elf. By rejecting these different sets of rules, the Underground Man is actually rejecting the rational and the mode of thought that depends on the rational. There are offices, customs, and institutions in society which are charged with creating, codifying, and imposing these rational rules and regulations, and the Underground Man rejects both the rules and the institutions that enforce them. Other people--the vast majority of people, actually--accept the rational as a given, and the Underground Man has nothing but contempt for these people, seeing them as being less human than himself. He envisions them as robots, mechanical human beings rather than organic and living entities. Life in this sense is equated with freedom, and this means freedom from the rational.
The Underground Man sees the irrational as superior, meaning the emotions, the imagination, the creative force. In arriving at this conclu
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