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JSYK, The New Criterion sometimes features outstanding criticism, but it also has an ideological bent. Both Tolstoy and Shakespeare are often labeled as “conser
by jonstewart 8y ago
JSYK, The New Criterion sometimes features outstanding criticism, but it also has an ideological bent. Both Tolstoy and Shakespeare are often labeled as “conservatives,” but that’s a reductionist treatment of them and their art transcends base politics. However, that the first sentence of TFA extols Tolstoy’s supposed conservatism is a clue to raise your ideological shields before reading further, lest you find yourself nodding along with a publication that invented the Edmund Burke Award and then bestowed it upon one of its commentators, Henry Kissinger.
- cat199 8y agoperhaps also not-so-curiously lacking is also any mention of orthodox christianity as part of the worldviews presented; russians as a whole are presented as being proto-communists and ultra-rationalist: for example: "In England, utilitarianism supported moderate liberalism, but by the 1860s Russians took it as proof of revolutionary socialism." .. you know, umm.. except for the ones that didn't. not to mention that marx and his 'dialectical materialism' was published from london, etc. Tolstoy's faith (though clearly not always in agreement with the church) is here simply a 'personal' one which magically appeared in a vacuum. etc.
- jonstewart 8y agoUh oh, looks like The New Criterion enforcers found me. I don’t think pointing out the well-known POV of a publication (read the wiki entry) should result in down-modding.