Right you are Brad. I've read most of the
Harvard speech you posted a reference to and agree that Solzhenitsyn does not
think very highly of how western democracies have evolved. His view of
western immorality and decadence come pretty close to Osama bin Laden's.
Some great lines though: "If humanism were right in declaring that man is
born to be happy, he would not be born to die."
Yet I feel the speech is very Russian. Man is
meant to be free, yes, but freedom must be constrained by what is right and
appropriate. From my time in Russia, I recall a huge mural on the wall of
a church. Christ is judging the risen dead. Those who are going to
the left, Hell, look very unhappy. But those who are going to the right,
Heaven, are wondering what might now be expected of them and do not look
happy either.
Ed
> is no friend of "the Enlightenment", including the formal-democracies
> of The West that have lionized him:
>
> http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/solzhenitsyn/harvard1978.html
>
> "Is it true that man is above everything? Is there no Superior Spirit
> above him?"
>
> "As long as we wake up every morning under a peaceful sun,
> we have to lead an everyday life."
> [--C'est triste.]
>
> I say to you, Mr. Abraham Solzhenitsyn: Go find your Isaacs some
> place else....
>
> Alas, there is indeed a some place else, and he knows and tells us
> exactly where it is: Mother Russia.
>
> --
>
> As for Mother Russia, I now think we've created an even worse monster than
> I originally thought, when we bankrupted the slowly-moderating Soviet
> Union. A collapsed Soviet Union as a breeding ground for
> drug-resistant tuberculosis and petty thugs was bad enough.
> But now we're dealing
> with a revanchist Imperial Russia under Czar Vladimir I, with
> nukes and oil (Sound familiar, Mr. Bush?). My mental map or Eurasia still
> has a city named: Leningrad (albeit it also has one named: Chernobyl).
>
> \brad mccormick
>
>
> Ed Weick wrote:
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> *From:* Ed Weick <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> *To:* [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> *Sent:* Friday, April 28, 2006 7:09 AM
>> *Subject:* Solzhenitsyn
>>
>> This is an ancient Russian fear and it's well grounded in Russian
>> history. Over the centuries, Russia has been attacked by the Mongols
>> from the east, by the Turks and others from the south and by the
>> Swedes, Poles, French and Germans from the west. Fear of attack and
>> being overrun is a major reason for Russia having established its
>> colonial empire, not an overseas empire but a contiguous one -- a
>> variety of "stan" republics to the east; Chechnya, Georgia, Ossetia,
>> etc. to the south; the Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova to the west.
>>
>> Solzhenitsyn is not alone in his fear of being encircled. A current
>> series in the Globe and Mail suggests that many Russians now feel more
>> vulnerable than they have for a long time. And with good reason.
>> Their influence over Afghanistan is gone, at least for the time
>> being. The trans-Caucuses republics -- Georgia, Azerbaijan, Chechnya,
>> etc. -- are either independent or trying to become independent. And
>> to the east you now have the relatively independent "stans" and China
>> which is poking around for resources and "lebensraum".
>
> [snip]
>
> --
> Let your light so shine before men,
> that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
>
> Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
>
> <![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
>
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