Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Solzhenitsyn's wisdom

BTW - if you don't have Chap as a facebook friend, then you are missing lots of chances to steal his ideas .... such as this one.

Simple .... and in the
PC world where we live - where we regularly are told to shut up every Thursday - and at USNIBlog there is pressure to shut it down - we should all ponder the words of a great man.
The transition from free speech to enforced silence is no doubt painful. What torment for a living society, used to thinking for itself, to lose from some decreed date the right to express itself in print and in public, to bite back its words year in and year out, in friendly conversation and even under the family roof.
...
The most important part of our freedom, inner freedom, is always subject to our will. If we surrender it to corruption, we do not deserve to be called human.

But let us note that if the absolutely essential task is not political liberation, but the liberation of our souls from participation in the lie forced on us, then it requires no physical, revolutionary, social, organizational measures, no meetings, strikes, trade unions -- things fearful for us even to contemplate and from which we quite naturally allow circumstances to dissuade us.

No! It requires from each individual a moral step within his power - no more than that. And no one who voluntarily runs with the hounds of falsehood, or props it up, will ever be able to justify himself to the living, or to posterity, or to his friends, or to his children.
Perhaps it is time to dig around my library for Solzhenitsyn's works not read in years.

3 comments:

TDH said...

And ATLAS Shrugged....

Kristen said...

He was such a brave man.  That little excerpt should be required reading for Republican politicians who are afraid to promote conservative ideas.

UltimaRatioRegis said...

"The Gulag Archipelago" should be required reading for all college students.