Nihilism, Purpose and Morality in Tolstoy
In one captivating, emblematic scene in War and Peace, Tolstoy embodies every ideal to which Well Read Christian aspires. Two childhood friends are reunited after several years to discover they have grown into very different people, with very different views of life. Andrei is skeptical and cynical, rejecting belief in God, objective meaning to the universe or objective morality. Pierre is idealistic, religious, perhaps naive, but filled with purpose and a reason to live honorably. The conversation that ensues is exactly the kind we hope to encourage and facilitate in our podcast and blog. From the porch to the river, under a sunset and then the night sky, these two characters engage in a respectful, passionate and intellectual conversation, with mutual respect, admiration and love. This is the goal of Well Read Christian, captured in beautiful and iconic prose.
The Value of Life, Morality and Happiness
Despite trivialities and awkward pauses which introduce their time together, the two friends are thrown into a deeper discussion when Andrei asks about Pierre’s wife at the dinner table. Andrei had heard the rumors: Pierre had almost killed a man in a duel to protect his honor, a fact that Andrei admires, saying, “It’s very good to kill a vicious dog.” For Andrei, life is expendable. Death isn’t a tragedy, it’s quite commonplace. Why not let some undesirables hang, or kill a brute in a duel?
This shocks Pierre, who believes that morality is objective, and killing another man for petty reasons is self-evidently wrong. He says that happiness in life can only be attained if we live self-sacrificially, and for the good of mankind rather than for ourselves. Andrei responds, “I tried to live for others, but that almost got me killed in the army and nobody even cares. Sacrifice goes unnoticed, it isn’t worth the pain nor the reward.”
Pierre continued to insist on the happiness one can get from “loving thy neighbor,” which Pierre does by emancipating his serfs and building hospitals and schools. Andrei scoffs at this and fully commits to the discussion, leaving uncomfortable courtesy aside. The two have found the safety of a rekindled bond to share their ideas. The two move to the porch, and Andrei makes his case.
Hospitals and schools have helped nobody, says Andrei. Laborers need physical labor like they need critical thinking, it is immoral and senseless to elevate them. Education simply creates enlightened sufferers who know about the wretched state of the world and of the human condition. Better to be ignorant and plow a field! As for hospitals, all medicine has ever done is turn a would-be dead man into a man who wishes he was dead. Better to let a man die of a stroke rather than take care of his paralyzed body for 10 years. Why should society use resources to prolong such a pitiful and painful existence? Let the man have his stroke, the family grieve, and the world move on.
Finally, Andrei scoffs at the notion that Pierre thinks killing a man is evil. Each one of us must decide for ourselves what is right and wrong, and perhaps it is for the better if the man died in the duel. Each man must decide what is right and wrong for him, and for Andrei, the only wrong is remorse and the only tragedy is illness.
The Two Responses to Nihilism
Pierre is astounded by Andrei’s outlook on life. He himself has flirted with nihilism in the past. He tried to bury the suspicion that nothing matters and life is a joke, but he was unsuccessful. Drinking, reading, gambling and sex worked for awhile, but eventually the reality of nihilism left him paralyzed. How can you live if you believe that nothing really matters? Why would you eat, or bathe, or perform basic human functions? Pierre did none of those things in his worst moments.
Andrei has a simple response. “Why wouldn’t you wash? It’s not clean!” Andrei would love to do nothing and pursue simple pleasures, but life won’t leave him alone! He is itchy and smelly, so he bathes. He is hungry and has cravings, so he eats. This is the inescapable essence of life, and anything more is speculation and wishful thinking. Our very existence is an attempt to move the furniture of the universe to suit our most base desires, and then we can finally die. Nothing more.
Meaning, Morality and Authority
Andrei is the living proof that rejecting morality and meaning leaves you without ultimate responsibility, but also without ultimate happiness. You are condemned to impulsive and fleeting pleasures. Pierre sees this, and looks to masonry to give him hope for a greater expression of humanity, as well as a purpose in life to strive for. For Pierre, seeing life from the perspective of heaven (or hell) is essential to understanding the brotherhood of man, which inspires empathy, charity and compassion. Andrei objects, though. Why is it that the masonry can see all this so clearly, but he can’t? Why should a human institution, filled with regular people, be endowed with a monopoly on truth while he is left unable to see things so clearly. He is skeptical. If he can’t see it, they can’t see it, and there’s no reason to think it’s there, and that’s that.
Andrei has studied philosophy and religion and, in the end, he heaves a disappointed sigh. Where Pierre sees God and an afterlife, which proves the existence of obtainable truth and virtue, which all men must strive for, giving purpose and ethics grounded in love and belief, Andrei sees nothing. He knows better than to believe in such naive ideas.
Conclusion
The conversation ends with Pierre giving a long speech about why the masonry, which he defines as “Christianity without the government,” is the best path to the universal law that happiness requires self-sacrifice, love of neighbor, and a pursuit of charity. Andrei has a spark of something which tells him that it may all be true, as he looks up at the night sky. But as soon as he returns to ordinary life, that inner, undeveloped man which seeks for more wonder in the cosmos has nowhere to grow. By the end of the novel, both Pierre and Andrei will take a large step towards each other’s views. Andrei will learn that it is impossible to live without love and beauty, which requires meaning and truth, and Pierre will learn that the rules and teachings of the masonry do not fill his quest for meaning and search for truth like he had originally hoped.