In 1978 Alexandr Solzhenitsyn delivered an amazing speech telling us with clairvoyance where we were as a Nation. Today, we are a perfect reflection of his descriptions. These “TRUTHS” are commented on in the Nine articles on this author’s corner of the internet. The baseline article is here.
Fifth Story: We Are Not the Best Example of Self Government
The basic story is, that we are good at economic development BUT, “we are immature.”
Many people have turned to “socialism” as the better option.
Solzhenitsyn warns:
“Having experienced applied socialism in a country where the alternative has been realized, I certainly will not speak for it. The well-known Soviet mathematician Shafarevich, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, has written a brilliant book under the title Socialism; it is a profound analysis showing that socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death. Shafarevich’s book was published in France — Shafarevich’s book was published in France almost two years ago and so far no one has been found to refute it. ”
Worth highlighting again is this statement:
“socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit.”
According to Solzhenitsyn and in short, suffering, like Russia did during WWII and the communist era then becoming “free” brings God to the people. Having the society we have today in the USA, brings the devil. This was well documented by David Brooks, on October 5, 2020, in an Atlantic article, titled “America is having a moral convulsion.”
Solzhenitsyn:
“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.”
The fact that we have come this far with the socialist argument, 1978 to 2022, 44 years, has brought us to broaden a chasm to a point that may be insurmountable. We have lost our faiths, our church attendance and spirituality are in full decay:
We are now slaves to the press, like automatons, they feed us, and we eat what they say is the truth. See the Pew Research Chart on the U.S. journalists not giving equal coverage, in the “Fourth Story: Self Censorship.”
The public today have lost faith in the operation of the government:
We live in a welfare system, we wait for the next government check; our debt is as high as ever before; young people do not want to work anymore, like after WWII in Europe the bohemians, beatniks and later, the hippies, today they want to be fed, the health checked, and live from a government handout. Read the Third Story — “The Welfare State, Lack of Self Restraint, and Our Legal System.”
“What else can we hope for?
“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.”
Warning signs we are not paying attention to, there is nothing to add to this statement:
“There are meaningful warnings which history gives a threatened or perishing society. Such are, for instance, the decadence of art, or a lack of great statesmen. There are open and evident warnings, too. The center of your democracy and of your culture is left without electric power for a few hours only, and all of a sudden crowds of American citizens start looting and creating havoc. The smooth surface film must be very thin, then, the social system quite unstable and unhealthy.”
The statement above rings many bells, the most prescient is “a lack of great statesmen” do “Trump and Biden” ring a bell? Are there any choices today that we “think,” though we ourselves, are now living in a swamp thicker than the ones in Louisiana, are worth our vote?
If you found this story interesting, you may enjoy reading the truths Solzhenitsyn spoke about earlier in his speech.
