But Foma has control of our media and publishing
How Dostoyevsky dissected activistic hypocrites
Dostoyevsky’s outrageous grotesque now runs riot in our institutions
Over the past decade or so, a very particular type of character has made its presence known in many of our offices and institutions, veritably tyrannising our lives. Countless numbers of us have suffered this type in silence or experienced humiliations — or worse — at their hands. Only now are they being acknowledged, as articles appear on activist capture, notably at the BBC. Yet readers of one of Dostoyevsky’s lesser-known novels will recognise the type, epitomised by the compellingly awful Foma Fomich Opiskin in the early novel The Village of Stepanchikovo…
We recognise Foma immediately as the pattern of the office and institutional activist. For Foma advertises his virtuous capacity for seeing past stale conventions to create a more egalitarian society. It is this self-proclamation as an avatar of a better world which has impressed his host’s mother and others, and even seems to have drawn in the colonel. For Foma turns the colonel’s instinct towards fairness against him, guilt-tripping his host for perceived slights.
The whole piece is well worth reading, even for those who haven’t read the book. Worth reading not only as a reminder that virtue-signalling activists aren’t a new problem, but also a reminder that we probably have even more of the pernicious pests. The BBC is full of them.
Foma is a character on a par with Shakespeare’s portraits of overweening rogues; he has something of Malvolio’s Puritan scornfulness, Iago’s manipulative genius and Parolles’ bravado and cowardice. He also bears a strong resemblance to Molière’s Tartuffe. Contemporary stages, sitcoms and novels should be full of Foma’s likenesses, mirroring and mocking our encounters with them in reality. But Foma has control of our media and publishing just as he did the colonel’s household. We must on no account allow him to become the fixture Dostoyevsky pictures him becoming in the Stepanchikovo estate. For if we cannot resist this mere popinjay, how will we resist the Demons that Dostoyevsky shows us to be following him?
Source: https://akhaart.blogspot.com/2025/11/but-foma-has-control-of-our-media-and.html
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