French press: Solzhenitsyn's prophecies about the West are coming true
In June 1978, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was invited to speak at Harvard University (USA) in front of students and faculty. He was expected to praise the West, but in his famous speech "On the Decline of Courage", he said that Western capitalism takes away "inner life" from people, like communism, only it does it a little differently. Decades later, his words can be called prophetic because they come true, writes the French online magazine Causeur.
According to Solzhenitsyn, Western society is concerned only with the search for fictitious happiness in the atmosphere of a "commercial bazaar." In the West, they do not pay attention to the spiritual development of a person. Moreover, they destroy historically established Christian traditions, "when all life is permeated with legal relations, an atmosphere of spiritual mediocrity is created, which deadens the best ups of a person."
Protection of individual rights has been taken to the extreme that society itself is already becoming defenseless from other individuals
- said Solzhenitsyn, pointing out that these individuals are already forcing society to obey them.
He turned out to be right, the lack of courage, blindness and outright betrayal of the Western elites, who accept and legalize the demands of minorities, are accompanied by a frightening duplicity, enshrined in legislation. Solzhenitsyn criticized the press, calling it a propagandist who distorts public opinion. Corporate interests have led not to competition and objectivity, but to uniformity and censorship. Dissenters are simply fired, leaving them without a livelihood.
The Western system, in its current spiritually depleted form, does not seem tempting. Even the features of your life I have listed are extremely distressing.
- clarified Solzhenitsin, stressing that a Western person cannot put himself above any other person on the planet.
I wonder what Solzhenitsyn would say now, looking at modern Western society? With its fall in the level of education, the reduction of social guarantees, the creation of a whole army of "citizens of the world" and "environmentalists". He would probably see the most catastrophic realization of his fears.
Loss of courage is perhaps what most strikes a stranger in the West today.
- said Solzhenitsyn.
He hoped that the West would make a leap forward in its spiritual development. But things only got worse. Half a century later, we run the risk of burying Western civilization, summed up the media.
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