{"id":1363,"date":"2020-05-08T07:55:06","date_gmt":"2020-05-08T06:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lestarif.fr\/?p=1363"},"modified":"2020-05-08T08:27:44","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T07:27:44","slug":"a-world-split-apart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lestarif.fr\/?p=1363","title":{"rendered":"A World Split Apart"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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An Address by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Harvard College<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

June 1978<\/h3>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

http:\/\/www.uncg.edu\/~danford\/solz.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I AM SINCERELY HAPPY to be here with you on this occasion and to become personally acquainted with this old and most prestigious university. My congratulations and very best wishes to all of today’s graduates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harvard’s motto is Veritas. Many of us have already found out, and others will find out in the course of their lives, that truth eludes us if we do not concentrate with total attention on its pursuit. And even while it eludes us, the delusion still lingers of knowing it, and that leads to many misunderstandings. Also, truth seldom is pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter. There is some bitterness in my speech today, too. But I want to stress that it comes not from an adversary but from a friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three years ago in the United States I said certain things which at that time appeared unacceptable. Today, however, many people agree with what I then said . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The split in today’s world is perceptible even at a hasty glance. Any of our contemporaries can readily identify two world powers, each of them already capable of entirely destroying the other. However, understanding of the split often is limited to this political conception, to the illusion that danger may be abolished through successful diplomatic negotiations or by achieving a balance of armed forces. The truth is that the split is a much profounder and more alienating one, that the rifts are more than one can see at first glance. This deep, manifold split bears the danger of manifold disaster for all of us, in accordance with the ancient truth that Kingdom—in this case, our Earth— divided against itself cannot stand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there is the concept of the Third World: thus, we already have three worlds. Undoubtedly, however, the number is even greater; we are just too far away to see. Any ancient, deeply rooted, autonomous culture, especially if it is spread over a wide part of the earth’s surface, constitutes an autonomous world, full of riddles and surprises to Western thinking. At a minimum, we must include in this category China, India, the Muslim world, and Africa, if indeed we accept the approximation of viewing the latter two as compact units. For one thousand years Russia belonged to such a category, although Western thinking systematically committed the mistake of denying its autonomous character and therefore never understood it, just as today the West does not understand Russia in Communist captivity. It may be that Japan has increasingly become a distant part of the West, I am no judge here; but as to Israel, for instance, it seems to me that it stands apart from the Western world in that its state system is fundamentally linked to religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How short a time ago, relatively, the small new European world was easily seizing colonies everywhere, not only without anticipating any real resistance but also usually despising the conquered peoples and denying any possible value in their approach to life. On the face of it, it was an overwhelming success. There were no geographic frontiers to it; Western society expanded in a triumph of human independence and power. Then all of a sudden, in the twentieth century, came the discovery of its fragility and friability. We now see that the conquests were short-lived and precarious, and this in turn points to defects in the Western view of the world which led to these conquests. Relations with the former colonial world now have turned to the opposite pole, and the Western world often goes to extremes of obsequiousness, but it is difficult yet to estimate the total size of the bill which former colonial countries will present to the West, and it is difficult to predict whether the surrender, not only of its last colonies, but of everything it owns will cover the bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the blindness of superiority continues in spite of all and supports the belief that vast regions everywhere on our planet should develop and mature to the level of present-day Western systems, which in theory are the best and in practice the most attractive. There is this belief that all those other worlds are only being temporarily prevented by wicked governments or by heavy crises or by their own barbarity and incomprehension from taking the way of Western pluralistic democracy and adopting the Western way of life. Countries are judged on the basis of their progress in this direction. However, this is a conception which developed out of Western incomprehension of the essence of other worlds, out of the mistake of measuring them all with a Western yardstick. The real picture of our planet’s development is quite different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anguish about our divided world gave birth to the theory of convergence between leading Western countries and the Soviet Union. It is a soothing theory which overlooks the fact that these worlds are not at all developing into similarity; neither one can be transformed into the other without the use of violence.Besides, convergence inevitably means acceptance of the other side’s defects, too, and this is hardly desirable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I were today addressing an audience in my country, examining the overall pattern of the world’s rifts, I would have concentrated on the East’s calamities. But since my forced exile in the West has now lasted four years and since my audience is a Western one, I think it may be of greater interest here to concentrate on certain aspects of the West in our days, as I see them. A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civic courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party, and of course in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression that the loss of courage extends to the entire society. Of course there are many courageous individuals, but they have no determining influence on public life. Political and intellectual bureaucrats show depression, passivity, and perplexity in their actions, in their statements, and most of all in their theoretical reflections intended to explain how realistic and reasonable as well as intellectually and even morally warranted it is to base state policies on weakness and cowardice. The decline in courage is ironically emphasized by occasional explosions of anger and inflexibility on the part of those same bureaucrats when dealing with weak governments and weak countries that are not supported by anyone, or with currents which cannot offer any resistance. But they get tongue-tied and paralyzed when they deal with powerful governments and threatening forces, with aggressors and international terrorists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should one point out that from ancient times a decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the modern Western states were created, the following principle was proclaimed: governments are meant to serve man, and man lives to be free and to pursue happiness. (See, for example, the American Declaration of Independence.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now at last, during recent decades, technical and social progress has permitted the realization of such aspirations: the welfare state. Every citizen has been granted the desired freedom and material goods in such quantity and of such quality as to guarantee in theory the achievement of happiness, in the morally inferior sense which has come into being during those same decades. In the process, however, one psychological detail has been overlooked: the constant desire to have still more things and a still better life, and the struggle to obtain them, imprints many Western faces with worry and even depression, though it is customary to conceal such feelings. Active and tense competition permeates all human thoughts without opening a way to free spiritual development. The individual’s independence from many types of state pressure has been guaranteed; the majority of people have been granted well-being to an extent their fathers and grandfathers could not even dream about; it has become possible to raise young people according to this ideal, leading them to physical splendor, happiness, possession of material goods, money, and leisure-to an almost unlimited freedom of enjoyment. So who should now renounce all this? Why and for what should one risk one’s precious life in defense of common values, and particularly in such nebulous cases as when the security of one’s nation must be defended in a distant country?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even biology knows that habitual extreme safety and well-being are not advantageous for a living organism. Today, well-being in the life of Western society has begun to reveal its pernicious mask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Western society has given itself the organization best suited to its purpose, based, I would say, on the letter of the law. The limits of human rights and righteousness are determined by a system of laws; such limits are very broad. People in the West have acquired considerable skill in using, interpreting, and manipulating law, even though the laws tend to be too complicated for an average person to understand without the help of an expert. Any conflict is solved according to the letter of the law, and this is considered to be the supreme solution. If one is right from a legal point of view, nothing more is required; nobody may mention that one could still be not entirely right, and urge self restraint, a willingness to renounce such legal rights, sacrifice, and selfless risk: it would sound simply absurd. One almost never sees voluntary self-restraint. Everybody operates at the extreme limit of the legal frames. An oil company is legally blameless when it purchases an invention for a new type of energy order to prevent its use. A food-product, manufacturer is legally blameless when he poisons his product to make it last longer: after all, people are free not to buy it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have spent all my life under a Communist regime and I will tell that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but legal one is not quite worthy of man either. A society which is based on letter of the law and never reaches higher is scarcely taking advantage of the high level of human possibilities. The letter of the law is too cold and formal to have a beneficial influence on society. Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relations, there is an atmosphere of moral mediocrity, paralyzing man’s noblest impulses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it will be simply impossible to survive the trials of this threatening century with only the support of a legalistic structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In today’s Western society, the equality has been revealed between freedom to do good and the freedom to do evil. A statesman who wants to achieve something important and highly constructive for his country has to move cautiously and even timidly; there are thousands of hasty and irresponsible critics around him, parliament and press keep rebufling him. As he moves ahead, he has to prove that each single step of his is well-founded and absolutely flawless. Actually, an outstanding and particularly gifted person who has unusual and unexpected initiatives in mind hardly gets a chance to assert himself; from the very beginning, traps will be set out all around him. Thus mediocrity triumphs, with the excuse of restrictions imposed by democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is feasible and easy everywhere to undermine administrative power, which, in fact, has been drastically weakened in all Western countries. The defense of individual rights has reached such extremes as to make society as a whole defenseless against certain individuals. It is time, in the West, to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space. Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as, for example, the misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, motion pictures full of pornography, crime, and horror. This is considered to be part of freedom, and theoretically counterbalanced by the young people’s right not to look or not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what shall we say about the dark realm of criminality as such? Legal frames (especially in the United States) are broad enough to encourage not only individual freedom but also certain individual crimes. The culprit can go unpunished or obtain undeserved leniency with the support of thousands of public defenders. When a government starts an earnest fight against terrorism, public opinion immediately accuses it of violating the terrorists’ civil rights. There are many such cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such a tilt of freedom in the direction of evil has come about gradually, but it was evidently born primarily out of a humanistic and benevolent concept according to which there is no evil inherent in human nature; the world belongs to mankind and all the defects of life are caused by wrong social systems which must be corrected. Strangely enough, though the best social conditions have been achieved in the West, there still is criminality, and there even is considerably more of it than in the pauperized and lawless Soviet society. (There is a huge number of prisoners in our camps who are termed criminals, but most of them never committed any crime; they merely tried to defend themselves against a lawless state, resorting to means outside of a legal framework.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The press too, of course, enjoys the widest freedom. (I shall be using the word press to include all media.) But what sort of use does it make of this Freedom?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here again, the main concern n is to avoid infringing the letter of the law. There is no moral responsibility for deformation or disproportion. What sort of responsibility does a journalist have to his readers, or to history? If he has misled public opinion or the government by inaccurate information or wrong conclusions, do we know of any cases where the same journalist or the same newspaper has publicly recognized and rectified such mistakes? No, it does not happen, because it would damage sales. A nation may be the victim of such a mistake, but the journalist always gets away with it. One may safely assume that he will start writing the opposite with renewed self-assurance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because instant and credible information has to be given, it becomes necessary to resort to guesswork, rumors, and suppositions to fill in the voids, and none of them will ever be rectified, they will stay on in the readers’ memory. How many hasty, immature, superficial, and misleading judgments are expressed every day, confusing readers, without any verification? The press can both stimulate public opinion and mis-educate it. Thus we may see terrorists turned into heroes, or secret matters pertaining to one’s nation’s defense publicly revealed, or we may witness shameless intrusions on the privacy of well-known people under the slogan: \u00ab\u00a0Everyone is entitled to know everything.\u00a0\u00bb But this is a false slogan, characteristic of a false era: people also have the right not to know, and it is a much more valuable one. The right not to have their divine souls stuffed with gossip, nonsense, vain talk. A person who works and leads a meaningful life does not need this excessive burdening flow of information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic disease of the twentieth century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press. In-depth analysis of a problem is anathema to the press. It stops at sensational formulas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such as it is, however, the press has become the greatest power within the Western countries, more powerful than the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. One would then like to ask: By what law has it been elected and to whom is it responsible? In the Communist East, a journalist is frankly appointed as a state official. But who has granted Western journalists their power, for how long a time, and with what prerogatives?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is yet another surprise for someone coming from the East, where the press is rigorously unified: one gradually discovers a common trend of preferences within the Western press as a whole. It is a fashion; there are generally accepted patterns of judgment and there may be common corporate interests, the sum effect being not competition but unification. Enormous freedom exists for the press — but not for the readership, because newspapers mostly give stress and emphasis to those opinions which do not too sharply contradict their own, or the general trend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without any censorship, fashionable trends of thought and ideas in the West 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 researches 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 prevents independent-minded people from giving their contribution to public life. There is a dangerous tendency to form a herd, shutting 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 petrified armor around people’s minds. Human voices from 17 countries of Eastern Europe and Asia cannot pierce it. It will only be broken by the pitiless crowbar of events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have mentioned a few traits of Western life which surprise and shock a new arrival to this world. The purpose and scope of this speech will not allow me to continue such a review, to look into the influence of these Western characteristics on important aspects of a nation’s life, such as elementary education, and advanced education in the humanities and in art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is almost universally recognized that the West shows all the world a way to successful economic development, even though in the past years it has been strongly disturbed by chaotic inflation. However, many people living in the West are dissatisfied with their own society. They despise it or accuse it of not being up to the level of maturity attained by mankind. A number of such critics turn to socialism, which is a false and dangerous current.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope that no one present will suspect me of offering my personal criticism of the Western system in order to present socialism as an alternative. Having experienced applied socialism in a country where that alternative has been realized, I certainly will not speak for it. The well-known Soviet mathematician Shafarevich, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, has written a brilliant book under the title Socialism; it is a profound analysis showing that socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind unto death. Shafarevich’s book was published in France almost two years ago, and so far no one has been found to refute it. It will shortly be published in English in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fact which cannot be disputed is the weakening of human beings in the West, while in the East they are becoming firmer and stronger. Six decades for our people and three decades for the people of Eastern Europe; during that time we have been through a spiritual training far in advance of Western, experience. Life’s complexity and mortal weight have produced stronger deeper, and more interesting characters than those generated by standardized Western well-being. Therefore, if our society were to be transformed into yours, it would mean an improvement in certain aspects, but also a change for the worse on some particularly significant scores. It is true, no doubt, that a society cannot remain in an abyss of lawlessness, as is the case in our country. But it is also demeaning for elect such mechanical legalistic smoothness as you have. After suffering decades of violence and oppression, the human soul longs for things higher, warmer, and purer than those offered by today’s mass living habits, exemplified by the revolting invasion of publicity, by TV stupor, and by intolerable music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this is visible to observers from all the worlds of our planet. The Western way of life is less and less likely to become the leading model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are various meaningful warnings which history gives a threatened or perishing society — the decadence of art, for instance, or a lack of great statesmen. There are open and evident warnings, too. The center of your democracy and of your culture is left without electric power for a few hours only, and all of a sudden crowds of American citizens start looting and creating havoc. The smooth surface film must be very thin, then; the social system quite unstable and unhealthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the fight, physical and spiritual, for our planet, a fight of cosmic proportions, is not a vague matter of the future: it has already started. The forces of Evil have begun their decisive offensive, you can feel their pressure, and yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Very well-known representatives of your society, such as George Kennan, say: We cannot apply moral criteria to politics. Thus we mix good and evil, right and wrong, and make space for the absolute triumph of absolute Evil in the world. On the contrary, only moral criteria can help the West against Communism’s well-planned world strategy. There are no other criteria. Practical or occasional considerations of any kind will inevitably be swept away by strategy. After a certain level of the problem has been reached, legalistic thinking induces paralysis; it prevents one from seeing the size and meaning of events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In spite of the abundance of information, or maybe because of it, the West has difficulties in understanding reality such as it is. There have been naive predictions by some American experts who believed that Angola would become the Soviet Union’s Vietnam or that Cuban expeditions in Africa would best be stopped by special U.S. courtesy to Cuba. Kennan’s advice to his own country —- to begin unilateral disarmament — belongs to the same category. If you only knew how the youngest of the Moscow Old Square<\/a> officials laugh at your political wizards! As to Fidel Castro, he frankly scorns the United States, sending his troops to distant adventures from his country right next to yours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the most cruel mistake occurred with the failure to understand the Vietnam War. Some people sincerely wanted all wars to stop just as soon as possible; others believed that there should be room for national, or Communist, self-determination in Vietnam, or in Cambodia, as we see today with particular clarity. But members of the U.S. antiwar movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide, and in the suffering today imposed on thirty million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there? Do they understand their responsibility today? Or do they prefer not to hear? The American intelligentsia lost its nerve, and as a consequence thereof danger has come much closer to the United States. But there is no awareness of this. Your shortsighted politicians who signed the hasty Vietnam capitulation seemingly gave America a carefree breathing space; however, a hundredfold Vietnam now looms over you. That small Vietnam had been a warning and an occasion to mobilize the nation’s courage. But if a full-fledged America suffered a real defeat from a small Communist half country, how can the West hope to stand firm in the future?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have had occasion already to say that in the twentieth century Western democracy has not won any major war without help and protection from a powerful Continental ally whose philosophy arid ideology it did not question. In World War II against Hitler, instead of winning that war with its own forces which would certainly have been sufficient, Western democracy cultivated another enemy who would prove worse and more powerful yet: Hitler never had so many resources and so many people, nor did he offer any attractive ideas, or have such a large number of supporters in the West — a potential fifth column — as the Soviet Union does. At present, some Western voices already have spoken of obtaining protection from a third power against aggression in the next world conflict, if there is one; in this case the shield would be China. But I would not wish this on any country in the world. First of all, it is again a doomed alliance with Evil; also, it would grant the United States a respite, but when at a later date China with its billion people would turn around armed with American weapons, America itself would fall prey to a genocide similar to the one perpetrated in Cambodia in our days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet —- no weapons, no matter how powerful, can help the West until it overcomes its loss of will-power. In a state of psychological weakness, weapons become a burden for the capitulating side. To defend oneself, one must also be ready to die; there is little such readiness in a society raised in the cult of material well being. Nothing is left, then, but concessions, attempts to gain time, and betrayal. Thus, at the shameful Belgrade conference, free Western diplomats in their weakness surrendered the line where enslaved members of Helsinki Watch groups are sacrificing their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Western thinking has become conservative: the world situation should stay as it is at any cost, there should be no changes. This debilitating dream of a status quo is the symptom of a society which has come to the end of its development. But one must be blind in order not to see that the oceans no longer belong to the West, while the land under its domination keeps shrinking. The two so-called world wars (they were by no means on a world scale, not yet) meant the internal self-destruction of the small progressive West, which has thus prepared its own end. In the next war (which does not have to be an atomic one, and I do not believe it will) may well bury Western civilization forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facing such a danger, with such historical values in your past, at such a high level of realization of freedom and apparently of devotion to freedom, how is it possible to lose to such an extent the will to defend oneself?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How has this unfavorable relation of forces come about? How did the West decline from its triumphal march to its present sickness? Have there been fatal turns and losses of direction in its development? It does not seem so. The West kept advancing socially in accordance with its proclaimed intentions, with the help of brilliant technological progress. And all of a sudden it found itself in its present state of weakness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means that the mistake must be at the root, at the very basis of human thinking in the past centuries. I refer to the prevailing Western view of the world which was first born during the Renaissance and found its political expression starting in the period of the Enlightenment. It became the basis for government and social science and could be defined as rationalistic humanism or humanistic autonomy: the proclaimed and enforced autonomy of man from any higher force above him. It could also be called anthropocentricity, with man seen as the center of everything that exists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The turn introduced by the Renaissance evidently was inevitable historically. The Middle Ages had come to a natural end by exhaustion, becoming an intolerable despotic repression of man’s physical nature in favor of the spiritual one. Then, however, we turned our backs upon the Spirit and embraced all that is material with excessive and unwarranted zeal. This new way of thinking, which had imposed on us its guidance, did not admit the existence of intrinsic evil in man, nor did it see any higher task than the attainment of happiness on earth. It based modern Western civilization on the dangerous trend toward worshiping man and his material needs. Everything beyond physical well-being and accumulation of material goods, all human requirements and characteristics of a subtler and higher nature, were left outside the range of attention of the state and the social system, as if human life did not have any higher meaning. That provided access for evil, of which in our days there is a free and constant flow. But freedom does not in the least solve all the problems of human life, and it even adds a number of new ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that, in early democracies, as in American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted because man is God’s creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, on the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Such was the heritage of the preceding thousand years. Two hundred years ago — even fifty years ago — it would have seemed quite impossible, in America, that an individual could be granted boundless freedom simply for the satisfaction of his instincts or whims. Subsequently, however, all such limitations were discarded everywhere in the West; a total liberation occurred from the moral heritage of Christian centuries, with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice. Meanwhile, state systems were becoming increasingly materialistic. The West ended up by truly enforcing human rights, sometimes even excessively, but man’s sense of responsibility to God and society grew dimmer and dimmer. In the past few decades, the legalistic, selfish aspect of Western thinking has reached its apogee, and the world is now in a harsh spiritual crisis and a political impasse. All the glorified technological achievements of Progress, including the conquest of outer space, do not redeem the twentieth century’s moral poverty, which no one could imagine even as late as in the nineteenth century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As humanism in its development became more and more materialistic, it made itself increasingly accessible to speculation and manipulation, at first by socialism and then by Communism. So that Karl Marx was able to say in 1844 that \u00ab\u00a0Communism is naturalized humanism.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This statement turned out to be not entirely meaningless. One does see the same stones in the foundations of a despiritualized humanism and of any type of socialism: endless materialism; freedom from religion and religious responsibility, which under Communist regimes reaches the stage of anti-religious dictatorship; concentration on social structures, with a seemingly scientific approach (this is typical of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century and of Marxism). Not by coincidence, all of Communism’s meaningless pledges and oaths are about Man, with a capital M, and his earthly happiness. At first glance it seems an ugly parallel: common traits in the thinking and way of life of today’s West and today’s East? But such is the logic of materialistic development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The interrelationship is such, too, that the current of materialism which is farthest Left always ends up being stronger, more attractive, and finally, victorious, because it is more consistent. Humanism without its Christian heritage cannot resist such competition. We watch this process over the past centuries and, especially in the past decades, on a world scale, as the situation becomes increasingly dramatic. Liberalism was inevitably displaced by radicalism, radicalism had to surrender to socialism, and socialism could never resist Communism. The Communist regime in the East could stand and grow, thanks to the enthusiastic support of an enormous number of Western intellectuals who felt a kinship with Communism and refused to see its crimes. When they could no longer ignore them, they tried to justify them. ‘In our Eastern countries, Communism has suffered a complete ideological defeat; it is zero and less than zero. But Western intellectuals still look at it with interest and with empathy, and this is precisely what makes it so immensely difficult for the West to withstand the East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am not examining here the disastrous case of a world war and the changes which it would produce in society. As long as we wake up every morning under a peaceful sun, we have to lead an everyday life. There is a disaster, however, which has already been under way for quite some time. I am referring to the calamity of a despiritualized and irreligious humanistic consciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To such consciousness, man is the touchstone in judging and evaluating everything on earth. Imperfect man, who is never free of pride, self-interest, envy, vanity, and dozens of other defects. We are now experiencing the consequences of mistakes which had not been noticed at the beginning of the journey. On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility. We have placed too much hope in political and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life. In the East, it is destroyed by the dealings and machinations of the ruling party. In the West, commercial interests tend to suffocate it. This is the real crisis. The split in the world is less terrible than the fact that the same disease is plaguing its two main sections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot be unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most out of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty, so that one’s life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. It is imperative to review the table of widespread human values. Its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible to reduce the assessment of the President’s performance to the question of how much money one makes or of unlimited availability of gasoline. Only voluntarily inspired self-restraint can raise man above the stream of materialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be retrogression to attach oneself today to the ossified formulas of the Enlightenment. Social dogmatism leaves us completely helpless before the trials of our times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if we are spared destruction by war, our lives will have to change if we want to save life from self-destruction. We cannot avoid revising the fundamental definitions of human life and human society. Is it true that man is above everything? Is there no Higher Spirit above him? Is it right that man’s life and society’s activities have to be determined by material expansion in the first place? Is it permissible to promote such expansion to the detriment of our spiritual integrity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the world has not come to its end it has approached a major turn in history, equal in importance to the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It will exact from us a spiritual upsurge, we shall have to rise to a new height of vision, to a new level of life where our physical nature will not be cursed as in the Middle Ages, but, even more importantly, our spiritual being will not be trampled upon as in the Modern Era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This ascension will be similar to climbing onto the next anthropological stage. No one on earth has any way left but — upward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

(From National Review, July 7, 1978; pages 836-855)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

J’en ai trouv\u00e9 une traduction : http:\/\/plunkett.hautetfort.com\/archive\/2008\/08\/04\/adieu-alexandre-issaievitch.html<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adieu, Alexandre Issa\u00efevitch<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Il est mort hier \u00e0 Moscou\u00a0: hommage international\u00a0 \u00e0 Soljenitsyne, t\u00e9moin et d\u00e9nonciateur du mat\u00e9rialisme mercantile de l\u2019Ouest<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Le 8 juin 1978, \u00e0 Harvard, Alexandre Soljenitsyne pronon\u00e7ait ce discours proph\u00e9tique\u00a0:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<<  Je suis tr\u00e8s sinc\u00e8rement heureux de me trouver ici parmi vous, \u00e0 l’occasion du 327e<\/sup> anniversaire de la fondation de cette universit\u00e9 si ancienne et si illustre. La devise de Harvard est  VERITAS.<\/em> La v\u00e9rit\u00e9 est rarement douce \u00e0 entendre ; elle est presque toujours am\u00e8re. Mon discours d’aujourd’hui contient une part de v\u00e9rit\u00e9 ; je vous l’apporte en ami, non en adversaire.

Il y a trois ans, aux Etats-Unis, j’ai \u00e9t\u00e9 amen\u00e9 \u00e0 dire des choses que l’on a rejet\u00e9, qui ont paru inacceptables. Aujourd’hui, nombreux sont ceux qui acquiescent \u00e0 mes propos d’alors…

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

La chute des \u00ab\u00a0\u00e9lites\u00a0\u00bb<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Le d\u00e9clin du courage est peut-\u00eatre le trait le plus saillant de l’Ouest aujourd’hui pour un observateur ext\u00e9rieur. Le monde occidental a perdu son courage civique, \u00e0 la fois dans son ensemble et singuli\u00e8rement, dans chaque pays, dans chaque gouvernement, dans chaque pays, et bien s\u00fbr, aux Nations Unies. Ce d\u00e9clin du courage est particuli\u00e8rement sensible dans la couche dirigeante et dans la couche intellectuelle dominante, d’o\u00f9 l’impression que le courage a d\u00e9sert\u00e9 la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 toute enti\u00e8re. Bien s\u00fbr, il y a encore beaucoup de courage individuel mais ce ne sont pas ces gens l\u00e0 qui donnent sa direction \u00e0 la vie de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9. Les fonctionnaires politiques et intellectuels manifestent ce d\u00e9clin, cette faiblesse, cette irr\u00e9solution dans leurs actes, leurs discours et plus encore, dans les consid\u00e9rations th\u00e9oriques qu’ils fournissent complaisamment pour prouver que cette mani\u00e8re d’agir, qui fonde la politique d’un Etat sur la l\u00e2chet\u00e9 et la servilit\u00e9, est pragmatique, rationnelle et justifi\u00e9e, \u00e0 quelque hauteur intellectuelle et m\u00eame morale qu’on se place. Ce d\u00e9clin du courage, qui semble aller ici ou l\u00e0 jusqu’\u00e0 la perte de toute trace de virilit\u00e9, se trouve soulign\u00e9 avec une ironie toute particuli\u00e8re dans les cas o\u00f9 les m\u00eames fonctionnaires sont pris d’un acc\u00e8s subit de vaillance et d’intransigeance, \u00e0 l’\u00e9gard de gouvernements sans force, de pays faibles que personne ne soutient ou de courants condamn\u00e9s par tous et manifestement incapables de rendre un seul coup. Alors que leurs langues s\u00e8chent et que leurs mains se paralysent face aux gouvernements puissants et aux forces mena\u00e7antes, face aux agresseurs et \u00e0 l’Internationale de la terreur. Faut-il rappeler que le d\u00e9clin du courage a toujours \u00e9t\u00e9 consid\u00e9r\u00e9 comme le signe avant coureur de la fin ?

Quand les Etats occidentaux modernes se sont form\u00e9s, fut pos\u00e9 comme principe que les gouvernements avaient pour vocation de servir l’homme, et que la vie de l’homme \u00e9tait orient\u00e9e vers la libert\u00e9 et la recherche du bonheur (en t\u00e9moigne la d\u00e9claration am\u00e9ricaine d’Ind\u00e9pendance). Aujourd’hui, enfin, les d\u00e9cennies pass\u00e9es de progr\u00e8s social et technique ont permis la r\u00e9alisation de ces aspirations : un Etat assurant le bien-\u00eatre g\u00e9n\u00e9ral. Chaque citoyen s’est vu accorder la libert\u00e9 tant d\u00e9sir\u00e9e, et des biens mat\u00e9riels en quantit\u00e9 et en qualit\u00e9 propres \u00e0 lui procurer, en th\u00e9orie, un bonheur complet, mais un bonheur au sens appauvri du mot, tel qu’il a cours depuis ces m\u00eames d\u00e9cennies.

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9pressive<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Au cours de cette \u00e9volution, cependant, un d\u00e9tail psychologique a \u00e9t\u00e9 n\u00e9glig\u00e9 : le d\u00e9sir permanent de poss\u00e9der toujours plus et d’avoir une vie meilleure, et la lutte en ce sens, ont imprim\u00e9 sur de nombreux visages \u00e0 l’Ouest les marques de l’inqui\u00e9tude et m\u00eame de la d\u00e9pression, bien qu’il soit courant de cacher soigneusement de tels sentiments. Cette comp\u00e9tition active et intense finit par dominer toute pens\u00e9e humaine et n’ouvre pas le moins du monde la voie \u00e0 la libert\u00e9 du d\u00e9veloppement spirituel.

L’ind\u00e9pendance de l’individu \u00e0 l’\u00e9gard de nombreuses formes de pression \u00e9tatique a \u00e9t\u00e9 garantie ; la majorit\u00e9 des gens ont b\u00e9n\u00e9fici\u00e9 du bien-\u00eatre, \u00e0 un niveau que leurs p\u00e8res et leurs grands-p\u00e8res n’auraient m\u00eame pas imagin\u00e9 ; il est devenu possible d’\u00e9lever les jeunes gens selon ces id\u00e9aux, de les pr\u00e9parer et de les appeler \u00e0 l’\u00e9panouissement physique, au bonheur, au loisir, \u00e0 la possession de biens mat\u00e9riels, l’argent, les loisirs, vers une libert\u00e9 quasi illimit\u00e9e dans le choix des plaisirs. Pourquoi devrions-nous renoncer \u00e0 tout cela ? Au nom de quoi devrait-on risquer sa pr\u00e9cieuse existence pour d\u00e9fendre le bien commun, et tout sp\u00e9cialement dans le cas douteux o\u00f9 la s\u00e9curit\u00e9 de la nation aurait \u00e0 \u00eatre d\u00e9fendue dans un pays lointain ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

M\u00eame la biologie nous enseigne qu’un haut degr\u00e9 de confort n’est pas bon pour l’organisme. Aujourd’hui, le confort de la vie de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 occidentale commence \u00e0 \u00f4ter son masque pernicieux.

La soci\u00e9t\u00e9 occidentale s’est choisie l’organisation la plus appropri\u00e9e \u00e0 ses fins, une organisation que j’appellerais l\u00e9galiste. Les limites des droits de l’homme et de ce qui est bon sont fix\u00e9es par un syst\u00e8me de lois ; ces limites sont tr\u00e8s l\u00e2ches. Les hommes \u00e0 l’Ouest ont acquis une habilet\u00e9 consid\u00e9rable pour utiliser, interpr\u00e9ter et manipuler la loi, bien que paradoxalement les lois tendent \u00e0 devenir bien trop compliqu\u00e9es \u00e0 comprendre pour une personne moyenne sans l’aide d’un expert. Tout conflit est r\u00e9solu par le recours \u00e0 la lettre de la loi, qui est consid\u00e9r\u00e9e comme le fin mot de tout. Si quelqu’un se place du point de vue l\u00e9gal, plus rien ne peut lui \u00eatre oppos\u00e9 ; nul ne lui rappellera que cela pourrait n’en \u00eatre pas moins ill\u00e9gitime. Impensable de parler de contrainte ou de renonciation \u00e0 ces droits, ni de demander de sacrifice ou de geste d\u00e9sint\u00e9ress\u00e9 : cela para\u00eetrait absurde. On n’entend pour ainsi dire jamais parler de retenue volontaire : chacun lutte pour \u00e9tendre ses droits jusqu’aux extr\u00eames limites des cadres l\u00e9gaux.

 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00bb M\u00e9diocrit\u00e9 spirituelle \u00ab\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

J’ai v\u00e9cu toute ma vie sous un r\u00e9gime communiste, et je peux vous dire qu’une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 sans r\u00e9f\u00e9rent l\u00e9gal objectif est particuli\u00e8rement terrible. Mais une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 bas\u00e9e sur la lettre de la loi, et n’allant pas plus loin, \u00e9choue \u00e0 d\u00e9ployer \u00e0 son avantage le large champ des possibilit\u00e9s humaines. La lettre de la loi est trop froide et formelle pour avoir une influence b\u00e9n\u00e9fique sur la soci\u00e9t\u00e9. Quand la vie est tout enti\u00e8re tiss\u00e9e de relations l\u00e9galistes, il s’en d\u00e9gage une atmosph\u00e8re de m\u00e9diocrit\u00e9 spirituelle qui paralyse les \u00e9lans les plus nobles de l’homme.

Et il sera tout simplement impossible de relever les d\u00e9fis de notre si\u00e8cle mena\u00e7ant arm\u00e9s des seules armes d’une structure sociale l\u00e9galiste.

Aujourd’hui la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 occidentale nous r\u00e9v\u00e8le qu’il r\u00e8gne une in\u00e9galit\u00e9 entre la libert\u00e9 d’accomplir de bonnes actions et la libert\u00e9 d’en accomplir de mauvaises. Un homme d’Etat qui veut accomplir quelque chose d’\u00e9minemment constructif pour son pays doit agir avec beaucoup de pr\u00e9cautions, avec timidit\u00e9 pourrait-on dire. Des milliers de critiques h\u00e2tives et irresponsables le heurtent de plein fouet \u00e0 chaque instant. Il se trouve constamment expos\u00e9 aux traits du Parlement, de la presse. Il doit justifier pas \u00e0 pas ses d\u00e9cisions, comme \u00e9tant bien fond\u00e9es et absolument sans d\u00e9fauts. Et un homme exceptionnel, de grande valeur, qui aurait en t\u00eate des projets inhabituels et inattendus, n’a aucune chance de s’imposer : d’embl\u00e9e on lui tendra mille pi\u00e8ges. De ce fait, la m\u00e9diocrit\u00e9 triomphe sous le masque des limitations d\u00e9mocratiques.

Il est ais\u00e9 en tout lieu de saper le pouvoir administratif, et il a en fait \u00e9t\u00e9 consid\u00e9rablement amoindri dans tous les pays occidentaux. La d\u00e9fense des droits individuels a pris de telles proportions que la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 en tant que telle est d\u00e9sormais sans d\u00e9fense contre les initiatives de quelques-uns. Il est temps, \u00e0 l’Ouest, de d\u00e9fendre non pas temps les droits de l’homme que ses devoirs.

D’un autre c\u00f4t\u00e9, une libert\u00e9 destructrice et irresponsable s’est vue accorder un espace sans limite. Il s’av\u00e8re que la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 n’a plus que des d\u00e9fenses infimes \u00e0 opposer \u00e0 l’ab\u00eeme de la d\u00e9cadence humaine, par exemple en ce qui concerne le mauvais usage de la libert\u00e9 en mati\u00e8re de violence morale faites aux enfants, par des films tout pleins de pornographie, de crime, d’horreur. On consid\u00e8re que tout cela fait partie de la libert\u00e9, et peut \u00eatre contrebalanc\u00e9, en th\u00e9orie, par le droit qu’ont ces m\u00eames enfants de ne pas regarder er de refuser ces spectacles. L’organisation l\u00e9galiste de la vie a prouv\u00e9 ainsi son incapacit\u00e9 \u00e0 se d\u00e9fendre contre la corrosion du mal…

L’\u00e9volution s’est faite progressivement, mais il semble qu’elle ait eu pour point de d\u00e9part la bienveillante conception humaniste selon laquelle l’homme, ma\u00eetre du monde, ne porte en lui aucun germe de mal, et tout ce que notre existence offre de vici\u00e9 est simplement le fruit de syst\u00e8mes sociaux erron\u00e9s qu’il importe d’amender. Et pourtant, il est bien \u00e9trange de voir que le crime n’a pas disparu \u00e0 l’Ouest, alors m\u00eame que les meilleurs conditions de vie sociale semblent avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 atteintes. Le crime est m\u00eame bien plus pr\u00e9sent que dans la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 sovi\u00e9tique, mis\u00e9rable et sans loi…

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Les m\u00e9dias fabriquent un  \u00a0\u00bb esprit du temps \u00ab\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

La presse, aussi, bien s\u00fbr, jouit de la plus grande libert\u00e9. Mais pour quel usage ? (…) Quelle responsabilit\u00e9 s’exerce sur le journaliste, ou sur un journal, \u00e0 l’encontre de son lectorat, ou de l’histoire ? S’ils ont tromp\u00e9 l’opinion publique en divulguant des informations erron\u00e9es, ou de fausses conclusions, si m\u00eame ils ont contribu\u00e9 \u00e0 ce que des fautes soient commises au plus haut degr\u00e9 de l’Etat, avons-nous le souvenir d’un seul cas, o\u00f9 le dit journaliste ou le dit journal ait exprim\u00e9 quelque regret ? Non, bien s\u00fbr, cela porterait pr\u00e9judice aux ventes. De telles erreurs peut bien d\u00e9couler le pire pour une nation, le journaliste s’en tirera toujours. Etant donn\u00e9 que l’on a besoin d’une information cr\u00e9dible et imm\u00e9diate, il devient obligatoire d’avoir recours aux conjectures, aux rumeurs, aux suppositions pour remplir les trous, et rien de tout cela ne sera jamais r\u00e9fut\u00e9 ; ces mensonges s’installent dans la m\u00e9moire du lecteur. Combien de jugements h\u00e2tifs, irr\u00e9fl\u00e9chis, superficiels et trompeurs sont ainsi \u00e9mis quotidiennement, jetant le trouble chez le lecteur, et le laissant ensuite \u00e0 lui-m\u00eame ? La presse peut jouer le r\u00f4le d’opinion publique, ou la tromper. De la sorte, on verra des terroristes peints sous les traits de h\u00e9ros, des secrets d’Etat touchant \u00e0 la s\u00e9curit\u00e9 du pays divulgu\u00e9s sur la place publique, ou encore des intrusions sans vergogne dans l’intimit\u00e9 de personnes connues, en vertu du slogan : \u00ab tout le monde a le droit de tout savoir \u00bb.<\/em> Mais c’est un slogan faux, fruit d’une \u00e9poque fausse ; d’une bien plus grande valeur est ce droit confisqu\u00e9, le droit des hommes de ne pas savoir, de ne pas voir leur \u00e2me divine \u00e9touff\u00e9e sous les ragots, les stupidit\u00e9s, les paroles vaines. Une personne qui m\u00e8ne une vie pleine de travail et de sens n’a absolument pas besoin de ce flot pesant et incessant d’information. (…) Autre chose ne manquera pas de surprendre un observateur venu de l’Est totalitaire, avec sa presse rigoureusement univoque : on d\u00e9couvre un courant g\u00e9n\u00e9ral d’id\u00e9es privil\u00e9gi\u00e9es au sein de la presse occidentale dans son ensemble, une sorte d’esprit du temps, fait de crit\u00e8res de jugement reconnus par tous, d’int\u00e9r\u00eats communs, la somme de tout cela donnant le sentiment non d’une comp\u00e9tition mais d’une uniformit\u00e9. Il existe peut-\u00eatre une libert\u00e9 sans limite pour la presse, mais certainement pas pour le lecteur : les journaux ne font que transmettre avec \u00e9nergie et emphase toutes ces opinions qui ne vont pas trop ouvertement contredire ce courant dominant.

Sans qu’il y ait besoin de censure, les courants de pens\u00e9e, d’id\u00e9es \u00e0 la mode sont s\u00e9par\u00e9s avec soin de ceux qui ne le sont pas, et ces derniers, sans \u00eatre \u00e0 proprement parler interdits, n’ont que peu de chances de percer au milieu des autres ouvrages et p\u00e9riodiques, ou d’\u00eatre relay\u00e9s dans le sup\u00e9rieur. Vos \u00e9tudiants sont libres au sens l\u00e9gal du terme, mais ils sont prisonniers des idoles port\u00e9es aux nues par l’engouement \u00e0 la mode. Sans qu’il y ait, comme \u00e0 l’Est, de violence ouverte, cette s\u00e9lection op\u00e9r\u00e9e par la mode, ce besoin de tout conformer \u00e0 des mod\u00e8les standards, emp\u00eachent les penseurs les plus originaux d’apporter leur contribution \u00e0 la vie publique et provoquent l’apparition d’un dangereux esprit gr\u00e9gaire qui fait obstacle \u00e0 un d\u00e9veloppement digne de ce nom. Aux Etats-Unis, il m’est arriv\u00e9 de recevoir des lettres de personnes \u00e9minemment intelligentes … peut-\u00eatre un professeur d’un petit coll\u00e8ge perdu, qui aurait pu beaucoup pour le renouveau et le salut de son pays, mais le pays ne pouvait l’entendre, car les m\u00e9dia n’allaient pas lui donner la parole. Voil\u00e0 qui donne naissance \u00e0 de solides pr\u00e9jug\u00e9s de masse, \u00e0 un aveuglement qui \u00e0 notre \u00e9poque est particuli\u00e8rement dangereux. (…)
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L\u2019erreur mat\u00e9rialiste de la pens\u00e9e moderne<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Il est universellement admis que l’Ouest montre la voie au monde entier vers le d\u00e9veloppement \u00e9conomique r\u00e9ussi, m\u00eame si dans les derni\u00e8res ann\u00e9es il a pu \u00eatre s\u00e9rieusement entam\u00e9 par une inflation chaotique. Et pourtant, beaucoup d’hommes \u00e0 l’Ouest ne sont pas satisfaits de la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 dans laquelle ils vivent. Ils la m\u00e9prisent, ou l’accusent de plus \u00eatre au niveau de maturit\u00e9 requis par l’humanit\u00e9. Et beaucoup sont amen\u00e9s \u00e0 glisser vers le socialisme, ce qui est une tentation fausse et dangereuse. J’esp\u00e8re que personne ici pr\u00e9sent ne me suspectera de vouloir exprimer une critique du syst\u00e8me occidental dans l’id\u00e9e de sugg\u00e9rer le socialisme comme alternative. Non, pour avoir connu un pays o\u00f9 le socialisme a \u00e9t\u00e9 mis en oeuvre, je ne prononcerai pas en faveur d’une telle alternative. (…) Mais si l’on me demandait si, en retour, je pourrais proposer l’Ouest, en son \u00e9tat actuel, comme mod\u00e8le pour mon pays, il me faudrait en toute honn\u00eatet\u00e9 r\u00e9pondre par la n\u00e9gative. Non, je ne prendrais pas votre soci\u00e9t\u00e9 comme mod\u00e8le pour la transformation de la mienne. On ne peut nier que les personnalit\u00e9s s’affaiblissent \u00e0 l’Ouest, tandis qu’\u00e0 l’Est elles ne cessent de devenir plus fermes et plus fortes. Bien s\u00fbr, une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 ne peut rester dans des ab\u00eemes d’anarchie, comme c’est le cas dans mon pays. Mais il est tout aussi avilissant pour elle de rester dans un \u00e9tat affadi et sans \u00e2me de l\u00e9galisme, comme c’est le cas de la v\u00f4tre. Apr\u00e8s avoir souffert pendant des d\u00e9cennies de violence et d’oppression, l’\u00e2me humaine aspire \u00e0 des choses plus \u00e9lev\u00e9es, plus br\u00fblantes, plus pures que celles offertes aujourd’hui par les habitudes d’une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 massifi\u00e9e, forg\u00e9es par l’invasion r\u00e9voltante de publicit\u00e9s commerciales, par l’abrutissement t\u00e9l\u00e9visuel, et par une musique intol\u00e9rable.

Tout cela est sensible pour de nombreux observateurs partout sur la plan\u00e8te. Le mode de vie occidental appara\u00eet de moins en moins comme le mod\u00e8le directeur. Il est des sympt\u00f4mes r\u00e9v\u00e9lateurs par lesquels l’histoire lance des avertissements \u00e0 une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 menac\u00e9e ou en p\u00e9ril. De tels avertissements sont, en l’occurrence, le d\u00e9clin des arts, ou le manque de grands hommes d’Etat. Et il arrive parfois que les signes soient particuli\u00e8rement concrets et explicites. Le centre de votre d\u00e9mocratie et de votre culture est-il priv\u00e9 de courant pendant quelques heures, et voil\u00e0 que soudainement des foules de citoyens am\u00e9ricains se livrent au pillage et au grabuge. C’est que le vernis doit \u00eatre bien fin, et le syst\u00e8me social bien instable et mal en point.

Mais le combat pour notre plan\u00e8te, physique et spirituel, un combat aux proportions cosmiques, n’est pas pour un futur lointain ; il a d\u00e9j\u00e0 commenc\u00e9. Les forces du Mal ont commenc\u00e9 leur offensive d\u00e9cisive. Vous sentez d\u00e9j\u00e0 la pression qu’elles exercent, et pourtant, vos \u00e9crans et vos \u00e9crits sont pleins de sourires sur commande et de verres lev\u00e9s. Pourquoi toute cette joie ?

Comment l’Ouest a-t-il pu d\u00e9cliner, de son pas triomphal \u00e0 sa d\u00e9bilit\u00e9 pr\u00e9sente ? A-t-il connu dans son \u00e9volution des points de non-retour qui lui furent fatals, a-t-il perdu son chemin ? Il ne semble pas que cela soit le cas. L’Ouest a continu\u00e9 \u00e0 avancer d’un pas ferme en ad\u00e9quation avec ses intentions proclam\u00e9es pour la soci\u00e9t\u00e9, main dans la main avec un progr\u00e8s technologique \u00e9tourdissant. Et tout soudain il s’est trouv\u00e9 dans son \u00e9tat pr\u00e9sent de faiblesse. Cela signifie que l’erreur doit \u00eatre \u00e0 la racine, \u00e0 la fondation de la pens\u00e9e moderne. Je parle de la vision du monde qui a pr\u00e9valu en Occident \u00e0 l’\u00e9poque moderne. Je parle de la vision du monde qui a pr\u00e9valu en Occident, n\u00e9e \u00e0 la Renaissance, et dont les d\u00e9veloppements politiques se sont manifest\u00e9s \u00e0 partir des Lumi\u00e8res. Elle est devenue la base da la doctrine sociale et politique et pourrait \u00eatre appel\u00e9e l’humanisme rationaliste, ou l’autonomie humaniste : l’autonomie proclam\u00e9e et pratiqu\u00e9e de l’homme \u00e0 l’encontre de toute force sup\u00e9rieure \u00e0 lui. On peut parler aussi d’anthropocentrisme : l’homme est vu au centre de tout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Historiquement, il est probable que l’inflexion qui s’est produite \u00e0 la Renaissance \u00e9tait in\u00e9vitable. Le Moyen Age en \u00e9tait venu naturellement \u00e0 l’\u00e9puisement, en raison d’une r\u00e9pression intol\u00e9rable de la nature charnelle de l’homme en faveur de sa nature spirituelle. Mais en s’\u00e9cartant de l’esprit, l’homme s’empara de tout ce qui est mat\u00e9riel, avec exc\u00e8s et sans mesure. La pens\u00e9e humaniste, qui s’est proclam\u00e9e notre guide, n’admettait pas l’existence d’un mal intrins\u00e8que en l’homme, et ne voyait pas de t\u00e2che plus noble que d’atteindre le bonheur sur terre. Voil\u00e0 qui engagea la civilisation occidentale moderne naissante sur la pente dangereuse de l’adoration de l’homme et de ses besoins mat\u00e9riels. Tout ce qui se trouvait au-del\u00e0 du bien-\u00eatre physique et de l’accumulation de biens mat\u00e9riels, tous les autres besoins humains, caract\u00e9ristiques d’une nature subtile et \u00e9lev\u00e9e, furent rejet\u00e9s hors du champ d’int\u00e9r\u00eat de l’Etat et du syst\u00e8me social, comme si la vie n’avait pas un sens plus \u00e9lev\u00e9.<\/em> De la sorte, des failles furent laiss\u00e9es ouvertes pour que s’y engouffre le mal, et son haleine putride souffle librement aujourd’hui. Plus de libert\u00e9 en soi ne r\u00e9sout pas le moins du monde l’int\u00e9gralit\u00e9 des probl\u00e8mes humains, et m\u00eame en ajoute un certain nombre de nouveaux.
<\/em>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

L\u2019Ouest, aussi mat\u00e9rialiste que l\u2019Est<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Et pourtant, dans les jeunes d\u00e9mocraties, comme la d\u00e9mocratie am\u00e9ricaine naissante, tous les droits de l’homme individuels reposaient sur la croyance que l’homme est une cr\u00e9ature de Dieu. C’est-\u00e0-dire que la libert\u00e9 \u00e9tait accord\u00e9e \u00e0 l’individu de mani\u00e8re conditionnelle, soumise constamment \u00e0 sa responsabilit\u00e9 religieuse. Tel fut l’h\u00e9ritage du si\u00e8cle pass\u00e9.

Toutes les limitations de cette sorte s’\u00e9mouss\u00e8rent en Occident, une \u00e9mancipation compl\u00e8te survint, malgr\u00e9 l’h\u00e9ritage moral de si\u00e8cles chr\u00e9tiens, avec leurs prodiges de mis\u00e9ricorde et de sacrifice. Les Etats devinrent sans cesses plus mat\u00e9rialistes. L’Occident a d\u00e9fendu avec succ\u00e8s, et m\u00eame surabondamment, les droits de l’homme, mais l’homme a vu compl\u00e8tement s’\u00e9tioler la conscience de sa responsabilit\u00e9 devant Dieu et la soci\u00e9t\u00e9. Durant ces derni\u00e8res d\u00e9cennies, cet \u00e9go\u00efsme juridique de la philosophie occidentale a \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9finitivement r\u00e9alis\u00e9, et le monde se retrouve dans une cruelle crise spirituelle et dans une impasse politique. Et tous les succ\u00e8s techniques, y compris la conqu\u00eate de l’espace, du Progr\u00e8s tant c\u00e9l\u00e9br\u00e9 n’ont pas r\u00e9ussi \u00e0 racheter la mis\u00e8re morale dans laquelle est tomb\u00e9 le XXe<\/sup> si\u00e8cle, que personne n’aurait pu encore soup\u00e7onner au XIXe<\/sup> si\u00e8cle.

L’humanisme dans ses d\u00e9veloppements devenant toujours plus mat\u00e9rialiste, il permit avec une incroyable efficacit\u00e9 \u00e0 ses concepts d’\u00eatre utilis\u00e9s d’abord par le socialisme, puis par le communisme, de telle sorte que Karl Marx p\u00fbt dire, en 1844, que \u00ab le communisme est un humanisme naturalis\u00e9 \u00bb.<\/em>  Il s’est av\u00e9r\u00e9 que ce jugement \u00e9tait loin d’\u00eatre faux. On voit les m\u00eames pierres aux fondations d’un humanisme alt\u00e9r\u00e9 et de tout type de socialisme : un mat\u00e9rialisme sans frein, une lib\u00e9ration \u00e0 l’\u00e9gard de la religion et de la responsabilit\u00e9 religieuse, une concentration des esprits sur les structures sociales avec une approche pr\u00e9tendument scientifique. Ce n’est pas un hasard si toutes les promesses rh\u00e9toriques du communisme sont centr\u00e9es sur l’Homme, avec un grand H, et son bonheur terrestre. A premi\u00e8re vue, il s’agit d’un rapprochement honteux : comment, il y aurait des points communs entre la pens\u00e9e de l’Ouest et de l’Est aujourd’hui ? L\u00e0 est la logique du d\u00e9veloppement mat\u00e9rialiste…

Je ne pense pas au cas d’une catastrophe amen\u00e9e par une guerre mondiale, et aux changements qui pourraient en r\u00e9sulter pour la soci\u00e9t\u00e9. Aussi longtemps que nous nous r\u00e9veillerons chaque matin, sous un soleil paisible, notre vie sera in\u00e9vitablement tiss\u00e9e de banalit\u00e9s quotidiennes. Mais il est une catastrophe qui pour beaucoup est d\u00e9j\u00e0 pr\u00e9sente pour nous. Je veux parler du d\u00e9sastre d’une conscience humaniste parfaitement autonome et irr\u00e9ligieuse.

Elle a fait de l’homme la mesure de toutes choses sur terre, l’homme imparfait, qui n’est jamais d\u00e9nu\u00e9 d’orgueil, d’\u00e9go\u00efsme, d’envie, de vanit\u00e9, et tant d’autres d\u00e9fauts. Nous payons aujourd’hui les erreurs qui n’\u00e9taient pas apparues comme telles au d\u00e9but de notre voyage. Sur la route qui nous a amen\u00e9s de la Renaissance \u00e0 nos jours, notre exp\u00e9rience s’est enrichie, mais nous avons perdu l’id\u00e9e d’une entit\u00e9 sup\u00e9rieure qui autrefois r\u00e9fr\u00e9nait nos passions et notre irresponsabilit\u00e9.

Nous avions plac\u00e9 trop d’espoirs dans les transformations politico-sociales, et il se r\u00e9v\u00e8le qu’on nous enl\u00e8ve ce que nous avons de plus pr\u00e9cieux : notre vie int\u00e9rieure. A l’Est, c’est la foire du Parti qui la foule aux pieds, \u00e0 l’Ouest la foire du Commerce : ce qui est effrayant, ce n’est m\u00eame pas le fait du monde \u00e9clat\u00e9, c’est que les principaux morceaux en soient atteints d’une maladie analogue. Si l’homme, comme le d\u00e9clare l’humanisme, n’\u00e9tait n\u00e9 que pour le bonheur, il ne serait pas n\u00e9 non plus pour la mort. Mais corporellement vou\u00e9 \u00e0 la mort, sa t\u00e2che sur cette terre n’en devient que plus spirituelle : non pas un gorgement de quotidiennet\u00e9, non pas la recherche des meilleurs moyens d’acquisition, puis de joyeuse d\u00e9pense des biens mat\u00e9riels, mais l’accomplissement d’un dur et permanent devoir, en sorte que tout le chemin de notre vie devienne l’exp\u00e9rience d’une \u00e9l\u00e9vation avant tout spirituelle : quitter cette vie en cr\u00e9atures plus hautes que nous n’y \u00e9tions entr\u00e9s.

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u00bb Revoir \u00e0 la hausse l\u2019\u00e9chelle de nos valeurs humaines \u00ab\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Il est imp\u00e9ratif que nous revoyions \u00e0 la hausse l’\u00e9chelle de nos valeurs humaines. Sa pauvret\u00e9 actuelle est effarante. Il n’est pas possible que l’aune qui sert \u00e0 mesurer de l’efficacit\u00e9 d’un pr\u00e9sident se limite \u00e0 la question de combien d’argent l’on peut gagner, ou de la pertinence de la construction d’un gazoduc. Ce n’est que par un mouvement volontaire de mod\u00e9ration de nos passions, sereine et accept\u00e9e par nous, que l’humanit\u00e9 peut s’\u00e9lever au-dessus du courant de mat\u00e9rialisme qui emprisonne le monde.

Quand bien m\u00eame nous serait \u00e9pargn\u00e9 d’\u00eatre d\u00e9truits par la guerre, notre vie doit changer si elle ne veut pas p\u00e9rir par sa propre faute. Nous ne pouvons nous dispenser de rappeler ce qu’est fondamentalement la vie, la soci\u00e9t\u00e9. Est-ce vrai que l’homme est au-dessus de tout ? N’y a-t-il aucun esprit sup\u00e9rieur au-dessus de lui ? Les activit\u00e9s humaines et sociales peuvent-elles l\u00e9gitimement \u00eatre r\u00e9gl\u00e9es par la seule expansion mat\u00e9rielle ? A-t-on le droit de promouvoir cette expansion au d\u00e9triment de l’int\u00e9grit\u00e9 de notre vie spirituelle ?

Si le monde ne touche pas \u00e0 sa fin, il a atteint une \u00e9tape d\u00e9cisive dans son histoire, semblable en importance au tournant qui a conduit du Moyen-\u00e2ge \u00e0 la Renaissance. Cela va requ\u00e9rir de nous un embrasement spirituel. Il nous faudra nous hisser \u00e0 une nouvelle hauteur de vue, \u00e0 une nouvelle conception de la vie, o\u00f9 notre nature physique ne sera pas maudite, comme elle a pu l’\u00eatre au Moyen-\u00e2ge, mais, ce qui est bien plus important, o\u00f9 notre \u00eatre spirituel ne sera pas non plus pi\u00e9tin\u00e9, comme il le fut \u00e0 l’\u00e8re moderne. Notre ascension nous m\u00e8ne \u00e0 une nouvelle \u00e9tape anthropologique. Nous n’avons pas d’autre choix que de monter : toujours plus haut. >><\/p>\n\n\n\n



Alexandre Solj\u00e9nitsyne,<\/strong> Harvard, 8 juin 1978<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Address by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Harvard College June 1978 http:\/\/www.uncg.edu\/~danford\/solz.html I AM SINCERELY HAPPY to be here with you on this occasion and to become personally acquainted with this old and most prestigious university. My congratulations and very best wishes to all of today’s graduates. Harvard’s motto is Veritas. Many of us have already found …<\/p>\n

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