Yes, I’m a great hand at interpreting the Apocalypse;
I’ve been interpreting it for the last fifteen years. She agreed with me that we are living in the age of the third horse, the black one, and the rider who has the balance in his hand, seeing that everything in the present age is weighed in the scales and by agreement, and people are seeking for nothing but their rights - ‘a measure of wheat for a penny and three measures of barley for a penny’; and yet they want to keep a free spirit and a pure heart and a sound body and all the gifts of God. *But by rights alone they won’t keep them*, and afterwards will follow the pale horse and he whose name was Death and with whom hell followed …. We talk about it when we meet and … it has a great effect on her.- Lubdeyev to Myshkin, “The Idiot” by Fyodor Dosteovsky (emphasis added)
Dostoevsky wrote before Weber, but gosh. I can’t remember if Weber referenced D. in his works, perhaps he did. In both Crime and Punishment and this story, we are all very concerned with what is weighed in the scales and by agreement… Capitalism, liberalism and utilitarianism are modern - but Russia is, perhaps, ineffable.
