Imagine the scene at Harvard in the spring of 1978 when Alexander Solzhenitsyn gave his now-famous address. Solzhenitsyn had already won the Nobel Prize for The Gulag Archipelago and other great works exposing the murderous nature of atheist Communism. But at Harvard Solzhenitsyn touched on a topic much closer to home.
Even though he was second to none in his denunciation of totalitarian socialism, Solzhenitsyn said, "should someone ask me whether I would indicate the West such as it is today as a model to my country, frankly I would have to answer negatively." The whole address is worth reading, but here are some highlights.
On the lack of courage in facing a totalitarian enemy: "The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country...and of course in the United Nations....Such a decline is especially notable among ruling groups and the intellectual elite....They get tongue-tied and paralyzed when they deal with powerful governments and threatening forces, with aggressors and international terrorists."
On how materialism makes a nation soft: "Every citizen has been granted the desired freedom and material goods in such quantity and of such quality as to guarantee in theory the pursuit of happiness...So why and for what should one risk one's precious life in defense of common values and particularly in such nebulous cases when the security of one's nation must be defended in a distant country?"
On what has happened to the rule of law: "People in the West has acquired considerable skill in using, interpreting and manipulating law....If one is right from a legal point of view, nothing more is required, nobody might mention that one could still not be entirely right and urge a willingness to show restraint or sacrifice. Everybody operates at the extreme limits of those legal frames....A society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed, but a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man either."
On the rights of criminals: "Legal frames especially in the United States are broad enough to encourage not only individual freedom but also certain individual crimes. The culprit can go unpunished or obtain undeserved leniency with the support of legions of public defenders. When a government starts an earnest fight against terrorism, public opinion immediately accuses it of violating the terrorists' civil rights. There are many such cases."
On the abuses of freedom: "Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Soceity appears to have litle defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, motion pictures full of pornography, crime and horror...Such a tilt of freedom in the directionof evil has come about gradually but it was evidently born out of a humanistic concept according to which there is no evil inherent to human nature."
On freedom of the press: "The press, too, enjoys the widest freedom. But what use does it make of this freedom? The press has become the greatest power within the Western countries, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. One would then like to ask: by what law has it been elected and to whom is it responsible? How many hasty, immature, superficial and misleading judgments are expressed every day, confusing readers, and without any verification? Thus we see terrorists made into heroes, or secret matters pertaining to the national defense publicly revealed, or shameful intrusion into the privacy of people under the false slogan: everyone has the right to know everything."
On the atrophy of the spiritual life: "Mere freedom does not in the least solve all the problems of human life and it even adds some new ones....We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life."
Thirty years ago, the very chattering classes mentioned in Solzhenitsyn's address ridiculed the man as a reactionary and a crank. The literary critic Susan Sontag describes Manhattan cocktail parties at which the cultural left would laugh at Solzhenitsyn. No one--certainly not liberals and libertarians--wanted to hear what the New York Times called Solzhenitsyn's "hectoring jeremiads."
But today when you go to Asia you hear everywhere the slogan, "Modernization, yes; Westernization, no." Throughout the Muslim world there is a reaction--exploited of course by the Islamic radicals--against what is perceived as the shamelessness and decadence of Western values and culture. Even in the West there is deep ambivalence about what has happened to cherished notions of liberty, the rule of law, freedom of the press, and the pursuit of happiness.
We don't have to agree with Solzhenitsyn on everything to say that, far from being a reactionary, here was a man who was ahead of his time in diagnosing some of the serious ailments of the modern era. Not only was he right about the Gulag; in many respects this forlorn Russian hermit was also right about us.
Reader Comments ( Page 7 of 19)
91.
Bill nice thoughts but you don't sound credible. One has to be spiritual to assist others? Pride is divorced from spirituality, theism and/or christianity?
JefFlyingV at 3:22AM on Aug 6th 2008
92. "if anyone held the bible to even half the standards you place on science it would have been dismissed as nonsense long ago." - tmo
Actually there have been non-theist-non-deist people who have rejected the bible as a result of it's nutty claims for as long as there has been a bible! Science wasn't just for the modern era! There were enlightened atheists going back many thousands of years before the nutty christian variants started.
Peter at 3:28AM on Aug 6th 2008
93. "I would rather be a slave to faith in something, and help someone else out along the way because of that faith, than to be a slave to my own pride and arrogance, and drag others down through selfishness." - Bill Triebel
Geeze you christians sure are horrific people with your nasty contrasts of what life would be like without your delusional faith based beliefs in nutty mythologies of invisible sky gods.
It's always doom and gloom with you if you loose your faith. That's known as a buttress fear belief that has been installed in your brainwashing to ensure that you keep in compliance within your variant of the religious cults.
It just isn't so Bill Triebel, you can rest assured that if you lost your faith you'd not turn into some monster; if anything you'd be much less of a monster driven by faith and more of a caring empathetic human being. Seek out a cult deprogrammer Bill or some atheists you can talk with in person to help you through you transition.
See atheists can help people without any need for a limiting faith based beliefs in mythical gods.
Peter at 3:33AM on Aug 6th 2008
94. Kumar: "Your question assumes that Christians are happy that people are going to hell!!!!!"
I don't think that's the case, but the concept of heaven and hell arose when people were living in communities that would be 100% christian and families would be 100% christian (catholic actually).
I don't think these concepts of eternal reward and damnation will survive much longer in today diverse melting-pot society. People have a multitude of friends from different religions or from no religion, they fall in love and marry people from different religions or from no religion.
So it's one thing to have a "sense of gladness" about the dirty heathens and heretics being in hell, but it's another to have it about the love of your life, your mother or your sister.
Ryan Anderson at 6:36AM on Aug 6th 2008
95. dd, why do you not have the balls to respond to people as yourself? why do you have to masquerade as kumar? it is pathetic, and your ballsy hero, george bush would be ashamed of you.
America's Most Gangsta at 7:06AM on Aug 6th 2008
96. Ryan,
I lived most of my life in a country where Budhism was the majority religion, hindhuism next and Christianity and Islam forming the minority religions... culturally yes it is a melting pot but that hasnt changed the basic beliefs of each religion. Hindhuism is a syncretistic religion and is able to co-opt just about anything into its beliefs, but even here they recognise that Christians make claims which are not compatible with their polytheism.
kumar at 7:20AM on Aug 6th 2008
97. Ryan,
I take your point about struggling when your view in effect condemns someone you love to hell. I struggle with it as well! But i think these are emotional problems with a doctrine, rather than intelectual ones...
kumar at 7:26AM on Aug 6th 2008
98. Kumar; it's an emotional problem for sure. Gladness?
I'm coming from the point of view that heaven and hell are societal constructs and you are coming from the point of view (I think) that they are metaphysical realities.
With that said, the intellectual problem with the doctrine is that the doctrine was invented when the emotional problem didn't exist, or was minimal.
Ryan Anderson at 7:36AM on Aug 6th 2008
99. I don't know Dinesh, it seems that this this Solzhenitsyn character seemed to be advocating for the very type of government he was railing against?
It's also apparant that totalitarianism as far as you're concerned is largely a matter of perspective.
Four legs good
Two legs Bad
Trampled civil rights under Democrats:BAD
Trampled civil rights under Republicans:GOOD
Uncle Meat at 8:38AM on Aug 6th 2008
100. Bill T - you're pulling out the micro vs macro arguement? And you call yourself a scientist? Evolution is evolution, no micro or macro. People always seem to get caught upin the "random chance" thing. The chance (probability) of you picking 6 lucky numbers is quite small - millions to one against. However, millions of people "randomly" picking 6 numbers significantly increases the chance (probability) that SOMEONE will hit the right combination - as a matter of fact it happens several times a year.
Darwins theory proposes that organisms change in response to changes in their environment. Random chance deals with the inability to predict which individual organism will change, but with millions or billions of organisms change will occur. Some changes are based on mistakes in DNA replication within the organism itself, or its mate, or its offspring. High energy particles can also cause mutations and DNA errors. Some errors turn out to be benefical. Some are detrimental. Species rise and fall based on the statistical culmination of these mutations.
Darwin's theories are not invalidated because we now have a different view of the universe's time scale. 13 billion years (approx age of the universe) can allow a lot of changes.
Ron V at 9:05AM on Aug 6th 2008
101. It amazes me how many "intellectual" people have responded to this story. Perhaps the Nobel Prize committee should be looking here for the next candidate. It seems there are many whom believe they are the chosen one. How sad this is.
JIM at 9:19AM on Aug 6th 2008
102. Ron V; Bill T also claimed to be a scientist, but then sited the fact that he personally hadn't evolved as evidence against evolution. Stunning, really.
Ryan Anderson at 9:23AM on Aug 6th 2008
103. Allow me to use the medium of this blog to celebrate the legacy of the man mourned here,Aleskandr Solzhenyitsn.He was a fearless man who stood up against injustice and who always was ready to say something was wrong,even when it was not the popular thing to do.May he rest in peace.
I think that his comments about the moral state of the West do bear repeating.In my humble opinion,we need a moral framework.We cannot always say that truth is relative or that my version of truth is better than yours;we all need that moral framework.
When we lose the moral framework,people get hurt.An example.I am a doctor.The first AIDS patient i saw was a morally pure woman who married an immorally impure man,who had multiple sexual partners and did not use a condom,and ultimately infected his wife with AIDS.If he had followed the wise words of the 'stupid' book called the Bible,he would have never gotten AIDS in the first place.As it is,he died,and left a sick wife.Victims of the phillosophy of 'do your own thing'
I am a Christian.I do not wish anyone in Hell.I wish everyone on this blog was in heaven,with me.The bible yes is filled with killings,violence,a quaint view of the world's origins,is homophobic,and is so out of date.Yet,it's central message is simple.
God loves the world,and He wants to save it from sin.As a Christian,and a African I live in a society destroyed by sin.Wrecked because people disobeyed the words of Scripture.Don't steal,Don't kill,Do not be covetous,Do not look with lust at a woman(because it leads to divorce,and to people getting hurt).Be kind to one another.The greatest failure of Christians and indeed humanity is our failure to live up to these words.We instead pick and choose what to obey.Or we say we are free spirits.Or we diregard the reality of sin.
Much of the atrocities in the world today are as a result of the disregard of the reality of sin.We regard ourselves as good people.We cannot sin.But we are sinners.We are all guilty before God!Yet inspite of that,God still loves us and still wishes to save us from sin,and worship of self.He does not hate us.He does not want us to burn in hell.He gave himself for our salvation,through His Son,Jesus.
People,we need to confront the reality of sin.Or else,we are going nowhere as a race.
aniekan thomas at 10:21AM on Aug 6th 2008
104. 49. bet you think you're a christian. All you are is a filthy fucking dirty pathetic evil scumbag.
(Godless Heathen Brian)
("AND, I hope you go to Hell and burn, baby, burn, you fucking freak" the part that the hypocrite forgot to finish off his godless post with. )
soldier at 8:03PM on Aug 5th 2008
------------------------------------------
You are a fucking freak spreading lies like you are, but I think your hell is a boogeyman story to scare children like you. It has no meaning to me. You are already in hell, since those that live by the lie can hardly be said to have full and fulfilling lives, since love will always elude such people. I can't find it within myself to wish any evil upon you that you haven't already wished upon yourself. In fact if it were within my power, I'd try to redeem you as a person somehow, say with years of intensive therapy and counselling. To me it would be the best case scenario if somehow you could be redeemed as a person and do some good in the world instead of all the evil that you are doing now.
Godless Heathen Brian at 10:47AM on Aug 6th 2008
105. Soldier, you posted a lie so as to slur a presidential candidate. That's very low. Hence my reaction. I really can't stand mealy-mouthed liars like you.
Godless Heathen Brian at 10:57AM on Aug 6th 2008