On the Holding of Views

I made the horrible decision the other day after finishing the novel I was reading at the time to start Tolstoy's Anna Karenina as my next piece of fiction. An 815 page tome is a bad choice for the middle of an already busy semester, but it has been a decade now since I first read the book and I have looked at it wistfully on my shelf for the past year or so and finally gave in last night.

Six pages in, I was so glad to be back:

Stepan Arkadyich subscribed to and read a liberal newspaper, not an extreme one, but one with the tendency to which the majority held. And though neither science, nor art, nor politics itself interested him, he firmly held the same views on all these subjects as the majority and his newspaper did, and changed them only when the majority did, or, rather, he did not change them, but they themselves changed imperceptibly in him. 

Stepan Arkadyich chose neither his tendency nor his views, but these tendencies and views came to him themselves, just as he did not choose the shape of a hat or a frock coat, but bought those that were in fashion. And for him, who lived in a certain circle, and who required some mental activity such as usually develops with maturity, having views was as necessary as having a hat. If there was a reason why he preferred the liberal tendency to the conservative one (also held to by many in his circle), it was not because he found the liberal tendency more sensible, but because it more closely suited his manner of life.

Is this not the great majority of our voters? Holding opinions because opinions must be held; holding only those that comport well with our previously held biases; changing our affinities imperceptibly as public opinion moves on. 

I have no problem, in most cases, with people changing their political convictions. Sometimes upon reflection this is warranted. I have certainly changed my mind on things. But what Tolstoy is fairly explicitly critiquing here is not a genuine and reasoned shift but one made simply to accommodate current fashions. And then, of course, we applaud ourselves for believing the right thing.