In part two, Tolstoy explored the reasons for why those who have no investment in the current structure and are actually harmed by it support the system and end up working for it. In this part, Tolstoy explores how this has happened and, most importantly, how things can change. First, we need to look at the theoretical framework that thrives under power.
If it is possible and right to torture and kill and commit all kinds of crimes by the will of those who have the power in their hands, there is, and there can be, no moral teaching, but there is only the right of the stronger. And so it is. In reality, such a teaching, which for some men is theoretically justified by the theory of the struggle for existence, does exist in our society.Tolstoy wrote during a time where Social Darwinism was taking its hold as an acceptable moral philosophy. He was no fan of Darwin and elsewhere wrote that his popularity would fade (he was perhaps half right as Darwin's scientific framework of evolution certainly hasn't but very few regard the moral philosophy, that Darwin himself didn't necessarily endorse, that came out of evolution as acceptable or enlightening). Perhaps we should see through Objectivism and Social Darwinism clones less as an excuse to do evil in the name of power and more as an excuse given by those who are born into power or privileged ("I must have earned this because I am stronger/better", etc., which does not sound differently than excuses nobles made for their power over peasant classes).
With the admission of the fact that two is equal to three there may be a semblance of mathematics, but there can be no real mathematical knowledge. With the admission of murder in the form of executions, wars, self-defence, there may be a semblance of morality, but no real morality. The recognition of the sacredness of every man's life is the first and only foundation of all morality.That murder is good, that freedom is slavery, and war is peace violates the very foundation of moral philosophy and should be treated as the contradiction it is, not as something fluid that can be justified. Here, in the last sentence of the above quote, is where Tolstoy sounds his most Kantian, in that we cannot have moral exceptions and that each person must be treated as an end and never as a means. For those looking for why Tolstoy believes this and believes that others should believe this is the foundation of all morality is a futile search since Tolstoy's argumentation is not Socratic, Enlightenment skepticism, nor deconstructionist, but resting on self-evident truths based on the teachings of Jesus and the conscience of the heart. If one rejects this argumentation or becomes skeptical about this being the foundation of all morality, I suspect that Tolstoy would argue that the person is being disingenuous and losing their mind to "science" or "philosophy". The weakest part of Tolstoy's radical work is the lack of argumentation in regards to the fundamental premises of his beliefs (the individual elements are of course argued in detail as we have seen) and the self-evident style of Christian acceptance can be very alienating for readers.
The most cruel and terrible of robber bands is not so terrible as such a state organization. Every leader of robbers is none the less limited in his power, because the men who form his band retain at least a small part of their human liberty and may oppose the performance of acts contrary to their conscience. But for men forming a part of a regularly organized government with an army, with discipline carried to the point to which it is at the present time, there are no barriers whatsoever.One of my biggest issues with The Slavery of Our Times was Tolstoy's inability or unwillingness to address the problem of minority or physically helpless groups that would, or at least could, be exploited without a power backing them up. Here Tolstoy somewhat addresses this in a roundabout manner by thinking about what an opponent of peaceful anarchism might say: "Who will stop the bad men that will use the lack of power to exploit others?" And this is something that has to be addressed. While the world today is full of oppressive governments whose abolishment would undoubtedly improve the world, it is also full of places where a vacuum of power has caused otherwise preventable suffering. For Tolstoy, the difference lies in organization, which is why we can put corporations in the same discussion as government because of its reliance on a power structure hierarchy (many terrorist organizations would fall under this rather the "robber bands" that Tolstoy discusses). As long as people cannot act according to their moral conscience but must rely on the structure someone else has imposed on them, there cannot be freedom.
This organization will certainly act in the same way, no matter in whose hands it may be: to-day, let us say, this power is in the hands of an endurable ruler; to-morrow a Biron, an Elizabeth, a Catherine, a Pugachev, a Napoleon the First, a Napoleon the Third may usurp it. And again, the man in whose hands is the power, and who to-day may be endurable, may to-morrow turn into a beast, or his place may be taken by an insane or half-witted heir of his, as was the case with the King of Bavaria and Paul.The King of Bavaria Tolstoy speaks about is Ludwig II, whose legacy has somewhat, from what I can tell, been reformed and we have spoken before about Tolstoy's dislike for Catherine. This above paragraph may be, at this moment, the most important one for modern day Americans (as well as many Westerners), for rather obvious reasons. One of the most important political philosophy questions we have to face is what our institutions look like when people who are, even compared to other rulers, absolutely unfit to rule for mental and moral reasons. For Tolstoy, the difference isn't radical and the possibility is always there and is even inevitable because of the sort of people that power attracts. Because of this, the institutions cannot be built to work for good rulers because you cannot count on there being "good rulers". There will be evil and insane rulers and this must be the expectation (the American concept of separation of powers has proved to mostly be a failure due to it not accomplishing its goals due to the growing executive branch as well as the judicial and legislative branch being full of the same kind of people).
it is not all men who permit this to happen (one part of them, — the great majority of men, — the deceived and the subjected, cannot help but permit anything to be done), but those who with such an organization hold an advantageous position ; they permit it, because for them the risk of suffering, because at the head of the government or the army there may be a senseless or cruel man, is always less than the disadvantages to which they would be subjected in case of the destruction of the organization itself.Another very instructive paragraph for our times, whether it is what is going on in America or what has happened in Brazil, with the rich supporting a fascist candidate who makes no qualms about murder or environmental devastation. The rich are hurt much less by the immoral ruler, in fact, they are most likely to be helped by them, than they would be if the system was revolutionized or altogether destroyed. The wealthy will always prefer security of their position over a radical change that could help people for the better. And as we have seen, this is no surprise. However, Tolstoy is again more interested in what causes the normal person to support the violent structure.
Why do parents, moral men, send their children to institutions which prepare them for military matters ? Why do mothers buy their children helmets, guns, swords as their favourite toys ? (The children of peasants never play soldier.)I think this has massive implications for modern day morality (though the parenthetical abut the peasants is very interesting and I am not sure what to make of it or how you would check its veracity). Certainly it is too reductive to claim that violent movies or video games cause violence or make people violent, but there is violence in our culture, violence is ingrained into children from a young age, and our society is still, though less violent than previous societies, saturated in violence. I've discussed the implications of the representation of police and guns in previous posts, but fighting against the acceptance of violence in our culture is necessary before violence becomes completely unacceptable in the court of public opinion, causing a serious decrease in the amount of violence in our society.
One often marvels why, for what reason a lady of the world or an artist, who, it would seem, is interested neither in social, nor in military questions, condemns labour strikes and preaches war, and always definitely attacks one side and defends the other?Middle class conservatism, especially suburban conservatism is still the biggest obstacle to progress. As long as these people, who have a power of their own, support those who have power against those who don't, progress will move at an almost imperceptible pace. Tolstoy considers these actions irrational and based on instinct.
the instinct, which in this case takes the place of reason, guides them unerringly. It is precisely the same instinct that with few exceptions guides all those men who support all those political, religious, economic establishments, which are advantageous to them.The support of power from the middle class against the lower class comes from psychological reasons. One of the most powerful psychological forces is the need for acceptance and security, which the power structure provides.
The rulers of the state always try to draw as large a number of citizens as possible into the greatest possible participation in all the crimes committed by them and indispensable for them. Of late this has found a most lucid expression in the drafting of the citizens into the courts in the form of jurors, into the armies in the form of soldiers, and into the local government and into the legislative assembly in the form of electors and representatives.As civic participation increased in the 19th century, we see Tolstoy's reasons for skepticism, as he sees it as just a passing of the blame, or more importantly, a forced participation in the criminal actions of the government. As autocratic power gives way to bureaucratic and bicameral power, the oppression of the lower classes has not necessarily waned. Instead, who is oppressing them has become more indefinable and thus, harder to combat.
In olden times the tyrants were blamed for the commission of evil deeds, but in our time most awful crimes, unthinkable even in the time of a Nero, are committed, and there is no one to blame.Just as Tolstoy's unflattering conception of Napoleon does not condemn him as the author of the travesties and bloodshed that surrounded him (just as the modern historian may reflect that circumstances and the actions of others affected Napoleon's actions more than his own will), we cannot, at least completely, put the burden of blame of the atrocities of recent times on singular people. The tools and capacity for violence are greater than ever, but blaming certain individuals for that violence is harder than ever. And this is why, especially when talking about Hitler, the Nuremberg trials are so instructive. The prosecution of different members of the party attempted to assign blame and prosecute those responsible is generally felt today as something necessary and even admirable in trying to go after those who claimed they were "just following orders", but as a whole incomplete. It would be impossible to prosecute all Nazis who committed crimes, just as it would be impossible to prosecute every official or worker responsible for the abhorrent immigrant children camps.
they convince one set of men that they are not simple men, identical with others, but a special kind of men, who have to be honoured, while they impress others with the idea that they stand beneath all other men and so must unflinchingly submit to what they are commanded to do by their superiors. On this inequality and exaltation of one class of men and the annihilation of the other is mainly based the inability of men to see the irrationality of the existing order and its cruelty and criminality, and of that deception which is practised by some and to which the others submit.Inequality, particularly the elevation of some people over others in a class-like structure, is what allows the system of deception and violence to exist and remain in society. The chain of command is the ultimate danger of a ranked society, as people follow orders down the line, not stopping, or encouraged to think for themselves, to consider whether these actions are the correct ones.
like all other men, and so under obligation in all cases to be guided only by what is the truth, but under the intoxication of power they imagine themselves to be the guardians of justice, who cannot err ; but under the influence of the intoxication of servility they imagine themselves to be men who are obliged to carry out certain words which are written in a certain book and are called the law.Key to civil disobedience and revolutionary thinking, and a tenant that proves to be controversial and alienating to what one might call bourgeois life, is the idea that the law is not infallible. The amount of modern people who might literally believe the law is infallible is no doubt very small, but faith in the process of the law, or the current laws as generally a positive aspect on society is a belief that is extremely prevalent throughout our, and perhaps all, society. Forsaking personal opinions in favor of the law is something that has come up in our society from both a progressive (such as whistle-blowing or protesting) or regressive (such as discrimination against gays) viewpoint. Perhaps the best way to differentiate the two and avoid a false equivalency is to ask whether actions against the law or interpretations of the law in favor of moral conscience are done in the name of the common good or in Tolstoy's parlance, loving of the neighbor as Jesus did. Moral conscience has to triumph over law and in complete disregard of law, not subservient or considerate in any way for law, for moral progress to happen, since law defines behavior and stunts it, not allowing for growth.
Thus a mentally sound old man, for no other reason than that some trinket or fool's dress is put over him, some keys on his buttocks, or a blue ribbon, which is proper only for a dressed-up little girl, and that he is on that occasion impressed with the idea that he is a general, a chamberlain, a Cavalier of St. Andrews, or some such silliness, suddenly becomes self-confident, proud, and even happy ; or, on the contrary, because he loses or does not receive a desired trinket or name, becomes so sad and unhappy that he even grows sick.Tolstoy writing against military honors is perhaps him as his most savage and his most effective. In War and Peace, Tolstoy emphasizes the way the officer class operates not on a sense of honor, but in a sense of craving honors, each one wanting to emphasize their own plans or contributions over the health of the overall organization. It is not the unhealthy that desire these awards and admiration from others, it is the healthy and the experienced, the ones that should know better. This is why Tolstoy is so fond of the words intoxication and hypnotized. Power and honors operate like a drug, making otherwise reasonable people act immorally and without reason.
Such a constant, unnatural, and strange condition of men in the life of the state is generally expressed in words as follows : "As a man I pity him, but as a watchman, judge, general, governor, king, soldier, I must kill or torture him," as though there can exist a given position, acknowledged by men, which can make void duties which are imposed upon each of us by a man's position.When judging people, especially in the context of history or at the end of a public figure's life, people will often differentiate between the "public" actions and opinions of the person and the personal, "private", or family life of a person (worse, contemporary retrospections of public figures often focus on the perception of their family lives, anecdotal episodes, or even worst, their "dignity", with the person compared unrealistically positively to more current public figures). These distinctions are artificial and constructions that we should not take seriously, often excusing behavior that is far more damaging than anything done in the "private" sphere.
" But," I shall be told, " in all societies the majority of men, — all the children, all the women, who are absorbed in the labour of pregnancy, child-bearing, and nursing, all the enormous masses of the working people, who are placed under the necessity of tense and assiduous physical labour, all the mentally weak by nature, all abnormal men with a weakened spiritual activity in consequence of nicotine, alcohol, and opium poisoning, or for some other reason, — all these men are always in such a condition that, not being able to reason independently, they submit either to those men who stand on a higher stage of rational consciousness, or to family and political traditions, to what is called public opinion, and in this submission there is nothing unnatural or contradictory."....Such a subjection of the unthinking to public opinion presents nothing unnatural so long as the public opinion is not split up. But there are times when the higher truth, as compared with the former degree of the consciousness of the truth, which at first is revealed to a few men, in passing by degrees from one set to another, embraces such a large number of men that the former public opinion, which is based on a lower stage of consciousness, begins to waver, and the new is ready to establish itself,As Tolstoy's fictional interlocutor here points out, people often submit to traditions or authority because they are tired or they are distracted. Whether it be from working too hard, addiction, obsession with certain aspects of leisure activities, or just choosing not to think, many people find it easier to just to follow the traditions their parents have and to just do what they are told to do without reflecting on whether it is right to do so. Here Tolstoy is not combating the truth of this statement, but its "naturalness", which is always a dangerous word. Tolstoy argues that the submission to authority is not, and cannot be, universal. There will always be those who go against the tide or against authority and often times this is how future majority opinions are developed, starting as small minorities, emanating from an individual or group that at first looks like cranks or unrealistic, before gaining more momentum and being the accepted opinion. This is how progress happens and why we cannot take as absolute current public opinion or those who say we must submit to authority.
The conscience is in these men put to sleep, but it exists in them, and through the auto-suggestion and suggestion, which hold sway over them, it already speaks in them and may awaken any moment. All these men are in a condition resembling the one a hypnotized man would be in, if it were suggested to him and he were commanded to do an act which is contrary to everything which he considers rational and good, — to kill his mother or child. The hypnotized man feels himself bound by the suggestion induced in him, and it seems to him that he cannot stop ; at the same time, the nearer he comes to the time and the place of the commission of the crime, the stronger does the drowned voice of the conscience rise in him, and he begins to show more and more opposition and to writhe, and wants to wake up. And it is impossible to say in advance whether he will do the suggested act, or not, and what it is that will win, the rational consciousness or the irrational suggestion. Everything depends on the relative strength of the two.One aspect that is interesting in Tolstoy's philosophy is that the moral conception is placed inside of the person and has to be hypnotized out of them by institutions. The act of moral progress is recovering what was already inside of them in the first place. This isn't completely outside the realm of certain sects of Christian doctrine, but runs counter to the ideas that Tolstoy held with disdain such as original sin, in which the human is originally bad and has to have its nature radically changed (through Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Church, etc). Instead, it sounds more like Plato's conception of how knowledge is stored, where the soul initially knows everything, but the knowledge has to be remembered. This suppressed moral knowledge is in every person and the person is caught in constant battle between their conscience and the institutions that have taught them to act otherwise. This struggle takes dialectic-like language and pits the rational versus the irrational. Even though Tolstoy rejects many of the vestiges of the Enlightenment and what is usually called "modern philosophy", he still owed a lot of his thought to 18th and 19th century philosophers like Hegel and Marx. For Tolstoy, the future of moral progress depends on the result of each individual struggle between the moral consciousness and the irrational and immoral love of power.
the greater half of these men know how to read books, and not all books are those in which the business of war is lauded, — there are also those in which its immorality is pointed out. Amidst them frequently serve freethinking companions, — volunteer soldiers, — and just such liberal young officers, and into their midst has been thrown the seed of doubt as to the unconditional legality and valour of their activity.The power of reading is not a surprising appeal coming from an author, but literacy, especially when combined with a lack of censorship, allows for a more well-grounded worldview for the average citizen. The existence of books against war and their availability to those who participate in war can play a role in the refusal of those in military service to carry out atrocities commanded by those in power. The revolution of the military corps is also important in the way that different kinds of people begin to serve, including women, as well as the different incentives for joining the military (just as the French Revolution brought total war due to its patriotic levee en masse and completely revolutionized the way militaries were put together and the attitude of the fighters, the elimination of the draft and replacement with positive incentives, such as free college, for joining the military has certainly had an effect on the kind of people that join the military, affecting the way the army, in the United States, in this example, is put together) will completely change the way war is fought since the battles are fought, won, and lost by these people. This more representative military could certainly lead to a more morally conscious military and the limiting of war (in our time, technology and the rise of private for-profit soldiers has worked to mitigate any successes on this front).
Everything, consequently, depends on the force with which the Christian truth is cognized by every individual man. And so, it would seem, the activity of all the men of our time, who assert that they wish to continue to the welfare of humanity, should be directed to the increase of the lucidity of the demands of the Christian truth.So while we really haven't seen the emphasis on Christianity in the last few chapters, at the end of the day for Tolstoy progress comes through the Christian truth, that is: Jesus's teachings, changing the hearts and mind of individual people and influencing their actions in a way that eliminates their participation in violence. Tolstoy believed that this was the only force strong enough, since secular love for humanity is not strong enough for him (and innate empathy is not, for some reason, something that can be appealed to or relied on), to break down power structures.
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