Chapter 12, Part 2 of The Kingdom of God is Within You: What Causes the Poor to Act Against Their Interests?

Chapter 12, Part 2:

Here, we get more about the soldiers brought to subdue the peasants in a different region. In Tolstoyian fashion, we get a long description of soldiers on the train and the different things they were doing to occupy the time. The focus for Tolstoy is on how, just like before battles in War and Peace, the soldiers seem calm and unconcerned.

They were travelling to slay their hungry fathers and grandfathers, as though going to some very jolly, or at least very usual, piece of work.

This is circled back and paid off at the end of this part, as Tolstoy talks to a soldier who says he will stab his father if necessary for tsar and country, just as Nikolai threatens to do to Pierre if necessary at the end of War and Peace. Throughout this part of the book, Tolstoy is occupied with the question of why this happens and what compulses those people to act in ways that not only act against their own families, but their own interest as well. The first and most common argument might be that these people do it because they have strong convictions or believe in what they are fighting for.

It would be incorrect to say that they do this from conviction, — as is frequently said and as they themselves repeat, — from the conviction that they do this because it is necessary to maintain the state structure, in the first place, because all these men have hardly ever even thought of the state structure and of its necessity; in the second place, they can in no way be convinced that the business in which they take part maintains the state, instead of destroying it, and, in the third place, in reality the majority of these men, if not all, will not only never sacrifice their peace and pleasure for the purpose of supporting the state, but will even never miss a chance of making use, for their peace and pleasure, of everything they can, even though it be to the disadvantage of the state. Consequently they do not do so for the sake of the abstract principle of the state. 

Much of what we see in this section of the book is the lack of reflection when it comes to the individual's relationship with the state. Tolstoy even uses the phrase "Bethink yourself" in this part. As we'll see, much of the support for the state comes not through any kind of rational loyalty, but through conditioning or convenience. Tolstoy then shifts from the participants to the spectators, which in their own way, show to be participants in the violence.

— how could these men, the minister, the emperor, also good men, who are professing the Christian religion, have undertaken and ordered such a thing, knowing its consequences? How can even those who do not take part in this matter, the spectators, who are provoked at every special case of violence or at the torture of a horse, admit the performance of so terrible a deed ? How can they help being provoked at it, standing on the road, and shouting, " No, we shall not allow hungry people to be killed and flogged for not giving up their property, which has been seized from them by force " ?

The analogy of the horse seems incredibly prescient now with the modern reality that violence against dogs or other animals often carry more newsworthy weight, anger, and sympathy than violence against other people (especially if the violence is against people that are foreign or far away). The way that empathy is often not extended to those imprisoned by the state, especially for drug "crimes" is another good modern day application of this thought, as is people who have watched police violence or violence against protesters and done nothing about it. Why do these things happen? Is it because people believe that these things are right? Or is something else involved?

there was travelling a merchant, a lumber dealer from the peasant class, and he loudly proclaimed his sympathy for those tortures to which the peasants were about to be subjected: " It is not right not to obey the authorities," he said ; " that's what the authorities are for. Just wait, they will have their fleas driven out of them, — they won't think of rioting after that. Serves them right."

Again this is where moments from War and Peace reflect episodes or ideas that Tolstoy saw later in life and included in his non-fiction political works. One only needs to look at the tie where society is most decayed in the novel, the burning and looting of Moscow, to see how authority is appealed to and wielded in times of rebellion and crisis. Key to Tolstoy's thought, that links him to Rousseau and the innate goodness of humanity versus the badness of its institutions, is that the men (we could add women in our time) that commit this state-instituted violence are not usually bad men and do not normally act in ways that are evil.

Not one of these officials would steal a purse, or read another person's letter, or bear an insult without demanding satisfaction from the insulter. Not one of these officers would have the courage to cheat at cards, not to pay his card debts, to betray a friend, to run away from the field of battle, or to abandon his flag. Not one of these soldiers would have the courage to spit out the sacrament or to eat meat on Good Friday.

And this is the key contradiction: people who are normally not evil act evil and feel that it is normal to act evil when it comes to war, policing, and state violence. This is what we have seen in our fiction, with the criminal or mobster being a great family person, only to act differently outside the home when it comes to money or power. We can say the same about, some of, our politicians that work to further harm the lower classes but care about people close to them or act as kind people outside of their offices. What Tolstoy does not stress here, that he does emphasize in War and Peace with characters like Dolokhov, Davout, and Arakcheev, is that the ones that do a lot of the "dirty work" or commit a lot of the violence are the people that also fail to live up to moral standards in private life (though Dolokhov is an interesting case, as he is much more inhumane in the Bromfield version, but the latter version takes out some of his more inexcusably violent moments and adds love for his sister and mother). But what happens when people challenge these preconceptions of action?

A lady of liberal tendencies, who was travelling on the same train with us, upon noticing the governor and the officers in the hall of the first class, and learning of the purpose of their journey, began on purpose in a loud voice, so as to be heard, to curse the orders of our time and to put to shame the men who were taking part in this matter. All persons present felt ill at ease. Nobody knew whither to look, but no one dared to answer her. The passengers looked as though it were not worth while to reply to such empty talk. But it was evident from the faces and fugitive eyes that all felt ashamed. This also I noticed in the case of the soldiers. They, too, knew that the business for which they were travelling was a bad one, but they did not wish to think of what awaited them.

 And we see this in our own culture as well, as liberal and leftist critiques often put people out of ease and are either ignored or ridiculed, which Tolstoy chalks up to the fact that those participating, whether actively or by approval, in violence know, when they reflect on it that what they are doing is wrong and thus do not want to be called out on it. The counterattack most often used is either ignoring them or claiming that the way things are is the only way for things to be, that the existing order of things is necessary and unavoidable.

The men in authority, who provoked the matter and cooperated in it and directed it, will say that they are doing what they are doing because such matters are necessary for the maintenance of the existing order; and the maintenance of the existing order is necessary for the good of the country and of humanity, for the possibility of a social life and a forward movement of progress. The men from the lower spheres, the peasants and the soldiers, those who will be compelled with their own hands to exercise the violence, will say that they are doing what they are doing because this is prescribed by the higher authorities, and that the higher authorities know what they are doing.

In our time, faith in authority is probably at an all-time low as successive generations have worn down the pillars of religion and nationalism, but the cultish worship of leaders still appears, especially, but certainly not limited to, in the lower-educated white classes.

This conviction that the existing order is indispensable, and so unchangeable, and that it is the sacred duty of every man to maintain it, is what gives to good people and, in private life, to moral people the possibility of participating with a more or less calm conscience in such affairs

Conservatism is by its very nature an aversion to change and gives rise to reactionary or preservationist behavior in which people excuse what they would otherwise consider inappropriate or immoral. While Tolstoy elsewhere combats the natural human tendency of change for change sake or interpreting change as necessarily possible in his embracing of primitivism and traditionalism, he understood that many people, perhaps all people in some way, especially as they get older, fear change and, even when the change is to get rid of something that they would normally consider bad, will embrace authorities or actions that preserve the way that their live currently is and promises to fight against change, even if this change proves to be inevitable. This mode of thinking, as well as the usual racism and xenophobia, is what drives a lot of the anti-immigrant rhetoric today as previously all-white communities begin to reflect world-wide demographics much more realistically. The fight against this is reactionary, an immoral action against what is inevitable in an attempt to preserve the current arrangements of society. Tolstoy and other anarchist writers of the period, writing after the Enlightenment ended, realized something that later thinkers would further develop: the relationship between humans and governmental establishments are social constructions and should not be understood as immutable, defensible, or anything other than inherited. For Tolstoy, the belief of the immutability versus the constructed aspect of society is class-based.

A man who voluntarily hires himself out as a policeman at a salary of ten roubles, which he can easily get in any other position, has little need of the preservation of the existing order, and so can get along without believing in its unchangeableness. But a king or an emperor, who in his position receives millions; who knows that all around him there are thousands of men who are willing to depose him and take his place; who knows that in no other position will he get such an income and such honours; who in the majority of cases, with a more or less despotic rule, knows even this, that, if he should be deposed, he would be tried for everything he did while in possession of his power, cannot help but believe in the unchangeableness and sacredness of the existing order. The higher the position which a man occupies, the more advantageous and, therefore, the more unstable it is, and the more terrible and dangerous a fall from it is, the more does a man who holds that position believe in the un-changeableness of the existing order, and with so much greater peace of mind can such a man, as though not for himself, but for the support of the existing order, do bad and cruel deeds.

The higher up one is on the social ladder, the more one has to lose in the changing of society, so the harder one fights against the changing of society. This is why it makes natural sense for those in power to act in ways that their private consciences would find abhorrent and why power corrupts absolutely. However, this isn't exactly some great revelation or something anyone would consider a helpful insight and indeed, Tolstoy is more interested in a deeper question.

But what is it that compels the peasants, the soldiers, who stand on the lowest rung of the ladder, who have no profit from the existing order, who are in a condition of the most abject submission and humiliation, to believe that the existing order...

Why are there poor conservatives and reactionaries? In our political spectrum, we often ask why people vote against their own best interests. The answer of course is very multi-faceted, with, in the United States and other parts of the world, race and or region, especially the urban versus rural divide, playing the biggest roles and education, media divisions, and the role of money in politics being common explanations or factors for why voting patterns are the way they are. For Tolstoy, the greatest explanation is power.

The only reason why they commit deeds like those committed by all the tyrants from Napoleon down to the last commander of a company, who shoots into a crowd, is because they are stupefied by the power behind them, consisting of subservient men who are ready to do any thing they are commanded.

Power has an almost mystifying or hypnotizing effect in Tolstoy and the thought of power or acquiring power is often the reason that people do what they would normally consider unconscionable. This is why War and Peace is so focused on the Borises, Bergs, and Yermoloves of the world, those that seek power and honors, making their lives seem superficially more acceptable than the amorality of Dolokhov and Anatole, but only in social construction. But Tolstoy quickly moves away from these types in the chapter, almost as if it was a distraction (and Tolstoy is no stranger to tangents or disorganized argumentation), and heads back toward to those seemingly moral but oppressed people that seemingly willfully act in immoral and state-supporting ways.

" How are you going to kill men, when in God's law it says, * Thou shalt not kill ' ? " I frequently asked soldiers, and, by reminding them of what they did not like to think about, I always made them feel awkward and embarrassed. Such a soldier knew that there was an obligatory law of God, " Thou shalt not kill," and he knew that there was an obligatory military service, but it had never occurred to him that there was any contradiction there. The sense of the timid answers that I always received to this question consisted approximately in this, that murder in war and the execution of criminals at the command of the government were not included in the common prohibition of murders.

Again, the non-reflective nature of the commoner is important, perhaps in a way that seems contradictory in Tolstoy. The non-violent peasant, the Platon Karatayev, is the hero in the work and thought of Tolstoy, and fundamental to this character is the lack of systematized philosophy in contrast with proverbial folk-wisdom. The difference between this character who acts unconsciously as actions happen around them rather than in planning and conscious action and the non-reflecting character who participates in violent does not appear readily discernible. This is where a contradiction in the thought of Tolstoy, in regards to education, crops up, though perhaps it isn't one that is completely unsolvable. The problem lies in what moral authority the simple person puts trust in: the state or Christianity. Here we see that the reflexive attitude is trust in authority, and more importantly, trust in the actors currently being taken. It is easier to rationalize the actions you are taking or have taken than change the way you act and admit previous actions were wrong.

Men see that there is here some contradiction, and, being unable to solve it, they involuntarily assume that this contradiction is due only to their ignorance....A simple, innocent child, and later a youth, cannot imagine that men who stand so high in his opinion, whom he considers to be either holy or learned, should for any reason be deceiving him so unscrupulously. But it is precisely this that has been done to him all the time. This is accomplished, in the first place, by impressing all the labouring people, who have not themselves any time to solve moral and religious questions, from childhood, and up to old age, by example and direct teaching, with the idea that tortures and murders are compatible with Christianity, and that, for certain purposes of state, tortures and murders are not only admissible, but even peremptory; in the second place, by impressing some of them, who are chosen by enlistment or levy, with the idea that the performance of tortures and murders with their own hands forms a sacred duty and even an act which is valorous and worthy of praise and of reward.

Just as every culture assumes that its customs, religion, practices, and form of government is superior to other forms, it is easier to decide, like Nikolai, that thinking is for those who are selected to think and that the duty of everyone else is to listen to them, that the authorities, for some reason (whether it be the fundamental goodness of the state, the greatness of the country, the support of God, or anything else), must not only know what they are doing but at the same time would not be doing something intentionally evil and willfully deceiving the people that are under them. And here is where the inherent contradiction of evil of Rousseau/Tolstoy political thought crops up; yes, people are fundamentally good, much better than what they are given credit for in most secular or religious traditions, but at the same time human institutions and human leaders are much much worse than most secular or religious traditions realize. Tolstoy's political thought, indeed all leftist anarchism, only works if people are fundamentally good, intelligent, and cooperative. However, the vast majority of Tolstoy's characters are selfish, power-hungry, greedy, and even violent. Tolstoy has to believe, to have a coherent worldview of human nature and politics, that the institutions and circumstances are what make atrocities and oppression possible. The key to state power and the imposed immorality or anti-morality of its people is through deception and miseducation. People are taught, similar to the famous contradictions present in Orwell, that things that are in obvious conflict with love and acceptance of other people are permissible when done in the context of the state. The idea of valor and glory is also very important to how the state gets the otherwise innocent to participate in its acts of oppression. There is a long description of the levy of recruits, including a soldier selected described, that I am mostly cutting for space. I'm most interested in the point Tolstoy uses the event to make.

All the accepted recruits senselessly repeat these wild words, and the so-called "father" drives away with the consciousness of having correctly and scrupulously done his duty, and all these deceived lads think that all those insipid, incomprehensible words, which they have just pronounced, have now, for the whole time of their military service, freed them from their human obligations and have bound them to new, more obligatory military obligations. 

Religion's role in state violence is critical, especially in societies that lean heavily on those religions for moral guidance. These institutional religions, just like governments, corporations, and the wealthy, have almost always been on the wrong side of history and have craved for even more power. What makes them especially dangerous is their claim of moral authority which develops like a hereditary trait, passed down from generations to generation to make the church something that is an unquestioned part of the family or national identity. With this kind of power, even the most outlandish claims can be supported by big portions of the population. This makes enemies in war demonic combatants, as we still see today. However, while religious institutions do control populations and can operate as a moral authority, Tolstoy does not see a straight-edge social conservative "upright" life resulting in this.

And now the whole crowd take up seats in their sleighs and start down the street, in the direction of inns and restaurants, and still louder are heard, interfering with one another, songs, sobs, drunken shouts, the laments of the mothers and wives, the sounds of the accordion, and curses. All make for saloons and restaurants, the revenue from which goes to the government, and they abandon themselves to intoxication, which drowns in them the percepted consciousness of the illegality of what is being done to them.

One of Tolstoy's many complaints about the army is its extracurricular activities, ones that are still associated with it today. The army and mass conscription creates a large group of young males (and females in our culture) that are bred in a certain subculture that both celebrates discipline, violence, and in what seems like a contradiction, alcohol and tobacco use and partying. These combinations create an aggressive (not to mention an unreflective one) lifestyle that is not only contrary to the teachings and actions of Jesus (Tolstoy's main concern), but, what we have seen in our own society, a disconnect with society at large, making for a hard reassimilation into civilian life (less of a problem in Tolstoy's culture, in which peasant recruitment terms were so strenuous that not many people made it out alive).

The means of instruction are deception, stupefaction, kicks, vodka. And not a year passes but that spiritually sound, bright, good fellows are turned into just such wild beings as their teachers.

The army, especially mass conscription, is the ultimate form of social control and deprivation of freedom. Shaping people into soldiers, especially with the use of those soldiers, is probably the most societal warping action a government can do. History has shown that there is no more defining or damaging occupation than a soldier, a person developed and shaped to commit violence.

When he, the good young man, is brought to a condition lower than an animal, he is such as those who use him as an instrument of violence want him to be. He is all ready: the man is lost, and a new instrument of violence has been created. 

In the hands of the state, the person no longer exists as a person, but as a tool to be used or, when broken, "faulty", or no longer needed, disposed of. The army is dangerous to young people not only because of the realities of war and the moral degradation that the person goes through, but because they are reduced to less than human, stripped of their morality and self-worth and becoming nothing more than a number.