Re:The Vast Humanity of Anton Chekhov
by azubinski on Thursday January 26, 2023 @04:38AM
(#34529616)
Considering what russia is doing and how propaganda works, it’s not so interesting why there are so many Chekhov and Dostoevsky on a forum for "hackers". It's interesting that there is so little about ballet here :)
Re:The Vast Humanity of Anton Chekhov
by fancybouncy on Thursday January 26, 2023 @09:14AM
(#34531801)
writers not from colonialist regimes don't make it to HN because most of us never heard of them at school, which focuses on western writers.
are you aware that most wealthy countries are or have been colonialist regimes? this includes much of Europe, North America, Japan and China.
Re:The Vast Humanity of Anton Chekhov
by somethingreen on Thursday January 26, 2023 @11:21AM
(#34533768)
The argument is not that everyone who likes old russian writers is a shill. It's that people bringing them up at current time can't read a room at least, give in to their own imperialist tendencies probably and it only goes worse from there.
Re:The Vast Humanity of Anton Chekhov
by myth_drannon on Thursday January 26, 2023 @09:16AM
(#34531818)
And why Lex Fridman talks a lot about Dostoyevsky. Is he a Russian sleeper agent?
No doubt Russia tries to promote it's culture everywhere. Openly or secretly(Youtube) or forcebly/violently. But same applies to China. Change my opinion but the "Three Body problem" success was 100% due to CPP secretly pushing it. Not to mention Dr.Zhivago and CIA campaign... Now that I think about it, maybe Dostoyevsky is pushed by CIA to create an image of Russian people as gloomy and dark.
Re:The Vast Humanity of Anton Chekhov
by kombine on Thursday January 26, 2023 @09:41AM
(#34532123)
Fridman is a hypocrite who never found the courage to unequivocally condemn Russia's aggression. All he could utter was some bullshit about "love", "peace", "meaning of life" and so on. I am saying that as a Russian, by the way. I'm still happy to see Chekhov on the front pages - after the fall of Putin's regime we will need to rebuild our relationship with the world, and our literature still remains a lifeline.
Re:The Vast Humanity of Anton Chekhov
by myth_drannon on Thursday January 26, 2023 @10:07AM
(#34532524)
But that's his persona. He never really goes full on, always tries to maintain neutrality. In his interview with that rapper who was saying vile things he just kept talking about love.
Re:The Vast Humanity of Anton Chekhov
by kombine on Thursday January 26, 2023 @11:27AM
(#34533853)
Exactly, and maintaining neutrality in the face of absolute evil is immoral. Such neutrality justifies an equivalence between the aggressor and the victim and provides the evil with an advantage, because, suddenly, instead of punishment it will have to be dealt with in a civilised manner.
Re:The Vast Humanity of Anton Chekhov
by somethingreen on Thursday January 26, 2023 @11:55AM
(#34534384)
At the start of the big war Fridman went on podcasts as an expert on the conflict and all he did was re-translate russian talking points. He's way worse than hypocrite.
To be fair, he's not alone, a good half of IDW - group supposedly too intelligent and principled for mainstream media - turned out to be neither intelligent, nor principled, when those qualities got tested by real world events instead of social network drama.
Re:The Vast Humanity of Anton Chekhov
by kombine on Thursday January 26, 2023 @02:27PM
(#34537371)
Tbh, I never understood the whole hype about IDW. Sam Harris is the only one worth respecting there, whereas Dave Rubin and Ben Shapiro are both absolutely disgusting.
Re:The Vast Humanity of Anton Chekhov
by somethingreen on Thursday January 26, 2023 @04:46PM
(#34539298)
I found most of them did have at least one interesting take or a perspective. Listening to people able to talk on serious topic for hours going deep into nuance was refreshing. And then there was Eric Weinstein, who could do that on seemingly endless array of topics and would casually drop gold after gold, before he got stuck on his DISC thing. But after "Ukraine is being brutalized. It is also corrupt." he is dead to me, of course.
Re:The Vast Humanity of Anton Chekhov
by dang on Thursday January 26, 2023 @08:45PM
(#34541465)
I see your point, but I'm using the word loosely to refer to internet flamewars about nations. One could also mention the site guideline about ideological battle. Either way, this kind of flamewar comment isn't what we're looking for here, not least because it tends to evoke worse than others (although it didn't do so in this particular case).
Re:The Vast Humanity of Anton Chekhov
by lordleft on Thursday January 26, 2023 @09:49AM
(#34532260)
I will never stop marveling at the way Chekhov can turn an inner life inside out in one to three pages. One of the jewels of Russian literature.
One of the most surprising things about Chekhov is how his writing is some ways beyond ideology, politics or convictions —- he tries to present people as they are, and he implies that people behave according to incentives and drives instead of their purported beliefs.
Re:The Vast Humanity of Anton Chekhov
by lykahb on Thursday January 26, 2023 @04:06PM
(#34538848)
The "vast humanity" of the Russian literature is a part of their imperial myth. The Russians like claiming that they have the greatest culture, literature, or a "unique Russian soul". This myth justifies their military expansion and erasing the culture and language of the conquered nations.
That "vast humanity" of their culture has never got in the way of the Russians from committing atrocities. Interestingly, the Russians still claim that they never invaded other states - they only liberate them. They never acknowledged the sins of the past.
Chekhov was less of a nationalist than Dostoyevsky or many others. However, giving spotlight to any figure from the Russian culture means giving support to their soft power. It also shifts the attention away from their war crimes. A modern Russian does not read Chekhov. He watches propaganda and cheers for the strikes on the civilian targets in Ukraine.
http://web.archive.org/web/20230126073138/https://newrepubli...
‘Chekhov Becomes Chekhov’ Review: The Great Listener - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34056298 - Dec 2022 (5 comments)
No writer understood loneliness better than Chekhov - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24852362 - Oct 2020 (33 comments)
How Chekhov invented the modern short story - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24380587 - Sept 2020 (44 comments)
Love in the Time of Numbness; Or, Doctor Chekhov, Writer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14228231 - April 2017 (4 comments)
Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions” - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13866586 - March 2017 (209 comments)
The Notebooks of Anton Chekhov - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11226676 - March 2016 (1 comment)
"The Bet" by Anton Chekhov - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1288463 - April 2010 (16 comments)
(you can look up the gun separately)
Two Stories: Anton Chekhov and Jo Ann Beard
https://marygaitskill.substack.com/p/two-stories
"HN is the first in space but last at the ballet"
Is it possible that Chekhov and Dostoevsky were just really good writers? That maybe we liked them long before Putin started Putin-ing?
But no, everyone else apart from you is an easily led sheep and Putin or whoever else is the shepherd.
P.S. Also Russia, which is not really Europe.
Now, its eastern\southern\northen parts\colonies - are not (except for the north and south -west of course)
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34529215.
To be fair, he's not alone, a good half of IDW - group supposedly too intelligent and principled for mainstream media - turned out to be neither intelligent, nor principled, when those qualities got tested by real world events instead of social network drama.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34529215.
One of the most surprising things about Chekhov is how his writing is some ways beyond ideology, politics or convictions —- he tries to present people as they are, and he implies that people behave according to incentives and drives instead of their purported beliefs.
That "vast humanity" of their culture has never got in the way of the Russians from committing atrocities. Interestingly, the Russians still claim that they never invaded other states - they only liberate them. They never acknowledged the sins of the past.
Chekhov was less of a nationalist than Dostoyevsky or many others. However, giving spotlight to any figure from the Russian culture means giving support to their soft power. It also shifts the attention away from their war crimes. A modern Russian does not read Chekhov. He watches propaganda and cheers for the strikes on the civilian targets in Ukraine.