Anna and Vronsky's affair does not run contrary to social mores but rather, for Tolstoy, is produced by them. The 'spirit of lies' (pt 2 CH 27) is Society itself. His profound distrust of Society makes AK a prototypical critique of the media and of celebrity. It can be conceived of as part of McLuhan's project as much as a general ethical or theological work.
Furthermore it is important to collect examples of where Vronsky and Anna are read as being straightforwardly in love, straightforwardly "star crossed lovers".
They are false because the Society that produces them is false, not because they must necessarily deceive Karenin, Anna's husband. The real target of Tolstoy's critique is Society which, like Heidegger's "Das Man" merely hands on received opinions and petty falsehoods.
It is not therefore a simple and straightforward injustice which distinguishes Oblonsky's affair from his sister, Anna's: he is morally less in love with the truth than she is (hence her "straight backed" appearance in Society prior to her fall). The corrosion of her behaviour is a byproduct of her immersion in a society built on lies. Her personal anguish is the unique subject of the novel and not her love for Vronsky. Paradoxically, then, it is Levin who is her nearest analogue in the novel rather than her opposite. His withdrawal to the country, a self imposed exile of which we are constantly reminded, has presumably saved him from the same fate as Anna: succumbing to Society; madness at his inability to reconcile with it and, eventually, death.
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