Chapter 11 of The Kingdom of God is Within You: How Public Opinion Creates Progress Through Negation

Chapter 11: THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF LIFE HAS ALREADY ARISEN IN OUR SOCIETY AND WILL INFALLIBLY PUT AN END TO THE PRESENT ORGANISATION OF OUR LIFE BASED ON FORCE—WHEN THAT WILL BE

Chapter 10, in conjunction with the central messaging of War and Peace, shows how it is the movement of masses, here described as "popular opinion", that causes events to happen and progress in society. Chapter 11
aims to show how this popular opinion, buoyed by the advancing Christian conception of life, will destroy the institutions that cause war and lack of freedom.

what is established by public opinion not only can be, but actually is, destroyed by it.

Not institutions, but the people that either support the institutions or willingly participate in them, cause or prevent change. Much of what we see in this chapter is what you might call positive changes through negation, meaning positive change that comes through the removal of negative aspects of life. And this of course, is a key concept in Tolstoy's thought, both in War and Peace where we see happiness in simplicity and the rejection of political, courtly, or the wealthy, and in his explicitly religious and political expository thought, in which the rejection of religious and political institutions and the violence that their very existence creates is the path for positive change. However, as activists and people who want true change know, achieving true change and fighting these institutions can seem almost impossible.

an organization which of late has been carried to the highest degree of perfection, with a whole army of men whose calling it is to deceive and hypnotize the masses, and all this, by means of electricity, which

annihilates space, subjected to men, who not only consider such a structure of society to be advantageous for them, but even such that without it they would inevitably perish, and who, therefore, use every
effort of their minds in order to maintain it, — what an invincible force, one would think!

The institutions, as does every organism subject to the laws of evolution, work their hardest to preserve themselves. It does this through propaganda and its own attempts to influence public opinion, as well as,
as Tolstoy sees clearly (and helps to explain his aversion to such fundamentally societal altering concepts such as the railroad), how the the government and powerful institutions uses technology to direct, spy,
and make their violent rule easier to administrate. As Tolstoy himself points out, the mass casualties caused in the wars of his time, the wars in War and Peace, and the wars that would happen after his death
was not primarily man's desire to murder, but technology, whether it be rifles, cannons, machine guns, airplanes, or drones, that has made it possible to kill without it seemingly like direct murder. Most obvious
in our time, technology has helped the powerful corporations and governments through spying using social media or home devices, making it easier to sell to consumers or look for "dangerous criminals". But, for
Tolstoy these institutions can be defeated, and says so in a typically simple and matter-of-fact way.

All that is needed is that men should feel as much ashamed of doing acts of violence, of taking part in them, and exploiting them, as it is now a disgrace to pass for a rascal, a thief, a coward, a beggar. And

it is precisely this that is beginning to happen. We do not notice it, just as men do not notice any motion, when they move together with everything surrounding them.

Much like as in War and Peace, when humanity is unaware of the significance of the historical events that they are taking part in, humans do not notice when they move together, when they are in agreement, or
when they are undergoing a change of opinion. For Tolstoy, the unconsciousness of humanity and its relation to their actions plays a huge role because humanity is not free to make its own decisions and direct
its movement. We are not allowed to drag history in the direction that we would like to, contrary to the goals of progressivism and liberalism, but we are dragged and pulled by external forces, material conditions,
and the collective herd. I think this idea does a good job of explaining how morals change and ideas become unacceptable across generations. We aren't quite conscious of the shift in public opinion but are
brought to its realization when we see those that sit outside of public opinion through their conservatism. So, stigma, and the evolution of stigma, will play a critical role in the way that humanity progresses as
a whole. Interestingly, Tolstoy mainly sees the addition of stigma as playing the role for change, with people attaching stigma to certain actions that were once acceptable, such as war, executions, etc, but we have
obviously seen the removal of stigma playing a positive role for change in our society, as things that were once seen as unacceptable, such as gay marriage, non-binarism, etc, lose their stigma, thus reducing
human suffering and increasing happiness.

those who make use of the violence, that is, the rich, no longer represent, as formerly, the flower of society and the ideal of human well-being and grandeur, toward which all the violated used to strive. Now

very frequently it is not so much the violated who strive after the position of the violators and try to imitate them, as the violators, who frequently of their own free will renounce the advantages of their position,
choose the condition of the violated, and try in simplicity of life to emulate the violated.

This is the ultimate goal of Tolstoy and explains his fiction, non-fiction, and the way he tried to live his life in his later years. I think that it is also important to note when interpreting Tolstoy that, unlike some, though
not all or even the, possibly, the majority of revolutionaries, Tolstoy is not writing for the peasants. Other than some of his short stories, Tolstoy mainly wrote for the elite class because, especially in Russia, this
is the class that read. The peasants, for the most part, were illiterate and so when interpreting his work, we should not assume that he is speaking to the simple person. Instead, when he is talking about forsaking
riches and giving up power, he is talking to the people to whom that this applies to the most. Tolstoy's revolution was not to bring the poor up to the wealthy, but in a somewhat ironic twist since this is generally a
charge brought against socialists, to bring the wealthy and powerful down to the poor. His emphasis, and I think this certainly falls in line with the revolutionary teaching of Jesus, which was not about organizing
a worker class to bring down the rich but to challenge the rich to be like the humble poor, is to not to do anything for the peasants other than for them to no longer be oppressed by the rich. The problem is not the
inactive rich and powerful doing nothing while the peasant or poor class starves, but the active, well, actions that contribute to this suffering. Rejecting the power and oppression, just as Tolstoy believes Alexander
did, and becoming a peasant, to sell all your goods and give them to the poor, is the revolutionary act that Tolstoy calls for. Tolstoy has little for the peasants to do in his "revolution" because he believes that very
little is wrong with the peasantry as is. The calls to action are all to members of his class, which is to give up that power, rather than it being taken away from them.

The majority of monuments which are now erected are no longer in commemoration of men of state, of generals, and less certainly not of the rich, but of the learned, of artists, of inventors, of men who have

not only had nothing in common with the governments, or with the authorities, but who frequently have struggled against them.

Even with the United States' own monument controversy having race and civil war identity politics play a gigantic factor, we can see the progression of this in our own country with statues of oppressors being pulled
down and the glorification, as an alternative, of those who have fought against the state (the amount of streets, neighborhoods, and schools named after figures like Martin Luther King Jr, Cesar Chavez, or Malcolm
X is a clear testament to this) demonstrates this.

Not only is the circle of men, from which the servants of the government and the rich men are chosen, growing all the time smaller and smaller, and more and more debased, but these men themselves no

longer ascribe to the positions which they hold their former significance, and frequently, being ashamed of them, to the disadvantage of the cause which they serve, neglect to carry out what by their position
they are called upon to do. Kings and emperors have the management of hardly anything, hardly ever have the courage to make internal changes and to enter into new external political conditions, but for the
most part leave the solution of these questions to state institutions or to public opinion. All their duties reduce themselves to being the representatives of state unity and supremacy.

Populist discontent with government officials and the overall negative stigma held against government officials contains in itself a litany of public and societal issues that countries in the Western world are currently reeling from, but the destruction of the noble class over the last 200 years (replaced mostly by wealth or celebrity classes, the latter of which appears to be completely transforming, for better or worse, through the internet and social media) is a complete affirmation of Tolstoy's thought, and factions that do blindly support leaders and even state continue to grow more and more cultish in their appearance and their interaction with public opinion. Through this, leaders lose their power to administrators, and administrators lose their power to the people who do not obey them. 

Executioners refuse to carry out their duties, so that in Russia capital punishment can frequently not be carried out for want of executioners, since, in spite of the advantages held out to make hard-labour

convicts become executioners, there is an ever decreasing number of such as are willing to take up the duty.

As the death penalty seems to be in the wane around the world, in the United States state governments have become desperate in procuring or inventing "humane" substances to kill prisoners. Whether it has become
difficult to find people to administer these drugs is hard to say, but public opinion has certainly shifted, beyond court rulings and certain governments that have upheld the death penalty, and the thirst for death for
criminals, especially public deaths (as executions are now mostly done at night, or in some parts of the world, in secret), seem to have mostly disappeared. For the death penalty to completely disappear, public opinion
and the willingness of those to administer it must force it to completely disappear by making it so difficult for governments to carry it out that the effort becomes no longer worth it.

Capitalists give part of their capital for public, educational, artistic, philanthropic institutions. Unable to part from their wealth during their lifetime, many of them will it away after their death in favour of public

institutions. All these phenomena might appear accidental, if they did not all reduce themselves to one common cause, just as it might seem accidental that the buds should swell on some of the trees in spring,
if we did not know that the cause of it is the common spring, and that, if the buds have begun to swell on some of the trees, the same no doubt will happen with all of the trees.

Humanity, as a species, operates under a follow-the-leader pattern. Trends and fads, whether intellectually, commercially, or anything else, ebb, flow, and disappear in ways that seem incomprehensible and appear
like bees operating in a hive or the blooming of a bud. In a way that Tolstoy doesn't necessarily address, charity becomes fashionable and can be a publicity stunt. For Tolstoy, the mass movement started by a small
collection of people, the nobles getting caught up in promising their goods to the emperor in War and Peace being a good example, is a much more powerful force than governmental policy. Creating a culture, which
cannot be done purely from the top, by changing the hearts and minds of people is going to do much more than changing the laws or economic policy.

when there shall be no men to hold these positions, there will be none of these positions and no violence...as the positions of violence become less and less attractive, and there are fewer and fewer men

          willing to occupy them, their uselessness becomes more and more apparent.

I think this line of thinking has a lot of relevance for 21st century Americans finding themselves on the left-side of the culture war when it comes to violence. Body cameras and ethic laws are not going to be what
changes the United States in regards to its relationship with the police abuse. To make the United States less of a "police state", it is important to change the culture, to change people's relationship with police.
Movements like Black Lives Matter have certainly brought awareness to problems and entered the public debate, but was met with the reactionary Blue Lives Matter. To really change the way people view police
in the United States and change the actions of police will most likely come through reactions to media across a generation. This will include the news media covering police violence, police violence being posted
on social media, as well as fictional popular media evolving when it comes to portrayals of the police, whether it comes from a change in the way network television portrays the police (which currently appears to be
undergoing a complete embrace of reactionary politics, possibly because of the rising average age of network television viewers because of the amount of alternative media sources) or how the police are portrayed
in movies. Similarly, America's relationship with guns and gun violence is exasperated by loose laws, but a straight tightening of the rules themselves would not solve the problem. Gun culture and the glorification of
guns would make the enforcement of such laws in the common usually law-abiding section of the populace inadequate, just as the War on Drugs has failed not because of the laws themselves, but in the way that
drugs and drug culture has not been rejected by a large enough portion of the populace. This is all interconnected in a way that Tolstoy saw even in the 1800s.

men who see how one article in a newspaper changes the state of affairs more than dozens of meetings of monarchs and sessions of parliaments, see more and more clearly that it is not the meetings and

rendezvous and the discussions in the parliaments that guide the affairs of men, but something independent of all this, which is not centred anywhere.

What Tolstoy maybe does miss and something that is important to be discussed in revolutionary thinking is who or what controls the media, whether it be newspapers or television, film, and social media. Media
clearly affects public opinion, but media is clearly owned by those working against public opinion. This stunts progress and the movement of public opinion towards what Tolstoy would call Christianity. This may
also help explain the misguided reactionary response to the media, in which public opinion rejects media and the influence of media, therefore embracing political personalities instead.

"And of what use are collectors 'of taxes who unwillingly collect the taxes, while what is needed is collected without them?" "And of what use is the clergy, which has long ago ceased to believe in what it

preaches?" "And of what use is capital in private hands, when it can be of use only by becoming the common possession?"

Just as when people, as a whole, start questioning the necessity of police officers, when the people as a whole question the tax system, institutions, and capitalism itself, then people will stop participating in such
systems. People will no longer want to be police officers, pastors, or work in corporations, which will weaken these systems beyond what they can endure. Tolstoy believes that despite the vast amount of power
the rich and elite have, the masses can fight against their power by rejecting the institutions and occupations necessary to keep the rich in powerful. Just as in the Christianity found in Jesus's teachings and in
the Pauline letters, self-sufficiency is paramount to having this work. Society must be able to live without what the rich and powerful is able to offer them, which might entail a more primitive lifestyle as talked
about previously, but it also will cause a problem between the revolutionaries and reactionaries as Tolstoy illustrates with a story about a police officer.

The officer feels ennui, he has nothing to do; the poor fellow is placed in a position where he must command. He is deprived of all human life, and all he can do is to look and command, to command and

look, though his commands and his watching are of no earthly use. In such a condition all those unfortunate rulers, ministers, members of parliaments, governors, generals, officers, bishops, clergymen,
even rich men are now partly and soon will be completely. They can do nothing else but command, and they command and send their messengers, as the officer sends his gendarme, to be in people's
way, and since the people whom they trouble turn to them with the request that they be left alone, they imagine that they are indispensable.

The obvious parallel to this passage is Tolstoy's portrayal of Napoleon in War and Peace. Napoleon commands, sends orders, and acts as if he indispensable and the prime mover of the events around him
while the events of the War of 1812 shows that he is clearly at the mercy of weather, illness, and other realities beyond his own control. Napoleon fails not necessary because of over-ambition (though Tolstoy
would seem to agree with this as well with the novel's focus on the vanity of glory) or because of the reactionary alliance of monarchs against him, but because he believes that he has control of what goes on
around him and the men he is leading. In one sense, you could argue that Napoleon does not fail in Tolstoy's conception for the same way he never really succeeded.

In reply to the question when this hour should come, Christ admonished all men to work with all their strength for its quicker coming. There can be no other answer. People can nowise know when the day

and the hour of the kingdom of God shall arrive, because the coming of that hour depends on no one but the men themselves.

Tolstoy's optimism stands out from Christian Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism and embraces positivism rather than fatalism, despite what Tolstoy himself might claim in his work. The optimism of the chapter
and the work in itself may be too much to stomach for a modern reader, and with the hundreds of millions of people butchered by governments and corporations accelerated by the rise of technology that Tolstoy
himself feared, and in itself seems to be a tempering of the pessimism and fatalism that pervades War and Peace. This post-millennialist ideology rather than the pre-millennialism of modern conservative
Christianity helps, I think, explain part of why Tolstoy's theological and philosophical thought has almost no hold on modern philosophical thought. It is certainly not a moderate ideology that finds a middle
between conservatism and leftism, but the thought rejects them both and has a complicated tethering to both optimism and Christianity that makes it difficult to slot with virtually any modern ideology.