Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Quote of the Day: Solzhenitsyn on Freedom
“You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power – he’s free again.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
As others on Ricochet have noted, today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. As it is my turn to provide a quote of the day, I thought it appropriate to draw on his fund of wisdom for today’s quote.
Freedom is a theme I often return to for quotes of the day, perhaps because freedom is so important and so rare. Free men (and women) can achieve things thought unimaginable, precisely because they have the freedom to do unimaginable things. When your “betters” (whether your “betters” be government bureaucrats, hereditary aristocrats, or bien pensant social justice warriors) circumscribe your freedom to think and act thing that could have been accomplished go unaccomplished. This because those things fall outside the conception of these self-appointed “betters.”
And yet because we in the United States have had freedom for so long, it seems we have ceased to value it. Many seem willing to step inside the cage and allow others to lock them in so they have a safe space. Then they discover that safe space has turned into a prison they cannot exit, and their future consists of dancing for the amusement of those whom they allowed to lock them into that cage.
Solzhenitsyn achieved the freedom discussed in his quote. He was robbed of everything and gained the freedom to write One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and The Gulag Archipelago. It is a means of gaining freedom I hope all of us in the United States never experience.
Long live freedom and damn the ideologies.
Published in General
I would add Big Corporate Management at Google, Facebook, etc., to look back at the auto companies in the 1950’s that thought they could do no wrong, with Google firing an engineer who has facts on his side.
There are 8 openings on the December Quote of the Day Schedule, the easiest way to start a conversation on Ricochet. We’ve even include tips for finding great quotes, so join in the fun and sign up today!
The are far too many disciples of Alinsky today and too few of Solzhenitsyn. The radicals always get their revolution, but rarely achieve their dreams as a result.
I doubt that Solzhenitsyn would have predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet Empire. Very few did. But I am pretty sure he would be happy about the result.
In the great movie made from Pasternak’s famous novel, there was a scene that illustrated Solzhenitsyn’s point above. It’s stuck with me for my whole adult life, but I may have a few details wrong.
As I recall, a train car containing fleeing aristocrats was traveling east through the snow and a shackled prisoner was leaning the wood or coal stove in the car. He looked at the well-dressed people, caught their eye, and said, “I’m the only free man on this train.”
For me this stands out not just amongst the best of Ricochet this year, but even amidst the company of your best. It’s a worthy tribute to a giant of Christian piety in action.
I certainly think America is in for a time of great trials. Too many here have forgotten their roots. Too many here have forgotten that their faith is no automatic happenstance, and must needs be defended. How many will stand firm, and how many will knuckle under, burn their handful of incense for Caesar, and hope to survive unnoticed?
“The world’s in a bad way, my man,
And bound to be worse before it mends;
Better lie up in the mountain here
Four or five centuries,
While the stars go over the lonely ocean,”
Said the old father of wild pigs,
Plowing the fallow on Mal Paso Mountain.
“Keep clear of the dupes that talk democracy
And the dogs that talk revolution,
Drunk with talk, liars and believers.
I believe in my tusks.
In the more recent Russian film, the late, great Oleg Yankovsky played a much better Komarovsky than Rod Steiger did in the 1965 film. (And Steiger wasn’t that bad, as I remember it. It has been quite a few years.)
I’m not sure if the scene you mention was in the Russian film. I’ll have to watch it again and see.
It may be worth checking to see if he did and/or was.