Solzhenitsyn: An Orbital Journey

[Hawkeye10]

This looks right to me:

We — all of us, all of civilized humanity — have been seated and fastened onto a single, rigidly interconnected carousel, and have taken a long orbital journey. Like little kids mounted on the carousel’s horses, we thought this journey would be endless, always forward, only forward, never sideways or askew. This orbital journey has been — the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, bloody physical revolutions, democratic societies, socialist projects. This journey had to occur because the Middle Ages failed, in their time, to hold humanity’s course; because the planting on Earth of the Kingdom of God was forcibly imposed, with essential personal rights being revoked in favor of the Whole. We were violently pulled, forced toward the spiritual, and so we tore away and dove — headlong and unbounded — into the Material. Thus began a long era of humanistic individualism, the construction of a civilization based on the principle that man is the measure of all things, that man is above all.

This whole inevitable journey greatly enriched humanity’s experience, but it has exhausted itself before our eyes. The foundational errors that were ignored at the beginning of the journey now take their revenge. Having established man — with all his shortcomings and greed — as the highest measure of all things, and having given ourselves over to the Material, immoderately and with abandon, we have now clogged up the works amidst profuse pollution.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn-decries-materialism-modern-society/

This encapsulates so much of what I have been saying for a long time, I am sad that he said this all the way back in 1974 but I only just now am hearing this.

What Say You?

 

[Tom Horn]

This looks right to me:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn-decries-materialism-modern-society/

This encapsulates so much of what I have been saying for a long time, I am sad that he said this all the way back in 1974 but I only just now am hearing this.

What Say You?

Doesn’t apply to me. I’ve went to churches before ( and I wasn’t struck by lightening either ) and gave up watching the Sunday baseball games to go pass out food to the needy. ( Door to door ) White and Black neighborhoods.

 

[Hawkeye10]

Doesn’t apply to me. I’ve went to churches before ( and I wasn’t struck by lightening either ) and gave up watching the Sunday baseball games to go pass out food to the needy. ( Door to door ) White and Black neighborhoods.

Not everything is about you.

 

[Tom Horn]

Not everything is about you.

It usually isn’t. I don’t want it to be anyways. Not all elderly go to churches. And some after you leave the food on their porch or steps will call you back and ask you to take money from them. That’s heart wrenching. A few times we’d come back on a Saturday and glaze their window panes and chalk their seems, then paint the house. Oh yeah. The Mormons suck.

 

[Angel]

This looks right to me:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn-decries-materialism-modern-society/

This encapsulates so much of what I have been saying for a long time, I am sad that he said this all the way back in 1974 but I only just now am hearing this.

What Say You?

I think his diagnosis is right on, but I'm not as clear on his etiology. That is to say, his analysis of modernity is right on, but I don't as readily get what the failure of the Middle Ages was all about. He doesn't give it much text, just an allusion in a few words. Maybe it's not as important to his analysis as what followed the Middle Ages, but if both the Middle Ages and what came about as a reaction to the Middle Ages have contributed to the problem of modernity, it would help in finding a solution to that problem if we understood the mistake we don't want to repeat.

 

[Hawkeye10]

I think his diagnosis is right on, but I'm not as clear on his etiology. That is to say, his analysis of modernity is right on, but I don't as readily get what the failure of the Middle Ages was all about. He doesn't give it much text, just an allusion in a few words. Maybe it's not as important to his analysis as what followed the Middle Ages, but if both the Middle Ages and what came about as a reaction to the Middle Ages have contributed to the problem of modernity, it would help in finding a solution to that problem if we understood the mistake we don't want to repeat.

According to Zen we being imperfect beings always make mistakes and fail to some degree, the trick is to look for mistakes and to be wise enough to find mistakes as early as humanly possible, to then face up to those mistakes, and to then launch the best reforms that we can manage. Jordan Peterson says that the West is dying because we willfully live in fantasy, we willfully resist seeing the mistakes, seeing what is real.

I am wondering if Solzhenitsyn was claiming that the failure of the medieval period was due to an abnormal failure, or if he meant it as a standard human failure, this pushing the superiority of Rome and demanding that all fall in line, to the point that the ability of a human to follow his own mind, his own will, was greatly rubbed out....that which Solzhenitsyn claims caused the revolt into pursing the greed of consumption. He is certainly right that pursuing consumption which is mostly a titillation of our nerve endings increasingly in frivolity at the expense of expanding consciousness is what ails us now.....pursuing what we thought we wanted has turned out to be bad for us, we should have been thinking bigger.

 

[Angel]

According to Zen we being imperfect beings always make mistakes and fail to some degree, the trick is to look for mistakes and to be wise enough to find mistakes as early as humanly possible, to then face up to those mistakes, and to then launch the best reforms that we can manage. Jordan Peterson says that the West is dying because we willfully live in fantasy, we willfully resist seeing the mistakes, seeing what is real.

I am wondering if Solzhenitsyn was claiming that the failure of the medieval period was due to an abnormal failure, or if he meant it as a standard human failure, this pushing the superiority of Rome and demanding that all fall in line, to the point that the ability of a human to follow his own mind, his own will, was greatly rubbed out....that which Solzhenitsyn claims caused the revolt into pursing the greed of consumption. He is certainly right that pursuing consumption which is mostly a titillation of our nerve endings increasingly in frivolity at the expense of expanding consciousness is what ails us now.....pursuing what we thought we wanted has turned out to be bad for us, we should have been thinking bigger.

I like Peterson; he knows a lot and he's not afraid to tell it like it is.
Your gloss on the failure of the Middle Ages helps. Thanks.

 

[Hawkeye10]

I like Peterson; he knows a lot and he's not afraid to tell it like it is.
Your gloss on the failure of the Middle Ages helps. Thanks.

I am not sure that Solzhenitsyn is right mind you, up till now my thesis has been that core problem started with the Enlightenment deciding that human greed could be promoted then harnessed and put to good use, Solzhenitsyn is saying that the problem had started long before that.

 

[Angel]

I am not sure that Solzhenitsyn is right mind you, up till now my thesis has been that core problem started with the Enlightenment deciding that human greed could be promoted then harnessed and put to good use, Solzhenitsyn is saying that the problem had started long before that.

Well, clearly somewhere Mankind made a wrong turn.

 

[Hawkeye10]

Well, clearly somewhere Mankind made a wrong turn.

And as we used to say in the old days "and clearly man has not had the good sense that God gave us enough to see that a mistake has been made, and attempt to do better".

This willful ignorance that we suffer now is the demonstration of a failure of will.

Look at all of the nonsense and childish behavior on DP for demonstration.

 

[devildavid]

I think his diagnosis is right on, but I'm not as clear on his etiology. That is to say, his analysis of modernity is right on, but I don't as readily get what the failure of the Middle Ages was all about. He doesn't give it much text, just an allusion in a few words. Maybe it's not as important to his analysis as what followed the Middle Ages, but if both the Middle Ages and what came about as a reaction to the Middle Ages have contributed to the problem of modernity, it would help in finding a solution to that problem if we understood the mistake we don't want to repeat.

What the heck is modernity?

 

[devildavid]

According to Zen we being imperfect beings always make mistakes and fail to some degree, the trick is to look for mistakes and to be wise enough to find mistakes as early as humanly possible, to then face up to those mistakes, and to then launch the best reforms that we can manage. Jordan Peterson says that the West is dying because we willfully live in fantasy, we willfully resist seeing the mistakes, seeing what is real.

I am wondering if Solzhenitsyn was claiming that the failure of the medieval period was due to an abnormal failure, or if he meant it as a standard human failure, this pushing the superiority of Rome and demanding that all fall in line, to the point that the ability of a human to follow his own mind, his own will, was greatly rubbed out....that which Solzhenitsyn claims caused the revolt into pursing the greed of consumption. He is certainly right that pursuing consumption which is mostly a titillation of our nerve endings increasingly in frivolity at the expense of expanding consciousness is what ails us now.....pursuing what we thought we wanted has turned out to be bad for us, we should have been thinking bigger.

How do you know you aren't making mistakes but don't see them as such? What should we be pursuing, oh wise one? Adding to out post counts on an internet forum? You and Angel arrogantly think you know the solution to humanity but are unable to see through the illusion of that egotistical conceit.

 

[devildavid]

I like Peterson; he knows a lot and he's not afraid to tell it like it is.
Your gloss on the failure of the Middle Ages helps. Thanks.

Not surprised you like Peterson. He is a pompous ass and an inveterate self-promoter.

 

[Hawkeye10]

How do you know you aren't making mistakes but don't see them as such? What should we be pursuing, oh wise one? Adding to out post counts on an internet forum? You and Angel arrogantly think you know the solution to humanity but are unable to see through the illusion of that egotistical conceit.

When I start getting whole posts that are nothing but "All about Hawkeye, and BTW you suck!" I start figuring that I am on to something.

 

[Hawkeye10]

Not surprised you like Peterson. He is a pompous ass and an inveterate self-promoter.

Most significant intellectual to come out of Canada in a very long while says Paglia.

 

[devildavid]

When I start getting whole posts that are nothing but "All about Hawkeye, and BTW you suck!" I start figuring that I am on to something.

You probably don't realize what you are really onto. And it does have to do with you and how you present yourself. You mouth platitudes of Zen and come across just the opposite of Zen.

 

[devildavid]

Most significant intellectual to come out of Canada in a very long while says Paglia.

Birds of a feather.

 

[Quaestio]

Not surprised you like Peterson. He is a pompous ass and an inveterate self-promoter.

Jordan Peterson, otherwise known as the stupid man's idea of a smart man.

 

[Angel]

What the heck is modernity?

Do some reading this spring.

 

[Angel]

Not surprised you like Peterson. He is a pompous ass and an inveterate self-promoter.

Not surprised you don't like Peterson; he requires thinking, self-awareness, reading. Things outside your comfort zone.

 

[Tim the plumber]

This looks right to me:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/aleksandr-solzhenitsyn-decries-materialism-modern-society/

This encapsulates so much of what I have been saying for a long time, I am sad that he said this all the way back in 1974 but I only just now am hearing this.

What Say You?

What utterly pretentious drivel!

That magisterial book had shaken the world and revealed for all to see the violence and mendacity at the heart of the Soviet state, and of an inhuman Communist ideology. Its publication was, as we now know, a fatal blow to the legitimacy of the entire Marxist-Leninist enterprise, one from which the Soviet Union never recovered.

Yeah, that was it, the opinion of lefties on the Left Bank is all that counts. Without that the Soviet Union was doomed.

Abject drivel.

 

[Tim the plumber]

error.

 

[Hawkeye10]

What utterly pretentious drivel!



Yeah, that was it, the opinion of lefties on the Left Bank is all that counts. Without that the Soviet Union was doomed.

Abject drivel.

Why then are you here?

Clearly you are not informed well enough to be able to help.

 

[Tim the plumber]

Why then are you here?

Clearly you are not informed well enough to be able to help.

It is the duty of all of us to oppose drivel in all its' forms.

Be that religious drivel, communist drivel, psudo-interlectual drivel, right wing alt-reality drivel or any other.

This is drivel in many ways. The lack of evidence is just part of the problem with the pretentious nonesense.

 

[Angel]

Most significant intellectual to come out of Canada in a very long while says Paglia.

Jordan Peterson, otherwise known as the stupid man's idea of a smart man.

Or among the demimondaine of social media sometimes known as the even stupider man's idea of "the stupid man's idea of a smart man" and the ultimate "Cadit Quaestio" in internet circles which is of course Latin for "Enough Said" or thereabouts given the rarity of grace among anonymous narcissists both malignant and benign empowered by technology and embittered by their own mediocrity.

In short, Peterson is not for the unread and intellectually unregenerate.