Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi
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And boy, was I in for a surprise. It was a very powerful and inspiring book.
Being very fond of the counterculture, the hippy movement, free society, open source, tech anarchy, etc - I was very surprised to see him talking about these concepts with such clarity back then.
And it also changed my outlook towards 'Christianity', which I dismissed before as just a religion. Tolstoy carefully builds the idea of Christianity as a philosophy of non-violence, anarchy and peaceful disobedience, claiming that that was the true teaching of Jesus Christ and the reason why Christians have been persecuted and killed everywhere - before the whole thing was transformed into a dogmatic religion.
Tolstoy argues that in order to truly renounce violence, one must not support it in any way, including through proxies - the State (which is backed by the military), the Government and Legal System (which has the police, the judges and the prisons), the corporations (which support the state and use violence to aquire resources), stay away from the Church and religion, Patriotism (which is a brain washing methodology) and so on.
From the perspective of the state, the church, etc, those ideas are very dangerous.
But from the standpoint of humanism, respect for life, the right way to live, these ideas are the truth.
Unfortunately, some people inspired by Tolstoy, like Ghandi or Martin Luther King or Lennon have been murdered, but only after fundamentally changing our society for the better.
Tolstoy himself was excomunicated from the Orthodox Church and burried on a hill.
There is inherent danger in telling people to just love one another. This generates fear and hatred in some.
I hope we'll slowly come to accept the idea more and more.
Anyway, if you haven't read him, please do yourself a favor, the books are available for free.
Tolstoy reinterprets the New Testament and what he finds is as relevant to our times as they were to his. Just as one who studies physics might start to see patterns in nature, I now see societal problems as manifestations of patterns in human nature. He offers a very bold solution that makes sense logically, but doesn't seem possible. But it has been proven to a certain extent (Ghandi, MLK, etc.) This left me feeling less hopeless and I would also highly recommend.
Indeed, one could possibly argue that encouraging non-violence is beneficial to the state because it effectivly reduces the threat to the state and makes alternate views easier to ignore.
I personally think it's more complicated than either view, but it's worth considering that in a larger context, non-violence rarely means non-coercive.
I also wouldn't use the New Testament as a canonical reference for human psychology. Jesus wasn't above a bit of 'violent' police-work anyway - chasing away shopkeepers from a temple with a whip isn't purist non-violence.
Non-violent movements needs an audience with influence to succeed. You need an influential gallery to play to. Gandhi had that. Not everyone does, for example Palestinians dont
I've recently been rediscovering Jesus from a new perspective, having grown up with a typical American Christianity and abandoned it as a teenager.
I've been finding that a lot of people from all kinds of backgrounds see the Jesus story and "Christianity" from this other perspective, where his teachings are universal and very subversive as you describe, and quite unlike the christian religion that we see. I've started to see the "kingdom of God" Jesus talks about in all kinds of people from all backgrounds -- including atheists and people who are still in the christian religion, and in all other religions or non-religions. Basically, I'm learning that people are people, and that all people have something good at their core that can be nurtured and brought out.
I've found Jesus' teachings and example extremely compelling to what I think of as the "real" me inside. And it's actually radically changed my life in 2015, in terms of how I spend my time and how I react to the things that happen to me.
What if I really could love my neighbor as I love myself? (And genuinely love myself, to start with.) Then nothing could really harm me.
It's really exciting to see these ideas popping up all over the place in various forms. I no longer see there being one group that is "in" while all the rest are "out", but rather that all of us have bits of this "kingdom of God" in us regardless of what we call it, and it's good and can grow, and it doesn't actually matter what we call it. The point is that it always brings love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, etc, which are universally good things that we all desire deep down.
On the other hand, the word "толстовство" and especially "толстовец" (that is somebody, who is participating in Tolstoyan movement) has somewhat derogatory connotation in Russian today. Not without a reason, I guess. Many have been noticing that Tolstoy is kind of a "poser" and often his words contradict his actions, aren't honest — quite often nothing more than beautiful words, actually.
I, personally, agree with many of these criticisms, so I don't consider Tolstoy the best teacher and inspirer of that matter.
But yeah, I do find it most inspiring reading people whose lives actually _do_ reflect these truths in obvious ways.
I'd argue that it's still a bit dismissive to state that the whole thing ended up a dogmatic religion, but perhaps that's splitting hairs at this point.
Having grown up on the Evangelical/pentecostal fringes, I saw much of Christianity as 'dogmatic religion' (not seeing that much of this was present in my denomination too), but now that I'm not a Christian any longer, I've come to realize pretty much all denominations of Christianity contain both significant figures and movements that tend toward the 'non-violence, anarchy and peaceful disobedience' side of things, as well as a lot of dogma.
I've recently found a lot in Zen buddhism that reminds me of Jesus' teaching, except somehow more practical. I can strongly recommend doing some research in that.
1 Corinthians 15, ESV
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead,
how can some of you say that there is no resurrection
of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the
dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if
Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is
in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found
to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about
God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if
it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the
dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.
And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is
futile and you are still in your sins. Then those
also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are
of all people most to be pitied.
Of course, apologies if you do believe in the resurrection and the Bible, but it wasn't apparent from your post. In that case, I'm positive others here have not heard this aspect of Christian philosophy.
A little off topic: I agree with Tolstoy that love is the foundation for what society should be, and I beieve that there is much more love, cooperation, and people doing good things in the word than anyone would imagine after exposing themselves to corporate news media.
I'm sorry, but this is hopelessly naive. All living things are the products of evolution, and hence competition and the drawing of boundaries between "us" and "them" (i.e. between the phenotype of the reproducing genome and the environment that is used to provide the resources to reproduce) is an inherent part of all life. To be sure, cooperation can be beneficial to survival, but there is nothing in the laws of physics that insures that the cooperative boundary should be the entirety of one's own species. Peaceful coexistence is hard precisely because it is NOT our most natural, basic state. This is not to say that peaceful coexistence is not desirable or achievable; it is both. But pretending that it is a "natural state" is the left-wing equivalent of climate-change denialism. We will not solve the problem of global warming by denying the laws of physics, and we won't solve the problem of inter-human conflict that way either.
Also, I know you didn't actually say this, but I wanted to make the point anyway, since it wouldn't be hard to come to that conclusion from your post.
That depends on what you mean. It is certainly true that our natural state is not to be psychopaths, indiscriminately killing everything in sight. But the evidence (and the theoretical foundations) indicate that a certain amount of violence is an inherent part of our basic nature, and so achieving peace requires work.
I do want to emphasize, though, that it can certainly be done. The internet, airplanes, McDonalds -- none of these are part of our basic nature either, and yet we've managed to achieve them. Peace is not out of reach, and indeed, the historical trend is towards an ever more peaceful world [1].
--- [1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Better-Angels-Our-Nature/dp/149151...
This is the same old Spiritual nonsense being regurgitated by the so-called secularists. For example, Zen masters talk about (returning to) one's "Original Face" which is the same thing, ultimately. However just because some popular person says something doesn't make it so. As we know that human nature, deep down, is comprised of both the savage (fear, anger) and tender (nurture, desire) instincts - it is simply not possible at the same time for our "most natural, basic state" (that we supposedly had in the golden past and have lost since then) to be exclusively tender (love) in nature unless, of course, one is either smoking something or sitting cross-legged to some dissociative state.
> We may some day in the future be in this state (I hope so)
And I too hope we will figure out a way to live in complete peace and harmony. But denying human nature — as the likes of Gandhi, Tolstoy, Buddha are wont to do — ain't gonna get us there. We can already get a peek at what happens when people deny human nature by observing modern day social politics.
"Original face" is a mysterious phrase used by Huineng, an early patriarch, in a story where he's chased by an angry monk and when they stop and talk, the patriarch tells him to suspend all thoughts of right and wrong and then asks him about his "face before you were born." This provokes an insight for the monk.
These masters did talk about being ordinary, ordinary mind, mind that doesn't cling to delusions, mind that's relaxed and in some sense carefree. But they also denounced "mind pacification" and sitting cross-legged.
As for the loving, it's mostly the physical kind of loving (on the plus side: the women -and men- are physically a lot more attractive than the average westerner, and obviously nobody except one village leader and his "wife" are fat, usually not even them). There is no love in parent-child relations. They're very, very different : kids aren't brought up by their parents, rather they're brought up by their seniors. The 12 year olds take care of the 8 year olds, the 8 year olds of the 6 year olds, and so on. On the plus side: this works pretty well. On the downside: your sleeping accomodations are likely to suck badly until you're at least 8 years old and capable of building a hut.
Somehow this form of living, which is the only true "most natural, basic state" of the human species. Judging from talking to a few of these people, it seems to me it's a total lack of mental state and thought that leads to this form of living.
Nothing in physics but there is a clear trend over time towards more inclusive "us" groups. Humans started off as tribal groups of 50 joined together by blood. Then groups of millions bound together by a common belief system. Which brings us to todays multi-cultural metropolitan areas and world federations of billions.
"made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally"
Artificial may be considered a proper subset of "natural", but what humans do is different enough from what the rest of nature does that it's useful to distinguish between those things that exist because we humans put our effort into making them exist and those things that exist without our help. Cities are in the former category.
Humans gather at residential centers with populations in the millions, yeah, so do ants. Are we going to call that antificial?
The underlying point is that human beings have natural proclivities toward certain positive/healthy/beneficial behaviors, regardless of whether or not those behaviors occur spontaneously. This principle probably pervades nature beyond humanity, but Tolstoy's point is that only humans recognize this, and some deliberately place themselves in opposition.
Not matter what we call the words, I believe Tolstoy (and Ganhi, and Jesus, and the people replying to this post) are correct: the only way to succeed as civilization, whether it means ending violence or even just eliminating wealth gaps, is to recognize and develop love for one another.
Great insights.
Gathering in groups is natural. Doing it in residential centers full of buildings that have right angles in their construction and flush toilets and electrical outlets and internet connections is artificial.
> the only way to succeed as civilization, whether it means ending violence or even just eliminating wealth gaps, is to recognize and develop love for one another
Love? How about just respect?
But it doesn't matter what label you attach to it. I agree that the only way to achieve peace is to reach some state of mind, and I don't particularly care whether you call it "love" or "respect" or "nirvana" or the flying spaghetti monster. I don't want to quibble over terminology. What matters is that this state is not the natural order of things. Mankind has never been in this state, and so we cannot "return" to this state. What we have been doing is steadily making progress towards this state. But we have made this progress by mastering the laws of physics, not by denying them.
AFAIK, Gandhi was born in quite a rich family. He got a law degree in London. How many people from India have a chance to get a degree in London? Or, at the very least, maybe visit a London? I personally could only dream of that, even so, I wasn't born in India. The reason why I mentioned this fact is because of a psychological perception of higher-class people. In most cases, a poor man will always carefully listen to a person from a higher-class society. The fact that he used his power in, probably, the right way, deserves respect. At the same time, there are doubts as for the source of money while he was in Africa, which results to another set of questions.
I once read quite an interesting blog post (can't really find it now) from a guy who suddenly jumped from an engineering position to a CTO. The author was shocked by the fact how people became nice and careful to him. They stared to smile him, always listening to every single word he was pronouncing. Know what? At the very small level, he became "different".
I never treated Gandhi as someone special, but this is just because of my perception. As for the love and violence - there is no such thing as more love or less violence. There is life. There is love. There is violence.
I don't think you understand evolution. Evolution has nothing to do with competition. If the environment is setup such that all beings get 'the prize', which is possible in environments of abundance, then there really is no competition.
We as humans have advanced such that we typically can survive every environment. And this is because of technology AND society. We have created for ourselves an environment of abundance. We are just not smart enough yet to realize it.
> which is possible in environments of abundance
Sure, but environments of abundance do not occur naturally. The natural state is for exponential growth to continue until resource pressure limits it, which is to say, until abundance ends. (This is because, in nature, alleles that reproduce exponentially always out-compete those that don't.)
Yes, we can produce abundance, which in turn can produce peace. But that's an artificial process, not a natural one.
It depends on what you mean by saying "our".
It's "not natural" for an aggressive chemical reaction called "life" that consumes all the resources it can find.
But it's a basic state of the Universe. Ever heard people saying "God is Love", "we are all one" or "nirvana"? That's it.
By "our" I mean "humans", though it is actually true of all living things.
> Ever heard people saying "God is Love", "we are all one" or "nirvana"? That's it.
Of course I've heard people say it. I've also heard people say that humans are not the cause of climate change. Just because people say something doesn't mean it's true.
Nirvana is not a natural state that humans have abandoned (and thus can "return" to.) It is an artificial state that humans have invented. We don't "return" to Nirvana, we have to make Nirvana. We have to design it and build it and maintain it. And that requires work. Simply reciting empty platitudes won't do it.
This is a straw man argument, you're comparing regular science with philosophy.
> Nirvana is not a natural state
> It is an artificial state that humans have invented
> we have to make Nirvana. We have to design it and build it and maintain it
Sorry, but you have incorrect understanding of this concept in terms of both Buddhism and Hinduism. Please update your information on this topic.
It's rather interesting that you include Pride and Prejuidice in your examples because that's a novel that a non-westerner would not understand fully. It relies too much on our embedded understanding of a very specific social structure, culture, class dynamic, etc. to the point where even an American who hasn't watched a fair amount of PBS might not fully appreciate it.
It's probably worth picking up a lecture series on the novels and another on Russian history.
And I'm not going into all the deeper, more philosophical content many see in the works.
British generosity?
Otherwise in Independent India protesters are thrashed/thrown in jail;
—Leonard Cohen, "The Future"
Doom sells but that doesn't make it true. Someone should send him a copy of Pinker's book.
Not the OP, but I enjoyed it, and think people should read or listen to it even though it contains some inaccuracies.
I also think expanded notions of violence are appropriate, though excluded from Pinker's analysis. For example, if a rich country COULD provide equal, high-quality health care to all its citizens, but doesn't because the health care industry (hospitals, insurers, physician groups, pharma) lobbies against such outcomes, and excess morbidity and mortality result, that is a kind of violence, though one that Pinker is not interested in.
Or North Korea (or to a lesser extent China), which maintains relatively low levels of violence, but is simultaneously committing abuses against its population.
The idea that fewer people (or a smaller proportion of people) are smashing their neighbor's head in with a rock doesn't necessarily constitute absolute "progress" to me (though it would be a nice development... provided it was true... which it might not be).
But it feels like we're expecting a lot from Pinker. Basically a full analysis of all types of coercion that can possibly occur. That seems a basically impossible task to undertake. Drawing the line somewhere does not seem unfair.
If his conclusion had been, maybe we're seeing a drop in a particular form of violence and we're not entirely sure why but here are my thoughts (ahem, development of the atom bomb perhaps?), I would have agreed with him, but he wouldn't have sold all those books...
Pinker overestimates hunter-gatherer violence and underestimates non-direct violence in present times (such as US covert violence).
A lot of these criticisms are available online.
Tolstoy doesn't present any data or historical evidence, just shares his deep intuitive wisdom.
He predicted the rise of communism and the world wars, but also inspired Ghandi and Martin Luther King and many others... .
And at times it's really scary how much similarity there exists between the popular ideas back then (which he discusses) and the ideas of today. The almost fanatic belief in human superiority over nature, the power of Reason, the scientific method, the powerful religious groups, the armies, the police, the banks..
One would think that after 2 world wars and countless experimentation with social order and extreme technological advancement, we would have evolved to a higher level of thinking.
But no, there are some principles which stay the same. We still eat, we still drink, we still hate, we still love.
aka he pulled it out of thin air. The sooner we base long term plans on verified data instead of intuition the sooner we'll reduce needless suffering.
All woo-woo aside, ooshy gooshy feelings won't get us to the moon, cure cancer, decrease childhood diseases, or feed a billion people with the land usually used to only feed 10,000.
A great thinker like this can't be replaced by something quantifiable.