A Modern Tragedy

Alexander Solzyenitsyn
From www.acton.org

It's happened again! I found a text I love! I am in a class titled "History of Ideas." Essentially, it deals with the best way to attain human happiness and success. Sounds interesting right? I thought so too...until I sat down and looked at the materials we would be reading. I'd never seen so many classical or political texts on one list. From the very beginning, I was prejudiced against the class material. I trudged through the language of Plato, the odd play by Aristophanes, the repetition in Aristotle, the politics of Machiavelli, and many other miserable journeys. Believe me. I've enjoyed bits and pieces along the way. There does tend to be the occasional oasis in the desert. The class itself was interesting once my professor translated the text into the language of my people: the language of the American youth. The class discussions could get passionate depending on what we were reading, and the professor always knows how to pick our brains for deeper analyses of the material. While I have not enjoyed the homework - or some of the ideas being conveyed (Marx and Nietzsche were my favorite philosophers to criticize) - the class concept is interesting.

This is the class that led me to Alexander Solzhenitsyn's "A World Split Apart," a speech that received "boos" at Harvard University in 1978.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, exiled from the Soviet Union, gave this speech at Harvard and was not afraid to speak against the culture of his audience. Solzhenitsyn contrasted the Western (United States specifically) worldwide point of view with the Soviet's point of view, but he primarily focused on describing the Western culture and its position in the world.

He begins by pointing out flaws in our culture, and one of the first things he discusses is a decline in courage. I paused over these lines as I read it again: "A Decline in Courage." What was that supposed to mean? United States's citizens were not as courageous as we used to be? As his speech continued, it made more and more logical sense. We don't have enough courage to defend ourselves. He was not alluding to the military, and neither am I - God bless our troops. His point is that we do not protect ourselves from "the corrosion of evil." Ouch. No wonder he got booed.

How could he come from the Soviet Union and tell Americans that we are simply letting our defenses down for - practically embracing - the corrosion of evil? It didn't take long for my stomach to sink and realize that he had a point.

When he continued he addressed the well-being of the people in our nation. While he commends our social conditions, he points out the psychological effects these conditions have on the people in the United States. In a search for materials, and simply more stuff, our competitiveness has driven away common values. Additionally, if someone doing something morally wrong and gets enough support behind him, that person can get acquitted. Personally, this concept is something that has always bothered me, and as he pointed out the mentality of the United States version of what is "right," I agreed with him wholeheartedly.

In an attempt to please the masses and be "fair" or "just" to everyone, Americans have set aside morality or spirituality of any kind and picked up law instead. Solzhenitsyn points out that in the States, "if one is right from a legal point of view, nothing more is required, nobody may mention that one could still not be entirely right." How awful is that? Have we really been so corrupted that as long as we abide by a written document, we don't question if something is right or wrong? It is a tragedy that a society can no longer recognize that there is something more to right and wrong then what some normal everyday men wrote down on a piece of paper over 200 years ago. We cannot seriously, deep in our gut, believe that there are plain common men with fancy titles who have a better idea of justice than a plain common man without a fancy title. Implying that there is a man or group of men on this earth that know what's best for mankind is naive. That would make them more than a normal or natural man. They would have to be supernatural, transcendent, or divine

This is why I cannot understand some people's idea of justice or right and wrong. Who came up with that? How did they discern that? How do we know they're right? There is a universal and fundamental right and wrong. Everyone knows this subconsciously, but it is those that ignore their own conscience that make me worry...because Solzhenitsyn was right. We are not protecting ourselves. Rather, we are letting everyone and everything be subjected to the way a group of ordinary people interpret a piece of paper written by ordinary men. There must be more to justice, more to right and wrong, more to happiness, more to life than what some dead, natural, normal people decided. There must be more.

Not many people would stand up as Solzhenitsyn did. Why would he? It's not his country - not his people. Why would he care? He cared because someone has to. Someone must care for our posterity, and since we did not, he did. Who is going to protect our future generations from evil? Who will teach them what evil is? Questions like this likely plagued Solzhenitsyn's mind, and now they ricochet in mine. How can we help the future generations? How can we be heard today? If you get a chance, read his address. If you're brave enough to really listen to what he has to say, it's pretty incredible.