Comments on: Notes from Bakunin

By: sergey

sergey — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 19:56:03 +0000

Not only by prevailing philosophy, but even more so by prevailing culture in the most broad sense of the word. And all Russian culture was anarchistic anti-governmental, with very few exceptions. Strange enough, for Tolstoy the two most influential philosophers were atheist Rousseau and fire-breathing Christian preacher Avvakum, founder of the schism “Old Believers”. So religion was not the deciding issue in their quasi-religious crusades. They were seeking a moral truth of a deeper meaning than theological or clerical issues; like Nietzsche, they were existential philosophers before this type of philosophy got European recognition.

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 18:28:52 +0000

sergey:

Thanks, that’s interesting. I assume Bakunin was an atheist, but I suppose even atheists can be influenced by the prevailing philosophy, be it religious or otherwise.

By: Upstate

Upstate — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 15:46:12 +0000

Thanks for the reminder! Very appropriate given the (almost certain) future implosion of Obamacare AND the Dept of Justice’s decision to request equal punishment in schools.

By: sergey

sergey — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 14:51:42 +0000

This insanely idealistic social utopianism run deep in Russian culture, both popular and elitist. All Russian intellectual history is full of it, from 16 century to our days. The reason? A whole treatise can be written about it, not just a play. My humble opinion is that the specific form of Christianity adopted in Russia was very conductive to it, and the failure of a number of attempts to reform it. The schism of “Old Believers” was the first, the teaching of Tolstoy – the second, but there were lots of minor attempts.

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 18:40:01 +0000

sergey: Yes, that's what always made them seem so bizarre to me, even back in college. Almost insanely idealistic. Why would anyone think that would work? I don't think we studied Kropotkin, although his name sounds vaguely interesting. Russian Intellectual History was my favorite course in college.

By: sergey

sergey — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 18:17:59 +0000

Geoffrey, all Russian anarchists held civilization in contempt as well as they hated government. They believed that without civilization humans would be better, not worse. Noble savages, pure children of Nature. The very concept of original sin was totally alien to them.

By: sergey

sergey — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 18:04:07 +0000

There was another preacher of Russian anarchism, just as famous and influential as Tolstoy and Bakunin, namely Prince Kropotkin. All the three were bleeding-heart liberals from the highest ranks of Russian nobility, quite wealthy and well-connected, and in this respect closely reminded American liberals. They also believed in possibility of purify humans from all evil, like their American counterparts. But they never made a mistake to believe that government can be a solution to anything, and with a good reason: nothing good ever transpired from Russian government, so they concluded that government was the root of all evil.

By: sergey

sergey — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 17:44:28 +0000

Bakunin, just as Tolstoy, witnessed the awful tyranny of Tzarist absolutist government, and desperately sought some more human, more moral alternative. Both failed, but anarchism of morally pure people was the only option they could imagine. But to make this idea work they needed first to turn these selfish, rude men into saints. Since this was and always will be impossible, both of them were full of contradictions. No wonder, really.

By: neo-neocon

neo-neocon — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 04:09:27 +0000

Walter Sobchak:

I had to write a paper in college comparing Bakunin and Herzen. I still have it, for some weird reason. I looked at it about a year ago; couldn’t make head or tail of it.

If I had known, I would have tried to write a play :-).

By: Walter Sobchak

Walter Sobchak — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 03:16:37 +0000

A few years ago we had the privilege of seeing Tom Stoppard’s trilogy “The Coast of Utopia” in its New York run at Lincoln Center. It was a terrific. Bakunin is a character in the play. A comic foil to the gentle elder of the philosophical rebels, Alexander Herzen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coast_of_Utopia

The source of Stoppard’s play is “Russian Thinkers” by Sir Isaiah Berlin.

http://www.amazon.com/Russian-Thinkers-Penguin-Classics-Isaiah/dp/0141442204/