Solzhenitsyn at Harvard

Every few years I read the speech Solzhenitsyn gave at Harvard in 1978. That is because I remember that it was good but forget why. So here, in short, is what he said:

The West is blind. It thinks that it is the best part of the world: It thinks the rest of the world wants to be just like it – and would be if wicked governments and backwardness did not get in the way. It does not understand how different the rest of the world really is.

The West has a level of material well-being that no one thought possible a generation or two ago. And yet it has not brought happiness: only an unending desire for yet more things and no peace of mind.

This well-being has made the West soft and cowardly. Why give up such a comfortable life to die for freedom in some faraway country?

Unlike Russia, the West enjoys the rule of law. But it seems to be the rule of law and nothing else. People think that they have the right to do whatever the  please so long as they break no laws – even if it hurts others. Like filling television with sex and violence which everyone knows is bad for children to watch.

The West is free, yet everyone follows the herd. Not just ordinary people, but even leaders, intellectuals and the press.

The press only reports certain points of view. It rains down facts on us but makes little attempt to understand any of it.

Intellectuals are slaves to fashionable thinking. They are blind, they do not understand the world either. They still think socialism is good, not soul-destroying. Read Shafarevich.

During the Vietnam war intellectuals lost their nerve and cried for peace. That peace has led to the death and suffering now seen in South-East Asia.

The West has lost its willpower. It will not die for its beliefs. It is content to let Russia and other countries live in chains.

The West is only a world war away from complete destruction. It is in danger of perishing.

The West is very rich in material things, yet it is very poor in spiritual things.

Yet the same disease affects both Russia and America: a humanism cut off from God, from the old Christian ideas of moral duty, mercy, sacrifice and self-control. A humanism that puts man and his material desires above everything.  A humanism that thinks man is good by nature, that does not even recognize evil.

In the early days of America freedom was balanced by moral duty to God. Did they die for freedom so that we could live only for pleasure?

We all die. The point of life cannot be to simply to get the most pleasure out of it while we can. Instead our aim must be duty, moral growth, to leave life a better human being than when we started.

We are at a turning point.

See also:

• The speech itself
• Solzhenitsyn
• The West
• the press