[HN Gopher] Nobel archives reveal judges' safety fears for Aleks...
___________________________________________________________________
Nobel archives reveal judges' safety fears for Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn
Author : kzrdude
Score : 126 points
Date : 2021-05-14 11:49 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| carrolldunham wrote:
| Solzhenitsyn seems beloved by HN so - what did you all think of
| Two Hundred Years Together?
| yaakov34 wrote:
| I don't think anything good about it. Apart from the standard
| anti-Semitic polemic, which innovates nothing, he insulted a
| number of people whom he had no right to insult, and reinvented
| a number of episodes of his own biography in a self-serving and
| mendacious way. If you wish to look into it, you can start
| here:
|
| http://www.vestnik.com/issues/2003/0723/win/badash.htm
| ultrastable wrote:
| exactly. their deification of Solzhenitsyn is a good example
| of the moral bankruptcy of many Cold War anticommunists - in
| the end he was just another reactionary who saw the USSR as
| the latest example of sinister Jewish interference w/ the
| rightful course of Russian history
| yaakov34 wrote:
| Now you are taking this in a strange direction - it's true
| that there is a stream of anti-Communism or anti-Sovietism
| which comes from an angle of Russian nationalism, or
| imperialism, or chauvinism, or whatever you want to call
| it, but it was not a particularly large or significant
| stream at the time when Solzhenitsyn created his main
| works. One of the justified criticisms of Solzhenitsyn's
| later works is that he retroactively rewrites his
| motivations and even actions in order to place himself
| within that stream (he started out as a fairly orthodox
| believer in the Soviet ways, of which you can find traces
| in his early works, but not in his late works), and he also
| insults many of his friends and allies at the time, who did
| not follow him in this more imperialist direction.
| bobthechef wrote:
| Btw Soviet Russia was imperial.
| ultrastable wrote:
| tbh when I mentioned the figure of the reactionary who
| blames history on Jews I wasn't thinking of something
| specifically anti-Soviet or even Russian - European or
| Western would have been a better way of putting it,
| Hitler being the cliche example
| slibhb wrote:
| The idea that Solzhenitsyn is a reactionary doesn't hold up
| when you read his books.
|
| The First Circle is a deep exploration of so many things.
| Friendship, Stalinism, Marx, Marxist Dialectic,
| Christianity, Catholicism, Jews, and so on. No one comes
| out of it clean and Solzhenitsyn doesn't think he has the
| answers. Two things the book is sure of are: suffering is
| real and being does not determine consciousness (contrary
| to Marx's dictum).
|
| I believe the attempt to frame Solzhenitsyn as a
| reactionary and antisemite is wrong. It stems from him
| saying things you're not supposed to say about Jews being
| overrepresented in the early Soviet prison system (an
| empirical question) and failing to condemn Putin as much as
| the West would like. Solzhenitsyn was highly critical of
| Gorbachev for seeming to put his reputation with the West
| ahead of his country. It's clear Solzhenitsyn wanted to
| avoid that.
|
| Also, regarding his alleged antisemitism, The First Circle
| contains a narrative about Stalin turning against the Jews
| highly placed in the Soviet prison system. Solzhenitsyn's
| view here is nuanced. I haven't read 200 Years Together but
| I highly doubt it's slavering antisemitism. And 99% of the
| people claiming it is haven't read it either.
| pessimizer wrote:
| He both-sides Russian pogroms, too. His insight is that
| it was bad for Russians to exterminate the Jews, but it
| is also bad for Jews to control everything and not work
| like good Russians. You can't let this sort of framing
| pass for argument, because it can be placed around
| everything.
|
| This is where he got his history lessons:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Dikiy
| slibhb wrote:
| The fact that you're using "both-sides" as a verb makes
| it hard to take you seriously. That is a neologism that
| exists to prevent people from thinking. As if there are
| always two sides and one of them is always absolutely
| right.
|
| I highly doubt Solzhenitsyn was an antisemite based on
| what I've read of him (there are plenty of Jewish
| characters). I could be wrong (I haven't read everything)
| but I strongly suspect that this is one more example of
| unhinged culture warriors connecting dots based on their
| preconceived ideas of what is and isn't acceptable to say
| and think.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > That is a neologism that exists to prevent people from
| thinking.
|
| No, it's a neologism that intentionally points out that
| there is a bias towards moderation that assumes that the
| more central a position is, the more right it is. People
| prone to this bias are more easily manipulated by
| changing the framing of a question, and trust people more
| who scrupulously avoid consistent positions.
|
| e.g. If Jewish Russians are trying to conquer and run
| Russia for their own pleasure and to avoid work at the
| expense of non-Jewish Russian death and suffering,
| attacking them is self-defense. However, if attacking
| Jews is wrong, then they can't be trying to take over
| Russia to oppress non-Jewish Russians. Maybe we should
| just have a _little_ pogrom, or a special tax.
| slibhb wrote:
| Consistent positions are held by people who don't think.
| The world isn't consistent and if your positions are,
| that shows fealty to some silly ideological framework.
| This doesn't necessarily lead to moderacy...it leads to
| inconsistency.
|
| I highly doubt you've read the book you're criticizing
| and I grant roughly zero chance that you've fairly
| summarized Solzhenitsyn's argument ("the Jews kind of had
| it coming because they tried to rule the Russians" or
| whatever nonsense). Your framing is exactly what I'd
| expect from someone with the mind virus infecting the
| people who use "both-sides" as a verb.
| xyzelement wrote:
| Sorry I down voted you by accident. Meant to up vote.
| kome wrote:
| i have no idea why people are down-voting you, you speak
| the truth. the cold war era was often driven by "the enemy
| of my enemy is my friend" kind of logic.
| andrepd wrote:
| Nowhere so strong as in the US: supporting genocides
| across the planet because they were "bulwarks against
| communism" is very strange indeed.
| dextralt wrote:
| I agree with you, fellow white person. We must denounce
| those who insult G-d chosen tribe.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| >I don't think anything good about it.
|
| I've never seen a physical copy in English.
|
| Did you download it from somewhere before reading it?
| Supermancho wrote:
| You can read it in English here, I believe:
|
| https://www.jstor.org/stable/40871113?seq=1
| yaakov34 wrote:
| I read it online, in Russian. Well, in the late-
| Solzhenitsyn version of Russian, which diverged
| considerably from the standard language. I don't know if
| there is an English translation of it. I saw on a few
| occasions that people expressed the intention to translate
| it, generally as part of some anti-Semitic agenda, but I
| don't think that anybody got past a few chapters, since
| there is nothing particularly new or interesting in it,
| even (and especially) for anti-Semites, and rendering
| Solzhenitsyn's unusual diction and neologisms in another
| language is difficult.
| jkhdigital wrote:
| There's a difference between a book and its author (although I
| guess critical theorists would have something to say about
| that).
| dominicjj wrote:
| Outstanding book by one of the greatest of Russian authors that
| should be required reading today.
| gvv wrote:
| thirded
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Seconded.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Who is the woman in the photo? Is that his second wife?
| clort wrote:
| the caption says it is "his wife, Natalia"
|
| However, Wikipedia says both his wives were called Natalia. He
| married the second one after receiving the Nobel.
| yaakov34 wrote:
| The woman in the photo is his second wife, Natalia nee
| Svetlova.
| yaakov34 wrote:
| Yes, it's his second wife, and the photo was taken in 1972 when
| he was visiting Mstislav Rostropovich. There is another photo
| from the same series here:
| https://rg.ru/2019/12/10/vospominaniia-solzhenicyna-o-tom-ka...
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Thank you!
| publicola1990 wrote:
| A cold war mentality is still pervading many Western sources,
| here even when the article itself does not have any inkling that
| physical safety of Solzhenitsyn was ever a cause for concern, the
| headline makes it so feeding a certain perception. The Soviet
| Union of the 1970s was not the Soviet Union of the 30s.
|
| Solzhenitsyn was also a fierce critic of the West, and many who
| thought who would find him a pro-western voice was gravely
| surprised in his further commentary after coming to the west.
|
| From his commencement address Harvard/78:
|
| "Without any censorship, in the West fashionable trends of
| thought and ideas are carefully separated from those which are
| not fashionable; nothing is forbidden, but what is not
| fashionable will hardly ever find its way into periodicals or
| books or be heard in colleges. Legally your researchers are free,
| but they are conditioned by the fashion of the day. There is no
| open violence such as in the East; however, a selection dictated
| by fashion and the need to match mass standards frequently
| prevent independent-minded people giving their contribution to
| public life. There is a dangerous tendency to flock together and
| shut off successful development. I have received letters in
| America from highly intelligent persons, maybe a teacher in a
| faraway small college who could do much for the renewal and
| salvation of his country, but his country cannot hear him because
| the media are not interested in him. This gives birth to strong
| mass prejudices, to blindness, which is most dangerous in our
| dynamic era. There is, for instance, a self-deluding
| interpretation of the contemporary world situation. It works as a
| sort of a petrified armor around people's minds. Human voices
| from 17 countries of Eastern Europe and Eastern Asia cannot
| pierce it. It will only be broken by the pitiless crowbar of
| events."
| vagrantJin wrote:
| Who knew the man was a savant.
|
| The man had, word for word, given a concise description if the
| internet platforms in 2021 and the last 5-6 years.
|
| With a few notable exceptions, such as HN, a different
| opinion/worldview is wholly unacceptable. The power of these
| platforms to silence dissent would have probably made the likes
| of Joseph Goebels salivate and smack his lips in approval.
| lawnchair_larry wrote:
| HN is _definitely_ not an exception.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| > With a few notable exceptions, such as HN, a different
| opinion/worldview is wholly unacceptable
|
| I don't see any difference on Hacker News. Dang does an
| amazing job moderating and people are somewhat more civil to
| each other and more curious on average but the culture here
| strongly weeds out people who are not comfortable with
| aggressively stated opinions.
|
| I like it here but Hacker News has a culture that suits the
| people who come here. Only approved non-conformity is
| tolerated. This is true of every community, to pretend
| otherwise is kind of silly in my opinion.
| batch12 wrote:
| I would argue that instead of approved nonconformity it is
| polite nonconformity that is tolerated. Some people self-
| censor out of fear of disagreement downvotes, but I see all
| kinds of opinions and that is why I come here. I also think
| we see what we want in a lot of dialog. Either folks look
| for opposition and find it or they seek out likeminded
| opinions and find that too. Its not that there is a central
| culture here, it is that there are so many differing
| opinions that you can perceive the site however you choose.
| watwut wrote:
| Solzhinitsyn is fairly authoritarian and pro-Putin. It is odd
| too talk about him as if he would be pro freedom and free
| speach. He is not.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| You think Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was prescient? Try George
| Eliot (Mary Ann Evans).
|
| Or maybe it's that human society doesn't change as quickly as
| our technological innovations make it feel, so accurate
| observations about the present tend to hold true centuries
| after they're made.
| evgen wrote:
| The other alternative is that Solzhinitsyn and Eliot had
| their heads so far up their own asses that they imagined
| any rebuke or slight as a sure sign of the end of days for
| civilization when in fact it was not. You could fill entire
| libraries with the books and articles written by notable
| (at the time) intellectuals who all decry the state of the
| current world, blame it all on 'fashion' (as opposed to
| their own firmly deduced logical conclusions that no one
| should dare to question), and tell everyone else that we
| are already tumbling quickly down the slippery slope to
| some undesirable end state.
|
| It must be terrifying for people like this (and those in
| this same thread trying to make statements from the late
| 70s sound like prescient warnings for the 2020s) to see the
| world turning away from their writings or simply deciding
| that they were not as important or significant as society
| once thought. When the crowd goes one way and you
| desperately want it to follow in the direction you are
| trying to lead it must be quite frightening and depressing.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| I don't think either of these people wrote or talked
| about the end days of civilisation.
| slibhb wrote:
| > The other alternative is that Solzhinitsyn and Eliot
| had their heads so far up their own asses that they
| imagined any rebuke or slight as a sure sign of the end
| of days for civilization when in fact it was not.
|
| Plato does this too. Was his head also up his ass?
| Anyway, he was right, no? He was writing at the end of
| the Classical period.
|
| The truth is just that there's a constant struggle
| between past and future, tradition and innovation, and to
| go all in on one side or the other (which is what we are
| all drawn to) is insane. Pointing out the downsides of
| innovation is not wrong unless you're arguing for doing
| away with it altogether.
| cafard wrote:
| Meh. Don't like CNN/NY Times? There's always Fox
| News/Reason/The Federalist. Your voice isn't heard at
| Harvard? Well, there's Hillandale College and others.
|
| It would be hard to find a point of view that can't be found
| in print or on line today.
| robomartin wrote:
| You make it sound like there's an ideological 50/50 ratio
| in US media. This isn't even close to the truth. The ratio
| is likely closer to 90/10, if not worse.
|
| Simple example: A huge portion of the US population has no
| clue of the tragedy unfolding at the US/Mexico border.
|
| Why?
|
| Because the media is actively suppressing coverage. If they
| don't talk about it, it doesn't exist. Out of all the
| reporters in the White House briefing room, only one asks
| questions about this, and the answers are a study in
| political avoidance.
|
| Did you know kids are being found dead on a regular basis?
| Drowned, dehydrated in the desert, etc. And, of course,
| girls are being molested, abused, raped and trafficked.
|
| No, this didn't come from Fox News. We watch the Hispanic
| new networks every morning. They are reporting some of this
| on a daily basis. Just a couple of days ago they found four
| little girls in the desert, one if them thought dead and
| later survived.
|
| These events alone should be reason for mass demonstrations
| against the abject incompetence and callousness of current
| border policies. And yet, because of the overwhelming
| alignment of the media with the current ideological bend,
| the death and suffering continues.
|
| Had this happened during the last four years you would have
| 24/7 coverage of the carnage, including live helicopter
| video of dead kids in the desert.
|
| That's how bad it is. This is precisely what the quoted
| portion of Solzhenitsyn's speech was referring to.
|
| I understand his frustration. Having come from a place
| where military rule controlled it all, it is disheartening
| to see the US in the grips of ideology through a less
| centralized mechanism. This society is supposed to be
| "free" and yet people are afraid to speak up because their
| lives or livelihoods are at very real risk. This is sad to
| watch.
| licebmi__at__ wrote:
| Is this happening on a different scale? Because I have
| heard/read about this happening since I was a kid, and I
| meant hearing tales from my uncles who did cross the
| border illegally, and certainly don't remember anything
| other than the rhetoric about kids in cages by liberals
| and the "build the wall" chants by conservatives during
| Trump's administration.
|
| I meant I could be wrong, but given the historical
| disinterest that the media has shown about the border
| drama, I would imagine this is more the same apathy than
| a concerted effort to suppress coverage, and I would in
| fact argue that the sudden interest by conservative media
| is only because this is something that can be blamed on
| Biden.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| > I meant I could be wrong, ...
|
| Your post is remarkably un-informed. Even cnn.com, a
| leftist organ, says the following:
|
| The border states are facing record illegal immigration,
| to the extent all their police forces are buried in
| trying to do something about it.
|
| This was caused by 3 things:
|
| 1) Democratic policy is to not enforce immigration policy
| in the expectation that illegal immigrants will vote Dem
| later. (There was a study done in the Obama
| administration that 80% of illegals would vote Dem.) This
| subverts our immigration laws for the benefit of one
| party at the expense of the nation.
|
| 2) Biden telling illegal immigrants to come north in
| speeches. This is based on his policy team believing
| "it's compassionate to allow illegal immigrants in", but
| no well-governed country allows that.
|
| The EU tried unrestricted economic migration from Africa,
| and it's an unfolding disaster. We should learn from
| that. (Poland and Hungary avoided the ruinous expense of
| housing unemployed migrants by building walls to enforce
| their immigration policies.)
|
| Biden's stated policy is that he wants to solve the
| problem at the root, namely by improving the economies in
| Mexico and South America. It's laughable since we can
| build a wall, but we can't fix broken foreign economies.
|
| 3) Trump started building the wall because it was needed.
| But see points #1 and #2 about why Biden stopped that.
|
| There's somewhere around 100,000 children abandoned
| inside the US border because there is no wall, and the
| families hope the children will reunite with existing
| family members in the US.
| user-the-name wrote:
| HN is very much a very close-minded bubble with _very_
| strongly held, specific and quite weird ideologies that you
| are definitely not allowed to break.
|
| It is far more insular than most social media.
| karolist wrote:
| "exceptions, such as HN", you really don't think there's a
| hivemind here? Or are you censoring yourself in fear of
| downvotes, precisely as per OP. There are many ways to get to
| top of HN, few examples: write a rehashed "Kubernetes sucks"
| article. Write anything about Rust. Write an article
| criticizing Google. Write an article about how webdev is
| "wrong" nowadays. Etc. Etc. Etc.
| christophilus wrote:
| I see contrarian opinions all the time on HN. This is a
| fairly libertarian place. There is plenty of groupthink,
| but there are pro/con opinions of just about every thread
| posted here.
| vagrantJin wrote:
| Nope. I have plenty of downvotes but HN really does have a
| better incidence of open discussion unless someone is
| obviously giving an answer that's not thought out or off-
| topic with unneccesary hostility adding no value to the
| discussion (like a racial slur)
|
| Not to say there isnt a hivemind, there is but conversation
| rarely disintergrates into mindless name-calling.
|
| There is space to disagree. And anecdotally I tend to
| disagree with a lot of things but I've never been
| banned/silenced.
| mancerayder wrote:
| I think the 'hivemind' stuff is a bit overstated, but
| there are a few areas where, given the topic, you have a
| high chance of being downvoted even if you provide a
| rational, non-personal, non-offensive, and careful
| opinion. This is just what I've witnessed based on the
| article-type that I click on and observe the commentariat
| (I'm sure there are many other topics):
|
| - If the article is about Bitcoin or crypto and there are
| a large number of people talking about externalities. If
| someone says something that's perceived as being not in
| line, it's getting heavily downvoted.
|
| - If the article is about the stock market and there are
| a large number of people who are recommending index fund
| dollar-cost averaging. Someone says they picked stocks.
| Bye-bye, comment font contrast against the background.
| Greyed. Those grey comments are probably mine in this
| example.
|
| - If the article is about a recent event around a
| cancellation such as a firing or a conversation around
| misinformation, anything perceived as questioning that
| (such as using the word censorship in the comment) has a
| near-guarantee of downvotes. There is no way to ever come
| to the defense of someone who said something that has
| been deemed misinformation, a conspiracy theory, or such,
| without being associated with the cancelled. It's almost
| dangerous to even opine at this point if you have
| feelings around freedom of speech. Note: I'm not talking
| about the opinion itself, but the right to _air_ it, and
| coming to defense of that. It 's poorly received.
|
| - Criticisms of Google, curiously, and I've seen Facebook
| as well (although I think Facebook fell out of favor in
| the last few years). I have a theory about many employees
| coming to the defense of their employer out of loyalty.
|
| There are probably many other examples of dangerous
| topics that provoke the group. I think there is something
| in people's mind that lets them justify this as follows:
|
| "If you question the popular wisdom here, when you have a
| group saying A, and you say B, you _must_ be a troll out
| to provoke people. "
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| I simply upvote anything that's gray.
| unanswered wrote:
| > I think there is something in people's mind that lets
| them justify this as follows:
|
| > "If you question the popular wisdom here, when you have
| a group saying A, and you say B, you must be a troll out
| to provoke people."
|
| The HN moderation team holds to this "principle" and has
| thereby essentially developed a community around it. That
| is, this isn't a bug, it's a feature.
| mancerayder wrote:
| I don't think the moderation team sought out to create a
| monoculture- is that what you are suggesting? Downvotes
| and upvotes for comments for many people are viewed as
| ways to reward/punish well-constructed/poorly constructed
| argumentation. I'm sure originally it was a way to
| conceive of a popularity rating for an article/post.
| Something with tons of upvotes is popular.
| unanswered wrote:
| I think I'm offering this as an _alternative_ to the
| theory that a monoculture was _intentionally_ created,
| which is one which the mod team disclaims as I understand
| it. But if every individual moderation decision is made
| on the basis of "disagreeing with the 'accepted' answer
| is trolling" or something like that, and the HN community
| is [self-]selected on that basis, then I think that's an
| equally good or better explanation for what I actually
| observe in comment sections.
| mancerayder wrote:
| There's something to be said that the monoculture path or
| end result - if that's what we think is the trend - is
| more a function more broadly of either technology or some
| cultural norm. Because it's so incredibly widespread
| outside of HN, the comment voting behavior here seems to
| me more like a symptom of a broader problem than a design
| artifact.
| kybernetyk wrote:
| >The Soviet Union of the 1970s was not the Soviet Union of the
| 30s.
|
| Yet it was still the Soviet Union and people disappeared.
| ultrastable wrote:
| he was also a rabid antisemite - not exactly a shining beacon
| of moral anti-Communism
| bobthechef wrote:
| Can you give an example?
|
| Generally speaking, it seems to be clear that accusations of
| "antisemitism" have become a way to shutdown discussion and
| make someone you don't like an untouchable. It is a form of
| ad hominem. (A small historical note: the term "antisemitism"
| comes from the 19th century and refers to a racial prejudice
| against Jews, whereas the traditional antipathy toward Jews
| qua Jews was largely theological, moral, and social in
| nature, but certainly not racial which is a later
| development.)
| ultrastable wrote:
| generally speaking, that's not clear at all. are the
| quotation marks around antisemitism there to indicate
| skepticism that it even exists? and whether the antipathy
| is "moral" or "racial" is just pedantry, in this case - in
| common use "antisemitism" is used to mean hatred of Jews or
| those perceived to be Jewish, which I assume you know - it
| doesn't really matter if it's explicitly racial or not.
| mooseburger wrote:
| He wrote a book called Two Hundred Years Together about the
| Jews in Russia. It wouldn't surprise me if it really is
| antisemitic, but it's utterly pathetic to give a damn about
| the thought-killing cliches of modernity such as
| antisemitism, racism, etc., so who cares?
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| Those who like to use the antisemitic label as a cudgel
| to stifle discussion on a topic care, and use it as such.
| This is a such a good example, because despite his first
| hand experiences, anytime you say the words "jewish
| bolshevism" together, as he does, you become a target of
| such a label. Just go look at the wikipedia entry for it,
| and you would walk away thinking the label is correct!
| (the truth however, is far separated from wikipedia on
| controversial subjects)
| ultrastable wrote:
| "In the pamphlet The SS as an Anti-Bolshevist Fighting
| Organization, published in 1936, Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich
| Himmler wrote: We shall take care that
| never again in Germany, the heart of Europe, will the
| Jewish-Bolshevik revolution of subhumans be able to be
| kindled either from within or through emissaries from
| without.[35]"
|
| damn, when it places you in such august company, it's
| shocking that using the term "Jewish Bolshevism" gets you
| accused of antisemitism!
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| I upvoted you because I think its obvious what you're
| doing there, and it sorta confirms my point.
| cousin_it wrote:
| By Solzhenitsyn's account, he was the victim of an attempted
| poisoning in 1971. Also see the attempted poisoning of
| Voinovich in 1975 and the poisoning of Markov in 1978.
| publicola1990 wrote:
| The full speech here:https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/
| alexandersolzhenit...
|
| One of the import speeches made in the USA in second half of
| 20th century.
|
| "But should someone ask me whether I would indicate the West
| such as it is today as a model to my country, frankly I would
| have to answer negatively. No, I could not recommend your
| society in its present state as an ideal for the transformation
| of ours. Through intense suffering our country has now achieved
| a spiritual development of such intensity that the Western
| system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not
| look attractive. Even those characteristics of your life which
| I have just mentioned are extremely saddening."
| freshair wrote:
| What is this whitewashing? The Soviet Union never stopped
| assassinating people, and the practice clearly continued into
| present day Russia. Boris Yeltsin was one whim away from being
| assassinated in 1991 on orders from the KGB; the only reason it
| didn't happen is because the Alfa group commanders decided not
| to be bloodthirsty that day.
| mongol wrote:
| This I would like to learn more about
| freshair wrote:
| Here are some quick links:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Group#1991_Soviet_coup_
| d...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Soviet_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta
| t...
|
| The gist of it is in August of 1991, hardline Soviet
| leaders, opposed to political reform, attempted a coup. As
| part of this coup, the elimination of Yeltsin was planned.
| Yeltsin was inside the Russian White House, which was
| surrounded by a very large crowd of civilians who opposed
| the coup. KGB chairman and leader of the coup, Vladimir
| Kryuchkov, ordered the KGB's spetzna (Alfa) to fight their
| way through the crowd of civilians into the Russian White
| House to eliminate Yeltsin. Alfa showed up to do the job,
| but upon seeing and mingling with the crowd of civilians,
| decided against slaughter.
|
| Incidentally, Alfa is also the group that in 1979 stormed
| the Tajbeg Palace in Kabul and assassinated Hafizullah
| Amin, starting the Soviet-Afghan War.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| Solzehnitsyn strikes me as someone who struggled with cultural
| shock and language barriers after arrival in a new country, but
| who had the sort of personality that would build up this myth
| of spiritual decay and opposition of civilizations in order to
| channel that personal frustration.
|
| Another example might be Sayyid Qutb: was 1940s USA really that
| heinous for an ordinary Egyptian, or did Qutb just feel ill at
| ease during his time in the country and direct that frustration
| in an unhealthy direction?
| tremon wrote:
| _myth of spiritual decay_
|
| Would you consider a society in which metal detectors at
| school entrances are a widely accepted norm "spiritually
| enlightened"?
| bobthechef wrote:
| The "myth" of spiritual decay? That seems rather dismissive
| both of his perspective as an outsider looking in and of the
| general observations of those Americans who somehow have
| preserved or gained some measure of perspective. This is not
| an unusual or even original analysis of where we are. Tell a
| fish he's swimming in water and he'll ask you "what's
| water?", so I am not surprised that some might not
| understand. But the culture is truly stupid.
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| > myth of spiritual decay
|
| Advertising has been warping the West since Gutenberg, but it
| really took off exponentially after 1900.
|
| You drop anyone from former centuries (or more
| insular/insulated cultures) into the late XX century, they'll
| go into shock.
|
| Anyone with current average Western beliefs, as induced by
| media, would be considered mentally ill in the not too
| distant past.
| mannykannot wrote:
| The use of assassination did not come to an end at least until
| Beria was out of the picture (ironically, through
| assassination), and, as we know, it has seen a resurgence
| lately. The Nobel judges were not aware of the latter, of
| course, but their concern was not entirely irrational.
|
| In this context, whether Solzhenitsyn was either admirable or
| would have any lasting influence is beside the point.
| publicola1990 wrote:
| The article itself do not indicate that the Nobel Committee
| feared for Solzhenitsyn's physical safety, concern was about
| how the Soviet Government would react like not allowing back
| to the USSR after receiving the prize or not allowing him to
| travel to Stockholm. There is no concerns elucidated about
| his personal safety as insinuated by the headline (though not
| by the rest of the article itself).
|
| Article does bot substantiate what the headline wants to
| insinuate.
|
| Beria died in 1953. Solzhenitsyn was awarded the prize in
| 1972.
| mannykannot wrote:
| I'm simply pointing out that justified concerns over the
| safety of those who opposed to whoever held power in Russia
| did not end with the 1930s, as was suggested by your
| original post. They are, of course, with us now.
|
| A concern over Solzhenitsyn's movements being constrained
| is even harder to paint as alarmist than concerns over his
| physical safety.
| oytis wrote:
| > The Soviet Union of the 1970s was not the Soviet Union of the
| 30s.
|
| Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov has been assassinated by KGB
| in 1978
| andrepd wrote:
| American dissident Fred Hampton was assassinated by the CIA
| in 1969.
| varjag wrote:
| So much vitriol only to spend the remainder of his life
| travelling across Siberia in Putin's carnival wagon.
| motoboi wrote:
| The media wasn't interested, but now it doesn't care. Today
| every person is media conglomerate (at least until YouTube bans
| them)
| tester756 wrote:
| "Without any censorship, in the West fashionable trends of
| thought and ideas are carefully separated from those which are
| not fashionable; nothing is forbidden, but what is not
| fashionable will hardly ever find its way into periodicals or
| books or be heard in colleges. Legally your researchers are
| free, but they are conditioned by the fashion of the day
|
| you're sure it's 1978, not 2021?
| mhh__ wrote:
| Can you find any period in history when this is not true, it
| just seems like restating a fairly obvious fact about what
| happens to human society as it grows.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| It's a bit of a circular definition. Certainly it shouldn't
| be surprised that the set of popular things is full of
| things that are popular. It shouldn't be a surprise that
| people are focused on fashionable topics since the notion
| of fashion is defined by what people are talking about.
| tester756 wrote:
| >Can you find any period in history when this is not true
|
| Probably not.
|
| > it just seems like restating a fairly obvious fact about
| what happens to human society
|
| obvious and sad fact.
|
| >as it grows.
|
| why as it grows?
| mhh__ wrote:
| Maybe it doesn't even need to grow but Eternal
| September's are definitely a real thing.
|
| When it comes to prescient-ness, reading some ancient
| Greek history (contemporaneously written) really changed
| my view in that if you read what (IIRC) Thucydides is
| writing about it's pretty much exactly the same as today
| ("An old man complained in the streets that the youths
| are spending too much time lounging around instead of
| fighting") but slower.
| mycologos wrote:
| 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-...
|
| [2]
| https://web.archive.org/web/20180614021146/https://www.mckin...
| motohagiography wrote:
| Unsurprising, given the one thing that regime could not allow to
| prevail was truth, documentary or literary. Soviets ultimately
| used communism as a distraction for their totalitarian aim, which
| was dominion by creating a mental hall of mirrors that isolated
| each person from their own humanity and subordinated them to the
| "state," which itself was by every other account of regular
| purges and fear, just another kind of multi-layered chaotic hell
| as well. Once you were arguing, to engage at all meant you were
| already implicated and compromised by your "class," as the
| ideology and intellectual conflict was not their real tool, it
| was the bait for the trap that identified potential people with
| the instinct to resist, as the true aim of a totalitarian
| movement is to destroy all possible resistance by unmooring
| people from any concept or belief in truth. That is, for good men
| to do nothing.
|
| It's the intellectual strategy of the same kind of people today,
| to destabilize, leverage chaos, and reduce people to their animal
| level political instincts instead of allowing us to use our
| higher capacity for principle, order, and reason. That's the
| great game, between order and chaos. Solzhenitsyn (and earlier,
| Hannah Arendt) wrote a warning for all time about the tactics of
| what is an essential and ancient evil. I'm kind of what you would
| call "the first to stop clapping." The things people talk about
| in the culture wars today are the same thing. Without a meta-
| understanding of them, we're going to fall prey to the same
| tactics.
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