Pilgrim March

Considering the governmental gridlock in Minnesota, the budget talks on Capitol Hill, and David Brooks recent article, I thought Tolstoy’s comments about an a man devoted to theory nicely parallels the stubborn idealism of politicians who occupy the extremes of their parties.  This excerpt comes from the book, War and Peace, and the character about whom Tolstoy is describing, Pfuel, was the chief strategist for the Russian army for a period during war with Napoleon.

“Clearly, Pfuel, always ready for ironic irritation anyway, was especially upset that day that they had dared to inspect and criticize his camp without him.  From this one brief encounter with Pfuel, Prince Andrei, owing to his memories of Austerlitz, formed a clear notion of the man’s character for himself.  Pfuel was one of those hopelessly, permanently, painfully self-assured men as only Germans can be, and precisely because only Germans can be self-assured on the basis of an abstract idea — science, that is, an imaginary knowledge of the perfect truth.  A Frenchman is self-assured because he considers himself personally, in mind as well as body, irresistibly enchanting for men as well as women.  An Englishman is self-assured on the grounds that he is a citizen of the best organized state in the world, and therefore, as an Englishman, he always knows what he must do, and knows that everything he does as an Englishman is unquestionably good.  An Italian is self-assured because he is excitable and easily forgets himself and others.  A Russian is self-assured precisely because he does not know anything and does not want to know anything, because he does not believe it possible to know anything fully.  A German is self-assured worst of all, and most firmly of all, and most disgustingly of all, because he imagines that he knows the truth, science, which he has invented himself, but which for him is the absolute truth.  Such, obviously, was Pfuel.  He had science — the theory of oblique movement, which he deduced from the history of the wars of Frederick the Great — and everything he came across in contemporary military history seemed to him senselessness, barbarism, grotesque clashes in which so many mistakes were made on both sides that these wars could not be called wars: they did not fit the theory and could not serve as material for science.

In 1806 Pfuel had been one of the architects of the plan of war that had ended with Jena and Auerstadt; but he did not see in the outcome of that war the least proof of the incorrectness of his theory.  On the contrary, to his mind the departures from his theory were the only cause of the whole failure, and he with gleeful irony all his own, used to say: ‘I said then that the whole thing would go to the devil.’  Pfuel was one of those theorists who so love their theory that they forget the purpose of the theory — its application in practice; in his love for theory, he hated everything practical and did not want to know about it.  He was even glad of failure, because failure, proceeding from departures from theory in practice, only proved to him the correctness of his theory.” pg. 639-640