Tolstoy feeds me humble pie.

As if to chastise me for my chutzpah in writing a cocky little manifesto for the 99% movement (last post) I read the following;

(Note: Just so that the lefties don’t stop reading at the first paragraph what Tolstoy means by “collective effort” is more like submission to a group program for change not just any form of co-operation.)

“This is why freedom from the servitude in which we find ourselves at present is impossible for those who seek it in collective effort. It can only be obtained by the substitution of the law of love for the law of violence, that fundamental principle of Christianity*.

“This doctrine says to each isolated individual: You cannot know the end of social life; you can only envisage it as a form of progressive approach towards universal happiness, towards the realization of the Kingdom of God on earth. On the other hand, you are aware of the aim of personal life: it is the development in each of the greatest amount of love, in order that the kingdom of God may be established. This aim is certain and is easy to approach.

“You can be ignorant of the best methods for attaining this external goal; you can meet obstacles in the way of its realization; but nothing can stop you drawing nearer to inner perfection: the increase of love in yourself and towards others.

“So it is enough to institute in the place of this illusory social goal, this individual aim of life, the only sure and accessible one; and the chains you thought were fastening you forever will drop immediately and you will feel yourself absolutely free...

“The Christian can ignore the laws established by the State because he has no need for them for himself, or for others; he considers that human life is better assured by the law of love he professes than by the law of violence imposed on him...

Can it be put any better? The writer is Tolstoy in The Law of Love and Law of Violence (p70-71). He is quoting his own earlier work. The abridgements in the above are his.

Tolstoy is saying that real change – the only meaningful change at all- doesn’t come with a clearly mapped world order (communism or capitalism). Instead the only meaningful and achievable change comes from personal commitment to the rule of universal love as professed by Jesus.

Amazingly there would be some people who might consider this a conservative position. The program of Jesus and the idea of love has become so diluted in our world that we are able to conceive issuing it from a gun or via carpet bombing. We profess to follow universal love in the police force and the army despite making oaths to follow orders first. We confess to follow universal love while not sharing our wealth - living like gluttons while others starve. We confess to follow it while buying the products of modern slavery, while profiting from that slavery with what we save at the counter or even what we make on the sharemarket. We confess to following it while protecting our luxurious standard of living over the environment. We confess it and nothing changes.

Or as Tolstoy points out ;

...as soon as it (the Law of Love) ceases to be an immovable law, its beneficence disappears and the doctrine of love is reduced to fruitless teaching, not modifying in any way the mode of life that is founded on violence. By contrast, the true Christian doctrine, making of the law of love a rule permitting no exceptions, in this way rules out the possibility of any violence, and cannot in consequence help but condemn all regimes which are founded on it.

It is exactly this significance of Christianity that was hidden from men by false Christianity, because the latter acknowledges love not as a supreme law, but, in the manner of all previous religions, only as one of the rules of conduct, to be usefully observed only when circumstances do not prevent it.

Tolstoy is amazing because he somehow reads Love like a child. I don’t know by what grace he manages it. If it truly is a Christian grace it is so sadly lacking in the historical practice of Christianity that it makes it all the more remarkable.

The entire book is downloadable for free from http://www.archive.org/details/lawofloveandthel001362mbp  Honestly I could just quote the whole thing. And at only a hundred pages there’s no reason to be intimidated by Tolstoy’s name. Please, please give it a go. I’ll be reviewing it more thoroughly when I’ve gotten over how great it is.

My particular reason for posting this immediately is Tolstoys essential message to the 99% movement and the Occupy Melbourne protestors and me;

Men, whether they submit or refuse to submit to governmental authority, never know and can never know what form this future state will take.

Don’t worry about not having a mapped out set of solutions. Love one another. Love even your enemies. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Now that’s a manifesto.



*I realise some people who know me may be astonished by how "Goddy" this piece is. I don't believe in the metaphysical claims of Christianity. However I will learn as much as I can from any Christian, Buddhist, Atheist, Jew, Hindu etc who is out-loving me. Absolutely. Using their language is a sign of respect to ones teacher. In Tolstoys case that respect is well earned.

The 99% Manifesto.

There’s something that shits me as a legacy of my lapsed political activism. It’s when the constituents of a representative movement, (the unemployed, gay men, whatever the movement) talk about what the movement needs to do before they will join it.

The latest example of this is the 99% movement. There are a chorus of voices, it seems, demanding that “they” articulate some demands and produce a model for change before “I” will listen to them. News flash; political change is not like television. You don’t flick through channels for what you want and whinge when there’s nothing to watch. You actually create it.

So I thought to myself maybe I should have a go at drafting this much demanded manifesto. I’m somewhere in the 99%. I can string a sentence together.

On the other hand, I am singularly unqualified as I have no t.v. and hardly ever listen to news radio. I mostly read books published at least fifty years ago, unless they are contemporary books about events older than that. Current affairs ain’t my thing. Blogging and even more recently Facebook is bringing me into contact with shorter news cycles but it’s a slow pick up. Bah, that’s negative talk. Let’s do it anyway.

The 99% manifesto.

1% of the world, it is increasingly apparent to us (the remainder) that we give you more than you give us. The size of the violin played for your sad day dwarfs the violin played for all the refugees of the world. Your birthday cakes are larger than the ones even bakers have. Meanwhile we plumb your toilets, nanny your kids and put food on your table. We make your profits.

1% of the world, we can see that you have no fear, not even the slightest concern that, failing a light aeroplane crash, your children will not also be a part of the 1%. They can be coke addicts and go on to buy the Presidency of the United States. Meanwhile the rest of us have no fear that our children will make it into the 1%. Instead we live in fear that unless we do everything right (or even then) our children will be a lot worse off than us. In fact for the vast majority of us that would mean imprisoned or dead.

1% of the world, these differences are so exaggerated that quite frankly we can no longer relate to you. We feel reasonably confident that you are not trying to relate to us either. Neither of us are people to each other. It’s worth pausing to mourn that fact. As a species we have lost 1% of our humanity. That would be you.

1% of the world, we do not intend to follow you into inhumanity. We have our own divisions. A percentage of us live in abject poverty. A percentage of us own more than one house. A percentage of us go to elite schools. A percentage of us can’t read. Those of us closer to you in privilege and opportunity pledge NOT to try in vain to join your class. We pledge to stop our aspirational nonsense that only feeds your importance. Instead we will be relating to the rest of the 99% as fellow people.

1% of the world, if you have what we need to relate to each other as fellow people, we will be taking it. Don’t panic. We can do without your mansion on a hill, your backyard swimming pools and tennis courts, even your personal automobile. Just let’s cut the crap. You don’t get to “own” all the farmland. You don’t get to “own” public transport or a monopoly on roads or a patent on our genes. Those things were never going to fly. (And you don’t get to own Federation Square.)

1% of the world, the first thing we will be taking back is our attention. Next will be our labour, our time, the focus of our education, the purpose of our industry, and our lives in your conflicts, but first it is our attention. We can’t do anything until we do that. We have a lot to talk to each other about and following your antics is only a distraction. This is therefore our last communication.

99% of the world, let’s talk.

__________________________________________________

Okay, the above manifesto reveals a couple of things. One is that I am uneasy about a movement that ignores my privelage in relation to others. I am not a member of the 1% by a long shot, however I am pretty comfortable in my estimation. Hence I want to shift the emphasis onto how we treat each other rather than how the 1% treat us. I don’t think this shift is really what the 99% movement sounds like in name, so yes I am hijacking it.

Secondly I truly believe that the way we are relating to each other – when we put our luxuries above others needs – is not “natural”. I think it’s actually inhuman. In order to justify it we have to dehumanise those in need but I think we only succeed in dehumanising ourselves. There’s no doubt that the 1% do this from the simplest to the most extreme ways. More importantly we allow our governments to do it for them, enforcing the eviction of those who can’t pay their rent while entitling the ultra-rich to possess entire inner city towers. However in smaller ways I do the same. In the process I am making myself into a social alien to the rest of the human species.

Thirdly the irreverent tone of this manifesto should reveal that I am NOT saying that the 99% movement or Occupy (Insert City) really have to have a coherent justification for non-violent actions. Quite frankly I would rather a week of protesting without any point over another week of shopping without any point. The Occupy Melbourne Protest was peaceful, welcoming, democratic, shared its food and created a space where people could meet across economic classes. On the downside it disrupted a small cluster of upmarket eateries. The Spring Racing Carnival by comparison is drunken, violent, unsharing and uncaring and no-one demands it have a clear manifesto. The Spring Racing Carnival is justified because it’s fun (or addiction) for those who participate even though that fun disrupts others; the streets of Melbourne run with spew during it. Occupy Melbourne, although I missed it, looked like my kind of fun instead. Minus the police of course.