Abstract
Scholars recently drawn to the notion of the “postsecular” have sought to contribute to political and international thought by considering how best to think about, respond to, and live with the revitalized role of religion alongside secular values in the globalized political arena.1 The challenge and its ramifications are considerable, if only because one is quickly confronted with thorny questions concerning, for instance: the legitimacy of political violence and of current (and alternative) political and international arrangements; the tension between “universalizing” claims and calls for respectful tolerance when arbitrating between a plurality of radically different worldviews (e.g., the cosmopolitanism-communitarianism debate); and the pressing need to collaborate despite our differences so as to build a political order that is just, ideally peaceful, but also able to solve the environmental, economic, and security hazards facing humanity. Discussions of secularism and religion thus quickly lead to complex philosophical and political debates.
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Notes
For example, Joseph A. Camilleri, “Postsecularist Discourse in an ‘Age of Transition,’” Review of International Studies, 38, 5 (2012): 1019–1039;
Fred Dallmayr, “Post-Secularity and (Global) Politics: A Need for Radical Redefinition,” Review of International Studies, 38, 5 (2012): 963–973;
Luca Mavelli and Fabio Petito, “The Postsecular in International Relations: An Overview,” Review of International Studies, 38, 5 (2012): 931–942.
See the “Anarchism and World Politics” forum in Millennium: Journal of International Studies 39/2 (December 2010), the “Anarchism and IR” special issue of Global Discourse 1/2 (2010), as well as individual publication such as: Alex Prichard, “Deepening Anarchism: International Relations and the Anarchist Ideal,” Anarchist Studies, 18, 2 (2010): 29–57; and Justice, Order and Anarchy: The International Political Theory of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (London: Routledge, 2013).
For example, McKeogh, Tolstoy’s Pacifism (Amherst, New York: Cambria, 2009).
E. B. Greenwood, Tolstoy: The Comprehensive Vision (London: Methuen, 1975), 8.
Leo Tolstoy, “A Confession,” in A Confession and Other Religious Writings, trans. by Jane Kentish (London: Penguin, 1987), 17–80, 34.
Leo Tolstoy, What I Believe, trans. by Fyvie Mayo (London: C. W. Daniel, 1902), 15; “How to Read the Gospels and What Is Essential in Them,” in On Life and Essays on Religion, trans. by Aylmer Maude (London: Oxford University Press, 1934), 205–208; “Reason and Religion: A Letter to an Inquirer,” in On Life and Essays on Religion, trans. by Aylmer Maude (London: Oxford University Press, 1934), 199–204.
Leo Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief,” in A Confession and the Gospel in Brief, trans. by Aylmer Maude (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), 113–302, 167.
Leo Tolstoy, The Four Gospels Harmonised and Translated (London: Walter Scott, 1895). See also Tolstoy, “The Gospel in Brief.”
Leo Tolstoy, “What Is Religion, and Wherein Lies Its Essence?,” in On Life and Essays on Religion, trans. by Aylmer Maude (London: Oxford University Press, 1934), 226–281, 270.
For detailed scriptural passages in these different traditions, see, for instance, Dave Andrews, Plan Be: Be the Change You Want to See in the World (Milton Keynes: Authentic, 2008), 39;
Hans Küng, A Global Ethic for Global Politics and Economics, trans. by John Bowden (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 98–99.
For a more detailed elaboration of this argument, see, for instance: Alexandre Christoyannopoulos, Christian Anarchism: A Political Commentary on the Gospel (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2010); “A Christian Anarchist Critique of Violence: From Turning the Other Cheek to a Rejection of the State,” in Stephen King, Carlo Salzani, Owen Staley (eds.), Law, Morality and Politics: Global Perspectives on Violence and the State (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2010), 19–26.
Peter Brock, Pacifism in Europe to 1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), 469.
Tolstoy, in A. A. Guseinov, “Faith, God, and Nonviolence in the Teachings of Lev Tolstoy,” Russian Studies in Philosophy, 38, 2 (1999): 89–103, 100. As with other concepts that he uses, exactly what Tolstoy means by “violence” can vary according to the context of his analysis. This definition is particularly broad but ties neatly to the Golden Rule. Across his corpus, by “violence,” Tolstoy can mean physical injury, coercion, suffering, or even injustice. When it comes to politics, he often denounces the violence of prisons and courts, of the army, but also of contemporary revolutionaries. There is no doubt that exactly what counts as “violence” is a matter for debate, but for Tolstoy (hence this chapter), what is mostly meant is something akin to unwanted physical force, coercion, and suchlike.
George Kennan, “A Visit to Count Tolstoi,” The Century Magazine, 34, 2 (1887): 252–265, 257.
For a remarkable study of the challenges that army training has to surmount in order to turn human beings into killing machines, see David A. Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, revised ed. (n.p.: Back Bay Books, 2009). For further reflection on this and the Milgram experiment, see also
Milan Rai, Abolishing War: Getting Our Focus Right (Movement for the Abolition of War, 2011): http://www.abolishwar.org.uk/views.php?p=43.
Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is within You: Christianity Not as a Mystic Religion but as a New Theory of Life, trans. by Constance Garnett (n.p.: www.nonresistance.org, 2006), 79; Lyof N. Tolstoï, What to Do?, trans. by unknown (London: Walter Scott, n.d.), 5.
Alexandre Christoyannopoulos, “Leo Tolstoy on the State: A Detailed Picture of Tolstoy’s Denunciation of State Violence and Deception,” Anarchist Studies, 16, 1 (2008): 20–47; Tolstoy, What I Believe; and The Kingdom of God Is within You.
Leo Tolstoy, “The Slavery of Our Times,” in Essays from Tula, trans. by Free Age Press (London: Sheppard, 1948), 65–136, 117.
Derek Wall, The No-Nonsense Guide to Green Politics (Oxford: New Internationalist, 2010).
David Stephens, “The Non-Violent Anarchism of Leo Tolstoy,” in David Stephens (ed.), Government Is Violence: Essays on Anarchism and Pacifism (London: Phoenix, 1990), 7–19, 18.
Aylmer Maude, Tolstoy and His Problems (London: Grand Richards, 1901), 160.
Alexandre Christoyannopoulos and Joseph Milne, “Love, Justice, and Social Eschatology,” The Heythrop Journal, 48, 6 (2007): 972–991.
Peter Maurin, Easy Essays (Washington: Rose Hill, 2003), 193.
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© 2014 Luca Mavelli and Fabio Petito
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Christoyannopoulos, A. (2014). The Golden Rule on the Green Stick: Leo Tolstoy’s International Thought for a “Postsecular” Age. In: Mavelli, L., Petito, F. (eds) Towards a Postsecular International Politics. Culture and Religion in International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137341785_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137341785_5
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