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Though written nearly half a century ago and in the context of what most might consider an otherwise completely antithetical system of politics and economics co

Though written nearly half a century ago and in the context of what most might consider an otherwise completely antithetical system of politics and economics compared to what we believe we have in the West today, I can't help but see how this essay remains incredibly relevant to us today, perhaps even more so in recent years than prior. "And as for him who lacks the courage to defend even his own soul: Let him not brag of his progressive views, boast of his status as an academician or a recognized artist, a distinguished citizen or general. Let him say to himself plainly: I am cattle, I am a coward, I seek only warmth and to eat my fill." It's important to stand up to lies and to speak against recognized propaganda for what it is, but how capable are we as a society even to recognize the propaganda and lies when we see them? And how many of us have the courage to do so in the face of it? When so many are in survival mode just to make it from one day to the next, this action tends to be deferred to some point in the future when those large masses of people have progressively less and less left to lose, with unfortunately often predictably violent outcomes, as history has shown.

noduerme 5y ago
I think this is a powerful indictment of a sector of the current young generation who believe that "violence is the voice of the voiceless," with perhaps even less knowledge of or regard for history than Lenin's generation in Russia had: "All the other fateful means resorted to over the last century of Russia’s bitter history are even less fitting for us today—true, let’s not fall back on them! Today, when all the axes have hewn what they hacked, when all that was sown has borne fruit, we can see how lost, how drugged were those conceited youths who sought, through terror, bloody uprising, and civil war, to make the country just and content. No thank you, fathers of enlightenment! We now know that the vileness of the means begets the vileness of the result. Let our hands be clean!"
4wsn 5y ago
> It's important to stand up to lies and to speak against recognized propaganda for what it is, but how capable are we as a society even to recognize the propaganda and lies when we see them? And how many of us have the courage to do so in the face of it? Feel-good rhetoric aside, your impact as an individual is limited and your defenses are fragile. In real terms, speaking out in even the most diplomatic way leads you to being aggressively silenced for not endorsing whatever the Sacred Infallible Truth may be in the time period that you live in, and there can be very severe consequences that impact your weakest link; your livelihood. The best you can feasibly do as an everyman is try with the people closest to you; the people that trust and respect you. Your partner, your family, your friends, your children. This is your only feasible option. The issue with the passage you quoted ("And as for him who lacks the courage to defend even his own soul...") is that it's a call to arms yet it ignores the reality that you have no weapons with which to fight. Reading between the lines of your post; if your society insists on going down a certain self-destructive path there's not much you can feasibly do other than watch it and hope your perspective is the misguided one.
- Spinnaker_ 5y ago
  > your impact as an individual is limited People such as Solzhenitsyn prove that your impact as an individual can be staggeringly large. Individuals can shift the course of nations and effect the lives of hundreds of millions. > ignores the reality that you have no weapons with which to fight Again, Solzhenitsyn proves that you have the written word and it can be an extremely effective weapon. > there's not much you can feasibly do other than watch it You should really read a bit about this Solzhenitsyn fella for some counter examples. But of course very few individuals are willing to bear the burden it entails.
  - angelzen 5y ago
    On dark days, I don't know. For every Solzhenitsyn there are thousands if not millions of anonymous souls forced into the wastelands of Siberia with only the shirts on their backs to keep them warm and fed over the unforgiving winter. Solzhenitsyn himself was one of them, and only a long string of miraculous happenstances turned him into a pivotal character. The forces of history were looking for a vessel. This perhaps is a reminder to pour a drop of wine in memory of those who didn't make it.
    - pc2g4d 5y ago
      If participating in a society-wide delusion is killing your soul, then refusing to participate in it is spiritual life. Giving your energy to a system you abhor, to sustain values you reject, to benefit people you oppose, for many people becomes more costly than the opprobrium, lost income, loss of status, etc. that can result from refusing to repeat the lies. It's not even necessarily about changing the world. It's about living in a way that gives you peace and inner freedom. The essay calls it "spiritual independence".
- rablackburn 5y ago
  I’d argue that you’re being overly fatalistic. You call out actions you can take (talking to those close to you) and yet claim “you have no weapons to fight”. It’s just the degree of personal suffering you’re willing to risk. I think part of the message of the writing is that thinking of what’s “feasible” is the trap that prolongs the ideology of the time. Yep, society can crush you and there’s not much you can do about it. But it won’t get better unless you stand against it anyway. That’s one the hardest things you can do, but countless humans have done it before you, and we praise and honour them (when we remember them). So much of commemoration and remembrance rites/ceremonies is is trying to prolong the memory of their hard, but correct choice. We even honour those who fought against “us” when we recognise the costs they knowingly paid for their beliefs. It’s our capacity to be noble that the essay calls out to. And sure enough, it has a cost and may not succeed. If you are guaranteed to fail, and speak out anyway, all the more noble. And perversely enough, if enough people agree that it’s worth doing despite the certainty of failure, suddenly success isn’t impossible anymore
jl6 5y ago
> how capable are we as a society even to recognize the propaganda and lies when we see them I would argue that many of the things that get categorised as Truth or Lie are actually not so easy to distinguish as we might hope. We do not enjoy a world of clear, mathematically-precise binary choices, but instead have to deal with things like opinions, parts of facts, unknowns, and complex systems whose outcomes have multiple causes. There are many things which I see paraded as absolute certainties where I myself reserve some room for doubt, even where I may mostly agree. I feel the larger issue facing us is not a torrent of absolute lies, but an overconfidence in discerning the lie, and a retreat from humility, nuance, and reasonableness (which is not the same as rationality).
pjc50 5y ago
> how capable are we as a society even to recognize the propaganda and lies when we see them? People like the propaganda. It's heavily optimized, it works for them, and they'll even subscribe to its patreon.
anticodon 5y ago
It's important to stand up to lies and to speak against recognized propaganda for what it is, but how capable are we as a society even to recognize the propaganda and lies when we see them? This comment looks ironic under the link to one of the most famous propagandist and liar in human history. Solzhenitsyn's books are full of lies that were debunked thousands of times. Most of the numbers in his books were written for him by the CIA curators. He never had access to any documents that he could cite as a source, so he just copied the numbers from cheat sheets provided for him by CIA. There're other numerous non-fitments in his books. He was a weapon of American propaganda against USSR. He collaborated with CIA. It's ironic and pitiful that he's still referred to as some kind of truth-seeker.
- burntoutfire 5y ago
  Can you share your sources on this?
- ogurechny 5y ago
  Actually, Solzhenitsyn managed to piss off politicians and propaganda departments in both USSR and US. Not surprising, but still a good thing.

noduerme 5y ago

I think this is a powerful indictment of a sector of the current young generation who believe that "violence is the voice of the voiceless," with perhaps even less knowledge of or regard for history than Lenin's generation in Russia had: "All the other fateful means resorted to over the last century of Russia’s bitter history are even less fitting for us today—true, let’s not fall back on them! Today, when all the axes have hewn what they hacked, when all that was sown has borne fruit, we can see how lost, how drugged were those conceited youths who sought, through terror, bloody uprising, and civil war, to make the country just and content. No thank you, fathers of enlightenment! We now know that the vileness of the means begets the vileness of the result. Let our hands be clean!"

4wsn 5y ago

> It's important to stand up to lies and to speak against recognized propaganda for what it is, but how capable are we as a society even to recognize the propaganda and lies when we see them? And how many of us have the courage to do so in the face of it? Feel-good rhetoric aside, your impact as an individual is limited and your defenses are fragile. In real terms, speaking out in even the most diplomatic way leads you to being aggressively silenced for not endorsing whatever the Sacred Infallible Truth may be in the time period that you live in, and there can be very severe consequences that impact your weakest link; your livelihood. The best you can feasibly do as an everyman is try with the people closest to you; the people that trust and respect you. Your partner, your family, your friends, your children. This is your only feasible option. The issue with the passage you quoted ("And as for him who lacks the courage to defend even his own soul...") is that it's a call to arms yet it ignores the reality that you have no weapons with which to fight. Reading between the lines of your post; if your society insists on going down a certain self-destructive path there's not much you can feasibly do other than watch it and hope your perspective is the misguided one.

Spinnaker_ 5y ago
> your impact as an individual is limited People such as Solzhenitsyn prove that your impact as an individual can be staggeringly large. Individuals can shift the course of nations and effect the lives of hundreds of millions. > ignores the reality that you have no weapons with which to fight Again, Solzhenitsyn proves that you have the written word and it can be an extremely effective weapon. > there's not much you can feasibly do other than watch it You should really read a bit about this Solzhenitsyn fella for some counter examples. But of course very few individuals are willing to bear the burden it entails.
- angelzen 5y ago
  On dark days, I don't know. For every Solzhenitsyn there are thousands if not millions of anonymous souls forced into the wastelands of Siberia with only the shirts on their backs to keep them warm and fed over the unforgiving winter. Solzhenitsyn himself was one of them, and only a long string of miraculous happenstances turned him into a pivotal character. The forces of history were looking for a vessel. This perhaps is a reminder to pour a drop of wine in memory of those who didn't make it.
  - pc2g4d 5y ago
    If participating in a society-wide delusion is killing your soul, then refusing to participate in it is spiritual life. Giving your energy to a system you abhor, to sustain values you reject, to benefit people you oppose, for many people becomes more costly than the opprobrium, lost income, loss of status, etc. that can result from refusing to repeat the lies. It's not even necessarily about changing the world. It's about living in a way that gives you peace and inner freedom. The essay calls it "spiritual independence".
rablackburn 5y ago
I’d argue that you’re being overly fatalistic. You call out actions you can take (talking to those close to you) and yet claim “you have no weapons to fight”. It’s just the degree of personal suffering you’re willing to risk. I think part of the message of the writing is that thinking of what’s “feasible” is the trap that prolongs the ideology of the time. Yep, society can crush you and there’s not much you can do about it. But it won’t get better unless you stand against it anyway. That’s one the hardest things you can do, but countless humans have done it before you, and we praise and honour them (when we remember them). So much of commemoration and remembrance rites/ceremonies is is trying to prolong the memory of their hard, but correct choice. We even honour those who fought against “us” when we recognise the costs they knowingly paid for their beliefs. It’s our capacity to be noble that the essay calls out to. And sure enough, it has a cost and may not succeed. If you are guaranteed to fail, and speak out anyway, all the more noble. And perversely enough, if enough people agree that it’s worth doing despite the certainty of failure, suddenly success isn’t impossible anymore

jl6 5y ago

> how capable are we as a society even to recognize the propaganda and lies when we see them I would argue that many of the things that get categorised as Truth or Lie are actually not so easy to distinguish as we might hope. We do not enjoy a world of clear, mathematically-precise binary choices, but instead have to deal with things like opinions, parts of facts, unknowns, and complex systems whose outcomes have multiple causes. There are many things which I see paraded as absolute certainties where I myself reserve some room for doubt, even where I may mostly agree. I feel the larger issue facing us is not a torrent of absolute lies, but an overconfidence in discerning the lie, and a retreat from humility, nuance, and reasonableness (which is not the same as rationality).

pjc50 5y ago

> how capable are we as a society even to recognize the propaganda and lies when we see them? People like the propaganda. It's heavily optimized, it works for them, and they'll even subscribe to its patreon.

anticodon 5y ago

It's important to stand up to lies and to speak against recognized propaganda for what it is, but how capable are we as a society even to recognize the propaganda and lies when we see them? This comment looks ironic under the link to one of the most famous propagandist and liar in human history. Solzhenitsyn's books are full of lies that were debunked thousands of times. Most of the numbers in his books were written for him by the CIA curators. He never had access to any documents that he could cite as a source, so he just copied the numbers from cheat sheets provided for him by CIA. There're other numerous non-fitments in his books. He was a weapon of American propaganda against USSR. He collaborated with CIA. It's ironic and pitiful that he's still referred to as some kind of truth-seeker.

burntoutfire 5y ago
Can you share your sources on this?
ogurechny 5y ago
Actually, Solzhenitsyn managed to piss off politicians and propaganda departments in both USSR and US. Not surprising, but still a good thing.