Chapter 12, Part 6 of The Kingdom of God is Within You: So Now What is to be Done?

Chapter 12, Part Six:

The final section of the book, like most good books, serves as a rather succinct summary of the ideas expressed, and as you might expect from Tolstoy, it is the most sermonic and heavily dabbles in the second person. Tolstoy wrote another book called What is to be Done, but here it seems that it would be an appropriate title for the last part of the book. Tolstoy opens with summarizing the failures of modern society.

Now, after so many centuries of vain endeavours to make our life secure by means of the pagan institution of violence, it would seem to be absolutely obvious to everybody that all the efforts which are directed toward this end only introduce new dangers into our personal and social life, but in no way make it secure.

Society and the social contract, which one cannot possibly agree to, have failed and attempts at reforming or revolutionizing it have failed and have not changed the fundamental realities of our existence.

we are all of us at all times confronted by two inevitable conditions of our life, which destroy its whole meaning : (1) by death, which may overtake any of us at any moment, and (2) by the impermanency of all the acts performed by us, which are rapidly and tracklessly destroyed.

Now we get to the meat of Tolstoy's personal philosophy, that death is an all-consumer and invalidates the meaning of life. Not only does death happen to all of us, and to many of us in a moment we don't expect it, it destroys everything that we do. For Tolstoy, there is no comfort in the people that remember you or the works that you leave behind. There is also no comfort in the afterlife or possibility for redemption after death. It is a destroyer-of-worlds and invalidates everything everyone has done to the point that Tolstoy's view can seem to border on nihilism (after all, what is the point of moral progress and living as a moral conscious being if death invalidates everything?). This makes all honors or power gained in life meaningless and destroyed through death, so for people like Ivan Ilyich, who spent their whole lives working for comfort and honor, the entirety of life is meaningless and they have done nothing of value (to the point that the people at his funeral are only thinking about how his death will help their careers).

is it possible that the aversion for human sufferings, for tortures, for the killing of men should be so deeply implanted in you ; that you should be so imbued with the necessity for loving men and the still more potent necessity of being loved by them; that you should clearly see that only with the recognition of the equality of all men, with their mutual service, is possible the realization of the greatest good which is accessible to men ; that your heart, your intellect, the religion professed by you should tell you the same ; that science should tell you the same, — and that, in spite of it, you should be by some very dim, complex considerations compelled to do what is precisely opposed to it ?

Tolstoy has connected religion and science before and does so here in an interesting connection, combining what advances in philosophy have told us what is true and what ancient and religious law have always told us is true. The current order of political organization is pitted against religion, science, philosophy, and most importantly of all, the moral conscience that we all have. Everything inside of us tells us that things should not be the way they currently are and that the world can be better. The hypocrisy and excuses of the political order have no real weight against what is inside of us.

Above all else, even if we admit that the existing order is necessary, why do you feel yourself obliged to maintain it, while trampling on all better human sentiments ? Who has engaged you as a nurse to this decaying order ? Neither society, nor the state, nor any men have ever asked you to maintain this order, by holding the place of landowner, merchant, emperor, priest, soldier,

I think this is a really strong distinction to make. One could hold, against Tolstoy and progressives, that the current institutions are completely necessary and that we cannot do better. This could be true and extremely unfortunate, but this would still not excuse efforts to maintain the current system or crimes against the moral law in order to participate in it.

It cannot be that a man should be placed against his will in a position which is contrary to his consciousness. If you are in this position, it is not because that is necessary for anybody, but because you want it.

And this is perhaps the strongest statement in the book. People have the choice to place themselves in situations where they have to act against their consciences or they can turn down the positions that make it possible or even "necessary" to act this way. They can decide, especially in our age, not to be police officers, solders, politicians, prosecutors, or judges, but can decide to act in ways that do not put them in positions where they must judge others or harm people. For those that willfully participate in such systems, Tolstoy has a strong message that we will get to later in this post.

And as it would be senseless to cut down the telegraph- posts, in order to provide fuel for the family or society, and to increase its well-being, because this would violate the laws which preserve the good of the state, so it would be senseless, for the purpose of making the state secure and increasing its well-being, to torture, execute, kill a man, because this violates the unquestionable laws which preserve the good of the world.

This is another section where Tolstoy reasons through deontological ethics, that the laws (of course not societal or political laws but the higher moral laws) that guide our behavior cannot be broken or set aside even in extreme moments because they are the foundation in which our actions can be based (clearly Tolstoy's ideas of moral progress make them more flexible than Kant's ideas). The truth that the actions in the name of a state cannot be excused when in contradiction with what one knows is right is the primary thrust we see as the book draws to a close.

you are always able to recognize the truth as a truth, and to stop lying. Do not assert that you remain a landed proprietor, a manufacturer, a merchant, an artist, a writer, because this is useful for men ; that you are serving as a governor, a prosecutor, a king, not because that gives you pleasure and you are used to it, but for the good of humanity ;

Above all, honesty, removing all hypocrisy and deceptive language, is what is needed for humanity to have the conversations it needs to have regarding the nature of the predicament it finds itself in. The first step is acceptance. Power is like an addiction that needs to be broken, and it cannot be broken immediately, it takes several steps. There will be relapses and struggles, but once the addiction to power is recognized, then the process can start. Regular people who serve power must realize that they are serving power and reject the enticing nature of it, looking to new forms of life.

There is one, only one thing in which you are free and almighty in your life, — every thing else is beyond your power. This thing is to recognize the truth and to profess it.

This is our circle back to the nature of free will from the previous chapter. We can be honest, but everything else we cannot control. We can see when something is wrong and say so, but we cannot fix the actions of others and we cannot reform our institutions, we can only refuse to participate in them and make them unnecessary.

The only meaning of man's life consists in serving the world by cooperating in the establishment of the kingdom of God ; but this service can be rendered only through the recognition of the truth, and the profession of it, by every separate individual.

The meaning of life is tied to Jesus's teaching and the work of God on earth for Tolstoy, but most importantly, it is through being honest, whether it is being honest with ourselves or being honest with others. It is only through this that we can find meaning in our lives and leave something on earth we can be proud of.

So, reaching the end of The Kingdom of God is Within Us, most likely Leo Tolstoy's strongest non-fictional work, we see what still stands as a really strong anti-authoritarian work that not only critiqued power in a way that has relevance today but also anticipated the issues the 20th century would have when it came to revolutionaries. It certainly isn't prophetic about the rise of fascism and its positivism can seem foreign in a post world wars society, and the optimism that moral progress would continue to march forward will resonate or alienate depending on the conviction of the reader.

Some might find the work, or perhaps Tolstoy's political thought in general, a little classist in his call for primitivism and rejection of the support that governments can provide, which is much easier for a wealthy man to reject (post-Rand and Jim Jones, the isolation and withdrawal of wealthy individuals from society is met with healthy skepticism and mockery). Others might find the Christian basis for the moral philosophy perplexing, unnecessary, or even objectionable. The strongest objections would probably come from this area, as the basis Tolstoy gives for it is rather weak, suggesting that it is something that everyone feels inside of them.

The Wiener translation itself is very difficult to read, with confusing sentence construction, difficult and obsolete vocabulary choices and a tone that fits more of a technical work that a political treatise. I would not recommend the translation of it over the Garnett translation, even though I switched early on (there are of course other translations that you can look at, these were the only two I looked at for these posts). As usual, Tolstoy can be somewhat repetitive and we see him make the same points over and over again through strange analogies. It is not as complex or abstract as the philosophical portions of War and Peace, so I wouldn't necessarily say that those who do not enjoy those chapters would not enjoy this book.

The work itself can be a little difficult to characterize since it isn't quite a manifesto, book of political philosophy, sermon book, or a work that concentrates on contemporary politics. It is all these things and more, genre bending in the same way that War and Peace does. I think it is absolute necessity to read for fans of Tolstoy, those interested in his thought, or how revolutionary thought worked in the later 19th century. Its relevance to today is there, and without overdoing it or stretching the book beyond its capabilities, I've tried to highlight where the book is helpful and when it is not. Our political reality certainly needs contextualization, but it could also use abstraction or perspectives from different time periods. I believe works like Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within Us can help us look at our own political and social realities from a distance and make cross-historical comparisons.