An Observation from Solzhenitsyn's Warning to the West

Photo: Gary Firstenberg

The following was penned in the mid-Seventies. In what way was this visionary Nobel Prize-winning author right on and in what ways off the mark? How much of this description would be accurate for today? 

Russia Before the Revolution: Today, the West Follows in Her Ways.

"And what we see is always the same as it was then: adults deferring to the opinions of their children; the younger generation carried away by shallow, worthless ideas; professors scared of being unfashionable; journalists refusing to take responsibility for the words they squander so easily; universal sympathy for revolutionary extremists; people with serious objections unable or unwilling to voice them; the majority passively obsessed with a feeling of doom; feeble governments; societies whose defensive reactions have become paralyzed; spiritual confusion leading to political upheaval."

A. Solzhenitsyn--Warning to the West, p. 130

* * * * *

Related Links

Remembering Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: A Profile in Courage

Solzhenitsyn Indictment of the West Still Stands