Category Archives: Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Forgotten Lesson on Good and Evil

There are neither good people nor bad people, but individuals struggling between good and evil from within.

Article by Annie Holmquist.

Excerpt:

Although a decorated commander in the Russian army, Solzhenitsyn was imprisoned near the end of World War II for disparaging comments made privately about Joseph Stalin. His years in prison were hardly pleasant, but as Solzhenitsyn writes in The Gulag Archipelago, those years gave him striking insight into the reality of human nature:

It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer, and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. And it was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains … an unuprooted small corner of evil.

Solzhenitsyn goes on to say:

Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.

This realization led Solzhenitsyn to recognize the problem with revolutions, namely, “They destroy only those carriers of evil contemporary with them…. And they then take to themselves as their heritage the actual evil itself, magnified still more.”

Jordan Peterson on the “Spirit of Cain”

Three powerful presentations

Don’t let the “Spirit Of Cain” in you! (4 minutes)

Jordan Peterson’s FASCINATING Analysis On The Selfconscious Conditions (8 minutes)

Resentful Intellectuals And The Spirit Of Cain (13 minutes)

Plus: His 2-hour lecture on the subject (and 30 minutes Q&A)

Biblical Series V: Cain and Abel: The Hostile Brothers

Update: Brief discussion of the subject with Eric Metaxas, where they also go back to the Fall: The Eternal Spirit of Cain

The Death of Culture: How Lies Killed Books

Naomi Wolf on her recent experience in Covid-hysterical New York

Excerpts from the article:

In addition to the dissonance of seeing people who had been perfectly okay with discriminating against the very people who had fought to return to them the liberties they now enjoyed, I suffered a sense of disorientation at realizing that there was a giant cognitive hole in the middle of contemporary culture.

The staffers at the Brooklyn branch of Jackson McNally Bookstore, an independent bookstore which had for years been a stalwart outpost of free-thinking publishing, were still masked, against all reason. I walked in with some trepidation.

Peacefully, faces covered, three years on, they stacked books on the shelves.

I was astonished, as I wandered the well-stocked aisles. Independent bookstores usually reflect the burning issues in a culture at that given time.

But — now — nothing.

[…]

The bizarre thing about this moment in culture, is that the really important journalism, and the really important nonfiction books about the history, the racial and gender injustice, the economics, the public policy, of the “pandemic” years — are being written by — non-writers; by people who are trained as doctors, medical researchers, lawyers, politicians, and activists.

And their books are not displayed or even stocked in bookstores such as Jackson McNally.

So there is a massive hole in the central thought process of our culture.

The courageous non-writers have stepped in to tell the truth, because the famous writers, for the most part, can’t.

Or won’t. Or, for whatever reason, didn’t.

This is because the public intellectuals are by necessity, for the most part, AWOL to the truth-telling demands of this time.

You cannot be a public intellectual whose work is alive, if you have participated in manufacturing, or even accepting quietly, state-run lies.

[…]

“People just want to move on,” I keep hearing, in my former haunts in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Don’t talk about it.

So this all leads to a weird situation, culturally, now, indeed.

In the world of alt-media independent exiled dissidents, where I live most of the time, we are having the most riveting, important conversations of our lives. This is because we all know civilization itself, and liberty itself, and maybe even the fate of the human race itself, are at stake every day.

In the polite elite-media circles of Brooklyn and New York, to which I returned briefly to dip a toe in the water, people are — not talking about any of it.

They are not talking about the enslavement of humanity. They are not talking about young adults dropping dead.

[…]

We don’t fight for freedom so that we can get credit.

We don’t fight for truth because we want a byline.

We do both just because we can’t help it.

We do both because our Founders fought to the death so that we ourselves would be free one day.

And we fight so that little children whom we will never live to see, will grow up free.

But it is painful to witness the beating heart of what had been a great culture, stunned and muted in denial, and unable to function intellectually.

I guess we just need to leave the sadly rotting carcass of the establishment culture of lies and denial behind.

I say that with sorrow. I will miss the bookstores, universities, newspapers that I once revered.

I guess we have to follow the voices of the truth-tellers of the moment, to other, surprising, beleaguered campfires.

I guess we need to pitch our tents in new fields, outside the walls of the crumbling, breached, and decadent city.

I guess we need to learn new songs and tell new stories, as we find ourselves alongside other — surprising — fierce, and unbowed, and determined, new comrades in arms.

Stopping the Flood

Bionic Mosquito writes:

There is a theme running through many intellectuals and wanna-be intellectuals – those who at least see that without Christian values and culture the West is headed to some version of hell.  It’s something like: good religion is important for other people and society, but I don’t need to really believe it.  Anyway, I am too smart for that.

[…]

So, then.  What was it that drove the West to this suicide?  Solzhenitsyn suggested that the reason the West fell into WWI was that men have forgotten God.  It is the best explanation for that otherwise unexplainable war that I have heard.

When did men forget God?  This can be found in the Enlightenment.  The roots of the suicide of the West can be found here, when men forgot God.  Sure, in different parts of the West God lived on in the fumes of memory longer than in others.  But even early on, He was pushed out of polite society, to be kept in the attic bedroom like some crazy uncle.

Some will say it was earlier than the Enlightenment.  It was the Renaissance, or the Reformation, or the Great Schism.  Or, later: It was Marx, or Gramsci, or Marcuse.  But, in the former, there was still God.  And in the latter, there was not God.  It was in the Enlightenment that men forgot God.

A Prayer for COP27

Same procedure as last year

Dear heavenly Father,

Today is the day people around the world commemorate the end of World War One. I do not know for sure why this evil entered the world, I don’t think anyone does, but I believe what Alexandr Solzhenitsyn said in relation to the disastrous Russian Revolution applies to this war as well: “All this happened because we have forgotten God”. If this is true, I pray that people around the world heed those words for our present times and troubles, and that we, in everything we do, consider another word from the author of that sentence, namely that the dividing line between good and evil goes right through each of our hearts.

With that in mind, dear heavenly Father, I pray, with regard to climate change and our response to it, that we will learn again to trust first in you instead of in princes of the world and their paid advisers. That we learn to pursue treasures in heaven, not in this world. That we learn to care for your creation by respecting your laws, including the law not to steal from each other, and to not bear false witness against our neighbour. That we all humbly concede that we don’t know all the facts and all the answers. That we help each other by teaching each other the little we do know – and discerning what we don’t, and by listening patiently to one another.

Help us to be weary of the claim that all that is required to know is now known. Help us to discern between action that protects creation and that which, even if well intended, does not or, worse, does the opposite. Help us, and remind us every time we feel the need to act, to count the costs of our actions before we act, lest we build on sand instead of the rock of your word.

Lord, you know I am very sceptical about the currently widely favoured approach to tackling climate change, which is the one promoted and discussed at COP27 in Sharm El Sheikh, by the many paid advisers of governments, by many big corporations hoping for government money in return for conforming to the ruling narrative, and by almost every established media outlet around the world. However, I pray today for your blessing on each and every participant, and on each and every observer. May those who are truly fearful be assuaged and find peace in you and your assurances – especially the children and young people, who are increasingly frightened out of their wits. May those who are distant from you be drawn nearer, so that they see your plans full of peace and joy for them and all of us. May those who are driven by power and greed be humbled and converted to your way. May those who deceive be humbled by the truth. May those who honestly seek the truth be steadfast in the face of much deception and pressure to conform.

Thank you, dear heavenly Father, for your promise that those who meekly emulate your love will inherit the Earth.

May you, dear Lord and Creator, be glorified, and may your peace reign forever. 

Amen.

Live Not By Lies

Jordan Peterson speaks with Rod Dreher

It never ceases to amaze me that almost every time Jordan Peterson goes on air, or rather on Youtube or similar outlets, he says something that is new, profound and evocative. And not just one “something”, but loads.

In this one (1 h 20 min), he uses the occasion of discussing Rod Dreher’s new book, “Live Not By Lies” to suggest that churches should make a special effort to attract young men? How? By inviting them to the adventure of taking up their cross and following Jesus by doing the best they can do with their God-given lives.

In the time of oppressive wokeness, where being male is tantamount to being the great spoiler of the world, this would be a truly bold move.

Then, JP says that in the face of the woke tyranny, not just all the Christians, but all the Abrahamic religions should band together to fight the common enemy.

Dreher’s title “Live Not By Lies” is derived from an essay written by Soviet dissident Alexandr Solzhenitsyn just before he was kicked out of his country. In it, he advised followers that the least they should do is to not participate in the lies that daily life in the Soviet Union foisted on people.

However, the Enemy may have learnt from that experience. When Black Lives Matter burst onto the scene, mobs pressured people to join in their chants and raised fists, shouting: “Silence is violence.”

So, it may have become more difficult even than in the Soviet Union to “live not by lies”. And if not yet, it may very well happen soon.

Today is the 200th Birthday of Fyodor Dostoevsky

His "Crime and Punishment" taught me a lesson

Many years ago, when I was in my early 20s, I shared a flat with someone who had a copy of “Crime and Punishment” by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. I borrowed it. When I started reading it, I found it easy to identify with the feelings of isolation and alienation of the (anti-)hero, the impoverished student Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov.

Raskolnikov thinks himself intelligent enough to be above the law, and do justice his own way. However, he then goes and murders someone. The victim is innocent, but the reader is not invited to find her likable. This was a brilliant move by Dostoevsky, because it forces the reader to examine himself. Do we not all sometimes harbour feelings of superiority? The rest of the book is all about Raskolnikov’s attempts to deal with the fact that he has killed someone.

The lesson the book taught me was to “consider the possibility that I might be wrong”. It taught me some humility. For that, I am deeply grateful to Dostoevsky.

Continue reading →

A Prayer for COP26

Dear heavenly Father,

Today is the day people around the world commemorate the end of World War One. I do not know for sure why this evil entered the world, I don’t think anyone does, but I believe what Alexandr Solzhenitsyn said in relation to the disastrous Russian Revolution applies to this war as well: “All this happened because we have forgotten God”. If this is true, I pray that people around the world heed those words for our present times and troubles, and that we, in everything we do, consider another word from the author of that sentence, namely that the dividing line between good and evil goes right through each of our hearts.

With that in mind, dear heavenly Father, I pray, with regard to climate change and our response to it, that we will learn again to trust first in you instead of in princes of the world and their paid advisers. That we learn to pursue treasures in heaven, not in this world. That we learn to care for your creation by respecting your laws, including the law not to steal from each other, and to not bear false witness against our neighbour. That we all humbly concede that we don’t know all the facts and all the answers. That we help each other by teaching each other the little we do know – and discerning what we don’t, and by listening patiently to one another.

Help us to be weary of the claim that all that is required to know is now known. Help us to discern between action that protects creation and that which, even if well intended, does not or, worse, does the opposite. Help us, and remind us every time we feel the need to act, to count the costs of our actions before we act, lest we build on sand instead of the rock of your word.

Lord, you know I am very sceptical about the currently widely favoured approach to tackling climate change, which is the one promoted and discussed at COP26 in Glasgow, by the many paid advisers of governments, by many big corporations hoping for government money in return for conforming to the ruling narrative, and by almost every established media outlet around the world. However, I pray today for your blessing on each and every participant, and on each and every observer. May those who are truly fearful be assuaged and find peace in you and your assurances – especially the children and young people, who are increasingly frightened out of their wits. May those who are distant from you be drawn nearer, so that they see your plans full of peace and joy for them and all of us. May those who are driven by power and greed be humbled and converted to your way. May those who deceive be humbled by the truth. May those who honestly seek the truth be steadfast in the face of much deception and pressure to conform.

Thank you, dear heavenly Father, for your promise that those who meekly emulate your love will inherit the Earth.

May you, dear Lord and Creator, be glorified, and may your peace reign forever. 

Amen.

Repealing the century of collectivism, mass destruction and genocide

Our hope resides in a resurrected God

“We shall repeal the 20th century.” These were words spoken by American economist Murray N. Rothbard (1926 – 1995) near the end of an article he wrote in 1992. Another American economist, Gary North (b. 1942), who is a historian and theologian as well, used these words near the end of a lecture he gave in 2010.

Rothbard made clear why he wants to repeal it, when he asked, ironically:

“Who would want to repeal the 20th century, the century of horror, the century of collectivism, the century of mass destruction and genocide, who would want to repeal that! Well, we propose to do just that.”

With “we” he meant what he hoped would be a resurrected movement which in America is called the Old Right, a movement that was libertarian in its core, supported decentralised structures, laissez-faire economics and minimal interference of the government into private lives. This movement was effectively killed off around the year 1900 and replaced by interventionist, imperialist, big-government and big-business supporting politics.

Similar things had happened, or were happening, in Europe. Nationalism was the name of the game, and that sentiment lead to centralised governments continually increasing their interventions into the economy to suit their lust for power. Imperialism was the natural outgrowth of this development. This in turn lead to the original catastrophe of our time, World War One.

Considering that we are by now one fifth into the next century, it is clear that we have been unable to repeal the 20th century. For, as an idea, or phenomenon, the 20th century, in all its awfulness, is still firmly with us. So, how can we go about “repealing” it?

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