Siddharth > Books: philosophy‎ (26)

Work, work, proletarians, to increase social wealth and your individual poverty; work, work, in order that becoming poorer, you may have more reason to work and become miserable. Such is the inexorable law of capitalist production.'

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A good working woman makes with her needles only five meshes a minute, while certain circular knitting machines make 30,000 in the same time. Every minute of the machine is thus equivalent to a hundred hours of the workingwomen's labor, or again, every minute of the machine's labor, gives the working women ten days of rest. What is true for the knitting industry is more or less true for all industries reconstructed by modern machinery. But what do we see? In proportion as the machine is improved and performs man's work with an ever increasing rapidity and exactness, the laborer, instead of prolonging his former rest times, redoubles his ardor, as if he wished to rival the machine. O, absurd and murderous competition!

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In order to find work for all the non-producers of our present society, in order to leave room for the industrial equipment to go on developing indefinitely, the working class will be compelled, like the capitalist class, to do violence to its taste for abstinence and to develop indefinitely its consuming capacities.

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The great problem of capitalist production is no longer to find producers and to multiply their powers but to discover consumers, to excite their appetites and create in them fictitious needs.

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All our products are adulterated to aid in their sale and shorten their life.

One should never arrive in an unknown place at night, everything is undefined, every object is easily exaggerated.

One should never arrive in an unknown place at night, everything is undefined, every object is easily exaggerated.

Anna Kare

Anna Karenina is a love story. Reading this book has shown me the source of several scenes from iconic romantic movies: Lovers meeting in a railway station, rejection at dinners, and heartbroken characters traveling abroad attempting to heal their soul. Tolstoy’s descriptions of people and their interactions with each other were more compelling to me than his descriptions of natural scenes. This preference is probably related to my (current) personal preference for stories which have interesting characters doing unpredictable things.

Tolstoy has written beautiful characters in Anna Karenina. These characters are complex and relatable, despite having been written about 140 years ago. They are infuriating and lovable, and my attitude towards them changed as swiftly as the word they had spoken reached the listener’s ears. These characters have basic recognizable characteristics: love, fear, contempt, dreams, and anxieties. The description of Anna, Vronsky, and Levin is exquisite. Listening to them talk throughout the book, I have a good idea of what each of them would look like and how they would react in a new situation. Their descriptions are often through the eyes of their lovers and the inherent biases of this perception are a challenge to parse out (For example, I felt that the way people in society described Anna’s appearances was at odds with the way Vronsky describes Anna).

I noticed that Tolstoy gives the reader a very narrow window into the character’s true feelings. A character’s thought is framed in an extremely long sentence, which reveals the character’s true feelings near its culmination. The use of pronouns can often be confusing and can lead to confusion about whom (or what) the character is referring to when they say “them” (or “it”). This technique is used in a scene in which a professional artist, Mikhailov, visits Vronsky, a budding unskilled painter who is infatuated with art for the time-being. Here’s what Mikhailov has to say after looking at Vronsky’s painting:

One cannot forbid a person from making himself a big wax doll and kissing it. But if this person were to come with his doll, sit down in front of a man in love, and begin caressing his doll in the way a man in love caresses his beloved, the man in love would find it distasteful. Mikhailov experienced the same kind of unpleasant sensation when he saw Vronsky’s painting: he found it ridiculous, and annoying, and pathetic, and offensive.

What starts out ostensibly as an admission of the various forms of art, becomes a scathing criticism of people who engage in art as a hobby and ends as a dramatic take-down of Vronsky’s art. I can empathize with Mikhailov’s feelings of distaste while simultaneously feeling some sympathy towards Vronsky and respect for the effort he has put into his painting.

While Tolstoy applies this technique adeptly when characters express their displeasure with someone they are supposed to be in love with, he also uses it to show the duality of love. Once again, the description of love between two characters as described by the man in the relationship (I have removed the names of the characters to prevent spoilers about the story’s trajectory):

The preoccupation she had with small details, which was so at odds with his ideal of sublime happiness in the early days, was one of his disenchantments; but this endearing preoccupation, the point of which he could not understand but which he could not help loving was one of his new enchantments.

The preoccupation that this woman has with “small details” is a disenchantment, an enchantment, inexplicable and endearing to the man; all at once. One would be hard pressed to conclude anything about how the character really feels. Tolstoy has succeeded at keeping the reader guessing about how the character truly feels towards his lover (The reader suspects that the man is hopelessly in love with the woman and is trying to explain away some inconvenient details about her that he is unable to accept; it might also be true that the man is actually at the edge of his patience with the woman; there is no way to resolve this doubt for we see only a short period of the two characters' lives together).

I read Rosamund Bartlett’s English translation of the book and there were several references to the characters switching effortlessly between French and Russian throughout the book. This book was written in the late 1800s and the dominance of English as the language of the elite classes was not yet cemented.

I have three pieces of advise:

Konstantin Levin regarded his brother as a man of immense intellect and education, who was noble in the highest sense of that word, and endowed with an ability to work for the common good. But in the depths of his soul, the older he became, and the better he got to know his brother, the more frequently it occurred to him that this ability to work for the common good, which he felt he lacked totally, was perhaps not a virtue but, on the contrary, a deficiency of something—not a deficiency of good, honest, noble desires and tastes, but a deficiency of life force, the thing which is called heart, the impulse which drives a person to choose one of the innumerable life paths open to him and stick to it. The more he discovered about his brother, the more he noticed that Sergey Ivanovich, and many other people who worked for the common good, were not drawn with their hearts to this love of the common good, but had worked out in their minds that this was a good cause, and took it up for that reason alone. The observation that his brother did not take the question of the common good or the immortality of the soul any more to heart than he did a game of chess or the ingenious construction of a new machine only served to confirm Levin’s hypothesis.

Death, the inevitable end of everything, confronted him for the first time with irresistible force. And this death, which was there, in this beloved brother, groaning in his sleep and from force of habit indiscriminately invoking first God then the devil, was not nearly as remote as it had seemed to him before. It was in him too—he could feel it. If not today, then tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, then in thirty years—did it really matter when? But what this inevitable death was, he not only did not know and had never thought about, but also did not feel competent or bold enough to think about. … He sat hunched up on his bed in the darkness, with his arms around his knees, and thought, holding his breath from all the concentration. But the more he concentrated, the more apparent it became to him that this was unmistakably the case, that he really had forgotten, overlooked, one small factor in life—that death would come along and everything would end, that it was not worth even starting anything, and there was no way this could be helped. Yes, it was awful, but that is how it was. ‘But I am still alive. So what should I do now, what exactly should I do?’ he said with desperation.

She was both appalled by this indifference and thrilled by what had caused it. She could not conceive of or wish for anything beyond life with this man; but this new life did not yet exist, and she could not even picture it clearly in her mind. There was only anticipation—fear and joy of the new and unknown. And now, in just a few moments, the anticipation, the unknown, and the remorse at renouncing her old life was about to come to an end, and something new would begin. This new thing could not but be frightening as it was unknown; but frightening or not, it had already taken place six weeks earlier in her soul; today they were merely sanctifying what had happened a long time ago in her soul.

When, as a bachelor he used to observe other people’s married life, their petty worries, quarrels, and jealousy, he would just smile contemptuously in his soul. He was convinced that not only could there be nothing of that sort in his future married life, but he also believed that it would be completely and utterly unlike the life of other people even in all its outward forms. And instead of that, he suddenly found that not only had his life with his wife not formed into something special, but, on the contrary, was entirely formed of those same trifling details which he had so despised before, but which were now against his will acquiring an extraordinary and unassailable significance.

And jealousy of him led her to resenting him [her lover] and seeking grounds for her resentment in everything. She blamed him for everything that was difficult about her situation. The agonizing state of suspense between heaven and earth which she had to endure in Moscow, her husband’s slowness and indecision, her isolation—she put it all down to him [her lover]. If he [her lover] had loved her, he would have understood all the difficulty of her situation and extricated her from it. And he was the one to blame for the fact that she was living in Moscow and not in the country. He could not live buried in the country as she would have liked. He needed society, and he had put her in this dreadful situation, the difficulty of which he did not want to understand. And he was likewise to blame for the fact that she was forever separated from her son.

Alphonse Karr* expressed it very well before the war with Prussia: “You consider war is necessary? Excellent. Whoever preaches war should join a special front-line legion and lead the assault into the attack in front of everyone else!”

It means in the world picture of press agency, a job, domesticity, interest in some harmless diversion such as baseball and fishing, and a strong antipathy toward abstract ideas. This is the Philistine version of man in pursuit of happiness. Even Carlyle's doctrine of blessedness through work has overtones of strenuousness which are repugnant to the man of today. (p. 94)

Ted Chia

Ted Chiang is a path breaking philosopher and fiction writer. I started saying that after reading his short story "Story of Your Life." His second book, "Exhalation", is a collection of short stories from 2019. It covers an even wider range of topics than his first collection. Chiang has the ability to zoom out of the present moment and write about human nature without providing solutions or trying to pose arguments about complex questions; instead, his writing makes the reader think about what they would do in that situation, and that is the primary method he uses to engage the reader in a discussion. This ability to inhabit someone else' life for a period of time is the reason I read fiction, and the characters in this collection are put in situations where you want to be riddled by the dilemmas and struggles that they are facing. The striking aspect of Chiang's short stories is the amount of time that one remembers their premise and key questions for. The key questions in a handful of his short stories have remained with me despite having last read them 3 years ago.

The collection has 9 short stories of varying length. The shortest story is only 4 pages, while the longest one is nearly 100 pages. To review this collection without giving away spoilers, I will focus on the recurring themes and the various ways in which Chiang approaches them.

I already encountered this trouble once before. I had come back from captivity and people questioned me about the life of the prisoners of war. How could I make those who had not lived in them experience the atmosphere of the camps?

First we must get rid of certain naive misconceptions: no, the Germans didn't march through the streets, weapons in hand; no, they didn't force civilians to step aside and get off the sidewalks; in the subway, they offered their seats to old ladies, they gushed eagerly over babies and stroked their cheeks; they had been told to behave and they did so timidly and diligently out of discipline.

What rendered them [the German soldiers occupying Paris] inoffensive was their ignorance of our language. Many a time I heard Parisians in cafes express themselves freely about politics a few steps away from a solitary German who was sitting down and staring vaguely at a glass of lemonade.

The notion of an enemy is altogether firm and clear only if the enemy is separated from us by a line of fire.

A symbol: this hardworking and irascible city was no more a symbol. We looked in each others' eyes and wondered if we too hadn't become symbols. It is because they stole our future for four years. We had to count on others. And for the others we were only an object. ... Before the war, if we happened to look sympathetically at a child, a young man or woman, it was because we sensed their future and foresaw it vaguely in the gestures and in the creases of their faces because a living person is first of all a project, an enterprise. But the occupation had stripped people of their future.

Those who congratulate us ironically because we escaped the war can't imagine with what eagerness the French would have liked to have taken up arms again. Day after day, we saw our cities destroyed, our riches obliterated; our youth waste away. 3 million men were rotting away in Germany and France's birthrate dropped. What battle could have been more destructive? But these sacrifices, which we could have made gladly if they had hastened our victory, were meaningless and served no purpose or served the Germans. And that is perhaps something that everyone will understand: what is terrible is not to suffer nor to die, but to suffer and die in vain.

It is not true that tragedy brings people closer.

Our requirements diminished with our memories and since one gets used to everything we were ashamed that we were getting used to our misery, the rutabagas that were served as meals, the minuscule freedoms that we still enjoyed, our psychological emptiness. We steadily simplified our lives and we ended up talking only of food.

But we are asking you [the readers of this essay] first of all to understand that often the occupation was more terrible than the war. Because in war everybody performs his allotted task while in our ambiguous situation we were unable to really act or even to think.

Mrs. Hughes: In a new place, where she can start again, Ethel has a far more chanc

Mrs. Hughes: In a new place, where she can start again, Ethel has a far more chance of happiness than in re-enacting her own version of the Scarlet Letter at Downton.
Violet: Um, what is the scarlet letter?
Edith: A novel, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Violet: It sounds most unsuitable

The door of the jail being flung open from within there appeared, in the first place, like a black shadow emerging into sunshine, the grim and gristly presence of the town-beadle, with a sword by his side, and his staff of office in his hand.

In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours

Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him; for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so than to hide a guilty heart through life.

If the child, on the other hand, were really capable of moral and religious growth, and possessed the elements of ultimate salvation, then, surely, it would enjoy all the fairer prospect of these advantages by being transferred to wiser and better guardianship than Hester Prynne’s

Believe me, Hester, there are few things whether in the outward world, or, to a certain depth, in the invisible sphere of thought—few things hidden from the man who devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the solution of a mystery.

It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual fife upon another: each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his subject.

Prediction requires knowing about technologies that will be discovered in the future. But that very knowledge would almost automatically allow us to start developing those technologies right away. Ergo, we do not know what we will know.

We grossly overestimate the length of the effect of misfortune on our lives. You think that the loss of your fortune or current position will be devastating, but you are probably wrong. More likely, you will adapt to anything, as you probably did after past misfortunes. You may feel a sting, but it will not be as bad as you expect. This kind of misprediction may have a purpose: to motivate us to perform important acts.

It is the venture capitalist who invested in a speculative company and sold his stake to unimaginative investors who is the beneficiary of the Black Swan, not the "me, too" investors.

Snub your destiny. I have taught myself to resist running to keep on schedule. This may seem a very small piece of advice, but it registered. In refusing to run to catch trains, I have felt the true value of elegance and aesthetics in behavior, a sense of being in control of my time, my schedule and my life. Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that's what you are seeking.

I certainly believe we all suffer damage, one way or another. How could we not, except in a world of perfect parents, siblings, neighbors, companions? And then there is the question, on which so much depends, of how we react to the damage: whether we admit it or repress it, and how this affects our dealings with others. Some admit the damage, and try to mitigate it; some spend their lives trying to help others who are damaged; and then there are those whose main concern is to avoid further damage to themselves, at whatever cost. And those are the ones who are ruthless, and the ones to be careful of.

Try as I could - which wasn't very hard - I rarely ended up fantasizing a markedly different life from the one that has been mine. I don't think this is complacency; it's more likely a lack of imagination, or ambition, or something. I suppose the truth is that, yes, I'm not odd enough not to have done the things I've ended up doing with my life.

Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does: otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story. But in life? I sometimes wonder. Our attitudes and opinions change, we develop new habits and eccentricities, but that's something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that character peaks a little later: between twenty and thirty, say. And after that, we're just stuck with what we've got. We're on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn't it? And also - if this isn't too grand a word - our tragedy.

How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. TOld to others, but - mainly - to ourselves.

Dear Adrian - or rather, Dear Adrian and Veronica (hello, Bitch, and welcome to this letter)

Or, to put it another way, Someone once said that his favorite times in history were when things were collapsing, because that meant something new was being born. Does this make any sense if we apply it to our individual lives? To die when something new is being born - even if that something new is our very own self? Because just as all political and historical change sooner or later disappoints, so does adulthood. So does life. Sometimes, I think the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however long it takes, that life isn't all it's cracked up to be.

But time ... how time first grounds us and then confounds us. We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but were only being cowardly. What we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them. Time ... give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical.

Soon I realized that there were only two things that could save me - the love of a woman and artistic creation

And I would realize that in reality I had not loved or written so much as wished to love and to write.

There's always something false and humiliating in a success amongst one's own family, amongst people whose affection makes them indulgent and partial: a mother, a sister, a wife are always ready to recognize in us the genius that others obstinately deny us, but at the same time their praises do not satisfy us, and we sometimes feel them to be more bitter than frank condemnation

Obsessions either close up like abscesses which can find no outlet and slowly mature until their final, terrible outburst, or else, in more healthy persons, they find, sooner or later, some adequate means of elimination

In the end I said to myself that there was something mysterious about him; but not more so than in the case of many people of the working class, to whom wealthier people like to attribute thoughts and cares that match their position and then find that they are engrossed by the same things that matter to everybody

I wanted everything to go on undisturbed and unchanged as long as I was working. I wanted nothing to come and upset the state of profound quietness which, rightly or wrongly, I considered to be absolutely indispensable if my work were to go well

If you could look inside people's heads you'd see that everyone's got some woman or other ... but no one wants to talk about them, because if you do, it gets known and then people start gossiping ... And women, as you know, only trust the ones who don't talk