What does leftypol think of Tolstoy?
The body was too short or empty.The body was too short or empty.The body was too short or empty.The body was too short or empty.
My muslim mom likes him
So idealist retard
>>2644924peak comfy
>>2644975we are obviously talking about leo tolstoy
>>2644924Why would anyone not like him
>>2644964Visually impaired & can't read… What's this say?
I read War & Peace when I was a young (19 or so). This was over a decade ago. I liked it. But I was also a young pseudointellectual with petty bourgeois aspirations. I am different now. If I re-read it now I would probably be disgusted with all the nobility in the book rather than empathizing with them on a vague atheist liberal "humanitarian" level. The world has changed me since reading Tolstoy.
>>2644964>>2645870I'd say this was the best paragraph:
>The contradictions in Tolstoy’s works, views, doctrines, in his school, are indeed glaring. On the one hand, we have the great artist, the genius who has not only drawn incomparable pictures of Russian life but has made first-class contributions to world literature. On the other hand we have the landlord obsessed with Christ. On the one hand, the remark ably powerful, forthright and sincere protest against social falsehood and hypocrisy; and on the other, the “Tolstoyan”, i.e., the jaded, hysterical sniveller called the Russian intellectual, who publicly beats his breast and wails: “I am a bad wicked man, but I am practising moral self-perfection; I don’t eat meat any more, I now eat rice cutlets.” On the one hand, merciless criticism of capitalist exploitation, exposure of government outrages, the farcical courts and the state administration, and unmasking of the profound contradictions between the growth of wealth and achievements of civilisation and the growth of poverty, degradation and misery among the working masses. On the other, the crackpot preaching of submission, “resist not evil” with violence. On the one hand, the most sober realism, the tearing away of all and sundry masks; on the other, the preaching of one of the most odious things on earth, namely, religion, the striving to replace officially appointed priests by priests who will serve from moral conviction, i. e., to cultivate the most refined and, therefore, particularly disgusting clericalism.I'm not the anon who posted the link btw, but I am this anon, for perspective:
>>2645957Lenin's paragraph above summarizes how my feelings toward Tolstoy's work has evolved.
I hate novelists, they’re the original slop
I read a good chunk of war and peace and had to drop it when Amazon wiped my kindle
>>2645985>when Amazon wiped my kindleimagine using a service where you don't even own your files. just pirate PDFs on a linux desktop like an adult
>>2645982>I hate novelists, they’re the original slopAnti-Fun ideology is retarded and Marx agrees with me:
>By reducing the worker's needs to the paltriest minimum necessary to maintain his physical existence and by reducing his activity to the most abstract mechanical movement. In so doing, the political economist declares that man has no other needs, either in the sphere of activity or in that of consumption. For even this life he calls human life and human existence.Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, Third Manuscript, Private Property and Labor (1844)
>An appreciable rise in wages presupposes a rapid growth of productive capital. Rapid growth of productive capital calls forth just as rapid a growth of wealth, of luxury, of social needs and social pleasures. Therefore, although the pleasures of the labourer have increased, the social gratification which they afford has fallen in comparison with the increased pleasures of the capitalist, which are inaccessible to the worker, in comparison with the stage of development of society in general. Our wants and pleasures have their origin in society; we therefore measure them in relation to society; we do not measure them in relation to the objects which serve for their gratification. Since they are of a social nature, they are of a relative nature.Karl Marx, Wage Labour and Capital (1847), Chapter 6
TL;DR Don't be a self-flagellating ascetic monk to own the libs and show off how "non-degenerate" you are
>>2645957I thought the nobility were disgusting on their own, unable to speak to their servants without a heavy French accent, let alone think of anything but pomp and circumstance. I like Pierre because of his avoidance of the aristocratic traditions, but he didn't do much of anything to change it.
But the slow devolving into historical fiction was welcome.
>>2645997I put the epubs onto my kindle so I can read when I'm at work or traveling. Somehow airplane mode came off and Amaz*n updated and wiped my shit. Now I can't even root my kindle with the current firmware :(
>>2646008All entertainment is a distraction, mass media is a huge part of why there hasn’t been a communist revolution. Any time spent with entertainment media is time not spent organizing, time not spent with your coworkers figuring out how to fight your boss. It’s not coincidence that all the revolutions happened before the advent of mass media or in colonial countries where it wasn’t developed or accessible to the general population.
>>2644975Different guy but this one is based.
>Muh freedom of expressionUsually should be translated:
>My freedom to be a shithead cuckslave of capitalismpig orwell was the real prostitute.
>>2646016>I put the epubs onto my kindle so I can read when I'm at work or traveling.I got a kindle paperwhite in 2011 and to this day it doesn't get forced updates. It must be later kindles that enshittified and did that
>>2646035It’s even worse because these “works” let you vent your alienation with the system while reinforcing it by being consumable products. At least prayer is free.
>>2646028>All entertainment is a distraction, mass media is a huge part of why there hasn’t been a communist revolutionthis is an idealist explanation that privileges culture over class as the reason there hasn't been revolution. There has been plenty of revolutions, but they either decayed into revisionism, or they were overthrown by reactionaries. That involved a lot of political force, class collaboration, imperialism, etc.
>>2646047>At least prayer is free.paid for slop award. learn to pirate.
>All entertainment is a distraction, mass media is a huge part of why there hasn’t been a communist revolution. Any time spent with entertainment media is time not spent organizing, time not spent with your coworkers figuring out how to fight your boss.Yeah obviously people should spend more time organizing and less time consuming entertainment but people get burned out and want to enjoy themselves too. It's easy to forget that organizing is literally a second job on top of the one you do for the capitalists. Most people are going to want to do relax when they're burned out. Nobody is a robot that does exactly
What Is To Be Done every second of their life and it's naive to expect that and build your strategy around that.
>>2646052No it’s a physical explanation, you only have so much time on this earth, any time spent entertaining yourself or having sex is time not spent politically. The entertainment industry is billions of dollars precisely because it floods the brains of the poor and working with millions of hours of distractions. Name a revolution that happened in the first world after the advent of mass media, I’ll wait.
>>2646061Revolution has only ever happened when people stew in their conditions with literally nothing else to think about besides those conditions, period.
>>2646062ok then go burn down the movie theaters and blow up the streaming service servers and burn down the libraries then if you really think the existence of entertainment is a bigger problem than the mode of production itself.
>>2646070None of the entertainment would be possible without capitalism, it won’t exist under socialism because we’ll finally end alienation. All art comes from alienation, from sublimation, same with sex.
>>2646067>Revolution has only ever happened when people stew in their conditions with literally nothing else to think about besides those conditions, period.no amount of netflix slop will satisfy people who are starving to death and can't pay their bills. you're confusing a superstructural phenomenon with a base phenomenon. Entertainment can only be used to mollify people who are already fed and sheltered. It's called BREAD AND circuses for a reason. The ruling class does not maintain its grip on power through circuses alone.
>>2646080>nobody will have sex or do art after capitalismBait or retard.
>>2646083Sublimation has to end
>>2646080if that's true, then nobody will reproduce after capitalism, and humanity will end. By your logic communism is not something desirable, but humanity choosing to become a bunch of volcel buddhist monks and let humanity fizzle out finally. This is ascetic quasi-religious nonsense.
>>2646086You don’t need to have sex to reproduce, IVF has been a thing for decades
>>2646089>You don’t need to have sex to reproduce, IVF has been a thing for decadesat this point why even have humans in flesh bodies. just commit collective suicide and let the computers trade labor values with each other for eternity. that way there's nothing "unecessary" or "distracting" happening. Humans? They get itchy. That's a big distraction from work eat shit die by your logic.
>>2646090Meditation is just getting high for sober people
>>2646091If you can’t wait until capitalism is overthrown to read your stupid Dostoyevsky novels and have sex you’re not serious about it, simple as
>>2646096Sir, this thread is about Tolstoy not Dostoyevsky
>>2646096we're both on an imageboard right now. you're not being serious.
>>2646096prove you're the bigger grass toucher and log off first.
>>2646103They’re the same guy
>>2646117Dostoyevsky was a reactionary through and through. Tolstoy wrote about revolution and looking up to the revolutionary leaders as a way to model yourself and society after.
Dostoyevsky wrote about primarily individual depression, whereas Tolstoy wrote realism.
>>2646147I guess I made the right decision dropping Demons in the first 15 pages, fuck Russian authors, they suck
>>2646168The Master and Margarita is good though
War and peace is hilarious . Anna k is a great criticism of the bourgeoise.
>>2646272Literally Jane Austen for men
>>2646147I can confirm this. Reading crime and punishment was an excruciating experience.
>>2646280Jane Austen W
Unique IPs: 13