Lies And Truth

I am only vaguely aware of Claire Wolfe, a long time Libertarian (authoress, apparently, of 101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution, which I have also vaguely heard of but now may have to buy).  It is the wonder of the InterWeb really: I got to there from somewhere else, which sent me to somewhere else, which sent me to her website, which left me reading their for an hour.

She, in turn, sent me to an essay by Aleksander Solzhenitsyn (whom I am slightly more familiar with, although again I apparently should be more so).  Solzhenitsyn, as you may recall, is the author of The Gulag Archipelago and One Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovich, a critic of the Soviet Union, sent to the gulag (1945-1953), and eventual luminary on freedom and critic of the West's failures on fredom (and perhaps, also, a prophet on what would happen after the West failed).

On February 12, 1974 (The day he was arrested and eventually sent to what was then West Germany), an essay was published by him called "Live Not By Lies" (quoted by Claire Wolfe). The essay is a quiet but strong stance about the role of the individual in a culture that is doing everything in its power to squash freedom of thought and speech and demand conformity - something, I think which many of us are familiar with.  It matches in tone some of the writings of Vaclav Havel, the Czech dissident playwright who was also jailed for his beliefs and writings.

The following quotes portions, quite simply, burned a hole in my soul.

"When violence intrudes into peaceful life, its face glows with self-confidence, as if it were carrying a banner and shouting: “I am violence. Run away, make way for me—I will crush you.” But violence quickly grows old. And it has lost confidence in itself, and in order to maintain a respectable face it summons falsehood as its ally—since violence lays its ponderous paw not every day and not on every shoulder. It demands from us only obedience to lies and daily participation in lies—all loyalty lies in that.

And the simplest and most accessible key to our self-neglected liberation lies right here: Personal non-participation in lies. Though lies conceal everything, though lies embrace everything, but not with any help from me.

This opens a breach in the imaginary encirclement caused by our inaction. It is the easiest thing to do for us, but the most devastating for the lies. Because when people renounce lies it simply cuts short their existence. Like an infection, they can exist only in a living organism.

We do not exhort ourselves. We have not sufficiently matured to march into the squares and shout the truth our loud or to express aloud what we think. It's not necessary.

It's dangerous. But let us refuse to say that which we do not think.

This is our path, the easiest and most accessible one, which takes into account out inherent cowardice, already well rooted. And it is much easier—it's dangerous even to say this—than the sort of civil disobedience which Gandhi advocated.

Our path is to talk away from the gangrenous boundary. If we did not paste together the dead bones and scales of ideology, if we did not sew together the rotting rags, we would be astonished how quickly the lies would be rendered helpless and subside.

That which should be naked would then really appear naked before the whole world."

There is a problem, says Solzhenitsyn, a problem which is originally caused by violence but propagated by lies.  It is the sort of thing that civil disobedience will not solve.  But there is an easier, but more challenging path:

"So in our timidity, let each of us make a choice: Whether consciously, to remain a servant of falsehood—of course, it is not out of inclination, but to feed one's family, that one raises his children in the spirit of lies—or to shrug off the lies and become an honest man worthy of respect both by one's children and contemporaries.


And from that day onward he:

• Will not henceforth write, sign, or print in any way a single phrase which in his opinion distorts the truth.
• Will utter such a phrase neither in private conversation not in the presence of many people, neither on his own behalf not at the prompting of someone else, either in the role of agitator, teacher, educator, not in a theatrical role.
  
• Will not depict, foster or broadcast a single idea which he can only see is false or a distortion of the truth whether it be in painting, sculpture, photography, technical science, or music.
  
• Will not cite out of context, either orally or written, a single quotation so as to please someone, to feather his own nest, to achieve success in his work, if he does not share completely the idea which is quoted, or if it does not accurately reflect the matter at issue.
  
• Will not allow himself to be compelled to attend demonstrations or meetings if they are contrary to his desire or will, will neither take into hand not raise into the air a poster or slogan which he does not completely accept.
  
• Will not raise his hand to vote for a proposal with which he does not sincerely sympathize, will vote neither openly nor secretly for a person whom he considers unworthy or of doubtful abilities.
  
• Will not allow himself to be dragged to a meeting where there can be expected a forced or distorted discussion of a question. Will immediately talk out of a meeting, session, lecture, performance or film showing if he hears a speaker tell lies, or purvey ideological nonsense or shameless propaganda.
  
• Will not subscribe to or buy a newspaper or magazine in which information is distorted and primary facts are concealed. Of course we have not listed all of the possible and necessary deviations from falsehood. But a person who purifies himself will easily distinguish other instances with his purified outlook."
  

Solzhenitsyn captures the spirit of Havel's Essays collected in his book "Living in Truth:  The power that we all have as individuals, even in a world which does not allow for civil disobedience or even thinking differently, is to simply live in truth.  To propagate only truth.  To walk away - literally or figuratively - from anything and anyone which is not itself of the truth.

This is a thing you and I can do.  Think the truth.  Speak the truth.  Speak for the truth - or if unable to do so, at least not to propagate a lie.

"No, it will not be the same for everybody at first. Some, at first, will lose their jobs. For young people who want to live with truth, this will, in the beginning, complicate their young lives very much, because the required recitations are stuffed with lies, and it is necessary to make a choice.

But there are no loopholes for anybody who wants to be honest. On any given day any one of us will be confronted with at least one of the above-mentioned choices even in the most secure of the technical sciences. Either truth or falsehood: Toward spiritual independence or toward spiritual servitude.

And he who is not sufficiently courageous even to defend his soul—don't let him be proud of his “progressive” views, don't let him boast that he is an academician or a people's artist, a merited figure, or a general—let him say to himself: I am in the herd, and a coward. It's all the same to me as long as I'm fed and warm."

The whole essay is here.  It is rather worth the 10-15 minutes it will take to read it.

Speak - Live - Be - the truth.  We cannot perhaps totally stop lies, but we can at least not perpetuate them.

"And if we get cold feet, even taking this step, then we are worthless and hopeless, and the scorn of Pushkin should be directed to us:

Why should cattle have the gifts of freedom?
Their heritage from generation to generation is the belled yoke and the lash."