Posted on 11/02/2018 6:27:38 AM PDT by jalisco555
Once we have taken up the word, it is thereafter impossible to turn away: A writer is no detached judge of his countrymen and contemporaries; he is an accomplice to all the evil committed in his country or by his people. And if the tanks of his fatherland have bloodied the pavement of a foreign capital, then rust-colored stains have forever bespattered the writer’s face. And if on some fateful night a trusting Friend is strangled in his sleep—then the palms of the writer bear the bruises from that rope. And if his youthful fellow citizens nonchalantly proclaim the advantages of debauchery over humble toil, if they abandon themselves to drugs, or seize hostages—then this stench too is mingled with the breath of the writer. Have we the insolence to declare that we do not answer for the evils of today’s world?…
The simple act of an ordinary brave man is not to participate in lies, not to support false actions! His rule: Let that come into the world, let it even reign supreme—only not through me. But it is within the power of writers and artists to do much more: to defeat the lie! For in the struggle with lies art has always triumphed and shall always triumph! Visibly, irrefutably for all! Lies can prevail against much in this world, but never against art…
One word of truth shall outweigh the whole world.
–From the speech delivered by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to the Swedish Academy on the occasion of his acceptance of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
(Excerpt) Read more at quillette.com ...
I respect Peterson a lot. He is incredibly insightful. But to put the moral blame of the crimes of the state on those who had no direct hand in those crimes is unfathomable to me. It is a moral overreaction to horror, an unnecessary attack on one’s individuality, a type of moral collectivism.
My eyes were opened with A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, I became fully aware of the reality of the evil of Communism with the Gulag Archipelago.
His writing was so good and if you’ve read “The First Circle” you know where my screen name comes from.
It should be required reading for every high school student in America.
Bookmark
I don't even live in San Francisco. That people poop in the streets is undeniable. That I am responsible if I don't lead a public outcry against it is silly. One might as well blame me for global climate change on Mars.
Yes indeed !
It should be required reading for every high school student in America. ....................Also, “The Forsaken”, by Tim Tzouliadis, its an easier read, and the message is all there. Its about Americans who thought Socialism was great, and went to the USSR, and got what they didn’t dream of.
“But to put the moral blame of the crimes of the state on those who had no direct hand in those crimes is unfathomable to me. It is a moral overreaction to horror, an unnecessary attack on one’s individuality, a type of moral collectivism.”
I hear you but I remember an interview with Dick Winters where he was talking about his men looting and some other things they did once they were in Germany. He pointed out that they were there BECAUSE of the failure of the German citizenry. That they had voted Hitler in and had remained silent and compliant. He said he had no problem if they took from these people who had disrupted his men’s lives. He has a point.
I have thought this about the very short book...... A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Instead our American high school students read America-is-an-oppressor-nation literature and social studies.
I read Gulag Archipelago as a freshman in college. It totally transformed me politically.
respectfully, i think what Solzhenitsyn was saying was that a man of conscience, once aware of evils undertaken by the nation of which he is a citizen, is complicit if he does not at least speak out against such evil.
“...The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing...” - attributed to Edmund Burke
the JG
Well if you want to stretch it, Atlas Shrugged should also be on that list.
Peterson is one of the greatest Christian apologists of our time.
(link isn't working please copy and past) you can find the rest on youtube on this channel:
The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Audiobook) | Part 2/7
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