Why start from scratch when you can stand on the shoulders of giants?
EPOCH TIMES
Konstantin Levin in Anna Karenina (2012 film)
Many writers consider Anna Karenina the greatest work of literature ever. Aside from being a novel about betrayal, faith, family and marriage, Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina is also a story about one man’s search for meaning in a complicated world.
Konstantin Levin, the story’s second main character, spends a large portion of the novel trying to figure out how his wife Kitty could believe in a higher power he’s never seen any signs of.
One day, he was listening to a peasant talk about two landowners—a stingy one and a generous one—and asked the peasant, Fyodor, how it could be that these two men were so different from each other.
Fyodor replied that the generous landowner “lives for his soul” and “does not forget God,” leading Levin to realize the miracle that he’s been looking for this whole time—goodness.
Levin reasons that it’s rational for a person to live for his needs like food and shelter, but not for goodness. Yet, humanity knows about this concept called “goodness,” and many people even give up their own personal interests to be good.
So, he reasons, where could this idea have come from if it wasn’t bestowed upon humanity by some higher force?
“Reason discovered the struggle for existence, and the law that requires us to oppress all who hinder the satisfaction of our desires. That is the deduction of reason. But loving one’s neighbor reason could never discover, because it’s irrational.” — Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Levin, the educated noble, likely never expected that an offhand comment by a simple peasant would be what gave him the epiphany he’d been hoping for.
Perhaps that’s also part of the miracle that Tolstoy points out—just like every person who still strives for goodness against the odds. Each righteous person is a manifestation of the goodness gifted to humanity and a testament to the strength of this miraculous gift.
And perhaps, just like the generous landowner in Fyodor’s story, they can also awaken others to the miracle of goodness in subtle, unexpected, and powerful ways.
@ vivarto:
That’s very good vivarto… And goodness involves “doing” – often by sacrificing what “I” want.
Compare this with the current “virtue signalling” which is essentially all talk and cost nothing…
@ vivarto:
ha, I posted it with the wrong article.
It was meat for TFI
I love the subtle Indian accent.
So sweet!
Well, because some things cannot be borrowed from others.
Each of us must discover them for by ourselves.
Just reading what Tolstoy, or Buddha, or Yehova said is of no value, it is only second hand knowledge that expands the ego-mind.
No authentic goodness can come out of that.
Now Levin was only able to benefit from Fyodor’s remark because Levis has been sincerely searching.
He struggled with himself, he had the courage to stand alone, to doubt all the priests and all holy scriptures. Only from such space could Fyodor’s remark bring the illumination to Levin.
As for Anna Karenina being the greatest book. Well, it is better written than War and Peace. War and Peace in some ways is almost amateurish, but I still would vote that War and Peace is the greatest book I have ever read.