2 ms·

I first read this speech a few years ago and read it again just now and, while I admire the force and clarity of the writing, the speech is frustratingly long o

I first read this speech a few years ago and read it again just now and, while I admire the force and clarity of the writing, the speech is frustratingly long on generalities and platitudes and short on ... anything concrete? Our leaders are feckless, our youth are directionless, our forefathers were wiser and deeper and more spiritual, the powers that be ignore the wisdom of their people, nobody will talk about this -- it's the sort of speech that's been given repeatedly throughout history, and part of that is because the gaps in it are nicely filled by whatever prejudices the listener has. It's not hard, for example, to draw a line between the ideas of this speech and Solzhenitsyn's eventual boosting of Putin, who was just the man to acquire immense power in the name of getting things done and some vague alignment with tradition and Christianity. I do, of course, admire Solzhenitsyn's courage and work. Part of the speech's moral force is probably lost because I read it instead of seeing him speak it. But as a piece of writing, I struggle to find anything new or incisive in it. Oh, and fun fact I learned reading about him this morning: his son did his undergrad at Harvard, and is (or recently was) a senior partner at McKinsey in Moscow [1, 2]. [1] https://www.castelli-international.it/online-interview-with-yermolai-solzhenitsyn/ https://www.castelli-international.it/online-interview-with-... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20180614021146/https://www.mckinsey.com/our-people/yermolai-solzhenitsyn https://web.archive.org/web/20180614021146/https://www.mckin...

bumblelad 5y ago
I suppose if you merely skimmed over the speech, which I presume you did, since you found it boring, I can see why you'd arrive at those generalizations and platitudes. I instead found insight on the strong spiritual characteristic of the East that the West lacked. -of America's inability to decisively win wars after Vietnam -of its future alliance/allegiance to China, which is more economic, but we see the exact same problematic outcome -of the similarities of the outcome of censorship produced by Western media and groupthink compared to Eastern state controlled media, where unpopular ideas might as well be censored as they will never reach anybody. -the problem of humanism without much 'spirituality', and how that drives forward America's mediocrity by its adherence to the letter of the law without much moralism, and how that cold adherence has led to a society that is prosperous yet at the same time quick to looting as soon as electricity is gone for a few hours. -his questioning of the West's backbending subservience to former colonies -the notion that communism has suffered a complete ideological defeat in the East, but the West's infatuation with it continues to allow it to persist. -He actively critiques the 'forefathers' (as you put it) as well. Elaborating that the Western born view of the world developed during the Enlightenment and Renaissance has inevitably led to this self centered materialistic worldview. I suppose this summarizes his main prevailing hope: "If humanism were right in declaring that man is born only to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot be unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it"

bumblelad 5y ago

I suppose if you merely skimmed over the speech, which I presume you did, since you found it boring, I can see why you'd arrive at those generalizations and platitudes. I instead found insight on the strong spiritual characteristic of the East that the West lacked. -of America's inability to decisively win wars after Vietnam -of its future alliance/allegiance to China, which is more economic, but we see the exact same problematic outcome -of the similarities of the outcome of censorship produced by Western media and groupthink compared to Eastern state controlled media, where unpopular ideas might as well be censored as they will never reach anybody. -the problem of humanism without much 'spirituality', and how that drives forward America's mediocrity by its adherence to the letter of the law without much moralism, and how that cold adherence has led to a society that is prosperous yet at the same time quick to looting as soon as electricity is gone for a few hours. -his questioning of the West's backbending subservience to former colonies -the notion that communism has suffered a complete ideological defeat in the East, but the West's infatuation with it continues to allow it to persist. -He actively critiques the 'forefathers' (as you put it) as well. Elaborating that the Western born view of the world developed during the Enlightenment and Renaissance has inevitably led to this self centered materialistic worldview. I suppose this summarizes his main prevailing hope: "If humanism were right in declaring that man is born only to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot be unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it"