This is, essentially, a call and a challenge; towards an independent spiritual life. And it is another, deeper call to “We the People”!
West Needs East?
Outer greatness and inner greatness. These are very far from necessarily being the same realization. As the much-castigated quote, above, from Solzhenitsyn’s speech at Harvard in 1978, indicates, some of the more deep and forceful Russians are well aware of this distinction. Even James Truslow Adams, in the Epilogue to his The Epic of America — published when Stalin had only been in full power for two years, and addressing America, from his perspective in America — presents an understanding which is complementary to Solzhenitsyn’s:
[People]…are beginning to realize that, because a man is born with a particular knack for gathering in vast aggregates of money and power for himself, he may not cm that account be the wisest leader to follow nor the best fitted to propound a sane philosophy to life. [51]
We might immediately ask, what might such a “wisest leader” be like? Who could know and articulate such a philosophy of life? To cite Adams, if we are to find ‘wise leaders’ to “propound a sane philosophy of life”, we must look to those individuals, who have indeed “develop[ed] some greatness in [their] own individual souls”. Such persons are to help us discern what is the “good life”, what are the real values in life. The quote by Solzhenitsyn merits rereading; and meditation.
If it is still true and fair to say of America, as Adams did in 1931: “Are our letters and philosophy to remain the child until the Gorgon faces of evil, disaster, and death freeze our own unlined ones into eternal stone?” [52]; it could certainly not be said of Russia, that she “is a child who has never gazed on the face of death.” And it is here, I contend — in spite of however forcefully, critically or disparagingly such ideas may be rejected by intellectuals of America — that America, and the comfortable West, has truly important, real, essential, vital lessons to learn from the Russia and the European East, with its life experience, suffering, knowledge and wisdom, to which Solzhenitsyn gave voice before the Harvard elite. But that which the West might learn from this East, is certainly not such as will help it towards the acquisition of valuable real estate property and possessions in “this (horizontal) world”! But it might, indeed, deeply contribute, towards an understanding of an inner greatness, which verges closely onto the “vertical”.
The West needs the East! — even if it does not clearly recognize this itself. Perhaps, in some ways, it may need the East, in soul and spirit, just as profoundly as the dire conditions of material and practical need and life, in the European East, require real help, knowledge and assistance from the West.
On December 10, 1989, on the popular American television program “60 Minutes”, there was shown, for the first time, a filmed view of “Perm 35”, a labor camp in the Soviet “Gulag” system. Natan Sharansky, who had been incarcerated in this camp, gave comments and observations on the footage shown. At the conclusion of this rare film, when asked his thoughts of seeing again this labor camp, he stated to the interviewer Mike Wallace:
“Well, I’m afraid you will be surprised. I feel that I’m coming back to my alma mater. To the place where — well, an awful place, but there were so many — lots of good things were there, and so many-”
“Good things?” asked the interviewer.
“Good things. I mean, good things where you met so many good people. And some of the most interesting intellectual discussions which I had in my life were there. And evidently, to feel deeply, some of the fundamental things were there. Like ghosts who came from another life. In another sense, it would be useful for everyone to spend some days there-”
“You learned about yourself?”
“Yeah. You learn about yourself, about the man, about how important are things like love, like moral values, like the feeling that you have your people, your country with you. That’s something which you learn there, at this alma mater.” [53]
Similar, thought-provoking descriptions are also to be found in the writings of others, who have gone through such experiences, as many would normally imagine as the maximum of unfreedom and triaclass="underline" Soviet imprisonment.
In the…books of Solzhenitsyn, Panin, Shifrin, and Tertz, several continually repeated paradoxical statements immediately impress the thoughtful reader. All these authors agree that arrest, prison, and camp — simply to say, the loss of freedom — have formed the most profound and significant experience in their lives. The paradox is complicated by the fact that, although they underwent the most extreme spiritual and physical suffering during their imprisonment, they also experienced a fulfilling happiness, undreamed of by people outside the prison walls.
None of these authors had ever before experienced such powerful feelings of love, hate, or despair, such days and nights filled with the most profound questions concerning human life, nor felt so close to the essence of cosmic life. Thus their description of imprisonment are descriptions of an intense, concentrated life…a life, which despite all torment, was oddly precious. [54]
“…Experienced a fulfilling happiness, undreamed of by people outside the prison walls.” It is safe to say that the inner experience, the meaningfulness and the “goal” of life, in a successfully achieved “American Dream” — as that is commonly conceived: with the “pursuit of happiness”, “enjoying life”, etc., — is dramatically other in character and reality, than that which these people experienced during some of the most precious moments of their lives. The best moments, of “happiness”, in such lives, are profoundly contrasting. [55]
Consider how different are the insights to, and experience of life, in relation to a normal conception of a “meaningful life” in America — especially in a fulfilled “American Dream” — to:
Thus finding himself cm the edge of an abyss, a person, before complete destruction, begins to understand that nevertheless something exists which is not within the realm of the external, invincible forces. And even though all the rest can no longer be saved, resistance, fight and victory are possible in one way; in the preservation of the soul — or to put it another way, which is, however, exactly the same thing — in safeguarding one’s spiritual freedom and in resistance to evil and force. However, in order for this fight to be successful or even possible, one must renounce, beforehand, everything that the physical forces can take away.
“Only do not value life,” writes Solzhenitsyn, adding: don’t have anything, renounce even your own body…it is essential to renounce even those who are close to you — to renounce everything under the sun except the soul. And only through this complete renunciation does a person become free — only then, when he no longer has anything to lose.
And at that instant when this occurs, and the person becomes totally free, then in the experience of people who underwent this concentrated form of life, i.e., the maximum of nonfreedom, the most mysterious aspect of their trial occurs: some kind of all-powerful force appears in the depths of their soul. [56]
[51] James Truslow Adams,
[52] From James Truslow Adams, “Emerson Re-Read”, in
[53] From CBS News, “60 Minutes” (transcript), Volume ХХII, Number 13 (Dec. 10.1989), “The Last Gulag”, p. 6-7.
Similarly, in his book
“In the punishment cell, life was much simpler. Every day brought only one choice: good or evil, white or black, saying yes or no to the KGB. Moreover, I had all the time I needed to think about these choices, to concentrate on the most fundamental problems of existence, to test myself in fear, in hope, in belief, in love. And now, [in the West] lost in thousands of mundane choices, I suddenly realize that there’s no time to reflect on the bigger questions. How to enjoy the vivid colors of freedom without loosing the existential depth I felt in prison?” p. 422-23.
[54] From Mihajlo Mihajlov, “Mystical Experiences of the Labor Camps”, in
[55] Is not one a “happiness” of the “horizontal” life; while the other verges on the “vertical”. Consider some of the modern history of the idea and understanding of “happiness”:
“In the seventeenth — and eighteenth — century revolutions of life and thought, there are marked changes in the exploration and uses of the conceptions of happiness and pleasure…
The concept of happiness became [in contrast, for example, to the (prior) otherworldly idea of “blessedness”] increasingly attached to the growing liberalism with its secular and worldly mood, its intense individualism, its scientific orientation, and its libertarian social outlook. The secular characterized especially the concept of happiness, associating the concept with worldly success, pursuit of wealth, power, and prestige.” See “Happiness and Pleasure”, in