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Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi

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Re: Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi

#21
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is Tolstoy's method of protecting the weak from the strong without some analogue of police?

He says the weak should just deal with it. And he isn't really coming up with this himself, but pretty much just saying what the New Testament actually reads. His point is that if everyone 'does not resist violence' then the world will be perfect. This seems like a recipe for disaster, but it worked for Gandhi and the other thing Tolstoy advocates is not supporting any entity that does violence. So yeah, thugs could…

There's a school of thought that argues that it didn't work for Gandhi, or MLK for that matter. That both of those "non-violent" leaders' words and actions were backed by the everpresent threat of violence. These include obvious threats like Malcom X and less obvious ones like the potential for a large group of people to simply devolve into violence when provoked.

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.

Re: Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi

#22

Tangential, I'm reading "War and Peace" right now for my book club, very difficult to slog through; just curious for peeps who've read either "War and Peace" or "Anna Karenina," what is so special about Tolstoy's novels, that makes it different than say their Western counterparts like say "Les Miserables" or "Pride and Prejudice"?

Well, you stated the obvious difference: one set of novels is Western and Tolstoy is not. His sensibility and his viewpoint are Russian. Embedded in his works, especially Anna Kerenina in my opinion, is a prescient understanding of history and if you are the type to infer this sort of thing, human nature.

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.

Re: Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi

#23
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you could summarize or link to those critiques, I would be interested.

That wikipedia page is good. 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,…

I don't disagree with those very insightful criticisms. I also recognize that Pinker is making a very sweeping argument in his book, one that he likely can't fully back up.

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.

Re: Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi

#25
post #17

> a return to our most natural, basic state, which is the law of love 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 c…

The "most natural, basic state" refers to the ultimate dissociative mental state that Spiritualists aspire to " rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_(spiritual)> ... and not to the evolutionary base (which is comprised of both loving and savage instincts). The key thing to understand here is that dissociating from something (eg: savage instincts) is not the same as eliminating them; the "most natural, basic state" is a manufactured one where the savage instincts are minimized and the tender ones (love) are maximized to the nth degree.

Re: Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi

#26
post #19
post #17

> a return to our most natural, basic state, which is the law of love 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 c…

Pretending that the opposite it true, that violence is our most natural and basic state, is equally naive as pretending that cooperation/love is. You mention the phenotype and us/them, but don't explain how violence is an obviously beneficial trait. It is easy to contrive cases where violence is beneficial, but that is a far cry from saying that it is life's most natural and basic state. Also, I know you didn't actua…

> Pretending that the opposite it true, that violence is our most natural and basic state, is equally naive

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...

Re: Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi

#27
post #25
post #17

> a return to our most natural, basic state, which is the law of love 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 c…

The "most natural, basic state" refers to the ultimate dissociative mental state that Spiritualists aspire to " rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_(spiritual)> ... and not to the evolutionary base (which is comprised of both loving and savage instincts). The key thing to understand here is that dissociating from something (eg: savage instincts) is not the same as eliminating them; the "most na…

That's not consistent with what Tolstoy said (or at least what the author says of what Tolstoy said -- I haven't actually read Tolstoy). The author says that Tolstoy "advocates for a return to our most natural, basic state, which is the law of love." [Emphasis added.] Mankind can't return to this state because mankind has never been in this state. We may some day in the future be in this state (I hope so) but we haven't quite gotten there yet. And, I submit, denying this won't help.

Re: Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi

#28
post #27
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "most natural, basic state" refers to the ultimate dissociative mental state that Spiritualists aspire to " rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_(spiritual)> ... and not to the evolutionary base (which is comprised of both loving and savage instincts). The key thing to understand here is that dissociating from something (eg: savage instincts) is not the same as eliminating them; the "most na…

That's not consistent with what Tolstoy said (or at least what the author says of what Tolstoy said -- I haven't actually read Tolstoy). The author says that Tolstoy "advocates for a return to our most natural, basic state, which is the law of love." [Emphasis added.] Mankind can't return to this state because mankind has never been in this state. We may some day in the future be in this state (I hope so) but we have…

Well, I get that. To be as blunt as possible for comprehension - Tolstoy and the like, when they are busy living "the law of love," are actually dissociating themselves from the savage instincts (while identifying with the tender ones), which gives rise to the delusion that their newfound identification is somehow our "most natura, basic state" that other people need to return to.

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.

Re: Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi

#29
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is Tolstoy's method of protecting the weak from the strong without some analogue of police?

He says the weak should just deal with it. And he isn't really coming up with this himself, but pretty much just saying what the New Testament actually reads. His point is that if everyone 'does not resist violence' then the world will be perfect. This seems like a recipe for disaster, but it worked for Gandhi and the other thing Tolstoy advocates is not supporting any entity that does violence. So yeah, thugs could…

'Worked for Gandhi' != 'worked for the weak'. The weak in India have a pretty poor experience.

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.

Re: Why We Hurt Each Other: Tolstoy’s Letters to Gandhi

#30
post #25
post #17

> a return to our most natural, basic state, which is the law of love 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 c…

The "most natural, basic state" refers to the ultimate dissociative mental state that Spiritualists aspire to " rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightenment_(spiritual)> ... and not to the evolutionary base (which is comprised of both loving and savage instincts). The key thing to understand here is that dissociating from something (eg: savage instincts) is not the same as eliminating them; the "most na…

You should visit Africa and see humans living in villages in the "most natural, basic state" and I seriously doubt anyone would want to live like that. Doubly so for women, for of course it doesn't come with choice of partner (rape is "default", in the sense of not choosing who you have sex with, violence is not usually involved), nor does it come with hygene supplies. It also comes with violence, in fact, if you're male, you're either going to die from some (easily curable) disease or violently (usually both: you're going to die from disease, specifically gangreen, after a superficial bit of violence. Like a rat bite during a hunt, or simply by getting a cut from a tree). If you're female, you're going to die giving birth to your 7th kid. I think I'd actually prefer the latter. Of your life, you'll spend a third of it with food poisoning (usually due to the water, not so much the food).

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.

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