In her September 2 Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Peggy Noonan, columnist, Pulitzer Prize winner, and former speech writer for Ronald Reagan, wrote about War and Peace, I believe one of the greatest novels ever written. Certainly one of the longest.
Though now in her early seventies, Noonan had never read War and Peace so she did so during her summer vacation this year. And then she wrote about the novel and its author, Leo Tolstoy, in her weekly Saturday column. I am a fan of Noonan, War and Peace, and Tolstoy, so I sat down to read the piece with considerable anticipation: “Peggy Noonan’s Summer With Leo Tolstoy.”
It was stupendous! She says “To think I might have died without reading it.”
Her praise is profound. “Sometimes a thing is called a masterpiece because it is a masterpiece.” “It is about life.” It is about love, about the human condition, about war, and peace, and pain, and suffering, and joy, and . . . death. And it is beautifully told.
Noonan closes her column with this: “When you allow a past work of art to enter your mind and imagination, you are embarked on a kind of reclamation project. As you read, Nicholas and Sonya are alive, but Tolstoy himself is still alive. He isn’t gone, his mind is still producing, he is still producing. He continues and you are continuing something.”
My reading of War and Peace was sixty or so years ago, but there is something I want to add to Peggy Noonan’s Opinion. I have remembered often through the years that Tolstoy wrote how the many little decisions by the millions of little people cause great movements like war – and peace. But despite many hours of searching through the book’s pages, I could not find the place that subject is discussed. So I asked chatGPT for help.
And, believe it or not, I got help! Here is what the chatbot wrote:
War and Peace contains many passages that discuss the role of individual decisions in shaping historical events. One notable passage that addresses this theme can be found in Book 2, Part 4, Chapter 2. Tolstoy delves into the idea that historical events are not solely determined by the actions of a few prominent figures, but are the result of countless small decisions made by ordinary people.
Tolstoy emphasizes the importance of these “little people” in the grand tapestry of history and how their seemingly insignificant choices collectively contribute to the unfolding of major historical events. He underscores the idea that history is not solely the domain of great generals and leaders but is influenced by the countless actions of everyday individuals.
The passage you’re looking for is often referred to as Tolstoy’s theory of history, and it reflects his philosophical perspective on the nature of historical causation.
I wish Noonan had discussed this theory of Tolstoy’s. I would like to know what she thinks about it in the light of today’s problems. For example, are the little people who are propelling Donald Trump to the Presidency he is not qualified for causing a seismic world event like the end of the democratic experiment in America?
There is another issue I would to add to Peggy Noonan’s piece. After he wrote War and Peace, Tolstoy became a pacifist, applying his passion and intellect during the last thirty years of his life to advocating for peace in the world. He voices familiar arguments against war — its terrible inhumanity, its futility from violence begetting violence, its wasteful financial cost and destruction of property, and its legacy of bitterness with nations prepared to breach peace agreements when it suits them. But his main focus was on war’s irrationality, and he argues that we need to embrace a pacifism of non-resistance to violence as the means necessary for our survival.
Tolstoy was a religious pacifist rather than an ethical or political one. His pacifism was rooted not in a moral doctrine or political theory but in his belief that there is a bit of the devine (God) in every human being. That belief is the source of pacifism in the Society of Friends (Quaker) religion today.
How did writing War and Peace influence Tolstoy to be pacifist? I think, greatly. In his own writing and imagination, he had to face the fact of his fellow human beings in battle with orders to kill and maim. In War and Peace Tolstoy describes Prince Andrei’s moral awakening to a pacifist understanding. Lying wounded and disillusioned on the battlefield at Austerlitz, Andrei reflects on the falsehood of war and of much in human activity that reflects vanity and pride.
Images of ballistic missiles being launched and streaking across the skies over Ukraine are antithetical to the pacifism Tolstoy espoused. Apart from the terrifying death and destruction they bring, they are a graphic assault on the sensibility required to live in harmony with each other and the devine.
I wish Noonan had discussed Tolstoy’s pacifism and its connection with writing War and Peace, and its meaning for today. But we can’t have everything; her column was the best, and brought back a ton of memories, emotions, and thoughts about life – and death.
Just Sayin’.
John R. Dixon 