By way of a compare and contrast, consider Canada's policy in light of Solzhenitsyn's address to Harvard in 1978.

Pop quiz at 2 pm.

I like this bit:

"Now at last during past decades technical and social progress has permitted the realization of such aspirations: the welfare state. Every citizen has been granted the desired freedom and material goods in such quantity and of such quality as to guarantee in theory the achievement of happiness, in the morally inferior sense which has come into being during those same decades. In the process, however, one psychological detail has been overlooked: the constant desire to have still more things and a still better life and the struggle to obtain them imprints many Western faces with worry and even depression, though it is customary to conceal such feelings."

Isn't that, you know a wee bit confusing for the right-whingers? Is that the source of the concurrent great unhappiness? Does this explain the complaints of bloggers? Likewise, this is good:

"Society appears to have little defense against the abyss of human decadence, such as, for example, misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, motion pictures full of pornography, crime and horror. It is considered to be part of freedom and theoretically counter-balanced by the young people's right not to look or not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil."

Gee, liberty being differentiated from license. Wow. Basic anti-materialistic ethical concepts. Neato. I expect he was not big on "Grand Theft Auto" - of which ever roman numeral.

Here's a better clip IMHO:

A Decline in Courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party and of course in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. Of course there are many courageous individuals but they have no determining influence on public life.

Being 1978, that would be the apex of socialism ascendency in the West, and just before Reagan and Thatcher showed up and put paid for a few blissful years to western sniveling in the face of Russia, China and other assorted monstrosities.

I had to translate that whole speech in toto for a Russian class in my senior year of college.

Before I scrolled down to the third comment, I was just about to quote that passage from the Solzhenitsyn address.

But really, Alan, you're not going to find much support from Aleksandr Isayevich:

<i>However, the most cruel mistake occurred with the failure to understand the Vietnam war. Some people sincerely wanted all wars to stop just as soon as possible; others believed that there should be room for national, or communist, self-determination in Vietnam, or in Cambodia, as we see today with particular clarity. But members of the U.S. anti-war movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there? Do they understand their responsibility today? Or do they prefer not to hear? The American Intelligentsia lost its [nerve] and as a consequence thereof danger has come much closer to the United States. But there is no awareness of this. Your shortsighted politicians who signed the hasty Vietnam capitulation seemingly gave America a carefree breathing pause; however, a hundredfold Vietnam now looms over you. That small Vietnam had been a warning and an occasion to mobilize the nation's courage. But if a full-fledged America suffered a real defeat from a small communist half-country, how can the West hope to stand firm in the future? </i>

And what of China?

<i>I have had occasion already to say that in the 20th century democracy has not won any major war without help and protection from a powerful continental ally whose philosophy and ideology it did not question. In World War II against Hitler, instead of winning that war with its own forces, which would certainly have been sufficient, Western democracy grew and cultivated another enemy who would prove worse and more powerful yet, as Hitler never had so many resources and so many people, nor did he offer any attractive ideas, or have such a large number of supporters in the West -- a potential fifth column -- as the Soviet Union. At present, some Western voices already have spoken of obtaining protection from a third power against aggression in the next world conflict, if there is one; in this case the shield would be China. But I would not wish such an outcome to any country in the world. First of all, it is again a doomed alliance with Evil; also, it would grant the United States a respite, but when at a later date China with its billion people would turn around armed with American weapons, America itself would fall prey to a genocide similar to the one perpetrated in Cambodia in our days.</i>

Even I in my most right-wing moods am not nearly as firebreathing as Solzhenitsyn. (Who apparently was just calling for a Ronald Reagan to appear on the American political scene.)

Damned i's and em's.

I'll get it right someday...

Oh, and:

It is almost universally recognized that the West shows all the world a way to successful economic development, even though in the past years it has been strongly disturbed by chaotic inflation. However, many people living in the West are dissatisfied with their own society. They despise it or accuse it of not being up to the level of maturity attained by mankind. A number of such critics turn to socialism, which is a false and dangerous current.

Heh.

I trust you did do better than "heh" in your studies, Ben. That is the last bastion of unthought and you usually do better. This is especially the case as he is clearly cursing both houses - no? - in terms of materialism as well as socialism. Look at this section of the conclusion:

"If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most out of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it."

Not to mention: "It would be retrogression to attach oneself today to the ossified formulas of the Enlightenment."

Clearly not a call to just wait for a Reagan or classic liberalism - surely something more complex than that. A "feh" on your "heh"!!!

If you'd followed the other link I added, you'll see what he said. He was waiting for a Reagan -- but not because of Reagan's classical liberalism.

To the other point, though -- yes, he rejected liberalism. What Solzhenitsyn really wanted was to live in Tsarist Russia, with a benevolent autocracy. I don't know that that system qualifies as more complex than liberalism.

On the Reagan point, it may be a confusion of diagnosis with treatment. Like Marx, just because he assessed the situation in a certain way does not mean he either forecast well or was consistent in hindsight, especially with eulogy.

No, it was that the anti-materialist point that surprised me. Of all the things conveniently assigned to pre-9/11 thinking, anti-materialism is one of the most curious - especially in light of the subsequent credit crisis. Will anyone ask Bush whether his call to "buy buy buy" might not have been twinned with "save save save" or "even earn earn earn".

But I do not doubt your superior knowledge in the slightest in these matters, have no doubt. I have never been so well assisted in learning through blogging as on the Russian file.

Think of it this way -- Aleksandr Isayevich was a conservative. Not a "conservative", which is what we label (classical) liberals today, while we call social democrats "liberals", but an actual, honest-to-goodness reactionary who supported (came to support) the ancien regime.

Think religious nutbar.

So he and we were temporary allies. Which is why when he lived Stateside, he just holed himself up on a compound in Vermont.

A pre-neo-con Tory, you mean.

More like a pre-Catholic Emancipation Tory.

The Marx / Reagan thing is not a bad comparison (Freud would here too), that is, even if one vigorously or violently disagrees with the "diagnosis" (to use your word) they provided, future discussions were framed in their respective terminologies or ideas.

In particular with Reagan, contrast the economic policies of Chretien, Blair and Clinton vs. their 70's counterparts.

Also it's probably worth contrasting the optimism of the Reagan era with the grimness of the latter Bush days, Harper and whomever it is benchwarming in the UK.

Does that grimness mean we make nice-nice with China?

You tell me ;-) Dick Pound says Mr. Richter did it for them.