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Veritas

“Harvard's motto is "VERITAS." Many of you have already found out, and others will find out in the course of their lives, that truth eludes us if we do not concentrate our attention totally on its pursuit. But even while it eludes us, the illusion of knowing it still lingers and leads to many misunderstandings. Also, truth seldom is pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter. There is some bitterness in my today's speech too, but I want to stress that it comes not from an adversary, but from a friend.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn, June 8, 1978

Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s death early in August and the publicity it generated have led me to reconsider his life and its message for all of us. He was in life hard to capture. Was he merely a gifted writer, or something more: philosopher, sage, mystic? I am not sure. There is much in his writing about the West with which I do not agree as it applies to our basic freedoms, but the struggle, isolation and pain which were a constant feature of his formative years in Soviet Labor Camps, instilled a discerning eye for man’s place in the cosmos. Indeed, his pain and isolation forged a religiosity that is particularly Russian. Much of his perspective was distilled into the speech he gave at Harvard in 1978 to celebrate Harvard’s 327th commencement.

As Russian tanks now stream beyond the borders of South Ossetia and threaten Tbilisi and the government of Georgia itself, the uniquely Russian view represented by Solzhenitsyn’s writing gives an insight to the pride and special relationship of faith and destiny in the actions of a revitalized Russian Bear to those who border its lair.

Back in 1978, Solzhenitsyn noted as regards the split between Russia and the West that the understanding of the split too often is limited to a political conception where the danger could be eliminated through successful diplomatic negotiations or the balance of mutual assured destruction of countervailing armed forces. To Solzhenitsyn, “the truth is that the split is both more profound and more alienating…” and “…The rifts are more numerous than one can see at first glance.” He saw the challenges in Lincolnian terms that “… the deep, manifold splits bear the danger of manifold disaster…our earth divided against itself cannot stand.”

He noted that Western society does not understand the special character of Russians and seeks to impose its thoughts, mores and cultural expectations on Russians, their relationships with God and with the State. In his view, our normative approach insists on democracy and pursuit of a model of success built on materialistic excess and individual rights. This is not part of the Russian psyche, nor does it represent the norm for Russian ideals of State power. Our tradition of separation of Church and State is also not part of their tradition. The Orthodox Church plays a special role in building a society that reflects God’s will on how man should relate to each other. The State bears a responsibility to help achieve the God ordained destiny for Russia, whatever it may be.

Having achieved the material plenty that we have in the West, Solzhenitsyn lambasts us for losing our “courage.” The word I think he was reaching for was “nerve.” We created a society based upon certain Judeo Christian principles in which, though the state was not to have a role in how we worshipped, society was to operate based upon certain divine truths on how we were to treat each other, and instead we are now in a Godless quandary with society pulling at its seams in every direction. In comparing our enshrinement of individual freedom above all other values, he laments our persistent blindness in telling the rest of the world that we consider their failure to convert to our approach as merely a temporary phenomenon borne of barbarity or incomprehension or tyrannical manipulation. Solzhenitsyn would say to us that we should heal ourselves before we point at anyone else. I think it would be fair to say that he accused us of a dictatorship of both Godless individuality and socially elite correctness in thought and action. He called it “fashionable thinking”

To Solzhenitsyn, “Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relationships, this creates an atmosphere of spiritual mediocrity that paralyzes man’s noblest impulses.” “It is time in the West to defend, not so much human rights as human obligations.” He also criticized the press noting, “Hastiness and superficiality- these are the psychic diseases of the twentieth century and more than anywhere else this is manifested in the press. In depth analysis of a problem is anathema to the press; it is contrary to its nature.” (Not the Mercury) “The press merely picks out sensational formulas.”

It is not surprising that though he refers to his eighteen years in The United States as his most productive, he returned to Russia following the fall of the Soviet Union. At his core, he remained a Russian patriot. Though originally critical of the Russian State upon his return, and specifically disclaiming any support for socialism, he and Putin ultimately reached an accord on the resurrection of the Russian state, and Putin has honored his memory with a prestigious scholarship.

One wonders what he would make of the fighting in Georgia and the brutal exercise of power by Russia of a small neighboring state. I suspect he would have expected nothing less. In providing shelter to Solzhenitsyn, the fashionable thinkers he decries assumed he was motivated as are we, and that is patently false. We simply have to understand human complexity and stop being taken in by those whose temporary life strategies seem to share for a time the “fashionable” thinking in the West.

From the Russian perspective, while the Soviet hegemony was not to last for all time, Russians assumed that as part of the natural order of the universe, Russia’s decline in the early 90’s was but temporary. Their inherent greatness would soon be restored and its national interests and primary sphere of influence in its “neighborhood” including all the states from the Black Sea to the Baltic was to be asserted by them and respected by these countries as well as The West.

Georgia broke that rule, embarrassed them by adopting an aggressive western style economy and government and was making it work. They also broke another rule. They possessed the only non Russian controlled flow of oil in their part of the world. The oil pipeline from The Caspian to the Black Sea flows right through Georgia and is an obvious target of the Russians.

It is unfortunate for Georgia that its success came at a time that an unprecedented increase in oil prices fueled Russian power at the same time it weakened The United States with its dependence on foreign crude.

The West’s inability to project power in The Caucuses is a tragedy of profound importance and is solely our fault. As a nation we took our eye off the critical importance of the control of energy in an energy starved world. We have left ourselves totally open to what is ultimately an attack on the role the U.S. plays in keeping a peace based on historic principles.

While we can complain, there are very few effective levers available to us that we can use and fewer still that our own need for Russian assistance to contain Iran would allow us to risk using. Not being able to defeat us with bullets or bombs, our enemies have confounded us with the ammunition of the 21st century: Energy and its control. We stepped right into this problem, and now we compound our peril by lack of consensus at home on how to extricate ourselves.

Well, it is about time that we wake up. The National Security Council should be evaluating all of our options. The Defense Department, Homeland Security and The Department of Energy should have available for the new president on January 20 a new Net Defense Assessment that candidly looks at our alternatives and charts a course for the future. I don’t want to hear about our pristine beaches. We can protect them by adherence to best available control technology offshore and in the wilderness. What we cannot do is leave the nation exposed to Energy extortion. Solzhenitsyn was right, “truth is seldom pleasant” We cannot have as a goal being “friends with the Russians” and be energy secure. Being respected and warm in the winter is far better. To reach this goal we must be well armed with the implements of war for the 21st century: The control of energy in all its forms to sustain our civilization. That is VERITAS.

Copyright © 2008 by Robert E. Freer, Jr. All rights reserved

About the author: Robert E. Freer, Jr. is President of The Free Enterprise Foundation. He is a Visiting Professor, at The Citadel and elected in 2005 to be their first John S. Grinalds Leader in Residence. A regular contributor to the Mercury, He can be reached by E-mail at The Citadel . Copies of his earlier columns can be found The Free Enterprise Foundation.

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