![]() The Slavophiles, on the other hand, set Russia decidedly apart from European forms of Christianity, community, and even reason. The Westernizers, as their name suggests, took Europe as a model for Russia, but they differed importantly on what aspects or periods of European history should be extolled and emulated. One constantly asks, does this line of thought prepare and feed into communism? Or, conversely, does this line of thought perhaps provide resources for a post-communist Russia? The central issue was Russian identity, and it was most often cast in terms of a comparison and contrast with Europe. Its account of the main figures and debates constituting Russian self-reflection in the nineteenth century is fascinating, both because of the issues and terms of debate and because of the Leninist revolution just over the horizon. The chapter is a tour de force, going well beyond its sure consideration of Tolstoy’s life and developing thought. He stood out by his historical fatalism and its political consequences, pacifism and anarchy, which were reinforced by his idiosyncratic version of Christianity. This would be a lesson learned by the next figure he discusses, Leo Tolstoy, who had a rather large “garden,” his four thousand acre estate, Yasnaya Polyana.Ĭhapter 2 thus moves from Germany to Russia and locates the great novelist and writer among the Slavophiles, Westernizers, and czars of 19th century Russia. In a deft move, Slaboch likens Schopenhauer’s teaching to the Turk’s in Candide, who taught the eponymous character the necessity of tending one’s own garden, instead of being concerned with what happens in Constantinople. The real task of life is intensely individual, involving personal moral development. While Schopenhauer recognized some improvements in the material conditions of modern peoples, he flatly denied that they solved the essential problems of human life, and the modern solutions to these problems – human equality, democracy, a tutelary state, nationalism – were bound to fail. It is only the saint, who combines “compassion and asceticism,” who rises, somewhat, above this natural dynamic. Suffering is the human lot, and human life is led between the poles of want and pain and boredom, passing through temporary satisfaction. Neither the national community nor the ethical state is worthy of our loyalty, or our hopes. He especially attacked “philosophies of history that glorify nation or state” and opted for a much more modest view of the state, one reminiscent of Hobbes’. He concluded, however, that there was something metaphysically absurd about the will willing the end of itself.īetween the personal and the metaphysical, Schopenhauer articulated a pessimistic philosophy of history and certain political ideas, which Slaboch characterizes as “anti-political” in the context of his day. He was “antinatalist,” and took the option of suicide with utmost seriousness. As for Schopenhauer himself, he not only talked the pessimistic talk, but walked the walk. If reality is essentially will, and will is intrinsically purposeless, then agency must ask itself, what is the point? There is zero-reason for hope. ![]() Chapter 1 focuses on the philosophical pessimist Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) and his critical engagement with various German philosophers of progress in history (Fichte and Hegel, especially). It has many virtues: it is a short book, well written, easy to follow, with a fine formulation now-and-again (“not just kin, they were kindred spirits”).įour core chapters are framed by an Introduction and Conclusion. Slaboch’s fine book, to provide just such a broader panorama and set of critics. These critics need not be limited to today, since the idea of progress has been around at least since the Enlightenment, if not before. In times like these, critics of progress gain in relevance and interest: perhaps they’re on to something. Actual history, however, has complicated its validity. Both therefore gave credence to the idea of progress, although with different valences. For progressives, hope (and change) is part of their DNA, while conservatives, especially the past decade or so, have feared that the trajectory of the country was better captured by progressive ideas than conservative moderation. ![]() Right now progressives are in a funk and a tizzy, because Trump has thrown a yuge monkey wrench into their hopes for more progress.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |