Reflections on Solzhenitsyn’s Harvard Address

[Hawkeye10]

In his 1978 Harvard commencement address, A World Split Apart, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a fierce enemy of the Soviet system, delivered a forceful and insightful critique of the West, a society which he characterized as spiritually weakened by rampant materialism. The man who, when forced to leave his own country four years earlier, encouraged his countrymen to “live not by lies”, gave us a magnificent lesson in how to not be blinded by our own sense of superiority, and urged us to ask hard questions about who we are and where we are going.

When I first heard this speech in 1978 as a young refugee from communist Romania, I was able to appreciate Solzhenitsyn’s address in terms of the competition raging then between the West and the East, but did not comprehend its larger meaning. Rereading it today, in the fall of the horrible year 2020, I find it truly prophetic. It is now painfully clear that, as Solzhenitsyn was able to discern 42 years ago, the West has been gradually losing the will and intellectual ability to defend itself, not so much against foreign armies as it may have appeared in 1978, but against an army of internal critics determined to demolish everything the West used to stand for.

In the central part of the address Solzhenitsyn said:

A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. Should one point out that from ancient times declining courage has been considered the beginning of the end?

https://quillette.com/2020/10/24/reflections-on-solzhenitsyns-harvard-address/


Highly Recommended.

 

[Hawkeye10]

 

[Cypress]

Quillette dot com?

You have never actually read Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich or Gulag Archipelago, have you?

Solzhenitsyn thought the liberal democracies of the west were morally degenerate.

The fact is Solzhenitsyn was hostile to communism -- but he was equally hostile to capitalism. He was not a pro-western dupe.

Posters who don't know anything about Solzhenitsyn, about his literature, about his life, posters who never put more than ten nanoseconds of thought into him prior to this thread, have no standing to proclaim what this complex and complicated man knew, thought, and felt.

Rightwing Americans from Reagan to William Buckley assumed Solzhenitsyn was the perfect Cold War pawn, one who could be held out as an anti-communist and pro-western ally in the the asymmetric propaganda struggle of the cold war era.

He was about as anti-capitalist as he was anti-communist.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Russian nationalist, a deeply religious theocrat, a spiritualist, and a Russian mystic. He was never a poster boy for capitalism, nor an ally or tool of propaganda for Trump boot-licking capitalists.

 

[Yakuda]

https://quillette.com/2020/10/24/reflections-on-solzhenitsyns-harvard-address/


Highly Recommended.

Yeah he makes a good point, look at the things that are important to the elitist lefty cockroaches in this country, baby killing, what bathroom people use and if you have a penis and you want to be called a woman everybody had to agree with you.

 

[Yakuda]

Quillette dot com?

You have never actually read Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich or Gulag Archipelago, have you?

Solzhenitsyn thought the liberal democracies of the west were morally degenerate.

The fact is Solzhenitsyn was hostile to communism -- but he was equally hostile to capitalism. He was not a pro-western dupe.

Posters who don't know anything about Solzhenitsyn, about his literature, about his life, posters who never put more than ten nanoseconds of thought into him prior to this thread, have no standing to proclaim what this complex and complicated man knew, thought, and felt.

Rightwing Americans from Reagan to William Buckley assumed Solzhenitsyn was the perfect Cold War pawn, one who could be held out as an anti-communist and pro-western ally in the the asymmetric propaganda struggle of the cold war era.

He was about as anti-capitalist as he was anti-communist.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Russian nationalist, a deeply religious theocrat, a spiritualist, and a Russian mystic. He was never a poster boy for capitalism, nor an ally or tool of propaganda for Trump boot-licking capitalists.

Capitalism is the only just and moral economic system ever created. We know you gate THAT

 

[Cypress]

Capitalism is the only just and moral economic system ever created. We know you gate THAT

Capitalism is utterly amoral and is only concerned with maximizing profit. Slavery and colonial imperialism were examples of raw capitalism.

"Untouched by the breath of God, unrestricted by human conscience, both capitalism and socialism are repulsive."

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Morality and social justice were imposed upon capitalism by the Christian left, the democratic left, and the new liberalism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries

 

[Yakuda]

Capitalism is utterly amoral and is only concerned with maximizing profit. Slavery and colonial imperialism were examples of raw capitalism.



Morality and social justice were imposed upon capitalism by the Christian left, the democratic left, and the new liberalism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries

Bullshit

Youre a delusional moron

 

[Hawkeye10]

But 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. No, I could not recommend your society in its present state as an ideal for the transformation of ours. Through intense suffering our country has now achieved a spiritual development of such intensity that the Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive. Even those characteristics of your life which I have just mentioned are extremely saddening.

A fact which cannot be disputed is the weakening of human beings in the West while in the East they are becoming firmer and stronger -- 60 years for our people and 30 years for the people of Eastern Europe. During that time we have been through a spiritual training far in advance of Western experience. Life's complexity and mortal weight have produced stronger, deeper, and more interesting characters than those generally [produced] by standardized Western well-being.

https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/alexandersolzhenitsynharvard.htm

This guy got it in 1978!

AGAIN:

In spite of the abundance of information, or maybe because of it, the West has difficulties in understanding reality such as it is. There have been naive predictions by some American experts who believed that Angola would become the Soviet Union's Vietnam or that Cuban expeditions in Africa would best be stopped by special U.S. courtesy to Cuba. Kennan's advice to his own country -- to begin unilateral disarmament -- belongs to the same category. If you only knew how the youngest of the Kremlin officials laugh at your political wizards. As to Fidel Castro, he frankly scorns the United States, sending his troops to distant adventures from his country right next to yours

 

[Cypress]

Capitalism is utterly amoral and is only concerned with maximizing profit. Slavery and colonial imperialism were examples of raw capitalism.

Morality and social justice were imposed upon capitalism by the Christian left, the democratic left, and the new liberalism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries

Bullshit!

Youre a delusional moron

Your tacit contention that the modern liberal welfare state was a creation of the capitalist profit motive does not pass the laugh test.

To the extent there is any morality and social justice in capitalist economies, it was forced on on capitalism by the democratic left and the Judeo-Christian values of Christian left activists.

Since Deplorables belatedly and supposedly now admire Soviet dissidents, here is the preeminent dissident Andrei Sakharov:

"Without socialism, bourgeois practices and the egotistical principle of private ownership gave rise to the "people of the abyss" described by Jack London and earlier by Engels.

Only the competition with socialism and the pressure of the working class made possible the social progress of the twentieth century "

-Andrei Sakharov

 

[Yakuda]

Your tacit contention that the modern liberal welfare state was a creation of the capitalist profit motive does not pass the laugh test.

To the extent there is any morality and social justice in capitalist economies, it was forced on on capitalism by the democratic left and the Judeo-Christian values of Christian left activists.

Since Deplorables belatedly and supposedly now admire Soviet dissidents, here is the preeminent dissident Andrei Sakharov:

Bullshit. Capitalism does not demand participation and is completely open to free negotiation by both parties. Nothing is more just and moral. If on the other hand you have nothing useful to negotiate with like a college degree in gender studies then I can see why you hate capitalism.

 

[Cypress]

Bullshit. Capitalism does not demand participation and is completely open to free negotiation by both parties. Nothing is more just and moral. If on the other hand you have nothing useful to negotiate with like a college degree in gender studies then I can see why you hate capitalism.

Well this exchange started by you cheering for the caricature of Solzhenitsyn the op intended, when it is obvious you have never actually read anything by Soviet dissidents, and you really do not know what they actually think.

My advice is if you want to understand what Russian dissidents think, try reading actual Russian dissidents. Having righting American media personalities from Fox or Libertarian blogs tell you what Russians think does not cut the mustard.

 

[Yakuda]

Well this exchange started by you cheering for the caricature of Solzhenitsyn the op intended, when it is obvious you have never actually read anything by Soviet dissidents, and you really do not know what they actually think.

My advice is if you want to understand what Russian dissidents think, try reading actual Russian dissidents. Having righting American media personalities from Fox or Libertarian blogs tell you what Russians think does not cut the mustard.

Copy and paste my words "...cheering for the caricature of Solzhenitsyn..."

My device is you stop thinking you know shit and start by loving what you claimed above. This is why I think you you as a cockroach.

 

[Cypress]

Well this exchange started by you cheering for the caricature of Solzhenitsyn the op intended, when it is obvious you have never actually read anything by Soviet dissidents, and you really do not know what they actually think.

My advice is if you want to understand what Russian dissidents think, try reading actual Russian dissidents. Having righting American media personalities from Fox or Libertarian blogs tell you what Russians think does not cut the mustard.

Copy and paste my words "...cheering for the caricature of Solzhenitsyn..."

My device is you stop thinking you know shit and start by loving what you claimed above.

This is why I think you you as a cockroach!

My work here is done. I leave you to your impotent rage, and mediocre attempts to retort.