With this, I join Titus Techera’s noble experiment of restarting the Postmodern Conservative group-blog as a Substack. Since (in the West) it is Holy Week, I thought it would be good to begin with some apparently simple Christian teachings, the ones put forth as those of the Elder Zosima character in the midst of The Brothers Karamazov, Fydor Dostoevsky’s final novel. Let’s jump right into them:
“Love all of God’s creation, both the whole of it and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love animals, love plants, love each thing. If you love each thing, you will begin tirelessly to perceive more and more of it every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an entire, universal love.”
It is a “not a sparrow falls” (Matt. 10:29-31) twist on the pantheism-friendly idea present in Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (“Song of Myself,” 6), when Walt prods us to contemplate the mystery present in plain ol’ grass, and my guess is that it is also the source for the title-line of the only one of Bob Dylan’s Christian songs acknowledged by all critics to be classic, “Every Grain of Sand.” (For a very detailed analysis of that song that missed the Zosima origin-point, see the relevant chapter in Michael Gray’s opus of Dylanology, Song and Dance Man III.) But back to Zosima:
“Brothers, love is a teacher, but one must know how to acquire it, for it is difficult to acquire, it is dearly bought, by long work over a long time, for one ought to love not for a chance moment but for all time. My younger brother asked forgiveness of the birds: it seems senseless, yet it is right, for all is like an ocean, all flows and connects; touch it in one place and it echoes at the other end of the world. Let it be madness to ask forgiveness of birds, still…it would be easier. All is like an ocean, I say to you. Tormented by universal love, you, too, would then start praying to the birds, as if in a sort of ecstasy, and entreat them to forgive your sin. Cherish this ecstasy, however senseless it may seem to people.”
“My friends, ask gladness from God. Be glad as children, as birds in the sky. And let man’s sin not disturb you in your efforts, do not fear that it will dampen your endeavor and keep it from being fulfilled, do not say, ‘Sin is strong, impiety is strong, the bad environment is strong, and we are lonely and powerless…’” Flee from such despondency, my children! There is only one salvation for you: take yourself up, and make yourself responsible for the sins of all men. For indeed it is so, my friend, and the moment you make yourself sincerely responsible for everything and everyone, you will see at once that it is really so… …Whereas by shifting your own laziness and powerlessness onto others, you will end by sharing in Satan’ pride and murmuring against God.”
Some rather counterintuitive ideas there, which I also resist. But the word about despondency is a good one, especially for conservatives in 2021. For like Zosima, some of us have dreams about what might be here on earth:
“…for Russia is great in her humility. I dream of seeing our future, and seem to see it already: for it will come to pass that even the most corrupt of our rich men will finally be ashamed of his riches before the poor man, and the poor man, seeing his humility, will understanding and yield to him in joy, and will respond in kindness to his gracious shame. Believe me, it will finally be so: things are heading that way. Equality is only in man’s spiritual dignity, and only among us will that be understood. Where there are brothers, there will be brotherhood; but before brotherhood they will never share among themselves. Let us preserve the image of Christ, that it may shine forth like a precious diamond to the whole world…”
That’s a passage to compare and contrast with Alexis de Tocqueville’s meditations on the desire for equality, with Wilson Carey McWilliams’s meditations on fraternity, and finally with John Winthrop’s “A Model of Christian Charity,” where we are given a Christian vision—not a merely natural rights nor Reaganite one—of America as a city on a hill. Further on, we see more of Zosima’s vision for a redeemed Russia:
“The world cannot do without servants, but see to it that your servant is freer in spirit than if he were not a servant. And why can I not be the servant of my servant, and in such wise that even he sees it, and without any pride on my part, or any disbelief on his? Why can my servant not be like my own kin, so that I may finally receive him into my family, and rejoice for it? This may be accomplished even now, but, it will serve as the foundation for the magnificent communion of mankind in the future, when a man will not seek servants for himself, and will not wish to turn his fellow men into servants, as now, but, on the contrary, will wish with all his strength to become himself the servant of all, in accordance with the Gospel. And is it only a dream, that in the end man will find his joy in deeds of enlightenment and mercy alone, and not in cruel pleasures as now—in gluttony, fornication, ostentation, boasting, and envious rivalry with one another? I firmly believe not, and that the time is near. People laugh and ask: when will the time come, and does it look as if it will ever come? But I think that with Christ we shall bring about this great deed…”
Zosima immediately seems to hear the reproach of the scoffers, and he responds
“‘If ours is a dream, then when will you raise up your edifice and make a just order for yourselves by your own reason, without Christ?’ Even if they themselves affirm, on the contrary, that it is they who are moving towards communion, then indeed only the simplest of them believe it, so that one may even be astonished at such simplicity. Verily, there is more dreamy fantasy in them than in us. They hope to make a just order for themselves, but having rejected Christ, they will end by drenching the earth in blood…”
Well, that Dostoevsky prophecy from the late 1800s, and others like it hinted at in Demons, sadly did come true, and for poor Russia particularly; amazingly, even in its aftermath, after the 100 million killed was added up, even in 2021, we are still having to be astonished at the simplicity of a new generation of young able to believe in communist and progressivist promises. So perhaps we have more reasons than Zosima’s contemporaries for despondency?
But this Easter season, it is better for us to contemplate the finale to all these teachings, all of which are taken (in the Peaver-Volokhonsky translation) from sections “f” and “g” of the “Talks and Homilies of the Elder Zosima” chapter, the sections subtitled “Some words about Masters and Servants and Whether It Is Possible for Them to Become Brothers in Spirit” and “Of Prayer, Love, and the Touching of Other Worlds.” I will also say, before letting Zosima close, that while I have often heard it said that correctly understood Dostoevsky is an existentialist more than a Christian—and I can see how the reader of Demons or Notes from the Underground might come to think that—but so far, as I read The Brothers Karamazov with some friends of mine this spring, I am coming to regard it as a fairly straightforwardly Christian witness and drama. Zosima is not the only nor the main character, to be sure, but he stands out as the book’s real hero.
So may we heed him, and someday understand:
“And there is much in our strongest feelings and impulses of our nature that we cannot comprehend on earth; do not be tempted by that, and do not think it can serve you as a justification for anything… God took seeds from other worlds and sowed them on this earth, and raised up his garden; and everything that could sprout sprouted, but it lives and grows only through its sense of being in touch with other mysterious worlds; if this sense is weakened or destroyed in you, that which has grown up in you dies. Then you become indifferent to life, and even come to hate it. So I think.”