Yawn, in addition to becoming cultured, I fear this advice will also make you incredibly boring.
Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
191–200 of 218 posts
Re: Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
#192Re: Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
#193Dunno. I'm reading Chekhov's letters and it doesn't look to me he was up to his own standards.
Do you have any examples?
Can't give you any quotes but for example he was quite derogatory towards "khokhly" (Ukrainians). Not sure if this word was derogatory by itself at his time (as it is now with rare exceptions). He went well beyond just using this word and expressed his negative view of these people using rather rude vocabulary.
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.
Re: Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
#194And all this striving towards Chekhov's idea of cultured allows one to achieve what? I'd venture that for most it would amount to smugly patting themselves on the back for having achieved such a fine state of serenity. If this version of cultured means just another way to feel superior to others, I'm happy to be uncultured.
It allows one to achieve a view where they don't judge others in an attempt to speak for them as you have done here. While you can imagine someone patting themselves on the back for being aesthetic, the reality is that is only occurring vividly in your own mind, and not out here. If someone was indeed patting themselves on the back out here for these things, that is a separate problem created of their own judgement.…
Just to provide a counterpoint to the two other comments which are disparaging of the parent, I thought this was a great contribution, even if it was written less like a HN comment and more like a philosophy essay.
Re: Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
Out of curiosity, can you read Dostoevsky and Tolstoy in Russian too? Does that feel different than reading them in English?
Do sentences last for 1/3 of a page in English version as well? Such as when you get to the end of the sentence you have already forgotten what was at the beginning? If it is like that then English version is similar to Russian.
Yeah, at least the versions in English that I've read had sentences that last at least a third of the page.
Re: Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the thing about russians and noses? The naval academy also has a statute with a lucky nose. In other cultures people want to touch the hands or feet of statues, but in russia it seems to be the nose.
I don't think it's a uniquely Russian thing. I think it has more to do with the scale of bronze statuary. Busts have accessible noses, but feet are easier to reach on full figures. My university in the United States had a bust of Abraham Lincoln with a lucky nose.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find any bronze statues of Abraham Lincoln without a shiny lucky nose, at least in Illinois. The state capitol of Springfield has several.
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.
Re: Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
#197I notice this theme again and again in every "change yourself" book, show, class, lecture. Be it weight loss, improving mental health, curing addiction, becoming a better writer/photographer/programmer, the theme all comes down to a battle against yourself. Fighting the desire to snack, fighting the desire to lay on the couch instead of going to the gym, fighting the desire to veg and watch netflix instead of watchin…
I think of it like this: I want to lay on the couch, not go to the gym, but I want to want to go to the gym, or I want to have gone to the gym. I want to have gone to the gym because I hate to be at the gym. Realizing that, I have a choice: is going to the gym a chore, like flossing my teeth to avoid tooth pain or taking out the garbage so I'm not living in garbage? that is, is going to the gym something I do even th…
That's the nice thing about chaotic wild life. Your life depends on every day gymnastic and it's often quite a pleasure to feel alive and full. We distorded the game too much it seems. Unless the VR trend provides a healthy dose of entertaining physical activity.
Re: Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think of it like this: I want to lay on the couch, not go to the gym, but I want to want to go to the gym, or I want to have gone to the gym. I want to have gone to the gym because I hate to be at the gym. Realizing that, I have a choice: is going to the gym a chore, like flossing my teeth to avoid tooth pain or taking out the garbage so I'm not living in garbage? that is, is going to the gym something I do even th…
But you don't need the gym, for losing weight or getting healthier. The only thing you need the gym for is getting big muscles, now you can reframe the question. Is my goal to be more healthy or getting ripped? 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 wei…
For some places, not having a car is already a free health increase. Walking regularly is free "healthcare".
Re: Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
#199I am an American living in Russia. When I was studying Russian I read a number of Chekhov's short stories and got a feel for who he was. 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 beli…
you should do all you can to appear clean and groomed 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
Was Einstein actually considered and describes by his peers/comrades as disheveled? Or is that just a cultural archetype we tell ourselves?
Re: Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shameless plug, Chekhov's complete short fiction for free, at Standard Ebooks: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/anton-chekhov/short-fictio... 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://g…
Great project! I grabbed the book; look forward to reading it. 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"
Fixed, thanks for catching that!