Sergey Ivanovitch used to say that he knew and liked the peasantry, and he often talked to the peasants, which he knew how to do without affectation or condescension, and from every such conversation he would deduce general conclusions in favour of the peasantry and in confirmation of his knowing them. Konstantin Levin did not like such an attitude to the peasants. To Konstantin the peasant was simply the chief partner in their common labour, and in spite of all the respect and the love, almost like that of kinship, he had for the peasant - sucked in probably, as he said himself, with the milk of his peasant nurse - still as a fellow-worker with him, while sometimes enthusiastic over the vigour, gentleness, and justice of these men, he was very often, when their common labours called for other qualities, exasperated with the peasant for his carelessness, lack of method, drunkenness, and lying. If he had been asked whether he liked or didn't like the peasant, Konstantin Levin would have been absolutely at a loss what to reply. He liked and did not like the peasants, just as he liked and did not like men in general. Of course, being a good-hearted man, he liked men rather than he disliked them, and so too with the peasants. But like or dislike "the people" as something apart he could not, not only because he lived with "the people", and all his interests were bound up with theirs, but also because he regarded himself as a part of "the people", did not see any special qualities or failings distinguishing himself and "the people", and could not contrast himself with them. Moreover, although he had lived so long in the closest relations with the peasants, as farmer and arbitrator, and what was more, as adviser (the peasants trusted him, and for thirty miles round they would come to ask his advice), he had no definite views of "the people", and would have been as much at a loss to answer the question whether he knew "the people" as the question whether he liked them. For him to say he knew the peasantry would have been the same as to say he knew men. He was continually watching and getting to know people of all sorts, and among them peasants, whom he regarded as good and interesting people, and he was continually observing new points in them, altering his former views of them and forming new ones. With Sergey Ivanovitch it was quite the contrary. Just as he liked and praised a country life in comparison with the life he did not like [Moscow], so too he liked the peasantry in contradistinction to the class of men he did not like, and so too he knew the peasantry as something distinct from and opposed to men generally. In his methodical brain there were distinctly formulated certain aspects of peasant life, deduced partly from that life itself, but chiefly from contrast with other modes of life. He never changed his opinion of the peasantry and his sympathetic attitude towards them.
In the discussions that arose between the brothers on their views of the peasantry, Sergey Ivanovitch always got the better of his brother, precisely because Sergey Ivanovitch had definite ideas about the peasant - his character, his qualities, and his tastes. Konstantin Levin had no definite and unalterable idea on the subject, and so in their arguments Konstantin was readily convicted of contradicting himself.
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karennina
If all communication is a representation of reality (the act of projecting meaning into some external vehicle) then verbal communication is the representation of reality with limited bandwidth. In other situations, more words might increase accuracy (like more pixels in a photograph), but in conversation this extra accuracy has quite the opposite effect: it is like trying to stream high-definition films over a patchy Wi-Fi.
Conversation, then, is a compromise between truthfulness and conveyance, between staying faithful to one's own meaning and getting some of that meaning across. Here is where Konstantin Levin and Sergey Ivanovich come in.
Sergey Ivanovich always gets the better of his brother in debates, not because he is necessarily right but because he is a better communicator. That "[Levin] liked and did not like the peasants, just as he liked and did not like men in general" is at once perfectly accurate and completely void of argumentative vigour. It is a complex idea and most people don't have time for complex ideas, especially if they require effort to understand.
Sergey's ideas win because they propose a representation of reality that is pithy, compelling and readily understandable, largely by doing away with nuance and variation, and the inconvenient messiness of real life. Levin might be right in reality but he is always wrong in conversation: the picture he holds of "the people" is simply too complex for jaunty delivery and, as a listener, his brother is incapable, or unwilling, to admit meaning that is poorly conveyed. An intellectual and public figure, for Sergey debating is a sport: winning is as much about content as about good form.
Also interesting is the observation that Sergey "never changed his opinion of the peasantry and his sympathetic attitude towards them" while Levin "was continually watching and getting to know people of all sorts, and among them peasants, whom he regarded as good and interesting people, (...) continually observing new points in them, altering his former views of them and forming new ones". It is as if holding a system of beliefs that is a steady structure of coherent, valid opinions, coexisting in a logical edifice like a well-constructed building, you must necessarily be conservative about changing individual views on a whim, lest you unwittingly bring the whole thing tumbling down. Levin's beliefs are more like tapioca pearls in a swirling drink of bubble tea: they can float and evolve freely, without the risk of invalidating, by their dynamism, every other aspect of Levin's life.
This is not to say that Sergey Ivanovitch is wrong or deceiving himself. In fact his opinions may be quite valid and possibly more useful than Levin's, who anyway refuses to get involved in politics altogether. The point is only to notice that perceiving reality in all its ever-changing complexity and communicating, making 'sense' of it are fundamentally opposing forces. When you take a picture, draw a sketch, record a sentence, form and voice a belief, you may capture a small drop of truth, but the very minute when it is captured, it is falsified: out of context, all representation of reality is a slight falsification of it. Yet representation of reality is what all communication is.
The only way we can talk about the real world is through some degree of falsification. Levin's falsification is minimal, so his communication poor.
There is, however, a possible escape from this conundrum: through empathy. Sergey fails to imagine what is not being said, he won't allow valid meaning if presented in bad form. He holds Levin up to his previous statements and exposes his contradictions. His style of communication is very much of the adversarial kind, of lawyers and politicians. He refuses to acknowledge meaning beyond what is submitted to the debate through explicit statements. This is not in itself a bad style: it is in fact quite useful when dealing exclusively in "visible" currency (like spoken words) helps to keep people accountable. But important things may be left out of it.
Empathy (as well as compassion, kindness, friendship, love) can bridge the rift between what is being said and what is being meant. Empathy allows people the freedom to be wrong, to change their minds, to go back and refine their statements, to say things which are contradicting or silly or incomplete, to misunderstand and be misunderstood, to ask and to stand corrected - and still, eventually, get themselves across.
Empathy allows people to communicate without lying.
Sergey and Levin never speak with genuine empathy and despite their frequent conversations, in the end, they never really understand one another. Eloquence and pithiness, precision and panache, alliterations, lilting and good form may all make great speakers, but great consensus-builders cannot succeed without a good measure of emotion. That is: empathy, patience, goodwill, compassion.
