What does pol think of Tolstoy?

What does pol think of Tolstoy?

I'm listening to the audiobook of "The Slavery of Our Times" and I'm really enjoying it so far.
At times he definitely sounds like a left-libertarian, but so far in this book he does a pretty good job of espousing certain brands of . capitalism but also the lunacy of complete communism.

Here is a passage I think Sup Forums would appreciate. He's basically explaining that although people in factories work better hours for more pay, their lives are still miserable. Essentially calling for a more moral, agriculture and family based existence.

>The agricultural means of production of those men who are now working at the railway have not been seized by capitalists: they have land, and horses, and plows, and harrows, and all that is necessary to till the ground; also these women working at the factory are not only not forced to it by being deprived of their implements of production, but, on the contrary, they have (for the most part against the wish of the elder members of their families) left the homes where their work was much wanted, and where they had implements of production.

>Latterly the hours of labour have diminished and the rate of wages has increased; but this diminution of the hours of labour and this increase in wages have not improved the position of the worker, if one takes into account not their more luxurious habits -- watches with chains, silk kerchiefs, tobacco, vodka, beef, beer, etc. -- but their true welfare, i.e. their health and morality, and chiefly their freedom.

>At the silk factory with which I am acquainted, twenty years ago the work was chiefly done by men, who worked fourteen hours a day, earned on an average fifteen rubles a month, and sent the money for the most part to their families in the villages. Now nearly all the work is done by women working eleven hours, some of whom earn as much as twenty-five rubles a month (over fifteen rubles on the average), and for the most part not sending it home, but spend all they earn here chiefly on dress, drunkenness and vice. The diminution of the hours of work merely increases the time they spend in the taverns.

1/1

>The same thing is happening, to a greater or lesser extent, at all the factories and works. Everywhere, notwithstanding the diminution of the hours of labour and the increase of wages, the health of the operatives is worse than that of country workers, the average duration of life is shorter, and morality is sacrificed, as cannot but occur when people are torn from those conditions which most conduce to morality: family life, and free, healthy, varied and intelligible agricultural work.

Not a (((leftist))) so fine by me.

BASED
A
S
E
D

I like what I'm reading so far, but there is a definite anarchist vibe to what he's talking about.

He's absolutely based and a true Christian if there ever was one.

I read War and Peace and honestly didn't care for it. There was no real plot to be heard of and it didn't do a good job at capturing much of the setting. There were some ok parts that I still remember but honestly towards the end I just finished it to finish it. He seemed to be pretty pro Masonic too. Probably an early classical liberal.

Dostoevsky I can't recommend highly enough though. Excellent character development you won't find anywhere else.

He takes the whole "turn the other cheek" analogy quite literally.

I could be wrong, but I wasn't under the impression that it was a call for your enemy to strike you again, but more of a cultural reference to a roman soldier tradition in which if a superior was to strike you, one would turn the other cheek as to open himself to a second strike. If the superior struck him on the other side it made the officer look like a fool and allowed retaliation.

He seems to base much of his pacifism on that so it is very important to have it right.

>He takes the whole "turn the other cheek" analogy quite literally.

And there's nothing wrong with that. If everyone turned the other cheek we'd live in the closest thing possible to a Utopia on Earth, but that's unfortunately not how our species works.

I'm debating that. I'm just wondering what the biblical implication was vs how Tolstoy takes it.

I agree with you btw

According to Spengler, Tolstoy is a blue pill, Dostoyevsky is a red pill.

Spengler on Tolstoi:
> Tolstoi is an event within and of Western Civilization. He stands midway between Peter and Bolshevism, and neither he nor these managed to get within sight of Russian earth. The thing they are fighting against reappears, recognizable, in the very form in which they fight. Their kind of opposition is not apocalyptic but intellectual. Tolstoi's hatred of property is an economist's, his hatred of society a social reformer's, his hatred of the State a political theorist's. Hence his immense effect upon the West -- he belongs, in one respect as in another, to the band of Marx, Ibsen, and Zola.

Meanwhile, Dostoyevski is a proper shitlord:
> Dostoyevski, on the contrary, belongs to no band, unless it be the band of the Apostles of primitive Christianity. His "Daemons" were denounced by the Russian Intelligentsia as reactionaries. But he himself was quite unconscious of such conflicts -- "conservative" and "revolutionary" were terms of the West that left him indifferent.

Anonymous is quite literally a match for my mind.

Dostoyevsky is superior in every way though.

Based Spengler. I need to read some. What's he say about Dostoevsky?

I also enjoy The Decline of the West podcast btw.

> What's he say about Dostoevsky?

See next post. Dostoevsky is based AF, and it's hilarious that soviets didn't see it and made him required reading in school.

I dunno what it is but i have the hardest time getting through spengler. I have Decline of the West and I pick it up every couple of months but it's just so dry and context burden I can't get past the first few chapters.

Perhaps I'm not well read enough to understand all of the historical references, but man it's tough reading.

I too have the Decline of the West and am having a hard time getting through with it. Tbh I gave up on non fiction for now. I'm just trying to get back in the habit of reading.

I've been doing the audiobook thing for now. I still read fun nonfiction about food history etc, but for anything philosoophy audiobooks are just easy because I run alot.

If you haven't already, download libravox. It's got tons of free classics and even some modern stuff.

Cool. Will do thanks.