Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
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I later came across one of his quotes: "В человеке должно быть все прекрасно: и лицо, и одежда, и душа, и мысли" (Everything in a person should be excellent: his face, his clothes, his soul and his ideas). I sometimes discussed this phrase with Russians, eventually coming to be believe that "face" in this context meant that you should do all you can to appear clean and groomed, not necessarily that you need to be beautiful. I liked this quote and it can be a starting point of interesting discussion when I talk to Russians about Chekhov.
There's a funny story about when Chekhov went to Tomsk (now a town of about 500,000 people in Siberia.) In a letter, he wrote "Tomsk is a very dull town. To judge from the drunkards whose acquaintance I have made, and from the intellectual people who have come to the hotel to pay their respects to me, the inhabitants are very dull, too." In recent history, the inhabitants of Tomsk erected a bronze caricature statute [1] of Chekhov which makes him look funny. The local residents consider that touching his nose is good luck, so the statue has a really shiny bronze nose. I personally saw it and even touched his nose.
[1] https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g665310-d35959...
What is needed is constant work, day and night,
constant reading, study, will ... Every hour
is precious for it …When I started to study Russian, I read one or two of his stories in this book [1], which was great because it has English and Russian versions on opposite pages. I got to enjoy reading in Russian because I didn't constantly have to look up every tenth word in a dictionary.
Russian is a hard language but there are some still harder. To understand magazine articles and carry on simple conversations on arbitrary topics is a time investment of about 600 hours. To read Chekhov and speak really well on advanced topics is about double that, or 1200 hours. Chekhov's style is close to modern Russian and his style of writing is more straightforward than earlier writers. To read Dostoyevsky... well, hell if I know, I can barely make it through the first page of Crime and Punishment even with a dictionary even after all this time investment and living in Russia for a few years! It's like a different language.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Stories-Dual-Language-Book-En...
Chekhov is still tout in Russian school : https://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%8...
Only in the later stages of decline, when economy was tanking and people spent half their time queuing for things, they probably had less time to read...
That's what I meant: in the turmoil of 1991 and beyond, people would have less time to read...
However I was thinking already 1980's: probably the dysfunction of the economy had an impact on people people's reading (like, do you typically read a book while you are at the meat shop queue or shoe shop queue?)
Probably nitpicking, but I'd translate "прекрасно" as "beautiful" here.
"Прекрасно" is "good in every way", "perfect", it is something that cause wonder and delight or feeling of exaltation. So it's not about beauty. It's about what beauty of something do to you.
I would say that "прекрасно" is "harmonious and so beautiful" in this context.
¹ Moreover, nobody ever translated the name of the Russian fairy tale Василиса Прекрасная as Vasilisa the Excellent.
I think "beautiful" is more subtle (less banal, if you will) than "красивый". And so is "прекрасный".
I agree, but I'd say "excellent" is even further away in meaning. Translating between such distant languages is always an exercise in compromise, unless you're willing to take great liberties at interpretation (when translating poetry, for example).
Excellent is closer to идеально. Both imply relative comparison (to others). Beautiful is an absolute characteristic, same as красиво, so it's a better fit here.
That's why Russians are paying so much attention to their education/reading and what they wear :) This stuff is taught in school.
Did it work?
For example, is a 19th century translation of an ancient Greek text also somewhat impenetrable compared to a more contemporary translation? How much of the problem is that the translation may not target English as we expect it in its current common form?
Is it common (possible?) to find "from scratch" translations from the last 30-40 years of classical Russian literature?
I'll have to check that out - I enjoyed their War & Peace. I found Ginsburg's translation of The Master and Margarita to be unreadably bad. There was just no joy in it whatsoever, to the point where I was wondering why it was such a famous book. It's been a while, but I recall the adjective use being terribly wooden. So many sentences with the basic structure "X walked down the long broad beautiful street. He spoke with the tall bespectacled bearded man" etc. It was quite tiresome.
It probably doesn't help that he's on the penny as well, which is considered lucky if you find one and pick it up.
Ah yes, unlike that Einstein. That disheveled example of a someone who could have been so much more, had he just reached for a comb. /s
And? Any luck?
We took the Gutenberg transcriptions, compiled them into one ebook, ordered by publication date, lightly modernized, edited, corrected, and completely proofread them. Check out the Github repo to see the changes (which are a lot, since it's a huge amount of writing): https://github.com/standardebooks/anton-chekhov_short-fictio...
While I don't speak Russian, I've found Garnett's translations to be extremely readable. A lot of her contemporaries seem to have agreed.
A 'Show HN' [0] or a write-up on indiehackers.com [1] would be awesome and could you more contributors.
I subscribed to your RSS feed [2] that announces your new publications but it lacks a URL for me to download the Ebook right away.
Also, is there a way for omnivoracious readers like me to download all your Ebooks in a mega .zip file at one go?
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/show
The OPDS feed is mainly for reading systems and libraries, not for human consumption. However it does actually include direct links to epub files, but you typically have to view the feed source--i.e. the raw XML--to see them. Humans should subscribe to our mailing list,[0] where we do actual release announcements as they occur.
Understood. I was using a standard RSS reader to parse the feed.
I added the OPDS feed to my FBReader app on Android [0] via its Network Catalog feature [1]. Et voila, I have your entire catalog at my fingertips. Thanks. :-)
> It's all volunteer-based so if you're interested in contributing work somehow then drop me a line.
I can definitely see myself volunteering. Thanks for the invite. :-)
[0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.geometerpl...
A small tip - I note the files don't automatically trigger a file download in my browser (Chrome), instead trying to display inline in the browser. Look into the following headers you need to send to force a download:
Content-Type: application/octet-stream
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="thebook.epub"You'd think it'd be easier to control ourselves. I have trouble understanding how we can want something, but some other part of us can seem to not want that thing, or just be extremely short sighted to the point of being an obstacle to our "long-sighted self."
Perhaps "control" and "battle" are the wrong model. Some broad, general suggestions based on what experts have said:
Respect yourself: If you are doing something over and over again despite not wanting to, there probably is a good reason for it, a legitimate healthy need, even if the expression of that need is unhealthy. Respect that need and its priority as legitimate and serious. Find a healthy, productive way to address it. It should be no surprise that the response is unhealthy: Imagine if someone else had a real need and your response was to ignore it and abuse them constantly for acting on it; how would that person behave?
Know yourself: Know your strengths and limits; don't put yourself in position to fail and then abuse yourself for failing. Again, imagine you were someone else's manager, you knew their limitations, and yet you kept putting them in position to fail and then abused them over the results. That would be a horrible failure of management, not of the employee.
Have compassion for yourself. Like every human ever to live, you also will live your whole life with serious flaws.
Nurture yourself: Work together (so to speak) for change. That's how real change happens; that's how good parents, good teachers and mentors, and good managers accomplish things. Fighting with people just entrenches the problem.
....
That feels a little too ... bullsh*tty to post - loose, imprecise ideas with little serious foundation included; my apologies. But I'm not sure how to tighten it up, don't have links at my fingertips, and posting it seems better than not.
However, I can't seem to be able to make a connection with the examples your parent comment mentioned. For example, if you want to lose weight but keep eating fast food despite that---what is the healthy need manifesting through that, and how do you address it in some other, good way? Same with being addicted to e.g. alcohol or smoking.
That really depends on the individual; if you'd like to sit on my couch for a couple years ... (I'd have no idea what to do).
But as examples, if your body doesn't need something nutritionally (e.g., more energy), perhaps the junk food is a source of comfort and relief from stress (i.e., 'comfort food'); there are healthier ways to obtain relief from and to otherwise deal with stress. Perhaps the buzz from the sugar and fat is an escape or makes the person feel energized; again, there are healthier solutions.
Again, I don't pretend to be an expert and what I wrote in the GP isn't the answer to life, the universe, and everything. Part of nurturing yourself is pushing yourself at times and training, but IMHO without battling and abusing yourself - again, like a good coach, teacher or manager.
> Same with being addicted to e.g. alcohol or smoking
I would think that physical (i.e., chemical) addictions are different; your body requires that chemical. Alcoholism is a disease, AFAIK.
I'd argue that this is not completely true, as in, there's a significant psychological component as well. I can give a personal example. I'm trying to quit smoking by gradually lowering my nicotine intake, or "cut down to quit". Currently, I've reduced the amount I smoke by several orders of magnitude, and I no longer feel any kind of physical need. Still, I procrastinate with actually making the leap to non-smoker, and I find that my desire to smoke is now driven by purely psychological impulses that I have a lot more trouble controlling than merely ignoring physical withdrawal symptoms.
I'm trying to come up with a good explanation of all that, and you offered a compelling view on the subject―that's the only reason I'm so curious in debating this topic.
Personally, I figured out that I was going to engage in some kind of habitual 'escape' periodically (I would guess that is true of everyone). It didn't matter what it was; if I stopped one, then I'd start another. As a result, I try to purposely choose things that are as healthy as possible, or at least harmless, and maybe even a little productive. Hobbies can be good for that, though they aren't exactly the same thing.
EDIT: Some clarifying edits
The interesting thing is I believe I can make a convincing argument that "life" is a disease that can be overcome - for example, a highly trained monk can meditate himself to death, ignoring the body's desire for food or water. When it comes to us, "require" can, with training, be nullified. We can even, apparently, out-think our most basic pain responses (see: the burning monk).
If it's not a nutritional deficiency, then perhaps it's a snacking habit, so maybe switch to nuts, sunflower seeds or fruit. The habit starts losing its power when you're no longer flooding yourself with high doses of sugar and/or salt, which is where the habit's positive reinforcement comes from.
He lays out some interesting concepts about the way we think and one thought experiment in particular, observing all the 'thinkers' within and how they can multiply at will i.e consider the following innocuous statement:
"I observe that I am happy"
Who is happy and who is the observer?
> Is it 'Into Darkness' that has the idea of a space where you can only move forwards, not sideways? This sounds like that mixed with the rigorous alternative physics of the Clockwork Rocket series.
...and that sounds like my kind of book, but googling only gives Star Trek links. Can you tell me the author?
I also have somewhat of a pragmatic view of solving this problem.
Anecdotal, but since I started taking the antidepressant Valdoxan (aka Agolmelatine, sadly illegal in the US) I've found that I feel it's easier to win that battle. When I say I'm going to do or not do something, I'm more likely to stick to that.
I've finally, for example, gone to my parent's house and not binge eaten on my mum's generous cooking. I went to the bar and actually had two drinks instead of six.
I haven't taken them, but I also understand that there may be some other medications such as AHDH or concentration drugs that have a similar effect, possibly with different time scales and mechanisms.
I'm still a total coffee addict - haven't kicked that one yet - and I'm by no means perfect. But my self control was pretty much non existent before, and in the last two months I've made alot of progress.
I hope that we continue to find better ways of managing the brain's chemistry (and the side effects of doing so), but just as much that the methods we have now become more widely available, and less illegal and stigmatized.
Most of them say that, but a few say the wiser thing: Prevention is king. If you don't get addicted to something, it causes fewer problems. This applies to both physical and mental addictions. Don't let your body get used to fatty foods, and there will be nothing to fight. Same goes for alcohol. Or tobacco. Or TV binging: I've been relatively cable-free for well over a decade.
>fighting the desire to veg and watch netflix instead of watching another lecture in the MOOC you're taking.
Amusingly, I have to fight the desire to take yet another MOOC. I'm addicted to information/knowledge. I absorb it easily. Retaining the information, and actually utilizing it takes a lot of work. For me, taking another MOOC is just a way of slacking off to avoid putting in the effort to apply those skills I keep "learning".
The animal side is happy with eating, shitting, sleeping, fucking, pointing and laughing at funny stuff, punching other people and things.
You, on the other hand, are trapped inside this animal and want quite different things.
It's a constant struggle.
If the goal is health then you can stop going to the gym. Start running, start swimming, try bicycle, outdoor gyms, join a hike group, join a martial art club. Start doing excersices at home with your body weight. If you are so weak or big that you can't do many bodyweight drills, then you don't need a gym anyway. Better served with a small 10$ dumbar package at home.
The only thing that can be good with a gym is a Personal Trainer that can give you a good plan. It will be hard to replace that service to the same level.
If your goal truly is to be more muscular, then and only then does it really become a question of motivation. Do i want this enough do go to the gym, even on the days that i don't feel for it?
There are certain things about ourselves we simply can't control, such as our parents, where we were born/raised, our genetic makeup, the structure of our brains, etc, and these things highly influence our decision making.
So it looks like there is constant battle between who we want to be and who we truly are.
Learning though, by it's very nature, means fixing what's wrong or implanting knowledge in place where one is "not even wrong".
If it were easier it would be of less value. The supply is more limited than the demand.
Humans typically associate themselves (ie 'you'), as a distinct thing in reality, rather than a group of competing agents.
some of that is pre-programmed or instilled by the circumstance, anything above and beyond that requires additional effort that might seem like it's applied at "fighting yourself".
In English, it is quite possible to be cultured but bad. You know all kinds of stuff about literature, music, art, history and science (and therefore you are cultured) but you cheat on your wife and your taxes (and are therefore bad).
Of course things are rarely so black-and-white, but that's the gist of it.
http://www.anton-chehov.info/754-n-p-chexovu.html
>you are drawn away from it, and you vacillate between cultured people and the lodgers vis-a-vis
>тебя тянет от нее, и тебе приходится балансировать между культурной публикой и жильцами vis-а-vis.
Here "cultured people" are originally "культурная публика", literally "cultured public".
>Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions:
>Воспитанные люди, по моему мнению, должны удовлетворять след<ующим> условиям:
Here "Cultured people" are originally "Воспитанные люди". More like well-brought-up.
http://lithub.com/anton-chekhov-a-post-modernist-way-ahead-o...
If people haven't, do recommend checking out The Analects! Caveat: there are quite a few excerpts that need to be taken in historical perspective, or can be easily misinterpreted (e.g. advice to be slow to embrace new that was in context of centuries of chaos and warring, or statements on women that interpreted naïvely clearly contradict other statements on mothers).
I've read bits and pieces of Analects, thought it was ok, but felt that is was very much reflective of the perspectives of the time. Most of it felt like stuff that was obvious and other stuff felt not applicable to the world today. IIRC there was some stuff about traveling abroad / being a good guest in a foreign country, and I did think that part was useful.
I don't really recall reading stuff about women though. I wouldn't expect an enlightened perspective from a man in that time period though, no matter how kind the interpretation. It wouldn't invalidate the whole work, it would just show that the author was wrong about at least one thing, which is not an issue (unless we're talking about holy books where it's not acceptable to acknowledge mistakes).
"The Master said: 'Girls and inferior men are hard to get along with. If you get familiar with them, they lose their humility; if you are distant, they resent it.'" (Chapter 17)
This sounds pretty bad. My reading of it is that he meant that relationships between men and women are particularly tricky (bearing in mind heteronormative standards at the time, etc. etc.), so one has to be careful not to misrepresent them or else everyone suffers. This can be generously reinterpreted to general use ("don't toy around with people and treat them straightforwardly"). Realistically... I'm happy to take it as a mistake on his part and just extract something worthwhile from it even if it's not what he meant.
With regard to enlightened perspective or lack thereof, there's an interesting question. I'm no expert on Confucius himself and how he regarded women, but his filial piety towards his mother is widely lauded (as was Mencius').
Hope that helps!
Russia and China were bumping into each other before Chekhov's time, and a bit of Googling is turning up cases of Russian missionaries translating Chinese works to Russian in the early 1800s.
If you have specific evidence of Chekhov referencing Confucius (the similarities are so striking that either he came up with them independently, which was my original point, or he was inspired by Confucius, which should then leave traces) please do tell! That would be really cool.
But I'm not even a hobby historian or philologist, more of an armchair philosopher.
Which Russian missionaries translated which Chinese classics, since that you've already searched? I'm turning up Russian -> Chinese, not the other way around.
Hopefully this link works for you and isn't dependent on local cookies or something. But the book is: China and Japan in the Russian Imagination, 1685-1922: To the Ends of the Orient By Susanna Soojung Lim
https://books.google.com/books?id=RQldRM5wlfcC&pg=PA65&lpg=P...
Yes, I can see it, and this is very cool. Thank you very much!
At that point, it will be both much more and much less invasive, as it will likely be fully integrated. You can use it to enhance your conversation by adding context, distract from your conversation by utilizing it for something unrelated, or ignore it entirely. Sort of like your memory and imagination now (because that's what it will be at that point, a slower but much fuller extension to your current mind).
The Internet is already an extended memory. Other people's minds are an extended processing power, as well.
It can only get closer and more tightly integrated to our brains, unless society as a whole chooses to get away from that.
This is why privacy concerns are real - what we do today about them will impact the future massively. Will there be a central database of people's private thoughts and memories or will they remain private?
- We already have AR
- We already have gesture control
- We already have glasses displays
- I already use my phone in this manner in conversations (I'll do a quick lookup on something we are discussing but are unsure about while trying to still listen).
You could essentially live most of this scenario right now if you were willing to put up with the heavy equipment and short battery life.
http://allowe.com/laughs/book/When%20Insults%20Had%20Class.h... - just a quick hit on "classy insults" that seems to fit what I'm saying here.
> You have only one failing, and the falseness of your position, and your unhappiness and your catarrh of the bowels are all due to it. That is your utter lack of culture.
>You must drop your vanity, you are not a child ... you will soon be thirty. It is time! I expect you.... We all expect you.
Sounds like his brother probably satisfies at least 1, 2, and 3. That's why I say gentle; he says "you're a great guy, you have natural talent and the potential to be cultured, just need to work on your attitude and develop your talent".
In this case, though, I believe he was actually frank, if blunt, but well meaning (his brother had issues with alcohol).
Don't trust people who say things like this, btw.
Would anyone pass your test?
Actually this view was stereotypical at that time in Russia and it was a norm to be derogatory to "brother nations". My point is he was a normal case of a person of his social status in that era with all the fallacies you would expect.
Of course this conflicts a lot with his idealistic view on cultured people. It should be taken with a grain of salt.
If you'd like to know more I consider you read the letters. It's well worth reading. A great insight into the life of Russian intelligentsia class and into the Russian mentality.
1) Be calm
2) Be kind
3) Don't steal
4) Always attempt your best
I've always liked the thought that "don't steal" is the ultimate morality lesson. Killing someone is stealing their life away. Adultering is stealing someone else's love or relationship. And of course, stealing in its basic meaning.
One thing that helped me keep this in perspective, is that every event makes up a significantly larger fraction of their existence than that event makes up of my existence
I'm 36, my oldest daughter is 6
occasionally she'll get really upset when seemingly minor setbacks happen (a craft she's working on doesn't turn out the way she wants it too seems typical), while we do try to work on her handling her frustration better
its helpful for us, to remember that 1 messed up craft out of 6 years of life experience, is 6 times a bigger deal than 1 messed up craft out of 36 years
If you want something memorable, the golden rule ("Do unto others as you would have them [...] do unto you") is much better, even if it requires more thinking.
But, as I hit my late 20s (circa 1998),I became the opposite at work, and that approach has gotten me much farther ever since.
Play the game.
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For the nerds here, I present this as a recursive pattern which spreads by being computationally inefficient. Software bloat, maybe?
As an aside, when I talk about a "dissonance" button for social media sites, your comment would be a perfect example of when to push it. That's not to say your leading question and comment on others future irrational actions shouldn't be allowed, but I think that it's important to call out content that is potentially "messy" in nature due to it's own innate ability to spread to others without your intervention (after saying it, of course). Maybe limiting replies to such "comments" would be one way to increase the overall aesthetic.
> It allows one to achieve a view where they don't judge others
So you're telling me that being cultured allows one to not judge others, but while clearly having the effect of outwardly being smug to others?
That's basically what I got out of your comment and the parent post.
Your aside also implies that his comment basically shouldn't be allowed despite your explicit comment that it's "not to say."
This seems all rather smug and rude.
I will note that there is blame in my comments here now, which is being directed toward someone who is clearly speaking for another's thought processes - that would be you speaking for me being smug and Boothrid in my "being rude" to them, when I'm saying otherwise here publicly. This behavior can contribute to a cyclic behavior of increasing blame (from the irrationality spreading) if one decides to ignore what another is saying and continue speaking for their internal frame.
Tending toward the aesthetic encourages letting go of personal judgement because once you stop judging yourself, you stop judging others. There's also a deeper cause for letting go of judgement, which involves understanding what all of this really is. You may think you are are separate entity and definitely have a right to claim separation from the whole, if that's what you want. OTOH, I think you are one part of a larger unidentified, unified entity: a global consciousness frequently mistaken for "God" by religions.
However, me stating that internal thought to you here is direct blame if you don't believe that, given I (would and am) pointing out publicly that you are part of a global entity (which itself is an irrational thought). Again, spreading irrationality by broadcasting irrational logic is not ideal, so I really shouldn't do it. However, I did it here to prove a point. ;)
If a software module is producing faulty output, you have to fix the problem on the inside rather than simply rejecting all of the output. People are the same, except you can't directly inspect or modify their internals; you have to rely on message passing and observation, which is way more difficult. The way to make this more efficient, IMO, is to give people the tools to identify and resolve the underlying bugs in their own perception. But that's a different topic altogether.
1. Let go of small things.
2. Have sympathy for the people around you.
3. Repay your debts.
4. Don't lie, don't brag, and don't gossip.
5. Don't disparage yourself to fish for pity.
6. Be humble. Let your talents prove themselves.
7. Spend time on the things that matter to you.
8. Long list of stuff that's generally about living in moderation and maintaining your body and environment.
There isn't much here to be smug about.
There are few things more annoyingly bourgeois than fetishizing poverty.
I haven't misrepresented you. You literally said that a 'bourgeois' activity has less value compared to "harder realities of life for the less well privileged". That's putting poverty on a pedestal. That's fetishizing it.
No. Working your ass off to barely scrape by is not in any way better than learning new things, being kind, or any of the other things enumerated in this article. That ridiculous crab mentality is what kids who are born into poverty have to deal with if they express any aspiration to make something better of themselves. It is its own kind of smug complacency, far more malicious and destructive than someone taking pride in more 'bourgeois' accomplishments.
Seriously, give me 'nauseatingly bourgeois' culture any day. If that makes you feel insecure, maybe try reading a book or something.
"Striving to be cultured" is not the same as "social climbing" and ultimately is not an end in itself.
Cultivating oneself is a way of using one's limited lifetime well and wisely. Ultimately, this offers the best shot at a satisfying life, and the most chance to benefit others.
I've lied about the most mundane things to even lying to my family and friends about graduating college. At this point I feel as if I've been struck by a disease. Worst of all is that I lie to myself the most with respect to how much it is affecting my life, and how dangerous it is for me to continue on this path. I've personally ran out of ideas for how to internally fix this.
...
That must be very hard to carry around with you, 24/7/365. Obviously you don't want to be a liar, but behavior is not so easy as people seem to imagine. They think, 'if you don't want to do it, just choose not to do it'; but they aren't looking at reality, or even in the mirror. If you look around, human beings don't work like that - or we'd all be happily married, well-adjusted millionaires, in happy workplaces, with no drugs, no hate, no crime, no politics, etc. You are not alone in carrying this human burden.
Get some professional help; you are hardly the only person with this problem and many problems like it. A good therapist has heard it all before (and much worse) and can help you; get some recommendations if you can, and try a few to find one you feel personally comfortable with (from what I understand, rapport with the therapist is the most important factor) and otherwise meets your needs. You wouldn't trust your business to an amateur, and this is far more important - find a professional and hire the best person for the job.
Maybe you've reached the point with your problems that I think most people encounter as they mature (if they are honest with themselves). I once heard a songwriter put it his way (paraphrased): 'When I wrote songs at 20 years old, I was the hero in all the stories; I was learning and growing so rapidly that I never considered that I wouldn't outgrow all my problems. But now I'm older and some of these problems haven't gone away; the easy ones are all solved but some others have been very hard to move past. And I find that, in real life, sometimes I'm the villain.' I know I reached that point, too.
I wrote the following in response to someone else and at least a few people found it encouraging; maybe it will be encouraging to you too, but I'm not a professional. Find one! Take care of yourself!