Flex and Spex: Giving Tolstoy His Due…

John Jankowski

3 min read

Studying the life and work of Tolstoy to make an argument for the importance of understanding “populist art.”

Select passages from Vol. 4 of Arnold Hauser’s The Social History of Art:

• “The entire philosophical speculation of the Russian hinges on [the problem of individual liberty] and the danger of moral relativism; the specter of anarchy, the chaos of crime, occupy and frighten all the Russian thinkers. The Russians see the great and crucial European question of the estrangement of the individual from society, the loneliness and isolation of modern man, as the problem of freedom” (142).
• “The Slavophil inclinations of the radicals are to be explained above all by the fact that the Russians, still in the earliest stages of capitalism, are much more homogeneous as a nation, that is to say, much less divided by class differences, than the peoples of the West” (141).”
• “The disintegration of the personality, in which the emotional conflict goes so far that the individual is no longer clear about his own motives and becomes a problem to himself, does not take place until the beginning of the last century. The concomitants of modern capitalism, romanticism and the estrangement of the individual from society first create the consciousness of spiritual dissension and hence the modern problematical character” (144).
• “Tolstoy…rejects individualism on purely rational and eudaemonist grounds; personal detachment from society can bring no happiness and no satisfaction; he can find comfort and contentment only in self-denial and in devotion to others” (158).
• “[Tolstoy] condemns modern culture on account of the differentiation and segregation which it produces, and the art of Shakespeare, Beethoven, and Pushkin, because it splits men up into different strata instead of uniting them” (160).
• “In spite of his prejudices and errors, Tolstoy represents an enormous revolutionary force. His fight against the lies of the police state and the Church, his enthusiasm for the community of the peasantry and the example of his own life are, whatever may have been the inner motives of his ‘conversion’ and his ultimate flight, among the ferments which undermined the old society and promoted not merely the Russian revolution but also the anti-capitalist revolutionary movement in the whole of Europe” (161).
• “…[W]hile working at Anna Karenina, he loses [his] optimism, and above all his belief in art, which he declares to be absolutely useless, indeed harmful, unless it renounces the refinements and subtleties of modern naturalism and impressionism and turns a luxury article into the universal possession of mankind. In the estrangement of art from the broad masses and the restriction of its public to an ever smaller circle Tolstoy had recognized a real danger….Tolstoy’s rejection of the highly developed and refined art of the present, and his fondness for the primitive ‘universally human’ forms of artistic expression, is a symptom of the same Rousseau-ism with which he plays off the village against the town and identifies the social question with that of the peasantry…. [Thus] Tolstoy’s relationship to art can only be understood as the symptom of a historic change, as the sign of a development which brings the aesthetic culture of the nineteenth century to an end and a generation to the fore that judges art once again as the mediator of ideas” (165).

Leo Tolstoy

Arnold Hauser

Populist Art

Individualism

Society And Culture

The Bearable Liteness of Being: Shit You Hear at Parties….

The Bearable Liteness of Being

Shit You Hear at Parties….

Vileness Metasux Fats

4 min read

Shit You Hear at Parties. Minutemen.

Reprinting and sharing a piece that a Muslim friend of mine from Chicago offered as his contribution to a fanzine that I was publishing. Not sure if he wrote it; but it certainly sounds like him.

At a party the other night, I was drawn into an argument over abortion. Just to be provocative and to live up to the caricature of a maladjusted, reactionary Muslim (often the reason I am invited to parties in the first place), I condemned the practice as “immoral and evil.” My interlocutors were stunned. I was accused of everything from using unnecessarily emotive language to making Khomeini seem positively moderate. I wonder if I would have elicited the same outraged reactions had I used different words. Probably not, for the shock-value of such terms as “evil” and “immoral” is inversely related to their use. The liberal, of course, is the only popular breed of student left. He hates to commit himself, and his language reflects that.

Liberalism has three things going for it. First, it does not ask much of its adherents--only that they accept that truth (another seldom-heard term) is relative. This is not at all a difficult proposition to endorse, because it precludes the need for any serious thinking when faced with an awkward or difficult argument. Second, Liberalism represents the triumph of the self over the community, of the individual over the group, of the private over the public, of desire (“I want…”) over duty (“you must…”). Finally, liberalism calls for subordination of tradition and religion to the dictates of the intellect.

Now what, you may say dear reader, is wrong with all that? Consider this. The emphasis on relativism not only asks us to believe that what is right and wrong is ultimately a matter of opinion, but also that one must not, and cannot, judge others. The “religious” are allowed to say that God is dead, infidelity no longer shocks and divorce is normal. Skin colour is accepted as a valid explanation for poor achievement. Freedom of choice is accepted as a valid explanation for poor achievement. Freedom of choice is sufficient justification for destroying a human foetus, and self-determination is the reason that Saddam lives on. Sex I used to sell coffee, and childbirth to sell jumpers. In short, anything goes. Liberalism admits no taboos, and so absolves all moral responsibility. Excuses are already made for homosexuality — it is said to be genetically caused, natural, and even healthy. How long before this is said of incest?

Apart from rendering moral discourse pointless, Liberalism also subverts our sense of community and impoverishes our relationships. This is the direct result of the emphasis on the self. Jealous of our freedom, we speak in terms of rights, not dictates. Paranoid of our individuality, we eschew any form of collective service, be it military or civilian. Even in our personal lives, we are afraid of commitments that might narrow our options. Thus we don’t have lovers, but friends. We don’t marry, but live together. Sex is just another “experience,” on par with getting stoned or travelling in Katmandu. Indeed no part of us is sacred--not our bodies, not our thoughts, not our feelings, not even the skeletons in our closets. We are never embarrassed to disclose whether we have made love, or what last injected into our veins. We are not even afraid that what we say or do could affect our reputation or that of our family. Everybody knows everything! In the open society of Liberalism, the self walks naked and shameless.

Just as Liberalism’s emphasis on relativism and individuality corrupts, so too does its emphasis on the intellect. Raised in the “Enlightenment” to free us from the shackles of tradition, authority, and religion, the intellect is now deemed the only valid source of knowledge. And in those lefty towers where the intellect is trained--the universities — form is more important than comment. How to argue, we are taught, I more important than what we argue. Morality, honour and respect simply have no place in a liberal education. And everyone who dares to argue from these perspectives is dismissed as a crackpot.

The greatest failure of the liberal ethic, however, is not its inability to tolerate people of conviction, but its inability to produce them. Lacking an education in morals, bereft of heroes, shorn of any sense of common purpose, and now even deprived of a credible ideological enemy, both the need and inspiration for convictions has disappeared. The acquisition of wealth remains the only priority. And just as the liberal thinks that unfettered individual choice is the key to economic success, so too he thinks that freedom of choice is key to moral salvation. The end result is malaise and mediocrity, apathy and cynicism. And all this is in the name of openmindedness.

Liberalism

Muslim

Relativism

Cultural Conservatism

Individualism