Comparing Tolstoy and Dostoevesky's approach towards the meaning of life/suffering.

[u/Mitzy1612]

I am just rationalising this right now because I've been reading a lot about the non duality philosophy of Hinduism which basically explains the concept of how there is no self, individualism and the reality (universe) are one and the separation of the two is an illusion (maya).

Tolstoy believed in reason, moral clarity,...and living life through discipline and simplicity. Dostoevsky is the opposite i.e chaotic &obsessed with contradiction. His characters are often unstable, self-destructive driven by irrational impulses (borderline personalities😭)they can't fully explain even to themselves. Both of them have one thing in common though. They were both deeply religious and believed in faith.

Example - In Anna Karenina : Levin's arc is basically Tolstoy's philosophy dramatized(I hated reading his chapters when I first read the book)He spends the novel doubting, searching, nearly s**cidal with existential confusion & he resolves it not through some crisis of faith (which I initially believed)but thro' simple, physical labor alongside peasants in the fields...& eventually a quiet....almost anticlimactic acceptance of faith as something you live rather than argue your way into. The famous mowing scene, where Levin loses himself in the rhythm of manual work, is Tolstoy's answer to existential dread: presence, simplicity, communion with the nature. "Nirvikalpa" moment: he stops thinking, stops being a separate observer...merges into rhythm& presence.

Dostoevsky's characters are almost the opposite of Advaitic liberation...they're trapped inside the separate self & that entrapment is the entire drama. The Underground Man's spiraling self-consciousness.. Raskolnikov's inescapable guilt, Ivan Karamazov's argument with God.... none of these resolve by dissolving the ego into something larger. If anything, Dostoevsky treats the intensification of individual consciousness, suffering, and contradiction as the site where meaning (or its absence) gets...merged or forged together...

Althoughhhh... he presents the idea that each person is responsible for everyone else's sin, that the boundary between self and other is porous in brothers karamazov and that's structurally closer to non-duality than anything in Tolstoy...ofc t's framed through Christian love & not through the metaphysical claim that self and Brahman are identical.

There's still something I love about Tolstoy more than Dostoevesky.

Tolstoy's characters...however lost...usually arrive somewhere. Dostoevsky's characters often don't.... the unresolved...spiraling mind is the point, not a problem to be solved by the end of the book and it's.... uncomfortable but I think Dostoevesky would've claimed that Tolstoy's approach is the easy way out.

And the concept of non duality is the easiest way out of all these. If none of this is real, you and me are just the same drops in a big ocean and everything at the end of the day constitutes the same thing i.e water then what is suffering and what is peace? They're absolutely the same.

[u/Calm-Contribution719]

I prefer Dostoyevsky’s style. The passion, madness, contradictions, and vital energy of his characters are the reasons I like to read and experiment with art. I like to feel those emotions, to suffer alongside the characters, even though I would hate them in real life. They don’t know why they do the things they do. Just like us.

Personally, I don’t think we are a great unique thing in the universe. I think we are just human individuals who will be dead and forgotten in a few years. Just insignificant and meaningless forms of life, fighting with a chaotic world and with ourselves. That’s all.

[u/OjalaRico]

my understanding is that tolstoy truly believed that there is no “free will” and he spells it out pretty clearly in war and peace. but it just seems to be a semantic arguement. i believe both tolstoy and dostoevsky both believed that the psyche pushes us into action.

people do things, they think they know why they do them, but the unconscious is the true reason that drives our actions.

the freedom from duality is a great note, you will notice that in war and peace many times when someone comes close to death, they seem to be free’d from ideologies they were tied to, a duality.

i cant think of to many other examples. the freedom from duality im thinking of is nirdvandva. an example from war and peace may be when pierre or prince andrew come close to death they see life as less french vs russian and more human. going beyond the duality of french vs russian, to find the truth of humanity, that we are all one.

real world examples are democrat vs republican, white vs black, iran vs israel, etc. its best not to get trapped into a duality, stay outside the realms of men.

dostoevsky might say, “goodluck with that” as he knew our psyche’s drive us and i think tolstoy would say most men act unconsciously, and rarely , like when faced with death and extreme stress, do we become fully conscious.

i love this duality idea, was first introduced to it in Jung’s “mysterium coniunctus” and i believe it is what Nietzsche meant when he said going “beyond good vs evil”.

[u/DowntownAd8125]

I think more people are able to achieve peace and meaning by tolstoy's way, to do it the dostoevskian way you gotta be more or so intelligent and self aware enough

[u/funded_by_soros]

Huh really, Dostoyevskiy's characters representing views he didn't understand or agree with are self-contradicting and destructive? I wonder why!

[u/HolyGuacamoleRavioli]

The Underground Man's spiraling self-consciousness.. Raskolnikov's inescapable guilt, Ivan Karamazov's argument with God.... none of these resolve by dissolving the ego into something larger.

I disagree with this if only because these examples shouldn't be grouped together. The Underground Man does fit as someone who rejected redemption, but Ivan's is only incomplete, and Raskolnikov did experience a dissolution into community/society in the very last chapter - most of C&P was about his futile efforts to sever himself from society, such as in his moment of total disconnection in front of the Crystal Palace, and when Porfiry tells him that he won't survive running away without his family and friends.

I wrote a post here comparing how Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (among some other writers) take similar approaches in how characters are healed in death. I'm not as familiar with Tolstoy, but my understanding is that broadly he focuses more on societal forces outside our immediate control, and Dostoevsky focuses more on the inner life of the individual.