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I wanted to start a thread where people could post pieces of writing that have had an impact on their thinking. Not only could we introduce each other to books we find great, but maybe we could understand each other better. So many books have affected me deeply. I wanted to find a place to share them.
I thought of putting this on the "Books" section in the forum, but wasn't sure if any would see it. The Q&A gets the most traffic. It can always be moved though.
I will post this piece and hope others will post their's as well. I have transcribed it from the book in front of me and forgive me if the formatting makes it hard to read. My typing skills are not what they should be. Maybe someone out there knows of a place you can get books already put into a format that you can cut and paste from. Until then, it's sore fingers for me.
It comes from Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn - The Gulag Archipelago. I have mentioned him before and this book in particular is one of the best I've ever read. It is deeply sad, tragic. Even in translation, the meaning is profound.
On Evildoers:
And one more that seemed to reflect current events - same book:
*the above excerpts were taken from The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn - Translation by Thomas P. Whitney, Harper & Row, Publishers
I thought of putting this on the "Books" section in the forum, but wasn't sure if any would see it. The Q&A gets the most traffic. It can always be moved though.
I will post this piece and hope others will post their's as well. I have transcribed it from the book in front of me and forgive me if the formatting makes it hard to read. My typing skills are not what they should be. Maybe someone out there knows of a place you can get books already put into a format that you can cut and paste from. Until then, it's sore fingers for me.
It comes from Aleksandr Isaevich Solzhenitsyn - The Gulag Archipelago. I have mentioned him before and this book in particular is one of the best I've ever read. It is deeply sad, tragic. Even in translation, the meaning is profound.
On Evildoers:
An eyewitness from the group around Gorky , who was close to Yagoda at the time, reports that in the vestibule of the bathhouse on Yagoda's estate near Moscow, ikons were placed so that Yagoda and his comrades, after undressing, could use them as targets for revolver practice before going in to take their baths.
Just how are we to understand that? As the act of an evildoer? What sort of behavior is it? Do such people really exist?
We would prefer to say that such people cannot exist, that there aren't any. It is permissible to portray evildoers in a story for children, so as to keep the picture simple. But when the great world literature of the past - Shakespeare, Schiller, Dickens - inflates and inflates images of evildoers of the blackest shades, it seems somewhat farcical and clumsy to our contemporary perception. The trouble lies in the way these classic evildoers are pictured. They recognize themselves as evildoers, and they know their souls are black. And they reason: "I cannot live unless I do evil. So I'll set my father against my brother! I'll drink the victims sufferings until I'm drunk with them!" Iago very precisely identifies his purposes and his motives as being black and born of hate.
But no; that's not the way it is! To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he is doing is good, or else it's a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek justification for his actions.
Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble - and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imaginations and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology.
Ideology - that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the granduer of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilization; the Nazis, by race; and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations.
Thanks to ideology, the twentieth century was fated to experience evildoing on a scale calculated in the millions. This cannot be denied, nor passed over, nor suppressed. How, then, do we dare insist that evildoers do not exist? And who was it that destroyed these millions?
Just how are we to understand that? As the act of an evildoer? What sort of behavior is it? Do such people really exist?
We would prefer to say that such people cannot exist, that there aren't any. It is permissible to portray evildoers in a story for children, so as to keep the picture simple. But when the great world literature of the past - Shakespeare, Schiller, Dickens - inflates and inflates images of evildoers of the blackest shades, it seems somewhat farcical and clumsy to our contemporary perception. The trouble lies in the way these classic evildoers are pictured. They recognize themselves as evildoers, and they know their souls are black. And they reason: "I cannot live unless I do evil. So I'll set my father against my brother! I'll drink the victims sufferings until I'm drunk with them!" Iago very precisely identifies his purposes and his motives as being black and born of hate.
But no; that's not the way it is! To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he is doing is good, or else it's a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek justification for his actions.
Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble - and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imaginations and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology.
Ideology - that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the granduer of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilization; the Nazis, by race; and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations.
Thanks to ideology, the twentieth century was fated to experience evildoing on a scale calculated in the millions. This cannot be denied, nor passed over, nor suppressed. How, then, do we dare insist that evildoers do not exist? And who was it that destroyed these millions?
And one more that seemed to reflect current events - same book:
...very likely spy mania was not merely the narrow-minded predilection of Stalin alone. It was very useful for everyone who possessed any privileges. It became the natural justification for increasingly widespread secrecy, the withholding of information, closed doors and security passes, fenced-off dachas and secret, restricted special shops. People had no way of penetrating the armor plate of spy mania and learning how the bureaucracy made its cozy arrangements, loafed, blundered, ate, and took its amusements.
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