On Election Eve
This evening here at Stanford, I attended a discussion with Natan Sharansky, the Jewish refusenik, imprisoned for years in the Soviet Union, who is now an Israeli politician. What was life like in the Soviet Union? "Doublethink," Sharansky replied. "I'll give you an example.
"When I was five, my father said, 'Boy, come here. I want to tell you something you should remember all your life but never say to anyone else. Stalin is a bad, bad man. He killed many people. He was bad for us Jews. But now a miracle has happened. Stalin is dead.'
"Then I went to school, and with all the other children I am singing songs to Stalin, praising Stalin, thanking Stalin for our happy childhood. But I am remembering what my father told me. A miracle has happened and Stalin is dead.
"That was doublethink. You tried to hold the truth in your head, or maybe in your home, among your family. But the whole society said the opposite, and you said it with them. The Soviet Union turned everyone into doublethinkers. Millions of people--they were all doublethinkers."
Not here.
We still get to say--and blog--precisely what we believe.
And to vote accordingly.
God bless America.
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May '10
Re: On Election Eve
Nice one, Peter. It's good to have this place (Ricochet) as a shelter from the storm sometimes.
Re: On Election Eve
I sat next to Sharansky at a dinner many years ago. I was more than a little awestruck. He was not an imposing person, but had a profound simplicity and groundedness to his personality that was rare and impressive. Not that he wasn't funny, smart, and intellectually subtle—his talk and Q&A with the likes of Jeane Kirkpatrick and Charles Krauthammer was both. (And he couldn't have been nicer to the nobody next to him.) Still, you got the sense that his is a soul tempered by fire. May his years be many...
Jul '10
Re: On Election Eve
Glorious post, Peter!
(Peter Robinson is an evil, evil guy)
Aug '10
Re: On Election Eve
Well said Peter!
I am deeply grateful for the freedom this country provides.
And thank you and Rob and all the fine folks who brought us Ricochet.
This is the only place I have ever dared to post a comment.
Looking forward to the results tomorrow.
Oct '10
Re: On Election Eve
Reminds me of a line...
"The orderly transfer of authority as called for in the Constitution routinely takes place as it has for almost two centuries and few of us stop to think how unique we really are. In the eyes of many in the world, this every-4-year ceremony we accept as normal is nothing less than a miracle."
God Bless America
Aug '10
Re: On Election Eve
God has blessed us, and may we always remember and recognize His Providence; which we've seen in abundance for the last eighteen months.
Our Founders, men and women of great character, gave us the ability to have bloodless revolutions when times became desperate. For that may we be eternally grateful.
Jul '10
Re: On Election Eve
Sure, behind my nom de plume I can say these things. In a faculty meeting, scientific conference or over a couple of beers with colleagues I've got to keep my mouth shut.
May '10
Re: On Election Eve
I have a quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald on my desk. It reads, "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still be able to function." Thank God for men like Natan Sharansky who continued to function until he could exercise his freedom to thrive.
Jun '10
Re: On Election Eve
As part of my lesson plan for the former USSR I show two documentary films. The first is on the last of the Romanovs, the other on Stalin. I can recall the reaction from one of my least articulate student when I asked for a comparison/contrast analysis. She said, "they (the Romanovs) were a nice family, but Stalin was a bad, bad man." Fine, lesson learned. In addition, I offer the kids the following rubric to describe the three types of communists:
1. dirty communists
2. dirty, rotten communists
3. dirty, rotten, communist bastards.
I'm pretty sure all of my former students remember the distinction.
Aug '10
Re: On Election Eve
Paules
The first question that occurred to me as I read your post was: what grade level ?
This would be great for 12 years and should be mandatory for anyone in college.
Which begs the next question: where in American academia could you show something that disses Uncle Joe ?
Aug '10
Re: On Election Eve
Paules
The first question that occurred to me as I read your post was: what grade level ?
This would be great for 12 year olds and should be mandatory for anyone in college.
Which begs the next question: where in American academia could you show something that disses Uncle Joe ?
The Black Book of Communism should be required reading.
Edited on Nov 2, 2010 at 6:17amMay '10
Re: On Election Eve
Sharansky's The Case for Democracy really makes an impression. He brings those old Cold War arguments to bear on the Israeli-Palistinian conflict and the Middle East in general.
Not sure if that old paradigm applies quite as well as he contends, but he makes the case as effectively as it can be made.
Plus he beats Krauthammer at chess with apparent ease, as the latter admits, which is something.
Re: On Election Eve
Well, yes.... But there are increasingly big swaths of American life where this is increasingly not true. The universities, of course, but much of the media, too -- just ask Juan Williams. And even mainstream big business -- it is, for example, just next door to impossible today to question the utility or the rightness of the "diversity" programs virtually every large business has in place today, even though privately a great many managers believe these to be either ineffective or wrong or both. And I'm sure with more time I could think of half a dozen more examples. This is not direct top-down control as in the Soviet Union, but the effect is the same. And the slope is slippery.
May '10
Re: On Election Eve
The slope is slippery, but I get the feeling the slope is pitched in the other direction now--the good direction. "Racism!" is met so much more with eye-rolling these days, and even Juan Williams is seen as more a martyr than a traitor--by the Right, of course, but by much of the Left, too.
We got the momentum, the universities and NPR be damned.
Jun '10
Re: On Election Eve
Flownover,
I taught 9th grade (14 to 15 year olds). My department had a good system for teaching history. I gave the kids the vocabulary and my colleague would follow up with the why's and how's during the sophomore and junior years. I wonder how many average Americans can identify the following: kulak, Bolshevik, proletariat, collectivize, Ukrainian famine, purge, gulag, perestroika, etc.? My 9th graders knew the entire lexicon in context. Not a bad start for the first year of high school.
Alas, the school has been taken over by leftists, and the curriculum is now what you would expect from this lot of "facilitators." I was purged and blacklisted in the process. Now looking to go private.
Jul '10
Re: On Election Eve
Wonderful post.
I agree with Manacek. Remember BP executive in front of Congress? Telling them it's not as bad as they think? He was run out of the Nation because every one "knows" oil in the ocean is bad.
Aug '10
Re: On Election Eve
~Paules: Flownover,
I taught 9th grade (14 to 15 year olds). My department had a good system for teaching history. I gave the kids the vocabulary and my colleague would follow up with the why's and how's during the sophomore and junior years. I wonder how many average Americans can identify the following: kulak, Bolshevik, proletariat, collectivize, Ukrainian famine, purge, gulag, perestroika, etc.? My 9th graders knew the entire lexicon in context. Not a bad start for the first year of high school.
Alas, the school has been taken over by leftists, and the curriculum is now what you would expect from this lot of "facilitators." I was purged and blacklisted in the process. Now looking to go private. · Nov 2 at 8:07am
So the apparatchiks purged you before setting up their nomenklatura ?
Good luck finding work in the hostile theater that academia has become. Good news is that maybe the chinks in their armor will start to show as we uncover what their unions have created. Why just the shortfalls in their pension plans alone! * # !.........rant omitted on election day.
Oct '10
Re: On Election Eve
Doublethink and doublespeak arise under the conditions wherein a dominant group (whether they are a majority or not) is percieved to have power and control over the lives of individuals who see themselves as powerless. The antidote for this is the belief that, no matter what the circumstances, because man is created in the image of God, he has inherant worth and value, and that God, being just will, in the end, judge with rightous judgement over the thoughts and actions of men, and it is the duty of man to resist tyranny wherever is exists; on the campus, in the workplace, the public square, etc. This truth was illustrated by Laslo Tokas and resulted in the "Velvet Revolution"
Oct '10
Re: On Election Eve
And, by the way; There are more of US than there are of THEM! Pass it on....