From Russia, with love

‘But still, the question is, what should we remain alive for? Man is not a rock, he can’t exist just for his own sake. There’s always the “what for.” I understand that here, in the West, I won’t find the answer. Because when I look around, I don’t understand what people live for. My impression is that they live for the sake of shopping. That human life exists for the sake of shopping. The only solution is to stay on the margins, to not get too involved—in shopping, I mean. If I had grown up here, I don’t know what I would have become. This is a very disorienting feeling. I just don’t understand what it’s all for.’

---(another J.B.)

This reminded me of Solzhenitsyn's insightful and acerbic Harvard address, way back when. 

'The constant desire to have still more things and a still better life.. imprints many Western faces with worry and even depression..Active and tense competition permeates all human thoughts without opening a way to free spiritual development.'

'Wherever the tissue of life is woven out of legalistic relations, here is an atmosphere of moral mediocrity, paralyzing man's noblest impulses.'

[The tone isn't quite right, but he does sound a bit like an Old Testament prophet. Is that because he's touching on issues that relate to our fundamental human condition, rather than simply america in the third quarter of the twentieth century?].

Continue.

'Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space...It is time, in the West, to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.'

'"everyone is entitled to know everything." But this is a false slogan, characteristic of a false era...People have '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. Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic disease of the 20th century...'

[He goes on to say how the press/media is actually very uniform and here he is on the money since the views expressed, the shattering of attentiveness, reinforce the dominant "fashions" and "common corporate interests".]

What is not fashionable will 'hardly ever find its way into periodicals or books or be heard in colleges.'

[Too right! Freedom is a thousand channels on your television; ten thousand songs on your music system, free downloads, the choice of any number of yoghurts, the ability to taste food from anywhere in the world at any time, google's infinite library...]

'Life's complexity and mortal weight have produced stronger, deeper and more interesting characters than those produced by standardized Western well-being.'

[This chimed with Asad's reflections on just coming back after four months in Berkeley, California. It's a beautiful place but, ultimately, there's something not quite right about it..there's a kind of superficiality to it that makes it unreal. So speaketh the East London kid!]

'Your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about?'

'A total liberation occurred from the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice.'

[Well, we've got good latte now, haven't we? And thanks to the internet and facebook I have at least 500 friends].

'All the technological achievements of Progress, including the conquest of outer space, do not redeem the Twentieth century's moral poverty.'

[One can imagine the students shifting uneasily in their seats at this point. When will this blasted fool bring an end to this rant. Enough, already. I toldya we shouldna invited a god-damned, sonofabitch Commie.]

'Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism.'