes”, nor spend hours philosophizing alone. Neither do they care about maintaining an online image nor doing useless research about radical politics. They are the very “men of action” the U.M. spoke of—living in the moment, never overthinking their own decisions and beliefs, just going with the flow. They spend all day out in the fields, working and playing, talking to neighbors; they eat ravenously and with relish after a long day’s work and sleep like logs in the evening. They’re very connected to the world around them; to the soil and the sun, the grass, the rain, the night stars. Sure, they aren’t “educated” and “aware”, but their lives are much more vibrant and fulfilling than those of people online. They aren’t just ideas, they’re people, alive in the real world.

The Joads also have a much greater sense of community, and a better view of human nature. The U.M. doesn’t even describe his family (beyond his inheritance from a “distant relation”), and hates everyone he meets. He’s deeply suspicious and insecure, just like people online who (often) like to “outsmart” one another with “witty comebacks” or overcomplicate things by attributing them cynical ulterior motives. On the other hand, the Joads inherently trust everybody they meet, offering to let them ride in their cars or help them find jobs. They never assume anything about anyone. Even when they visit shopkeepers who act rudely or rip off their already struggling family, they always manage to see the individuals behind the sellers—how they feel stressed out and feel helpless due to the Great Depression, and don’t mean anything personally. Being chronically online will let you “know” humanity by exposing you to a lot of extreme stories about being harassed, kidnapped, or screamed at for no reason, but at the same time, they make you think humanity is much crazier, unreasonable, and awful than it largely is.

“As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naïve and simple‐hearted than we suppose.”
-Fyodor Dostoyevsky (who, I must note, himself experienced a lot of terrible things because of others)

I know it’s ironic that, having made all these observations, I’m still sitting at this computer and writing essays. Though I've begun using alternatives to typical social media, there are still some bad effects of being online so often. To be clear, I know what’s good for me, the brief explanation is that I’ve become mostly indifferent to it, as I have with a lot of things. I am just toying with these thoughts, and writing them down in case the reader might find them interesting.

The Grapes of Wrath vs. Notes from Underground; being chronically online