A LOOK AT CURRENT EVENTS THROUGH THE LENS OF TOLSTOY’S WAR AND PEACE

 Seemorerocks

I first read “War and Peace” almost 50 years ago but many aspects of much of what I read back then have stayed with me – especially the philosophy. 

I have often said (and am usually misunderstood) by saying: “if Donald Trump had not existed they would have to have invented him”.  

This reflected my vague understanding of Tolstoy’s view of history. I recently came across an excellent review (below) of Tolstoy’s novel that has allowed me to come back to the idea that it is the forces of history that throw up the figures that history books put on centre stage. 

The idea is that it is the forces of history that throw up these larger-than-life figures.

Napoleon, according to Tolstoy, was somewhat like a puppet – an accidental leader pushed forward to lead the French.

If he were to have come at a different period in history, he would not have been able to mobilise a small village, let alone the entire French nation.

It is similar with other figures of history such as Adolf Hitler. 

True too, with the comic gnome, Volodymir Zelensky.

If other factors had not come into play he would have remained an obscure comedian.

Like another small man before him, Napoleon, he has a highly-exaggerated view of his own importance.

Historical irony

‘War and Peace’ is set in the years 1805, from the defeat of the Russian and Austrian armies at the Battle of Austerlitz to 1820 and the lead-up to the Decembrist rebellion against the tsar.

Russia in 1805 was largely made by the empress, Catherine the Great who ruled Russia from 1762 to 7096.

She made French her official court language so most of the Russian nobility spoke French better than they spoke Russian.

That reminds me of post-Soviet Russia where much of the elite until recently looked to the West for everything.

The irony is, though, that Napoleon really did not have to invade Russia because those who ruled Russia were all French speaking people.

The Russian aristocrats loved French culture and they even read French literature. 

The irony is that the effect of Napoleon’s invasion was, In fact, to hinder French culture from flourishing in Russia and instead served to cement a true Russian culture and gave rise to Great Russian nationalism.

TOLSTOY’S PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY

Tolstoy’s novel is at once a novel, a history book and also a meditation on life.

I wish to concentrate on the latter two aspects.

If you open up almost any history book and you will find it is the history of heroes and anti-heroes, and ordinary folk are unimportant.

They tend to focus solely on the kings and generals.

In other words, fictional heroes.

There is very little about the peasants or soldiers who actually fought in the wars. 

Tolstoy believed these so called historical heroes, such as Napoleon, couldn’t have changed the course of history by themselves, but that it was the entire society – from those fighting in the trenches to the peasants producing the food to the farmers feeding the horses, and to the women who looked after the children, that shape history.

As Tolstoy writes:

“The movement of nation is caused not by power nor by intellectual activity, nor even by a combination of the two as historians have supposed, but by the activity of all the people who participate in the events, and who always combine in such a way that those taking the largest direct share in the event take on themselves the least responsibility, and vice versa.”

To what extent do political leaders play the key role?

Perhaps the reason most politicians break their promises is very simple – they are unable to implement change.

NAPOLEON LEFT OUT

Napoleon, the superhero of history books, is caricatured in ‘War and Peace’ while other characters who don’t make it into history books are depicted as real humans by Tolstoy. This is brought out in an episode where Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, previously in awe of Bonoparte, is lying down on the ground, wounded, as  Napoleon happens to pass by.

In an episode I can remember clearly from the movie, Prince Andrei reflects:

Looking into Napoleon’s eyes, Prince Andrei realised the insignificance of greatness, the unimportance of life, which no one could understand, and still greater, the importance of death, the meaning of which no one alive could understand or explain.

Tolstoy tells us the historical figures are not as big or heroic as our imaginations make them. So in essence, history is a work of fiction because Napoleon is made bigger because we’re led to believe he was greater than he was.

As I have pointed out previously, the gnome, Zelensky stands out while the world praises him as one of the great world leaders.

What was the greatness of General Kutuzov?

Napoleon’s French army with their allies, mainly the Poles was the most sophisticated army at the time.

The Russian army, however, was a kind of ramshackle group of peasants.

The difference was, one was fighting for a genuine cause, defending the country. 

A  shallow understanding of events could see the Ukrainians of today in this light and the Russians as aggressors, whereas the Russians are fighting for their very existence, not against the Ukrainians but against the entire Collective West.

General Mikhail Kutuzov was one of the great Russian generals. 

After defeat at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805 he was brought back as commander of Russian forces in time for the Battle of Borodino in 1812 in which, although there were huge losses, failed to destroy the Russian army. 

A lot of criticism of him at the time paralleled what we hear today – “incompetence or treason”.

Here is one assessment from the time from a British military leader:

“Kutuzov was utterly lazy, incompetent and perhaps even a friend of the French…”

—Robert Wilson

Here is another assessment:

While Tolstoy brought Napoleon down a notch in this novel, with Kutuzov we see that the bringing-a-mythological-man-down-to-earth thing can actually work both ways. Tolstoy turns the historical Kutuzov into a wise old soul who can commune in some mystical way with the general day-to-day feel of the army and guide it along the right path.

What’s interesting is that Tolstoy shines up Kutuzov’s reputation without trying to whitewash his flaws. We still see how old, out-of-shape, tired, and even lazy the man is. By showing us the human characteristics and the multi-dimensionality of these and other historical figures, Tolstoy takes the Manichean tendency out of history

P.S. Manichaeism refers to any belief system that has a black-and-white, good-and-bad approach to morality, skipping over any nuance or gray areas

In fact, General Katuzov often relied on instinct and intuition. His approach was to go with the flow, like wind –  in an almost mystical sense.

By contrast, Napoleon represents modernity acting like a machine.

Kutuzov, by contrast, represents going with the flow of Nature.

At the time, Kutuzov’s seeming inactivity and incompetence looked similar to what we are seeing today.

Before abandoning the city, the Russians decided to burn Moscow. Like today, the attitude was:

“If we can’t have it, we don’t want the French to have it either.”

Napoleon finally entered Moscow as the city turned to ashes. Eventually, General Winter dictated that Napoleon had to retreat back the way he came, his Grande Armée  defeated.

Victory was with the Russians.

TOLSTOY’S INFLUENCES 

Tolstoy was influenced by Arthur Schopenhauer’s will and representation.

To understand this, let’s briefly look at the two major secular philosophy called schools in Europe, the rationalists and the empiricists.

The rationalist believed that we understand the world through reason; reason alone is enough to know the world.

The best example is Rene Descartes, who sat in his armchair and rationalised “I think therefore, I am.”

So, rationalists rely on ideas and thoughts to know what’s going on.

The empiricists, represented by English and Scottish philosophers like Thomas Hobbes and David Hume, however, rely less on rational ideas but more an empirical data ie our experience in the real world to understand the world.

Rationalism is an inside out approach, while empiricism is an outside in approach.

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant tried to bring these two schools – the rationalists and empiricists – together, arguing that we humans, by rationally categorising the world, impose our own structure on it. So we are not passive observers of reality, but actively making reality conform to our categorizations.

Kant also made a distinction between two realms: phenomena or reality as they appear to us, and noumena or reality as it is. 

This is a term also used by Indian Advaita philosopher, Ramesh Balsekar.

In his usage, phenomena corresponds to the world as we perceive it, whereas noumena corresponds to the world as it is.

Arthur Schopenhauer argued that the world that appears as ta reality of history is not the world that actually exists independently of us. According to Schopenhauer, human will is like a lens through which we see and interpret, and even study the world.

Putting it simply: “Who we are is nothing but Consciousness itself“

Getting back to ‘War and Peace’, Tolstoy argues that historical events are not the result of individual leaders’ will or whim, but rather bigger social forces are the will of the entire society that take a country to war, not its leaders.

Hitler couldn’t have mobilised Germany if the socio-economic conditions were not right.

Napoleon, according to Tolstoy, was somewhat like a puppet, an accidental leader pushed forward to lead the French.

If he were to have come at a different period in history, he would not have been able to mobilise a small village, let alone entire French nation.

For Tolstoy, leaders are like great men pushed to the front. 

PRE – DETERMINISM

One thing that separates me from mainstream Christian teaching is its insistence on free will.

To me, free will, to the extent it SEEMS to exist is largely illusory.

There are  thousands of conscious and subconscious triggers that lead up to us making a decision.

Tolstoy decides that free will does not exist, that we all have to obey the strict rules of the hive we live in.

 

So for Tolstoy, free will is more like an illusion.

Ramesh Balsekar says that even “free will” is pre-determined.

The higher a man stands on the social ladder, the more people he’s connected with, and the more power he has over others, the more evident is the predestination and inevitability of a free action.

AWAKENING FROM THE DREAM

In common with the mystical  traditions, Tolstoy says that life is a dream and death is like waking up from that dream. He describes his character, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky thus:

“At that very instant he died, having made an effort he woke. Yes, I was dead. I died. I woke up. Yes, death is awakening”

THE MOVIE, WAR AND PEACE

In conclusion, I recommend that you bookmark the following and watch the great Soviet epic film, restored, which is very true to the novel.

Part one

Part two

Part three

Part four

Alan Watts on the meaning of life

Is there a purpose to human existence? ~ Philosopher Alan Watts

Philosopher Alan Watts tries to describe the answer to our existence but in doing so he helps us understand the answer cannot be found. He can only say that existence is simply weird. Watts believes our lives are the ‘odd’ standing out of the flat, ‘even,’ unknowable background. The unanswerable nature of the existence question is what will forever make humans wonder. The only thing we can say with certainty is that existence is indeed weird.

The Real You

The mind

Carl Sagan speaks Zeitgeist

Evolve or die - Human extinction and spiritual awakening

I found someone's rant on Facebook under the heading "Evolve or Die - Eckart Tolle" 

This got me searching and I found these items discussing the urgency of spiritual awakening and what the prospect of the human species has for Consciousness.

First a quote from Shakespeare

"She should have died hereafter.

There would have been a time for such a word.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing."

--- Shakespeare, Hamlet

Evolve or die – Eckhart Tolle

]

Your spiritual awakening is not only for yourself, it is a gift you give to humanity. For the first time ever in our history, humanity needs desperately to awaken. If this does not happen, we are at risk of losing the life we know, of becoming a race extinct.

The Earth is faced with a radical crisis of yet unknown proportions. Never before have we had the capacity to pollute our air, food and water. Never before have we been so heavily armed and angry that a single incident (of ego reactivity) can spawn an all-out decimation of our population, the human race and the great animal kingdom we share this planet with.

As with any radical crisis, we are faced with a monumental choice: we continue to live and behave along the old patterns -- the very patterns that brought us to this point of crisis – or we recognize that we have outgrown the old ways and we must rise above the familiar and EVOLVE. In the crisis we face in the world today, both individually and collectively, the bottom line truth is this: we must evolve or die. It is that simple.

The true culprit for the many difficult and life-threatening problems we face in the world and in our lives is the dysfunction of the egoic mind that is unique to human beings. We may be more evolved than the animals with whom we share this planet, but our use of our higher brain function is not keeping pace. We are growing technologically much more quickly than we are spiritually. This presents a dangerous situation. This situation has been cooking for about a hundred years and is now a pressure cooker that can blow at any time.

Don't be fooled by the New Age and New Thought promises that we can visualize our way out of the crisis and create a new world with our thought and vision. Evolution is not this easy.

The evolution that will save humanity is not about a new belief system, a new religion, a new mythology, nor in creative, ways of using the mind and its thought. The evolution that will save humanity will be the transcendence of thought altogether.

The transcendence of thought is nothing more than discovering and realizing a dimension within yourself that is beyond thought. It is the source of thought itself. It is the true higher mind. And we know this mind, we recognize and connect to it, by the simple act of Presence, Being, and settling into a heart-based consciousness.

Our evolution is a shift from identification with form and ideas (ego consciousness) to the increasing awareness of our own existential Being.

This is the flowering of human consciousness, and it is happening now, for the first time in such large numbers of people. It is happening now because it is imperative.

Awakening is the most urgent need of humanity and it is the primary purpose in your life.

http://www.tolleteachings.com/urgency-of-transformation.html

Even the Sun Will Die - recorded on 9/11/2001

An appropriate message for today

Never was there a more appropriate time to listen to Krishnamurti

Jiddu Krishnamurti: Fear

A Wholly Different Way of Living: San Diego, California 1974

Alan Watts - the Real You

Alan Watts breaks down what's wrong with the world (1970)
The very wise Alan Watts breaks down what's wrong with the world at large, and does so back in 1970! His foreshadowing of the manipulation of the food supply through high yield crops is eery and so very true (i.e., Monsanto and their Ready Roundup crops).

Reflections on NTHE

Thoughts on Faith and Purpose during Near-Term Human Extinction

by J. Z. Colby

My journey from innocence to the thoughts I now share has spanned my entire life so far. It included a college degree in psychology and all the usual training to be a mental-health therapist that went with it. That gave me some insights, to say the least, into how people think during big changes in the world around them. NTHE qualifies, methinks.

My journey also included plenty of formal and informal studies in philosophy, which armed me with some good tools for spotting thinking errors and propaganda, the former I define as innocent mistakes, the latter purposeful manipulations, but all constituting, in a broad sense, bullshit. I certainly don’t claim perfection at finding and analyzing this gooey substance. However, I am convinced that NTHE, at its core, is not a social or political thing. It exists and progresses outside of any opinions we might hold about it.

Beginning early in the new millennium, I was “given” a story to write. If I had to put a name on the giver, I would attribute it to Clio, the Muse of History. I didn’t realize this at first, as the story is science fiction that never takes place on planet Earth, and in fact never even mentions Earth. Slowly, as the books of the series were completed, I realized that my story wasn’t relevant to the “history” of planet Earth, in the sense of our past. It was relevant, instead, to a part of human history that has not quite yet happened.

At the same time, the last decade and a half roughly, I have felt compelled to study the unfolding situation about Peak Oil and Climate Change. This sprang naturally from my roots in the Environmental movement, Organic Gardening and Farming, and various social justice concerns (especially the status of women and children).

Slowly, as I read countless articles and books, the pieces of a complex puzzle came together for me. I could name, and thank, a hundred, perhaps a thousand people whose writings and talks have helped me with that journey. All the while, I continued to listen to the mainstream news and commentary enough to know what thoughts were current in center society. There are thinking errors and propaganda on all sides of every issue, of course, but that’s just part of human nature. People ignore or twist the truth, or just plain lie, for various personal and group reasons, always have and always will.

The important process for me was discovering where the threads of truth wound among the piles of steaming … you know. To even hope to discover them, I had to apply every bit of my training in psychology and philosophy, and well as all the informal skills of discernment that life has given me. As the last decade crept by, and Clio gave me more and more of the story I was “assigned” to write, those threads of truth started going to a place that was less and less comfortable with each passing year.

I have now, during the last few years especially, focused on understanding the mechanisms that exist on our planet that could render the term “climate change” completely inadequate. When a fire burns someone’s home to the ground, we don’t call that a “change” in their interior decoration, even though it technically is. When a car accident mutilates a person’s body so they can’t even be identified at the morgue, we don’t call that a “change” in their employment status, even though it technically is.

The mechanisms and feedbacks that could cause NTHE are there, coming into clearer focus, year after year, for me and others. We don’t yet know if they WILL actually cause NTHE, as there are many things about our planet we don’t yet understand, and some of those could change the situation. Of course, they could change it in either direction, making NTHE less or more likely, and its progress slower or faster. I do not say this to attempt any sort of denial, but only to respect the inherent unknowability of the future.

It’s when I look at the psychological motivations of the various people speaking for or against Peak Oil, Climate Change, and NTHE, and filter out the plain-old thinking errors, that I get scared. There are plenty of piles of … stuff … on all sides, but the threads of truth do not, in my humble opinion, lead to the shopping mall, or Wall Street, or anywhere else that “business as usual” is practiced.

Since I have studied a fair amount of what it means to be sane, and choose to be so to the best of my ability, I will continue to do my best to avoid cognitive dissonance, denial, duplicity, and a hundred other ways of avoiding contact with reality, for as long as I have sufficient strength of body and clarity of mind. Many of those mental tactics of avoidance provide temporary relief from anxiety and fear, but in the long run they twist our minds and souls, in my professional opinion, and cause us to move further and further from reality. Yeah, I drink a beer occasionally, ponder a utopian fantasy occasionally, but do my best to keep them occasional.

I have read and listened to many people express everything from righteous indignation to the depths of despair over NTHE. I would never deny anyone their feelings and their right to speak their minds. But neither do I find most of those feelings in myself. Perhaps that’s because I’m an extreme introvert.

(Before continuing these thoughts, I need to point out that introversion has nothing to do with shyness. Any reader who equates the two is misinformed. Introversion is a personality temperament in which a person has a rich interior mental life and is energized and comforted by that life, and less so by the external world of things and people. Introverts make up about 25% of the population.)

Because I am an extreme introvert, and have a “thick skin” from being a mental-health therapist, I seem to be less susceptible to the “teachings” of my culture. That has pros and cons, of course, but in this case I see it as an advantage that I can “tune out” my culture when I judge it is trying to feed me … mushroom food. The Myth of Progress has always made me frown, even when I was quite young. The Star Trek assumption, that we will go to the stars and immediately be among the movers and shakers of the galaxy, is worth a good belly laugh. That I “should” become suicidal at the thought of NTHE … hasn’t crossed my mind yet. Again, although I value this ability in self and others, I don’t claim perfection at it, and still do my best to fully and deeply empathize with others who DO feel suicidal because of NTHE or other reasons.

I think part of this “immunity” also comes from the fact that my cultural loyalty is very low. In the course of my studies, formal and informal, I have learned of the countless times our governments (even “democratic” ones) have lied and broken their own laws and treaties, ignored their promises and responsibilities, stolen, imprisoned, and killed without cause or due process. Yes, there are worse governments. That may make it okay for some people, not for me. Also, in (luckily) minor ways, I have personally felt the injustices our culture can sometimes dispense, enough to imagine what others go through who “piss off” our culture in more substantial ways. I admit that our culture has developed the THEORY of the rule of law, and is CAPABLE of dispensing justice. Those are nice baby-steps, nothing more.

(I’m just using the words “wisdom” and “wise” here to suggest a huge slate of good qualities. To elaborate on that idea is far beyond the scope of this essay, and would, of course, be controversial. The reader may imagine his or her own list of qualities that would make a person, institution, or whole civilization worthy of loyalty.)

None of this is to suggest that I am, or that I advocate, DIS-loyalty to my culture. Revenge and “payback” are things of childhood, whether practiced by school-yard bullies or nations, and I try not to put energy in that direction.

My lack of loyalty to human culture allows me to follow Clio’s leadings. She has me writing a long story about characters who must stay completely above the social and political “stuff” going on in the cultures they visit. They have learned the hard way that “staying out of it” is necessary to successfully do their work.

This same lack of loyalty has given me, I think, a fair amount of clarity when considering NTHE. I hear all the usual denials, disdainful dismissals, and rationalizations that people use to brush aside the idea. I listen carefully, and think long and hard about each of their arguments, but don’t find any that stand up, other than the obviously-true fact that the future is not knowable on the level of actual event details or specific timing.

I cannot claim, with honesty, that I was “given” this attitude by some higher power, instead of it just being an accident of my life experiences. I don’t suppose that will ever be mine to know. But regardless of its source, it appears that it gives me purpose. I can write stories that a few people, mostly young, find interesting and ennobling. I can read and analyze essays written by others about Peak Oil, Climate Change, NTHE, and related issues, and then summarize that information in appropriate language for my readership (mostly young adults). And I can answer questions put to me by any sincere person (anyone who appears open to hearing an answer).

All of this contains a large element of faith, of course. I am exercising faith when I assume that my lack of loyalty to my culture can be an asset. Many people would disagree. To many, perhaps most people, “rocking the boat” is the ultimate sin. (I keep my address and telephone number private, naturally.) It is an act of faith that the story that comes to me from an unknown/unknowable source (“Clio”) should be written, published, and made available to people, even though it has not been approved by any official institution of our culture. Many people would, if they could, only allow stories that are “officially approved,” especially for young people. It is an act of faith that I use my mental-health training and experience, and my understanding of current events, to put controversial idea into young-adult language.

I presume that no one who sees NTHE coming will find faith and purpose exactly like mine. Everyone has different skills and abilities, different life experiences, and different “assignments” from the universe (if they are open to that angle at all). Finding purpose in difficult situations is just as relevant for atheists as theists, in my opinion, and purposes can be large or small, individual or group, survival-oriented or self-sacrificial.

The thing about NTHE that makes it so fascinating and/or frightening is also what makes it such fertile ground for finding purpose: it is unique, or at least — if we accept Plato’s Atlantis and/or Noah’s Ark — it happens seldom enough that we don’t have cultural rules for how to act at such times. Our cultures will certainly keep tugging on our “leashes” for all the usual reasons until the bitter end, but they will be so busy denying NTHE that much freedom will remain to find and carry out the purposes we discover are right for each of us.

J. Z. Colby can be contacted at http://www.nebador.com/Contact.html