Tolstoy as philosopher
greenash.net.au
greenash.net.au
Apparently Mahatma Gandhi listed this one among the three books that have most influenced his views.
A short (ca 80 pages in my language) interpretation on these topics was also "A Confession" [2]. I sometimes wonder if I would have made a few different choices if I had read this book in my early 20s. Probably not, but it is a nice dream.
Also, a short fiction masterpiece by Tolstoy on life and death is "The Death of Ivan Ilych" [3]. It has some excellent plot twists. I remember feeling like a ping-pong ball in the hands of the author; whatever he wanted me to think, I did.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kingdom_of_God_Is_Within_Y...
The article mentions that if anything outside of his novels is discussed, he is more often than not called a cult-inspirer. He was aware of this, and asked people not to follow "Toltoyism", but their own conscience. Nevertheless, people still started what they called Tolstoy Farms. Almost all of these farms quickly collapsed.
So people forgot about Tolstoy's social teachings, even while his novels remain timeless, and people inspired by him, like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., are still celebrated today. I think the problem was Tolstoy's social teachings removed the timeless aspects of Christ's teachings (what other people would call the religious/supernatural aspects), and like other rationalist movements, such as the French Revolution and eventually the Bolshevik Revolution, Tolstoy's social teachings gradually faded away (though thankfully his teachings were explicitly based on nonviolence).
What MLK and Gandhi did was take what Tolstoy saw as the best parts of Christianity, and recontextualize them in religion, MLK in Christianity and Gandhi in Hinduism. Gandhi was very familiar with many religious traditions, and remained a Hindu his whole life, approaching nonviolence, boycotts, and hunger strikes with a Hindu perspective. MLK regularly delivered sermons at churches, and one of his most remembered speeches, I've Been to the Mountaintop, was one such sermon. MLK's speeches, teachings and actions wholeheartedly embraced Christianity. I think religion will let MLK's and Gandhi's teachings endure, while today most people aren't even aware of the influence Tolstoy had on them.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23414101
He was cancelled the very next day, suggesting that economic sanctions might be a kind of nonviolence on which state level actors prefer to retain their monopoly.
Of course it is set in its time, but what is brilliant about it is that it covers a vast amount of people in different positions, locations and upbringings and puts them into a vast amount of different situations. And the outcome feels realistic. Some people fare well, others dont. Most have to make sacrefices in some way or another. Some survive, some dont. Some become better of and some dont. Some deserve what happens to them, some dont. In that sense it is different than most other books.
Due to the war setting and its allegedly realistic description of the campaign on the ground, it feels like a massive companion to Sun Tzus "Art of War". Without referring to "Art of War" at all (I dont know if Tolstoy knew it), "War and Peace" puts it into the context of politics and society, and expanding on the impact decisions have on individuals. It also show-cases the impact of "Art of War" principles in the strategies of Napoleon and Kutuzov and how human nature can get into the way of the best plans. In that way I recommend "War and Peace" as an essential read for entrepreneurs who find the "Art of War" useful.
I was forced to read War and Peace when I was 15 (it's required reading in Russian schools), and didn't like it then because I wasn't yet equipped to understand it. Nor did I understand any Dostoevsky we were required to read either. A 16 year old just can't understand any of what's going on in such works - it's easy for me to see that now when I have a son that age.
After I listened to it some 25 years later, it became my favorite work of literature by quite a margin. I strongly suspect that as I get older, I might be due for another pass through it, and I will enjoy it even more then.
So there's no shame in listening to an audiobook on your commute, once we have commutes again. I just don't know if there are English language productions of it that are any good. Perhaps someone could chime in and recommend. But if you speak Russian, get the version from Audible and spend some quality time with it, you won't regret it.
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"War and Peace" has also spun off an entire genre of jokes:
Natasha Rostova is at ball. First Prince Bolkonsky asks to dance. Natasha says, "Why, Andrey Nikolayevich, there is some cake on your moustache." Bolkonsky begs leave to go clean up.
Then Pierre Bezukohov asks to dance. Natasha says, "Why, mon cher, someone has spilled wine on your sleeve." Bezukhov begs leave to go clean up.
Finally Lt. Rzhevsky asks to dance. Natasha says, "Why, Poruchik, there is some mud on your boots." Rzhevsky quickly answers, "Don't worry your pretty little head, Mam'zelle, that's not mud, it's shit. Anyway, after it dries it'll fall off all by itself."
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Bonus clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFPIGNua5WM&t=78
Bolkonsky and Bezukohov have both been raised respectably (are glad to say that they have never seen a spade) and prefer to sit out a dance than allow Rostova to be seen on the floor with anything other than an impeccably turned out gallant.
Rzhevsky (who I forgot to mention is a cavalry lieutenant and presumably has been invited to the ball solely due to military rank and not social position) not only hasn't polished his boots, he hasn't even cleaned them before coming inside; not only doesn't mind dancing with Rostova with shit on his boots, he also implies that during their dance it will be flaking off all over onto the ballroom floor.
[1] infra dig in urban areas:
Blame it all on my roots
I showed up in boots
Ta desh na koming gut
Mi kom ere but"The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens… Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere." — Leo Tolstoy
"The essence of all slavery consists in taking the product of another’s labor by force. It is immaterial whether this force be founded upon ownership of the slave or ownership of the money that he must get to live. ('Taxation')" - Leo Tolstoy
To what extent did the turn of that century agree? Among the afghanistani? Among the boers? What about later decades?
If any question why we died
Tell them, because our fathers lied.No general wants his compatriots dead, but the will to sacrifice some for benefit of others seems to advance countries big time.
In this particular case, there were to be no (in the narrow sense) nephews.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsie_Bambridge (née Kipling)
> "On her death, in 1976, having no children, she bequeathed her property and its contents to the National Trust."
Second Afghan war was mostly fought by Indians too, how's that for benefiting.
Victoria: Let's you and him fight.
Caesar: Divide et impera
Phillip: Διαίρει καὶ βασίλευε
I wonder how the sentiment was expressed in Sumerian? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24737221
Pretty sure Hitler didn't see himself as evil either. Your point?
That's another interesting discussion unrelated to my point. I'm saying that the War on Terror has been waged under the (perhaps false) belief that a powerful state actor is able to eliminate a group of people who are united by an idea, regardless of how good, evil, or ugly that idea might be.
That refered to taxation as a secondary measure, but much less so as it refered to the wage system.
From "What shall we do?", Tolstoy :
-"So it was in ancient times, in the Middle Ages, and so it occurs now. In the ancient world, where the subjugation of one people by another was frequent, personal slavery was the most widespread method of subjugation, and the centre of gravity in this compulsion, owing to the non-recognition of the equality of men. In the Middle Ages, feudalism—land-ownership and the servitude connected with it—partly takes the place of personal slavery, and the centre of compulsion is transferred from persons to land. In modern times, since the discovery of America, the development of commerce, and the influx of gold (which is accepted as a universal medium of exchange), the money tribute has become, with the increase of state power, the chief instrument for enslaving men, and upon this all economic relations are now based." (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38690)
Tolstoy here refers also to the centrality of the state in the institution of wage labour, that he sees as akin to slavery. Indeed, Tolstoy was an anarchist, and thus violently anti-capitalist.
I disagree. slavery is real absolutely immoral thing, while working for money is more about law of energy conservation, something transforms in something else, hence very reasonable and natural.
The Subjection of India-Its Cause and Cure.
With an Introduction by M. K. Gandhi.
by Leo Tolstoy
On the whole though I do think a lot of discovery and learning takes place well writing. Though I have never written a novel so I do not really know.
I don't know about that.. they come off as incredibly preachy to me.
C. S. Lewis was basically a Christian apologist, and that's very obvious in his work.
It's pretty hard to stomach for those of us who don't share his views.
A much better example is Dostoyevsky, who was probably at least as devout a Christian as Lewis, and also had an agenda, but he didn't make even the most repulsive of his characters in to two-dimensional caricatures as Lewis tended to do.
Instead, Dostoyevsky could get the reader to understand and even sympathize with the worst characters in his books, and see the world through their eyes... something Lewis could not aspire to as he always had to make his antagonists in to whipping boys for his faith.
I don't think this is true. I'm not a Christian and I loved his books as a kid. Tolkien and Madeleine L'Engle wrote novels in a similar vein (that are also excellent children's books). Some fiction is full of cliches and thin characters but, surprisingly, this ends up working in its favor as it takes on a mythical quality.
I also like moral ambiguity and morally complex characters but good luck getting a child to sit through The Brothers Karamazov.
Tolkien very much did not write Christian allegory/apologia in the guise of fiction, though he did remix Christian themes. So I wouldn't say Tolkien’s books were much at all in the same vein as Lewis’s.
As a kid the Christian overtones go right over your head.. as an adult they're a lot more glaring, and (to some of us), grating.
"Tolkien and Madeleine L'Engle wrote novels in a similar vein (that are also excellent children's books)."
I loved Madeline L'Engle as a kid, but tried to pick up A Wrinkle in Time recently, and couldn't bear all the Christian preachiness. Worked for me as a kid, though, and back then I had no idea that was in it. I guess that's saying something. But as an adult it's nauseating.
With Dostoevsky I do not know if he really set out to convey a specific philosophical truth or not. To me his novels seem more of an exploration of human suffering and what living in his day was like. But I am not Dostoevsky scholar.
Tolkien may be a better example. You can easily read Lord of the Rings without picking up any Christian symbolism.
Even outside of _Narnia_, Lewis is known for rather heavy-handed and direct allegory. I mean, I guess it might seem to not be hitting you over the head if you compare it to something that goes beyond allegory to direct interpretation, like the _Left Behind_ series, but...
> Tolkien may be a better example. You can easily read Lord of the Rings without picking up any Christian symbolism.
That's because, while there is considerable inspiration from Christian morality and mythology in LotR, Tolkien was actively opposed to allegory and thus did not write it or use the kind of direct symbolism associated with it.
I liked Lewis as a kid, but found him unusually preachy, even for a children book. I mean, I probably cant think of a children book that would be more obviously about hamming moral-education-point into you. While many children book try to teach some values, they tend to deal with much more nuance then Narnia.
I'd say the former defined the latter.
Modern philosophers don't encumber themselves with applicable policy either.
But then again, his philosophy later evolved to significantly encompass his ideology. So can one separate Tolstoy's ideology from his early philosophy? Sure. But his later philosophy? Perhaps not. They're two distinct beasts.
Basically tolstoi resume the teachings of Jesus from the original greek works, and remove any sobrenatural aspect of it, miracles etc
I recommend it to anyone how wants to learn about jesus teachings and real christianity a not the current ones Versions we have