1 00:00:00,400 --> 00:00:06,120 Speaker 1: The Michael Barry Show. Truth is timeless, and that is 2 00:00:06,200 --> 00:00:12,239 Speaker 1: so true when you read the words throughout history, the 3 00:00:12,280 --> 00:00:15,840 Speaker 1: great thoughts and ideas and positions and policies and beliefs. 4 00:00:16,880 --> 00:00:22,079 Speaker 1: You can replace the horse with the car. You can 5 00:00:22,160 --> 00:00:25,040 Speaker 1: replace the location, you can replace the time, you can 6 00:00:25,079 --> 00:00:27,760 Speaker 1: replace the cultural references, and maybe even you have to 7 00:00:27,760 --> 00:00:33,800 Speaker 1: translate it into a language we understand. But truth is eternal. 8 00:00:35,400 --> 00:00:41,839 Speaker 1: Alexander Salzanitsen in nineteen seventy eight delivered the commencement address 9 00:00:41,880 --> 00:00:46,760 Speaker 1: at Harvard. It was titled a World Split Apart. Now 10 00:00:46,800 --> 00:00:50,920 Speaker 1: this is two years into Jimmy Carter's presidency. America was 11 00:00:50,920 --> 00:00:52,479 Speaker 1: in a similar position to. 12 00:00:52,320 --> 00:00:53,200 Speaker 2: What it is today. 13 00:00:54,280 --> 00:00:57,720 Speaker 1: There were real problems in the world, and we had 14 00:00:57,840 --> 00:01:03,560 Speaker 1: a terrible president in Jimmy Carter. But this speech transcends 15 00:01:03,680 --> 00:01:07,039 Speaker 1: even the immediate moment. The inflation was out of control. 16 00:01:07,080 --> 00:01:10,840 Speaker 1: At the time, we'd had the energy crisis. We were 17 00:01:10,920 --> 00:01:13,399 Speaker 1: under attack because of Carter's weakness. Of course, we would 18 00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:19,000 Speaker 1: end up with hostages in Iran. But this speech is 19 00:01:20,520 --> 00:01:25,480 Speaker 1: a powerful critique of Western materialism and the decline of 20 00:01:25,520 --> 00:01:32,560 Speaker 1: spiritual values. I love capitalism. I love the freedom to 21 00:01:32,720 --> 00:01:35,280 Speaker 1: earn from the sweat of your brow or the brilliance 22 00:01:35,280 --> 00:01:40,679 Speaker 1: of your mind. And I love the ability to purchase things, 23 00:01:40,720 --> 00:01:45,520 Speaker 1: own things, possess things, use things for our comfort and convenience. 24 00:01:47,120 --> 00:01:51,200 Speaker 1: But there is in that, just as I love a 25 00:01:51,200 --> 00:01:54,600 Speaker 1: glass of wine, but there can come a point where 26 00:01:54,640 --> 00:01:58,200 Speaker 1: it destroys you. I love delicious food, but there can 27 00:01:58,200 --> 00:02:06,200 Speaker 1: come a point where it destroys you. Sexual urges, sloth, 28 00:02:06,480 --> 00:02:10,280 Speaker 1: most anything in a level of excess of your own 29 00:02:10,320 --> 00:02:14,040 Speaker 1: defining and understanding can bring you down. Something that starts 30 00:02:14,080 --> 00:02:19,120 Speaker 1: good can end badly. And I think materialism in this 31 00:02:19,200 --> 00:02:23,560 Speaker 1: country can be a problem. You see it. You see 32 00:02:23,600 --> 00:02:25,920 Speaker 1: people who sell their souls. You see people who become 33 00:02:26,919 --> 00:02:33,120 Speaker 1: obsessed with possession and what it does to them. Well, anyway, 34 00:02:33,120 --> 00:02:35,440 Speaker 1: And this speech Sultan needs in a Soviet dissident and 35 00:02:35,520 --> 00:02:40,880 Speaker 1: Nobel Laureat, warned the West of its moral weaknesses, even 36 00:02:41,080 --> 00:02:46,359 Speaker 1: as the West triumphed over communism. And remember in seventy eight, 37 00:02:47,400 --> 00:02:52,320 Speaker 1: the perception was still that the Soviets were strong. But 38 00:02:52,400 --> 00:02:54,839 Speaker 1: Sultan neats and criticized, and remember he's in the West 39 00:02:54,880 --> 00:02:58,560 Speaker 1: at this point, he's at Harvard University. He criticized the 40 00:02:58,600 --> 00:03:05,080 Speaker 1: West for prioritizing materialism over spiritual and moral values, arguing 41 00:03:05,440 --> 00:03:09,399 Speaker 1: that Western societies had become too focused on personal freedoms 42 00:03:09,400 --> 00:03:18,600 Speaker 1: and material prosperity, neglecting higher moral principles and responsibilities. He noted, 43 00:03:18,919 --> 00:03:21,560 Speaker 1: and boy, don't we see this today, a lack of 44 00:03:21,600 --> 00:03:24,040 Speaker 1: civil courage in the West, where people, out of fear 45 00:03:24,160 --> 00:03:29,480 Speaker 1: or convenience often avoid standing up for truth and justice. This, 46 00:03:29,760 --> 00:03:33,160 Speaker 1: he warned, could lead to a decline in the moral 47 00:03:33,240 --> 00:03:42,320 Speaker 1: fabric of society. Sultzanitsen admired Western democracy, the democratic republic, 48 00:03:42,360 --> 00:03:49,080 Speaker 1: the process of self government, engagement and empowerment. He criticized 49 00:03:49,120 --> 00:03:53,560 Speaker 1: the emphasis on individualism. Now, this is an area where 50 00:03:53,600 --> 00:03:57,080 Speaker 1: I think you have to understand his subtle nuance, and 51 00:03:57,200 --> 00:04:00,080 Speaker 1: an area where he and I would probably not fully agree. 52 00:04:00,160 --> 00:04:01,960 Speaker 1: And I should say, there are things we play on 53 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:03,880 Speaker 1: the air with which I don't agree one hundred percent. 54 00:04:04,320 --> 00:04:06,160 Speaker 1: That makes some of you uncomfortable. You'll have to get 55 00:04:06,240 --> 00:04:10,560 Speaker 1: used to that. I'm a believer in exploring every aisle 56 00:04:10,800 --> 00:04:15,960 Speaker 1: in the marketplace of ideas. He felt that this individualism 57 00:04:16,279 --> 00:04:20,640 Speaker 1: that we promote so heartily had led to a breakdown 58 00:04:20,760 --> 00:04:24,800 Speaker 1: in a sense of community and a neglect of shared 59 00:04:24,839 --> 00:04:29,719 Speaker 1: moral values. And to that extent, he's on to something 60 00:04:29,760 --> 00:04:33,039 Speaker 1: that I think many of you would agree with He 61 00:04:33,120 --> 00:04:36,400 Speaker 1: called attention to what he saw as a spiritual crisis 62 00:04:36,480 --> 00:04:41,719 Speaker 1: in the West, contrasting it with the resilience of those 63 00:04:41,800 --> 00:04:44,960 Speaker 1: in the Eastern Bloc who still had a strong sense 64 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:50,560 Speaker 1: of spiritual purpose despite material hardships. I think that's a 65 00:04:50,680 --> 00:04:54,480 Speaker 1: very nuanced argument, and many people won't get it, And 66 00:04:54,560 --> 00:04:57,160 Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting you have to agree with it. I 67 00:04:57,240 --> 00:05:01,360 Speaker 1: just think it's not a simple concept to process, but 68 00:05:01,400 --> 00:05:04,760 Speaker 1: wrestle with it a little. He warned that the West 69 00:05:04,880 --> 00:05:09,080 Speaker 1: mist understood the true nature of communism, seeing it as 70 00:05:09,160 --> 00:05:12,400 Speaker 1: primarily an economic issue rather than a deep ideological and 71 00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:18,359 Speaker 1: moral conflict. It would take me a long time to 72 00:05:18,680 --> 00:05:24,880 Speaker 1: explain my thoughts on his ideas there, which I won't 73 00:05:24,920 --> 00:05:28,560 Speaker 1: do now. But the speech was controversial and expect and 74 00:05:29,680 --> 00:05:34,839 Speaker 1: unexpected because Sultanedsen was a symbol of resistance to Soviet tyranny, 75 00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:39,520 Speaker 1: so he was supposed to come here and say America's great, 76 00:05:39,600 --> 00:05:43,640 Speaker 1: the Soviets are horrible. But he used his platform. And 77 00:05:43,680 --> 00:05:48,039 Speaker 1: this is what you do when you love something, is 78 00:05:48,080 --> 00:05:52,080 Speaker 1: you push it harder. Lombardi did that to Paul Hornung 79 00:05:52,080 --> 00:05:57,400 Speaker 1: and Bart Starr and Jerry Kramer. This is where Catholics 80 00:05:57,440 --> 00:06:01,120 Speaker 1: get mad at me for criticizing what Catholic Church has 81 00:06:01,160 --> 00:06:06,360 Speaker 1: done to encourage and empower illegal immigration is they say, 82 00:06:06,360 --> 00:06:10,719 Speaker 1: how dare you? I'm a Catholic, and I say, how 83 00:06:10,800 --> 00:06:16,159 Speaker 1: dare you? You're a Catholic? Make the church better, don't 84 00:06:16,200 --> 00:06:21,599 Speaker 1: allow it to slide as you continually defend it anyway. 85 00:06:22,040 --> 00:06:27,599 Speaker 1: So Sultaniitsan's message was a call to spiritual and moral values, 86 00:06:28,680 --> 00:06:34,000 Speaker 1: warning that without this, Western civilization could collapse from within. 87 00:06:35,279 --> 00:06:38,160 Speaker 1: We are forty six years from this speech, and again 88 00:06:38,160 --> 00:06:40,359 Speaker 1: I don't agree with everything he says here or the 89 00:06:40,400 --> 00:06:44,640 Speaker 1: way in which he says it, but I think a 90 00:06:44,640 --> 00:06:48,200 Speaker 1: lot of what he said has turned out to be true. 91 00:06:48,560 --> 00:06:51,040 Speaker 1: Here is the nineteen seventy eight Harvard Commencement address of 92 00:06:51,080 --> 00:06:52,800 Speaker 1: Alexander Sultan. 93 00:06:58,160 --> 00:07:07,000 Speaker 3: But Sudna but Zibrui to Cli Ramanti, I am sincerely 94 00:07:07,040 --> 00:07:09,880 Speaker 3: happy to be here with you on the occasion of 95 00:07:09,920 --> 00:07:13,520 Speaker 3: the three hundredth and twenty seventh commencement of this old 96 00:07:13,680 --> 00:07:18,640 Speaker 3: and illustrious university. My congratulations and best wishes to all 97 00:07:18,720 --> 00:07:24,160 Speaker 3: of today's graduates. Harvard's motto is veritas. Many of you 98 00:07:24,240 --> 00:07:26,920 Speaker 3: have already found out, and others will find out in 99 00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:29,880 Speaker 3: the course of their lives. That truth eludes us as 100 00:07:29,880 --> 00:07:33,480 Speaker 3: soon as our concentration begins to flag, all the while 101 00:07:33,960 --> 00:07:36,480 Speaker 3: leaving the illusion that we are continuing to pursue it. 102 00:07:37,520 --> 00:07:42,160 Speaker 3: This is the source of much discord. Also, truth seldom 103 00:07:42,240 --> 00:07:47,280 Speaker 3: is sweet. It is almost invariably bitter. A measure of 104 00:07:47,320 --> 00:07:50,720 Speaker 3: bitter truth is included in my speech today, But I 105 00:07:50,760 --> 00:07:55,040 Speaker 3: offer it as a friend, not as an adversary. Three 106 00:07:55,080 --> 00:07:57,840 Speaker 3: years ago in the United States, I said certain things 107 00:07:57,840 --> 00:08:02,320 Speaker 3: that were rejected and appeared unacceptable. Today, however, many people 108 00:08:02,360 --> 00:08:05,800 Speaker 3: agree with what I then said. The split in today's 109 00:08:05,800 --> 00:08:11,880 Speaker 3: world is perceptible even to a hasty glance. Any of 110 00:08:11,880 --> 00:08:15,920 Speaker 3: our contemporaries readily identifies two world powers, each of them 111 00:08:15,960 --> 00:08:21,240 Speaker 3: already capable of utterly destroying the other. However, the understanding 112 00:08:21,280 --> 00:08:24,120 Speaker 3: of the split too often is limited to this political conception, 113 00:08:25,680 --> 00:08:29,480 Speaker 3: the illusion according to which danger may be abolished through 114 00:08:29,520 --> 00:08:35,640 Speaker 3: successful diplomatic negotiations or by achieving a balance of armed forces. 115 00:08:36,960 --> 00:08:39,640 Speaker 3: The truth is that the split is both more profound 116 00:08:40,040 --> 00:08:43,440 Speaker 3: and more alienating, that the rifts are more numerous than 117 00:08:43,480 --> 00:08:47,120 Speaker 3: one can see at first glance. These deep, manifold splits 118 00:08:47,559 --> 00:08:50,280 Speaker 3: bear the danger of equally manifold. 119 00:08:49,800 --> 00:08:52,400 Speaker 2: Disaster for all of us. In accordance with. 120 00:08:52,360 --> 00:08:55,720 Speaker 3: The ancient truth that a kingdom, in this case our Earth, 121 00:08:56,280 --> 00:09:00,080 Speaker 3: divided against itself, cannot stand, there is the concept of 122 00:09:00,080 --> 00:09:06,199 Speaker 3: the third world. Thus we already have three worlds. Undoubtedly, however, 123 00:09:06,840 --> 00:09:10,000 Speaker 3: the number is even greater. We are just too far 124 00:09:10,040 --> 00:09:14,720 Speaker 3: away to see. Every ancient and deeply rooted, self contained culture, 125 00:09:15,720 --> 00:09:17,800 Speaker 3: especially if it is spread over a wide part of 126 00:09:17,800 --> 00:09:22,360 Speaker 3: the Earth's surface, constitutes a self contained world full of 127 00:09:22,440 --> 00:09:27,800 Speaker 3: riddles and surprises to Western thinking. As a minimum, we 128 00:09:27,880 --> 00:09:32,520 Speaker 3: must include in this category China, India, the Muslim world, 129 00:09:32,760 --> 00:09:37,800 Speaker 3: and Africa, if indeed we accept the approximation of viewing 130 00:09:38,200 --> 00:09:44,040 Speaker 3: the latter two as uniform. For one thousand years, Russia 131 00:09:44,080 --> 00:09:48,480 Speaker 3: belonged to such a category, although Western thinking systematically committed 132 00:09:48,480 --> 00:09:51,480 Speaker 3: the mistake of denying its special character and therefore never 133 00:09:51,559 --> 00:09:55,920 Speaker 3: understood it, just as today the West does not understand 134 00:09:56,000 --> 00:10:01,280 Speaker 3: Russia in communist captivity. And while it may be that 135 00:10:01,320 --> 00:10:05,520 Speaker 3: in past years Japan has increasingly become in effect a 136 00:10:05,600 --> 00:10:09,719 Speaker 3: far West, drawing ever closer to Western ways, I am 137 00:10:09,720 --> 00:10:12,960 Speaker 3: no judge here. Israel I think should not be reckoned 138 00:10:12,960 --> 00:10:15,480 Speaker 3: as part of the West, if only because of the 139 00:10:15,559 --> 00:10:19,920 Speaker 3: decisive circumstance that its state system is fundamentally linked to religion. 140 00:10:21,040 --> 00:10:25,200 Speaker 3: How short a time ago, relatively, the small world of 141 00:10:25,200 --> 00:10:29,400 Speaker 3: modern Europe was easily seizing colonies all over the globe, 142 00:10:30,280 --> 00:10:34,600 Speaker 3: not only without anticipating any real resistance, but usually with 143 00:10:34,679 --> 00:10:39,600 Speaker 3: contempt for any possible values in the conquered people's approach 144 00:10:39,640 --> 00:10:43,520 Speaker 3: to life. It all seemed an overwhelming success, with no 145 00:10:43,600 --> 00:10:49,360 Speaker 3: geographic limits. Western society expanded in a triumph of human 146 00:10:49,400 --> 00:10:53,040 Speaker 3: independence and power, and all of a sudden the twentieth 147 00:10:53,080 --> 00:10:58,880 Speaker 3: century brought the clear realization of this society's fragility. We 148 00:10:59,000 --> 00:11:03,160 Speaker 3: now see that the conquests proved to be short lived 149 00:11:03,480 --> 00:11:07,800 Speaker 3: and precarious, and this in turn points to defects in 150 00:11:07,840 --> 00:11:11,280 Speaker 3: the Western view of the world which led to these conquests. 151 00:11:11,960 --> 00:11:15,080 Speaker 3: Relations with the former colonial world now have switched to 152 00:11:15,120 --> 00:11:19,400 Speaker 3: the opposite extreme, and the Western world often exhibits an 153 00:11:19,480 --> 00:11:24,199 Speaker 3: excess of obsequiousness. But it is difficult yet to estimate 154 00:11:24,240 --> 00:11:27,520 Speaker 3: the size of the bill which former colonial countries will 155 00:11:27,559 --> 00:11:30,360 Speaker 3: present to the West, and it is difficult to predict 156 00:11:30,400 --> 00:11:33,000 Speaker 3: whether the surrender not only of its last colonies but 157 00:11:33,080 --> 00:11:36,000 Speaker 3: of everything it owns, will be sufficient for the West 158 00:11:36,000 --> 00:11:39,960 Speaker 3: to clear this account, But the persisting blindness of superiority 159 00:11:40,559 --> 00:11:43,480 Speaker 3: continues to hold the belief that all the vast regions 160 00:11:43,520 --> 00:11:46,480 Speaker 3: of our planet should develop and mature to the level 161 00:11:46,520 --> 00:11:50,080 Speaker 3: of contemporary Western systems, the best in theory and the 162 00:11:50,120 --> 00:11:54,000 Speaker 3: most attractive in practice. That all those other worlds are 163 00:11:54,040 --> 00:11:57,720 Speaker 3: but temporarily prevented by wicked leaders, or by severe crises, 164 00:11:58,400 --> 00:12:01,800 Speaker 3: or by their own barbarity, and in comprehension from pursuing 165 00:12:01,840 --> 00:12:06,679 Speaker 3: Western pluralistic democracy and adopting the Western way of life. 166 00:12:06,960 --> 00:12:09,720 Speaker 3: Countries are judged on the merit of their progress in 167 00:12:09,720 --> 00:12:14,680 Speaker 3: that direction. But in fact such a conception is a 168 00:12:14,720 --> 00:12:20,840 Speaker 3: fruit of Western incomprehension of the essence of other worlds, 169 00:12:20,880 --> 00:12:24,920 Speaker 3: a result of mistakenly measuring them all with a Western yardstick. 170 00:12:26,040 --> 00:12:30,040 Speaker 3: The real picture of our planet's development bears little resemblance 171 00:12:30,080 --> 00:12:34,080 Speaker 3: to all this. The anguish of a divided world gave 172 00:12:34,120 --> 00:12:36,840 Speaker 3: birth to the theory of convergence between the leading Western 173 00:12:36,880 --> 00:12:40,920 Speaker 3: countries and the Soviet Union. It is a soothing theory 174 00:12:40,960 --> 00:12:45,439 Speaker 3: which overlooks the fact that these worlds are not at 175 00:12:45,480 --> 00:12:49,040 Speaker 3: all evolving toward each other, and that neither one can 176 00:12:49,080 --> 00:12:55,400 Speaker 3: be transformed into the other. Without violence. Besides, convergence inevitably 177 00:12:55,480 --> 00:12:59,240 Speaker 3: means acceptance of the other side's defects too, and this 178 00:12:59,280 --> 00:13:02,600 Speaker 3: can hardly suit anyone. If I were today addressing an 179 00:13:02,640 --> 00:13:05,920 Speaker 3: audience in my country, in my examination of the overall 180 00:13:06,480 --> 00:13:09,520 Speaker 3: pattern of the world's riffs, I would have concentrated on 181 00:13:09,520 --> 00:13:12,920 Speaker 3: the calamities of the East. But since my forced exile 182 00:13:12,960 --> 00:13:15,920 Speaker 3: in the West has now lasted four years, and since 183 00:13:15,920 --> 00:13:18,760 Speaker 3: my audience is a Western one, I think it may 184 00:13:18,760 --> 00:13:21,720 Speaker 3: be of greater interest to concentrate on certain aspects of 185 00:13:21,760 --> 00:13:25,000 Speaker 3: the contemporary West, such as I see them. A decline 186 00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:27,040 Speaker 3: in courage may be the most striking feature that an 187 00:13:27,080 --> 00:13:31,960 Speaker 3: outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world 188 00:13:32,000 --> 00:13:34,680 Speaker 3: has lost its civic courage, both as a whole and 189 00:13:34,720 --> 00:13:39,560 Speaker 3: separately in each country, in each government, in each political party, 190 00:13:40,360 --> 00:13:44,480 Speaker 3: and of course in the United Nations. Such a decline 191 00:13:44,520 --> 00:13:49,360 Speaker 3: in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elites, 192 00:13:49,920 --> 00:13:52,840 Speaker 3: causing an impression of a loss of courage by the 193 00:13:53,000 --> 00:13:58,920 Speaker 3: entire society. There remain many courageous individuals, but they have 194 00:13:59,040 --> 00:14:03,400 Speaker 3: no determining influence on public life. Political and intellectual functionaries 195 00:14:03,440 --> 00:14:09,600 Speaker 3: exhibit this depression, passivity and perplexity in their actions and 196 00:14:09,679 --> 00:14:13,040 Speaker 3: in their statements, and even more so in their self 197 00:14:13,080 --> 00:14:19,240 Speaker 3: serving rationales as to how realistic, reasonable, and intellectually and 198 00:14:19,320 --> 00:14:23,440 Speaker 3: even morally justified it is to base state policies on 199 00:14:23,600 --> 00:14:28,680 Speaker 3: weakness and cowardice, and the decline in courage at times 200 00:14:28,720 --> 00:14:31,640 Speaker 3: attaining what could be termed a lack of manhood, is 201 00:14:31,680 --> 00:14:36,840 Speaker 3: ironically emphasized by occasional outbursts of boldness and inflexibility on 202 00:14:36,920 --> 00:14:40,000 Speaker 3: the part of those same functionaries when dealing with weak 203 00:14:40,040 --> 00:14:44,240 Speaker 3: governments and with countries that lack support, or with doomed 204 00:14:44,240 --> 00:14:49,360 Speaker 3: currents which clearly cannot offer any resistance, But they get 205 00:14:49,400 --> 00:14:53,160 Speaker 3: tongue tied and paralyzed when they deal with powerful governments 206 00:14:53,160 --> 00:14:59,120 Speaker 3: and threatening forces, with aggressors and international terrorists. Must one 207 00:14:59,160 --> 00:15:02,840 Speaker 3: point out that from ancient times, a declining courage has 208 00:15:02,880 --> 00:15:05,360 Speaker 3: been considered the first symptom of the end. When the 209 00:15:05,400 --> 00:15:09,840 Speaker 3: modern Western states were being formed, it was proclaimed as 210 00:15:09,880 --> 00:15:13,720 Speaker 3: a principle that governments are meant to serve man, and 211 00:15:13,840 --> 00:15:18,600 Speaker 3: that man lives in order to be free and pursue happiness, see, 212 00:15:18,640 --> 00:15:24,760 Speaker 3: for example, the American Declaration of Independence. Now at last, 213 00:15:25,080 --> 00:15:31,000 Speaker 3: During past decades, technical and social progress has permitted the 214 00:15:31,040 --> 00:15:37,040 Speaker 3: realization of such aspirations. The welfare state. Every citizen has 215 00:15:37,080 --> 00:15:40,200 Speaker 3: been granted the desired freedom and material goods in such 216 00:15:40,280 --> 00:15:45,080 Speaker 3: quantity and of such quality as to guarantee in theory 217 00:15:45,120 --> 00:15:49,960 Speaker 3: the achievement of happiness in the debate sense of the word, 218 00:15:50,280 --> 00:15:55,120 Speaker 3: which has come into being during those same decades. In 219 00:15:55,160 --> 00:16:00,160 Speaker 3: the process, however, one psychological detail has been overlooked. The 220 00:16:00,240 --> 00:16:03,520 Speaker 3: constant desire to have still more things and a still 221 00:16:03,600 --> 00:16:07,720 Speaker 3: better life, and the struggle to this end imprint many 222 00:16:07,720 --> 00:16:12,040 Speaker 3: Western faces with worry and even depression. Though it is 223 00:16:12,080 --> 00:16:18,840 Speaker 3: customary to carefully conceal such feelings, this active, intense competition 224 00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:22,360 Speaker 3: comes to dominate all human thought and does not in 225 00:16:22,400 --> 00:16:26,680 Speaker 3: the least open a way to free spiritual development. The 226 00:16:26,720 --> 00:16:31,400 Speaker 3: individual's independence from many types of state pressure has been guaranteed. 227 00:16:32,560 --> 00:16:35,480 Speaker 3: The majority of the people have been granted well being 228 00:16:36,080 --> 00:16:38,560 Speaker 3: to an extent their fathers and grandfathers could not even 229 00:16:38,640 --> 00:16:42,720 Speaker 3: dream about. It has become possible to raise young people 230 00:16:42,760 --> 00:16:46,840 Speaker 3: according to these ideals, preparing them for and summoning them 231 00:16:46,880 --> 00:16:52,680 Speaker 3: toward physical bloom happiness, the possession of material goods, money, 232 00:16:52,680 --> 00:16:57,320 Speaker 3: and leisure, toward an almost unlimited freedom in the choice 233 00:16:57,360 --> 00:17:02,640 Speaker 3: of pleasures. So who should now renounce all this? Why 234 00:17:03,560 --> 00:17:07,000 Speaker 3: and for the sake of what should one risk one's 235 00:17:07,000 --> 00:17:12,159 Speaker 3: precious life in defense of the common good, and particularly 236 00:17:12,400 --> 00:17:14,760 Speaker 3: in the nebulous case when the security of one's nation 237 00:17:15,480 --> 00:17:20,840 Speaker 3: must be defended in an as yet distant land. Even 238 00:17:20,880 --> 00:17:23,320 Speaker 3: biology tells us that a high degree of habitual well 239 00:17:23,359 --> 00:17:28,880 Speaker 3: being is not advantageous to a living organism. Today, well 240 00:17:28,920 --> 00:17:31,760 Speaker 3: being in the life of Western society has begun to 241 00:17:31,760 --> 00:17:36,479 Speaker 3: take off its pernicious mask. Western society has chosen for 242 00:17:36,520 --> 00:17:39,600 Speaker 3: itself the organization best suited to its purposes, and what 243 00:17:39,720 --> 00:17:44,119 Speaker 3: I might call legalistic. The limits of human rights and 244 00:17:44,240 --> 00:17:47,959 Speaker 3: rightness are determined by a system of laws. Such limits 245 00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:51,560 Speaker 3: are very broad. People in the West have acquired considerable 246 00:17:51,560 --> 00:17:57,800 Speaker 3: skill in using, interpreting, and manipulating law, though laws tend 247 00:17:57,800 --> 00:17:59,960 Speaker 3: to be too complicated for an average person to under 248 00:18:00,080 --> 00:18:03,600 Speaker 3: stand without the help of an expert. Every conflict is 249 00:18:03,640 --> 00:18:06,280 Speaker 3: solved according to the letter of the law, and this 250 00:18:06,480 --> 00:18:10,560 Speaker 3: is considered to be the ultimate solution. If one is 251 00:18:10,640 --> 00:18:14,040 Speaker 3: right from a legal point of view, nothing more is required. 252 00:18:14,840 --> 00:18:18,240 Speaker 3: Nobody may mention that one could still not be entirely 253 00:18:18,320 --> 00:18:23,640 Speaker 3: right and urge self restraint or a renunciation of these 254 00:18:23,720 --> 00:18:27,719 Speaker 3: rights call for sacrifice and selfless risk. This would simply 255 00:18:27,720 --> 00:18:33,480 Speaker 3: sound absurd. Voluntary self restraint is almost unheard of. Everybody 256 00:18:33,480 --> 00:18:36,159 Speaker 3: strives toward further expansion to the extreme limit of the 257 00:18:36,240 --> 00:18:40,520 Speaker 3: legal frames. An oil company is legally blameless when it 258 00:18:40,560 --> 00:18:42,840 Speaker 3: buys up an invention of a new type of energy 259 00:18:42,880 --> 00:18:46,440 Speaker 3: in order to prevent its use. A food product manufacturer 260 00:18:46,520 --> 00:18:48,959 Speaker 3: is legally blameless when he poisons his produced to make 261 00:18:49,000 --> 00:18:52,040 Speaker 3: it last longer. After all, people are free not to 262 00:18:52,080 --> 00:18:55,399 Speaker 3: purchase it. I have spent all my life under a 263 00:18:55,440 --> 00:18:58,440 Speaker 3: communist regime, and I will tell you that a society 264 00:18:58,480 --> 00:19:01,760 Speaker 3: without any objective legal skins is a terrible one, indeed. 265 00:19:03,320 --> 00:19:05,800 Speaker 3: But a society with no other scale but the legal one, 266 00:19:05,840 --> 00:19:09,000 Speaker 3: is also less than worthy of man. A society based 267 00:19:09,000 --> 00:19:11,800 Speaker 3: on the letter of the law and never reaching any 268 00:19:11,880 --> 00:19:15,720 Speaker 3: higher fails to take advantage of the full range of 269 00:19:15,840 --> 00:19:21,359 Speaker 3: human possibilities. The letter of the law is too cold 270 00:19:21,359 --> 00:19:25,000 Speaker 3: and formal to have a beneficial influence on society. Whenever 271 00:19:25,040 --> 00:19:28,159 Speaker 3: the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relationships, this 272 00:19:28,240 --> 00:19:33,119 Speaker 3: creates an atmosphere of spiritual mediocrity that paralyzes man's noblest impulses, 273 00:19:33,800 --> 00:19:36,000 Speaker 3: and it will be simply impossible to bear up to 274 00:19:36,119 --> 00:19:39,199 Speaker 3: the trials of this threatening century with nothing but the 275 00:19:39,240 --> 00:19:42,960 Speaker 3: supports of a legalistic structure. To day's Western society has 276 00:19:43,000 --> 00:19:46,359 Speaker 3: revealed the inequality between the freedom for good deeds and 277 00:19:46,400 --> 00:19:49,800 Speaker 3: the freedom for evil deeds. A statesman who wants to 278 00:19:49,840 --> 00:19:54,080 Speaker 3: achieve something important and highly constructive for his country has 279 00:19:54,119 --> 00:19:58,560 Speaker 3: to move cautiously and even timidly. Thousands of hasty and 280 00:19:58,560 --> 00:20:03,840 Speaker 3: irresponsible critics cling to him at all times. He is 281 00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:07,399 Speaker 3: constantly rebuffed by Parliament and the press. He has to 282 00:20:07,440 --> 00:20:11,760 Speaker 3: prove that his every step is well founded and absolutely flawless. Indeed, 283 00:20:11,760 --> 00:20:16,119 Speaker 3: an outstanding, truly great person who has unusual and unexpected 284 00:20:16,160 --> 00:20:19,920 Speaker 3: initiatives in mind does not get any chance to assert himself. 285 00:20:20,560 --> 00:20:23,960 Speaker 3: Dozens of traps will be set for him from the beginning. Thus, 286 00:20:24,040 --> 00:20:28,639 Speaker 3: mediocrity triumphs under the guise of democratic restraints. It is 287 00:20:28,680 --> 00:20:32,760 Speaker 3: feasible and easy everywhere to undermine administrative power, and it 288 00:20:32,840 --> 00:20:36,720 Speaker 3: has in fact been drastically weakened in all Western countries. 289 00:20:38,280 --> 00:20:41,640 Speaker 3: The defense of individual rights has reached such extremes as 290 00:20:41,680 --> 00:20:46,919 Speaker 3: to make society as a whole defenseless against certain individuals. 291 00:20:47,440 --> 00:20:51,639 Speaker 3: It is time in the West to defend not so 292 00:20:51,720 --> 00:20:55,960 Speaker 3: much human rights as human obligations. On the other hand, 293 00:20:56,680 --> 00:21:01,080 Speaker 3: destructive and irresponsible freedom has been grant in boundless space. 294 00:21:01,960 --> 00:21:06,040 Speaker 3: Society has turned out to have scarce defense against the 295 00:21:06,080 --> 00:21:10,159 Speaker 3: abyss of human dicadence. For example, against the misuse of 296 00:21:10,200 --> 00:21:14,840 Speaker 3: liberty for moral violence against young people, such as motion 297 00:21:14,960 --> 00:21:20,000 Speaker 3: pictures full of pornography, crime and horror. This is all 298 00:21:20,040 --> 00:21:22,680 Speaker 3: considered to be part of freedom and to be counterbalanced 299 00:21:23,440 --> 00:21:26,879 Speaker 3: in theory by the young people's right not to look 300 00:21:27,600 --> 00:21:34,399 Speaker 3: and not to accept. Life organized legalistically has thus shown 301 00:21:34,440 --> 00:21:38,280 Speaker 3: its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil 302 00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:42,120 Speaker 3: and what shall we say about the dark realms of 303 00:21:42,160 --> 00:21:47,920 Speaker 3: overt criminality. Legal limits, especially in the United States, are 304 00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:52,879 Speaker 3: broad enough to encourage not only individual freedom, but also 305 00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:57,320 Speaker 3: some misuse of such freedom. The culprit can go unpunished 306 00:21:57,400 --> 00:22:02,400 Speaker 3: or obtain undeserved leniency, all with the support of thousands 307 00:22:02,440 --> 00:22:07,000 Speaker 3: of defenders in the society. When a government earnestly undertakes 308 00:22:07,040 --> 00:22:11,639 Speaker 3: to root out terrorism, public opinion immediately accuses it of 309 00:22:12,960 --> 00:22:17,040 Speaker 3: violating the terrorists civil rights. There are quite a number 310 00:22:17,040 --> 00:22:21,120 Speaker 3: of such cases. This tilt of freedom toward evil has 311 00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:25,560 Speaker 3: come about gradually, but it evidently stems from a humanistic 312 00:22:26,280 --> 00:22:30,680 Speaker 3: and benevolent concept, according to which man, the master of 313 00:22:30,720 --> 00:22:34,639 Speaker 3: this world, does not bear any evil within himself, and 314 00:22:34,760 --> 00:22:37,880 Speaker 3: all the defects of life are caused by misguided social systems, 315 00:22:38,200 --> 00:22:39,800 Speaker 3: which must therefore be corrected. 316 00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:43,320 Speaker 2: Yet, strangely enough, though. 317 00:22:43,160 --> 00:22:45,919 Speaker 3: The best social conditions have been achieved in the West, 318 00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:49,600 Speaker 3: there still remains a great deal of crime. There even 319 00:22:49,680 --> 00:22:52,800 Speaker 3: is considerably more of it than in the destitute and 320 00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:54,359 Speaker 3: lawless Soviet society. 321 00:22:55,520 --> 00:22:55,879 Speaker 2: There is a. 322 00:22:55,920 --> 00:22:59,240 Speaker 3: Multitude of prisoners in our camps who are termed criminals, 323 00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:03,159 Speaker 3: but most of them never committed any crime. 324 00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:05,920 Speaker 2: They merely try to defend. 325 00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:08,399 Speaker 3: Themselves against a lawless state by resorting to means outside 326 00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:12,000 Speaker 3: the legal framework. The press, too, of course, enjoys the 327 00:23:12,040 --> 00:23:16,320 Speaker 3: widest freedom. I shall be using the word press to 328 00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:19,920 Speaker 3: include all the media, but what use does it make 329 00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:25,600 Speaker 3: of it? Here Again, the overriding concern is not to 330 00:23:25,680 --> 00:23:29,480 Speaker 3: infringe the letter of the law. There is no true 331 00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:35,480 Speaker 3: moral responsibility for distortion or disproportion. What sort of responsibility 332 00:23:35,600 --> 00:23:39,280 Speaker 3: does a journalist or a newspaper have to the readership 333 00:23:39,400 --> 00:23:44,760 Speaker 3: or to history if they have misled public opinion? By 334 00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:49,879 Speaker 3: inaccurate information or wrong conclusions, even if they have contributed 335 00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:53,639 Speaker 3: to mistakes on a state level. Do we know of 336 00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:56,240 Speaker 3: any case of open regret voice by the same journalists 337 00:23:56,320 --> 00:24:01,199 Speaker 3: or the same newspaper. No, this would damage sales. A 338 00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:04,199 Speaker 3: nation may be the worse for such a mistake, but 339 00:24:04,320 --> 00:24:08,560 Speaker 3: the journalist always gets away with it. It is most 340 00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:12,199 Speaker 3: likely that he will start writing the exact opposite to 341 00:24:12,240 --> 00:24:19,120 Speaker 3: his previous statements with renewed applom. Because instant and credible 342 00:24:19,119 --> 00:24:23,440 Speaker 3: information is required, it becomes necessary to resort to guesswork, 343 00:24:23,720 --> 00:24:28,920 Speaker 3: rumors and suppositions to fill in the voids, and none 344 00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:32,399 Speaker 3: of them will ever be refuted. They settle into the 345 00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:40,360 Speaker 3: reader's memory. How many hasty, immature, superficial and misleading judgments 346 00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:45,399 Speaker 3: are expressed every day, confusing readers and are then left hanging. 347 00:24:46,560 --> 00:24:50,080 Speaker 3: The press can act the role of public opinion or miseducated. 348 00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:55,680 Speaker 3: Thus we may see terrorists heroized, or secret matters pertaining 349 00:24:55,680 --> 00:24:59,040 Speaker 3: to the nation's defense publicly revealed, or we may witness 350 00:24:59,320 --> 00:25:02,919 Speaker 3: shameless in intrusion into the privacy of well known people. 351 00:25:03,359 --> 00:25:07,000 Speaker 3: According to the slogan, everyone is entitled to know everything, 352 00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:10,200 Speaker 3: But this is a false slogan. Of a false era. 353 00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:14,200 Speaker 3: Far greater in value is the forfeited right of people 354 00:25:14,280 --> 00:25:17,959 Speaker 3: not to know, not to have their divine souls stuffed 355 00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:24,080 Speaker 3: with gossip, nonsense, vain talk. A person who works and 356 00:25:24,119 --> 00:25:27,200 Speaker 3: leads a meaningful life has no need for the successive 357 00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:33,399 Speaker 3: and burdening flow of information, hastiness, and superficiality. These are 358 00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:36,879 Speaker 3: the psychic diseases of the twentieth century, and more than 359 00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:40,520 Speaker 3: anywhere else, this is manifested in the press. In depth 360 00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:44,560 Speaker 3: analysis of a problem is anathema to the press. It 361 00:25:44,600 --> 00:25:47,600 Speaker 3: is contrary to its nature. The press merely picks out 362 00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:52,560 Speaker 3: sensational formulas such as it is. However, the press has 363 00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:56,160 Speaker 3: become the greatest power within the Western countries, exceeding that 364 00:25:56,200 --> 00:26:01,400 Speaker 3: of the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. Yet one 365 00:26:01,440 --> 00:26:04,359 Speaker 3: would like to ask according to what law has it 366 00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:09,959 Speaker 3: been elected and to whom is it responsible? In the 367 00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:13,880 Speaker 3: communist East, a journalist is frankly appointed as a state official. 368 00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:17,800 Speaker 3: But who has voted Western journalists into their positions of 369 00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:22,399 Speaker 3: power for how long a time and with what prerogatives? 370 00:26:24,680 --> 00:26:27,040 Speaker 3: There is yet another surprise for someone coming from the 371 00:26:27,080 --> 00:26:33,720 Speaker 3: totalitarian East, with its rigorously unified press. One discovers a 372 00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:36,800 Speaker 3: common trend of preferences within the Western presses a whole. 373 00:26:36,880 --> 00:26:40,480 Speaker 3: The spirit of the time generally accepted patterns of judgment 374 00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:44,640 Speaker 3: and may be common corporate interests, the sum effect being 375 00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:50,280 Speaker 3: not competition but unification. Unrestrained freedom exists for the press, 376 00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:55,199 Speaker 3: but not for the readership, because newspapers mostly transmit in 377 00:26:55,280 --> 00:26:59,760 Speaker 3: a forceful and emphatic way those opinions which do not 378 00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:04,000 Speaker 3: too openly contradict their own and that general trend without 379 00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:08,159 Speaker 3: any censorship. In the West, fashionable trends of thought and 380 00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:12,679 Speaker 3: ideas are fastidiously separated from those that are not fashionable, 381 00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:17,840 Speaker 3: and the latter, without ever being forbidden, have little chance 382 00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:23,119 Speaker 3: of finding their way into periodicals or books or being 383 00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:27,119 Speaker 3: heard in colleges. Your scholars are free in the legal sense, 384 00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:30,800 Speaker 3: but they are hemmed in by the idols of the 385 00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:36,640 Speaker 3: prevailing fad. There is no open violence as in the East. However, 386 00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:40,679 Speaker 3: a selection dictated by fashion and the need to accommodate 387 00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:46,680 Speaker 3: mass standards frequently prevents the most independent minded persons from 388 00:27:46,720 --> 00:27:51,160 Speaker 3: contributing to public life and gives rise to dangerous heard 389 00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:54,000 Speaker 3: instincts that block successful development. 390 00:27:56,200 --> 00:27:58,040 Speaker 2: In America, I. 391 00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:02,119 Speaker 3: Have received letters from highly intelligent persons, maybe a teacher 392 00:28:02,119 --> 00:28:05,080 Speaker 3: in a far away small college, who could do much 393 00:28:05,080 --> 00:28:08,800 Speaker 3: for the renewal and salvation of his country, but the 394 00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:12,919 Speaker 3: country cannot hear him because the media will not provide 395 00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:18,159 Speaker 3: him with a forum. This gives birth to strong mass prejudices, 396 00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:22,320 Speaker 3: to a blindness which is perilous in our dynamic era. 397 00:28:23,359 --> 00:28:28,000 Speaker 3: An example is the self deluding interpretation of the state 398 00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:32,480 Speaker 3: of affairs in the contemporary world that functions as a 399 00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:36,600 Speaker 3: sort of a petrified armor around people's minds to such 400 00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:40,440 Speaker 3: a degree that human voices from seventeen countries of Eastern 401 00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:44,840 Speaker 3: Europe and Eastern Asia cannot pierce it. It will be 402 00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:49,160 Speaker 3: broken only by the inexorable crowbar of events. I have 403 00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:52,360 Speaker 3: mentioned a few traits of Western life which surprise and 404 00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:56,800 Speaker 3: shock a new arrival to this world. The purpose and 405 00:28:56,840 --> 00:28:59,600 Speaker 3: scope of this speech will not allow me to continue 406 00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:03,720 Speaker 3: such as survey, in particular to look into the impact 407 00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:07,480 Speaker 3: of these characteristics on important aspects of a nation's life, 408 00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:12,880 Speaker 3: such as elementary education, advanced education in the humanities, and art. 409 00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:17,920 Speaker 3: It is almost universally recognized that the West shows all 410 00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:20,520 Speaker 3: the world the way to successful. 411 00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:22,240 Speaker 2: Economic development, even though. 412 00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:28,880 Speaker 3: In past years it has been sharply offset by chaotic inflation. However, 413 00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:32,680 Speaker 3: many people living in the West are dissatisfied with their 414 00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:36,560 Speaker 3: own society. They despise it or accuse it of no 415 00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:39,600 Speaker 3: longer being up to the level of maturity attained by mankind, 416 00:29:41,240 --> 00:29:44,720 Speaker 3: and this causes many to sway toward socialism, which is 417 00:29:44,760 --> 00:29:48,800 Speaker 3: a false and dangerous current. I hope that no one 418 00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:53,360 Speaker 3: present will suspect me of expressing my partial criticism of 419 00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:58,920 Speaker 3: the Western system in order to suggest socialism as an alternative. No, 420 00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:03,800 Speaker 3: with the experience of a country where socialism has been realized, 421 00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:09,160 Speaker 3: I shall certainly not speak for such an alternative. The 422 00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:14,120 Speaker 3: mathematician Igor Chaffelevitch, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, 423 00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:20,280 Speaker 3: has written a brilliantly argued book entitled Socialism. This is 424 00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:24,360 Speaker 3: a penetrating historical analysis demonstrating the socialism of any type 425 00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:27,640 Speaker 3: in shade leads to a total destruction of the human 426 00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:33,960 Speaker 3: spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death. Chaffeleovitch's 427 00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:37,720 Speaker 3: book was published in France almost two years ago, and 428 00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:40,680 Speaker 3: so far no one has been found to refute it. 429 00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:43,000 Speaker 3: It will shortly be published in English in the U s. 430 00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:46,640 Speaker 3: But should I be asked instead, Whether I would propose 431 00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:49,600 Speaker 3: the West, such as it is to day, as a 432 00:30:49,640 --> 00:30:54,680 Speaker 3: model to my country, I would frankly have to answer negatively. 433 00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:56,720 Speaker 1: No. 434 00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:01,080 Speaker 3: I could not recommend your society as an ideal for 435 00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:05,880 Speaker 3: the transformation of ours. Through deep suffering, people in our 436 00:31:05,920 --> 00:31:09,320 Speaker 3: country have now achieved the spiritual development of such intensity 437 00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:13,040 Speaker 3: that the Western system, in its present state of spiritual exhaustion, 438 00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:18,800 Speaker 3: does not look attractive. Even those characteristics of your life 439 00:31:18,840 --> 00:31:22,560 Speaker 3: which I have just enumerated are extremely saddening. A fact 440 00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:26,240 Speaker 3: which cannot be disputed is the weakening of human personality 441 00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:28,960 Speaker 3: in the West, while in the East it has become 442 00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:33,760 Speaker 3: firmer and stronger. Six decades for our people and three 443 00:31:33,800 --> 00:31:37,960 Speaker 3: decades for the people of Eastern Europe. During that time 444 00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:41,720 Speaker 3: we have been through a spiritual training far in advance 445 00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:46,360 Speaker 3: of Western experience. The complex and deadly crush of life 446 00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:52,000 Speaker 3: has produced stronger, deeper, and more interesting personalities than those 447 00:31:52,080 --> 00:31:57,560 Speaker 3: generated by standardized Western well being. Therefore, if our society 448 00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:00,640 Speaker 3: were to be transformed into yours, it would mean an 449 00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:04,120 Speaker 3: improvement in certain aspects, but also a change for the 450 00:32:04,160 --> 00:32:09,040 Speaker 3: worse on some particularly significant points. Of course, a society 451 00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:12,080 Speaker 3: cannot remain in an abyss of lawlessness, as is the 452 00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:15,480 Speaker 3: case in our country. But it is also demeaning for 453 00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:17,760 Speaker 3: it to stay on such a soulness and smooth plane 454 00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:23,600 Speaker 3: of legalism, as is the case in yours. After the 455 00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:27,800 Speaker 3: suffering of decades of violence and oppression, the human soul 456 00:32:28,520 --> 00:32:33,040 Speaker 3: longs for things higher, warmer, and purer than those offered 457 00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:37,560 Speaker 3: by today's mass living habits introduced as by a calling card, 458 00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:41,480 Speaker 3: by the revolting invasion of commercial advertising, by TV stupor, 459 00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:46,000 Speaker 3: and by intolerable music. All this is visible to numerous 460 00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:49,120 Speaker 3: observers from all the worlds of our planet. The Western 461 00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:51,160 Speaker 3: way of life is less and less. 462 00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:52,479 Speaker 2: Likely to become the leading model. 463 00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:58,400 Speaker 3: There are telltale symptoms by which history gives warning to 464 00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:02,840 Speaker 3: a threatened or pair wishing society. Such are, for instance, 465 00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:06,360 Speaker 3: a decline of the arts or a lack of great statesmen. Indeed, 466 00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:10,680 Speaker 3: sometimes the warnings are quite explicit and concrete. The center 467 00:33:10,720 --> 00:33:13,480 Speaker 3: of your democracy and of your culture is left without 468 00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:16,320 Speaker 3: electric power for a few hours only, and all of 469 00:33:16,320 --> 00:33:20,400 Speaker 3: a sudden, crowds of American citizens start looting and creating havoc. 470 00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:26,520 Speaker 3: The smooth surface film must be very thin, and the 471 00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:30,000 Speaker 3: social system quite unstable and unhealthy. But the fight for 472 00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:34,360 Speaker 3: our planet, physical and spiritual, a fight of cosmic proportions, 473 00:33:34,840 --> 00:33:37,440 Speaker 3: is not a vague matter of the future. It has 474 00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:42,760 Speaker 3: already started. The forces of evil have begun the decisive offensive. 475 00:33:43,520 --> 00:33:47,000 Speaker 3: You can feel their pressure. Yet your screens and publications 476 00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:50,200 Speaker 3: are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. 477 00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:52,360 Speaker 2: What is the joy about. 478 00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:57,640 Speaker 3: Very well known representatives of your society, such as George Kennan, say, 479 00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:02,080 Speaker 3: we cannot apply moral criteria to politics. Thus we make 480 00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:05,280 Speaker 3: good and evil right and wrong, and make space for 481 00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:09,120 Speaker 3: the absolute triumph of absolute evil in the world. Only 482 00:34:09,200 --> 00:34:12,760 Speaker 3: moral criteria can help the West against Communism's well planned 483 00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:13,560 Speaker 3: world strategy. 484 00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:15,520 Speaker 2: There are no other criteria. 485 00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:20,600 Speaker 3: Practical or occasional considerations of any kind will inevitably be 486 00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:24,000 Speaker 3: swept away by strategy after a certain level of the 487 00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:31,240 Speaker 3: problem has been reached. Legalistic thinking induces paralysis. It prevents 488 00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:34,360 Speaker 3: one from seeing the scale and the meaning of events. 489 00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:37,840 Speaker 3: In spite of the abundance of information, or maybe partly 490 00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:40,880 Speaker 3: because of it, the West has great difficulty in finding 491 00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:48,120 Speaker 3: its bearings amid contemporary events. There have been naive predictions 492 00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:53,040 Speaker 3: by some American experts who believe that Angola would become 493 00:34:53,080 --> 00:34:58,120 Speaker 3: the Soviet Union's Vietnam, or that the impudent Cuban expeditions 494 00:34:58,120 --> 00:35:01,480 Speaker 3: in Africa would better be stopped by special U s 495 00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:07,239 Speaker 3: courtesy to Cuba. Cannon's advice to his own country to 496 00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:12,840 Speaker 3: begin unilateral disarmament belongs to the same category. If you 497 00:35:12,920 --> 00:35:16,160 Speaker 3: only knew how, the youngest of the officials in Moscow's 498 00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:20,759 Speaker 3: Old Square roar with laughter at your political wizards. As 499 00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:25,240 Speaker 3: to Fidel Castro, he openly scorns the United States, boldly 500 00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:28,680 Speaker 3: sending his troops to distant adventures from his country right 501 00:35:28,719 --> 00:35:33,120 Speaker 3: next to yours. However, the most cruel mistake occurred with 502 00:35:33,160 --> 00:35:37,320 Speaker 3: the failure to understand the Vietnam War. Some people sincerely 503 00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:40,200 Speaker 3: wanted all wars to stop just as soon as possible. 504 00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:44,279 Speaker 3: Others believed that the way should be left open for 505 00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:48,920 Speaker 3: national or communist self determination in Vietnam or in Cambodia, 506 00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:53,200 Speaker 3: as we see to day with particular clarity. But in fact, 507 00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:57,280 Speaker 3: members of the U s anti war movement became accomplices 508 00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:01,239 Speaker 3: in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in the genocide 509 00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:04,879 Speaker 3: and the suffering to day imposed on thirty million people there. 510 00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:10,040 Speaker 3: Do these convince pacifists now hear the moans coming from there. 511 00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:14,200 Speaker 3: Do they understand their responsibility to day or do they 512 00:36:14,239 --> 00:36:18,160 Speaker 3: prefer not to hear? The American intelligencia lost its nerve, 513 00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:21,440 Speaker 3: and in a consequence, the danger has come much closer 514 00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:26,160 Speaker 3: to the United States. But there is no awareness of this. 515 00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:31,040 Speaker 3: Your short sighted politician, who signed the hasty Vietnam capitulation 516 00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:37,160 Speaker 3: seemingly gave America a care free breathing pause. However, a 517 00:36:37,280 --> 00:36:42,040 Speaker 3: hundredfold Vietnam now looms over you. Small Vietnam had been 518 00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:45,680 Speaker 3: a warning and an occasion to mobilize the nation's courage. 519 00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:48,799 Speaker 3: But if the full might of America suffered a full 520 00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:51,960 Speaker 3: fledged defeat at the hands of a small communist half country, 521 00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:55,480 Speaker 3: how can the West hope to stand firm in the future. 522 00:36:56,719 --> 00:37:00,160 Speaker 3: I have said on another occasion that in the twentieth century, 523 00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:04,360 Speaker 3: Western democracy has not won any major war by itself. 524 00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:08,279 Speaker 3: Each time it shielded itself with an ally possessing a 525 00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:13,640 Speaker 3: powerful land army whose philosophy it did not question. In 526 00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:17,400 Speaker 3: World War II against Hitler, instead of winning the conflict 527 00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:20,759 Speaker 3: with its own forces, which would certainly have been sufficient, 528 00:37:21,600 --> 00:37:26,239 Speaker 3: Western Democracy raised up another enemy, one that would prove 529 00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:30,560 Speaker 3: worse and more powerful. Since Hitler had neither the resources, 530 00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:36,399 Speaker 3: nor the people, nor the ideas with broad appeal, nor 531 00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:39,880 Speaker 3: such a large number of supporters in the West a 532 00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:44,400 Speaker 3: fifth column as the Soviet Union possessed. Some Western voices 533 00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:46,919 Speaker 3: already have spoken of the need of a protective screen 534 00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:51,320 Speaker 3: against hostile forces in the next world conflict. In this case, 535 00:37:51,640 --> 00:37:54,399 Speaker 3: the shield would be China. But I would not wish 536 00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:58,320 Speaker 3: such an outcome to end country in the world. First 537 00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:02,560 Speaker 3: of all, it is again a doomed alliance with evil. 538 00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:06,359 Speaker 3: It would grant the United States a respite. But when 539 00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:09,880 Speaker 3: at a later date China, with its billion people, would 540 00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:14,719 Speaker 3: turn around armed with American weapons, America itself would fall 541 00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:19,320 Speaker 3: victim to a Cambodia style genocide. And yet, no weapons, 542 00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:23,239 Speaker 3: no matter how powerful, can help the West until it 543 00:38:23,280 --> 00:38:27,000 Speaker 3: overcomes its loss of will power. In a state of 544 00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:31,880 Speaker 3: psychological weakness, weapons even become a burden for the capitulating side. 545 00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:36,279 Speaker 3: To defend one's self, one must also be ready to die. 546 00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:41,040 Speaker 3: There is little such readiness in a society raised in 547 00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:45,040 Speaker 3: the cult of material well being. Nothing is left in 548 00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:51,840 Speaker 3: this case but concessions, attempts to gain time and betrayal. Thus, 549 00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:56,840 Speaker 3: at the shameful Belgrade Conference, Free Western diplomats, in their weakness, 550 00:38:56,880 --> 00:38:59,560 Speaker 3: surrendered the line of defense for which enslaved members of 551 00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:05,560 Speaker 3: the health thinky watch groups are sacrificing their lives. Western 552 00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:09,920 Speaker 3: thinking has become conservative. The world's situation must stay as 553 00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:13,280 Speaker 3: it is at any cost. There must be no changes. 554 00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:18,320 Speaker 3: This debilitating dream of a status quo is the symptom 555 00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:24,399 Speaker 3: of a society that has ceased to develop. But one 556 00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:26,400 Speaker 3: must be blind in order not to see that the 557 00:39:26,440 --> 00:39:29,680 Speaker 3: oceans no longer belong to the West, while the land 558 00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:36,480 Speaker 3: under its domination keeps shrinking. The two so called world wars, 559 00:39:37,160 --> 00:39:40,960 Speaker 3: they were by far not on a world scale, not 560 00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:44,840 Speaker 3: yet constituted, the internal self destruction of the small progressive West, 561 00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:49,479 Speaker 3: which has thus prepared its own end the next wall, 562 00:39:49,520 --> 00:39:52,000 Speaker 3: which does not have to be an atomic one. I 563 00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:55,200 Speaker 3: do not believe it will be. May well bury Western 564 00:39:55,239 --> 00:39:59,719 Speaker 3: civilization forever. In the face of such a danger, with 565 00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:03,439 Speaker 3: historical values in your past, with such a high level 566 00:40:03,480 --> 00:40:08,120 Speaker 3: of attained freedom and apparently of devotion to it, How 567 00:40:08,200 --> 00:40:10,279 Speaker 3: is it possible to lose to such an extent the 568 00:40:10,320 --> 00:40:13,680 Speaker 3: will to defend oneself? How has this unfavorable relation of 569 00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:17,520 Speaker 3: forces come about? How did the West decline from its 570 00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:23,720 Speaker 3: triumphal march to its present debility. Have there been fatal 571 00:40:23,760 --> 00:40:28,640 Speaker 3: turns and losses of direction in its development? It does 572 00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:33,520 Speaker 3: not seem so. The West kept advancing steadily in accordance 573 00:40:33,560 --> 00:40:37,040 Speaker 3: with its proclaimed social intentions, hand in hand with the 574 00:40:37,080 --> 00:40:40,719 Speaker 3: dazzling progress in technology, and all of a sudden it 575 00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:45,280 Speaker 3: found itself in its present state of weakness. This means 576 00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:49,080 Speaker 3: that the mistake must be at the route, at the 577 00:40:49,200 --> 00:40:55,360 Speaker 3: very foundation of thought in modern times. I refer to 578 00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:59,240 Speaker 3: the prevailing Western view of the world, which was born 579 00:40:59,480 --> 00:41:03,960 Speaker 3: in the Rendery and has found political expression since the 580 00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:08,360 Speaker 3: age of Enlightenment. It became the basis for political and 581 00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:15,000 Speaker 3: social doctrine, and could be called rationalistic humanism or humanistic autonomy, 582 00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:19,920 Speaker 3: the proclaimed and practiced autonomy of man from any higher 583 00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:25,480 Speaker 3: force above him. It could also be called anthropocentricity, with 584 00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:29,880 Speaker 3: man seen as the center of all. The turn introduced 585 00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:34,360 Speaker 3: by the Renaissance was probably inevitable. Historically, the Middle Ages 586 00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:37,680 Speaker 3: had come to a natural end by exhaustion, having become 587 00:41:37,719 --> 00:41:41,960 Speaker 3: an intolerable, despotic repression of man's physical nature in favor 588 00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:46,640 Speaker 3: of the spiritual one. But then we recoiled from the 589 00:41:46,680 --> 00:41:51,920 Speaker 3: spirit and embraced all that is, material excessively and incommensurately. 590 00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:57,279 Speaker 3: The humanistic way of thinking, which had proclaimed itself for 591 00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:00,960 Speaker 3: our guide, did not admit the exist tints of intrinsic 592 00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:05,040 Speaker 3: evil in man, nor did it see any task higher 593 00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:09,360 Speaker 3: than the attainment of happiness on earth. It started modern 594 00:42:09,400 --> 00:42:14,719 Speaker 3: Western civilization on the dangerous trend of worshiping man and 595 00:42:14,800 --> 00:42:20,120 Speaker 3: his material needs. Everything beyond physical well being and the 596 00:42:20,160 --> 00:42:25,640 Speaker 3: accumulation of material goods, all other human requirements and characteristics 597 00:42:25,640 --> 00:42:29,880 Speaker 3: of a subtler and higher nature were left outside the 598 00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:33,359 Speaker 3: area of attention of state and social systems, as if 599 00:42:33,400 --> 00:42:38,840 Speaker 3: human life did not have any higher meaning. Thus gaps 600 00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:42,480 Speaker 3: were left open for evil and his drafts blow freely. Today, 601 00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:47,040 Speaker 3: mere freedom per se does not in the least solve 602 00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:49,960 Speaker 3: all the problems of human life, and even adds a 603 00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:55,160 Speaker 3: number of new ones. And Yet in early democracies, as 604 00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:59,160 Speaker 3: in American democracy at the time of his birth, all 605 00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:03,560 Speaker 3: individual human rights were granted on the ground that man 606 00:43:03,640 --> 00:43:08,040 Speaker 3: is God's creature. That is, freedom was given to the 607 00:43:08,080 --> 00:43:12,640 Speaker 3: individual conditionerly in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. 608 00:43:13,800 --> 00:43:16,560 Speaker 3: Such was the heritage of the preceding one thousand years, 609 00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:20,440 Speaker 3: two hundred or even fifty years ago, it would have 610 00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:24,360 Speaker 3: seemed quite impossible in America that an individual be granted 611 00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:28,319 Speaker 3: boundless freedom with no purpose, simply for the satisfaction of 612 00:43:28,400 --> 00:43:34,960 Speaker 3: his whims. Subsequently, however, all such limitations were eroded everywhere 613 00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:39,000 Speaker 3: in the West. A total emancipation occurred from the moral 614 00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:42,560 Speaker 3: heritage of Christian centuries, with their great reserves of mercy 615 00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:50,400 Speaker 3: and sacrifice. State systems were becoming ever more materialistic. The 616 00:43:50,440 --> 00:43:53,279 Speaker 3: worst has finally achieved the rights of man and even 617 00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:57,239 Speaker 3: to excess, but man's sense of responsibility to God and 618 00:43:57,320 --> 00:44:02,520 Speaker 3: society has grown dimmer and dimmer. In the past decades. 619 00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:05,879 Speaker 3: The legalistic selfishness of the Western approach to the world 620 00:44:06,280 --> 00:44:09,440 Speaker 3: has reached its peak, and the world has found itself 621 00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:15,279 Speaker 3: in a harsh spiritual crisis and a political impasse. All 622 00:44:15,320 --> 00:44:21,040 Speaker 3: the celebrated technological achievements of progress, including the conquest of 623 00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:25,680 Speaker 3: outer space, do not redeem the twentieth century's moral poverty, 624 00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:30,279 Speaker 3: which no one could have imagined even as late as 625 00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:33,800 Speaker 3: the nineteenth century. As humanism in its development was becoming 626 00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:38,280 Speaker 3: more and more materialistic, it also increasingly allowed its concepts 627 00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:42,680 Speaker 3: to be used first by socialism and then by communism, 628 00:44:43,040 --> 00:44:45,120 Speaker 3: so that Karl Marx was able to say in eighteen 629 00:44:45,200 --> 00:44:52,560 Speaker 3: forty four that communism is naturalized humanism. This statement has 630 00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:56,080 Speaker 3: proved to be not entirely unreasonable. One does see the 631 00:44:56,080 --> 00:44:59,560 Speaker 3: same stones in the foundations of an eroded humanism and 632 00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:05,200 Speaker 3: of any type of socialism, boundless materialism, freedom from religion, 633 00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:10,160 Speaker 3: and religious responsibility, which under communist regimes attains the stage 634 00:45:10,200 --> 00:45:15,319 Speaker 3: of anti religious dictatorship, concentration on social structures with an 635 00:45:15,320 --> 00:45:20,000 Speaker 3: allegedly scientific approach. This last is typical of both the 636 00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:23,960 Speaker 3: Age of Enlightenment and of Marxism. It is no accident 637 00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:29,440 Speaker 3: that all of communism's rhetorical vows revolve around man with 638 00:45:29,520 --> 00:45:33,400 Speaker 3: a capital M and his earthly happiness. At first glance, 639 00:45:33,440 --> 00:45:36,640 Speaker 3: it seems an ugly parallel common traits in the thinking 640 00:45:37,160 --> 00:45:40,439 Speaker 3: and way of life of today's West and today's East. 641 00:45:41,360 --> 00:45:45,800 Speaker 3: But such as the logic of materialistic development, the interrelationship 642 00:45:45,840 --> 00:45:50,040 Speaker 3: is such. Moreover, that the current of materialism, which is 643 00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:53,440 Speaker 3: farthest to the left and is hence the most consistent, 644 00:45:54,320 --> 00:46:00,600 Speaker 3: always proves to be stronger, more attractive, and victorious. Humanism, 645 00:46:01,200 --> 00:46:06,520 Speaker 3: which has lost its Christian heritage, cannot prevail in this competition. Thus, 646 00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:11,000 Speaker 3: during the past centuries, and especially in recent decades as 647 00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:15,840 Speaker 3: the process became more acute, the alignment of forces was 648 00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:21,279 Speaker 3: as follows. Liberalism was inevitably pushed aside by radicalism. Radicalism 649 00:46:21,360 --> 00:46:25,920 Speaker 3: had to surrender to socialism, and socialism could not stand 650 00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:30,160 Speaker 3: up to communism. The communist regime in the East could 651 00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:34,880 Speaker 3: endure and grow due to the enthusiastic support from an 652 00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:40,320 Speaker 3: enormous number of Western intellectuals, who, feeling the kinship, refused 653 00:46:40,320 --> 00:46:43,520 Speaker 3: to see communism's crimes, and when they no longer could 654 00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:49,800 Speaker 3: do so, they tried to justify these crimes. The problem 655 00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:54,800 Speaker 3: persists in our Eastern countries. Communism has suffered a complete 656 00:46:54,840 --> 00:46:59,680 Speaker 3: ideological defeat. It is zero and less than zero, and 657 00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:03,160 Speaker 3: yet Western intellectuals still look at it with considerable interest 658 00:47:03,760 --> 00:47:07,040 Speaker 3: and empathy. And this is precisely what makes it so 659 00:47:07,080 --> 00:47:09,719 Speaker 3: immensely difficult for the West to withstand the East. I 660 00:47:09,760 --> 00:47:13,319 Speaker 3: am not examining the case of a disaster brought on 661 00:47:13,400 --> 00:47:16,080 Speaker 3: by a world war and the changes which it would 662 00:47:16,120 --> 00:47:19,520 Speaker 3: produce in society. But as long as we wake up 663 00:47:19,560 --> 00:47:22,920 Speaker 3: every morning under a peaceful sun, we must lead an 664 00:47:22,920 --> 00:47:27,320 Speaker 3: everyday life. Yet there is a disaster which is already 665 00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:30,880 Speaker 3: very much with us. I am referring to the calamity 666 00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:36,640 Speaker 3: of an autonomous, irreligious, humanistic consciousness. It has made man 667 00:47:36,680 --> 00:47:40,680 Speaker 3: the measure of all things on earth, imperfect man who 668 00:47:40,719 --> 00:47:45,680 Speaker 3: is never free of pride, self interest, envy, vanity, and 669 00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:49,960 Speaker 3: dozens of other defects. We are now paying for the 670 00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:53,160 Speaker 3: mistakes which were not properly appraised at the beginning of 671 00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:58,920 Speaker 3: the journey. On the way from the Renaissance to our days, 672 00:47:59,280 --> 00:48:02,360 Speaker 3: we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the 673 00:48:02,440 --> 00:48:05,640 Speaker 3: concept of a supreme, complete entity, which used to restrain 674 00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:09,239 Speaker 3: our passions and our irresponsibility. We have placed too much 675 00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:13,080 Speaker 3: hope in politics and social reforms, only to find out 676 00:48:13,120 --> 00:48:16,279 Speaker 3: that we were being deprived of our most precious possession, 677 00:48:17,400 --> 00:48:20,919 Speaker 3: our spiritual life. It is trampled by the party mob 678 00:48:20,960 --> 00:48:23,480 Speaker 3: in the east, by the commercial one in the west. 679 00:48:25,040 --> 00:48:29,120 Speaker 3: This is the essence of the crisis. The split in 680 00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:32,319 Speaker 3: the world is less terrifying than the similarity of the 681 00:48:32,400 --> 00:48:37,080 Speaker 3: disease afflicting its main sections. If, as cloned by humanism, 682 00:48:37,680 --> 00:48:40,400 Speaker 3: man were born only to be happy, he would not 683 00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:44,040 Speaker 3: be born to die. Since his body is doomed to death, 684 00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:48,600 Speaker 3: his task on earth evidently must be more spiritual, not 685 00:48:48,680 --> 00:48:52,040 Speaker 3: a total enclossment in everyday life, not the search for 686 00:48:52,080 --> 00:48:55,000 Speaker 3: the best ways to obtain material goods and then their 687 00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:58,880 Speaker 3: care free consumption. It has to be the fulfillment of 688 00:48:58,920 --> 00:49:03,880 Speaker 3: a permanent, earnest duty, so that one's life journey may become, 689 00:49:03,920 --> 00:49:08,800 Speaker 3: above all, an experience of moral growth, to leave life 690 00:49:08,880 --> 00:49:12,799 Speaker 3: a better human being than one started it. It is 691 00:49:12,840 --> 00:49:16,040 Speaker 3: imperative to reappraise the scale of the usual human values. 692 00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:21,799 Speaker 3: Its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that 693 00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:25,520 Speaker 3: assessment of the president's performance should be reduced to the 694 00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:27,799 Speaker 3: question of how much money one makes or to the 695 00:49:27,800 --> 00:49:32,480 Speaker 3: availability of gasoline. Only by the voluntary nurturing in ourselves 696 00:49:32,480 --> 00:49:36,879 Speaker 3: of freely accepted and serene self restraint can mankind rise 697 00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:40,680 Speaker 3: above the world's stream of materialism to day. Would be 698 00:49:40,719 --> 00:49:44,080 Speaker 3: retrogressive to hold on to the ossified formulas of the Enlightenment. 699 00:49:45,160 --> 00:49:49,120 Speaker 3: Such social dogmatism leaves us helpless before the trials of 700 00:49:49,160 --> 00:49:50,240 Speaker 3: our times. 701 00:49:50,880 --> 00:49:51,480 Speaker 2: Even if we. 702 00:49:51,440 --> 00:49:54,960 Speaker 3: Are spared destruction by war, life will have to change 703 00:49:55,000 --> 00:49:58,040 Speaker 3: in order not to perish on its own. We cannot 704 00:49:58,040 --> 00:50:02,040 Speaker 3: avoid reassessing the fundamental definition of human life and human society. 705 00:50:03,040 --> 00:50:06,640 Speaker 3: Is it true that man is above everything is there 706 00:50:06,640 --> 00:50:11,000 Speaker 3: no superior spirit above him. Is it right that man's 707 00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:14,520 Speaker 3: life and society's activities should be ruled by material expansion 708 00:50:14,560 --> 00:50:18,840 Speaker 3: above all? Is it permissible to promote such expansion to 709 00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:22,800 Speaker 3: the detriment of our integral spiritual life. If the world 710 00:50:22,840 --> 00:50:25,760 Speaker 3: has not approached its end, it has reached a major 711 00:50:25,840 --> 00:50:29,480 Speaker 3: watershed in history, equal in importance to the turn from 712 00:50:29,480 --> 00:50:32,680 Speaker 3: the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It will demand from 713 00:50:32,760 --> 00:50:35,799 Speaker 3: us as spiritual blaze. We shall have to rise to 714 00:50:35,840 --> 00:50:40,360 Speaker 3: a new height of vision, to a new level of life, 715 00:50:41,480 --> 00:50:44,960 Speaker 3: where our physical nature will not be cursed as in 716 00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:49,759 Speaker 3: the Middle Ages, but even more importantly, our spiritual being 717 00:50:49,800 --> 00:50:52,919 Speaker 3: will not be trampled upon as in the modern era. 718 00:50:54,200 --> 00:50:59,080 Speaker 3: This ascension is similar to climbing onto the next anthropological stage. 719 00:50:59,160 --> 00:51:03,720 Speaker 3: No one on earth has any other waylift but upward. 720 00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:07,920 Speaker 1: If you like the Michael Berry Show and podcast, please 721 00:51:08,160 --> 00:51:12,279 Speaker 1: tell one friend, and if you're so inclined, write a 722 00:51:12,400 --> 00:51:17,440 Speaker 1: nice review of our podcast. Comments, suggestions, questions, and interest 723 00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:21,399 Speaker 1: in being a corporate sponsor and partner can be communicated 724 00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:25,919 Speaker 1: directly to the show at our email address, Michael at 725 00:51:26,040 --> 00:51:29,879 Speaker 1: Michael Berryshow dot com, or simply by clicking on our 726 00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:34,719 Speaker 1: website Michael Berryshow dot Com. The Michael Berry Show and 727 00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:38,839 Speaker 1: Podcast is produced by Ramon Roeblis, The King of Ding. 728 00:51:40,239 --> 00:51:49,760 Speaker 1: Executive producer is Chad Knakanishi. Jim Mudd is the creative director. 729 00:51:50,560 --> 00:51:56,120 Speaker 1: Voices Jingles, Tomfoolery and Shenanigans are provided by Chance McLain. 730 00:51:56,960 --> 00:52:01,439 Speaker 1: Director of Research is Sandy Peterson. Emily Bull is our 731 00:52:01,480 --> 00:52:08,920 Speaker 1: assistant listener and superfan. Contributions are appreciated and often incorporated 732 00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:12,680 Speaker 1: into our production. Where possible, we give credit, where not, 733 00:52:13,239 --> 00:52:16,400 Speaker 1: we take all the credit for ourselves. God bless the 734 00:52:16,440 --> 00:52:22,120 Speaker 1: memory of Rush Limbaugh. Long live Elvis, be a simple 735 00:52:22,160 --> 00:52:28,000 Speaker 1: man like Leonard Skinnard told you, and God bless America. Finally, 736 00:52:28,719 --> 00:52:32,480 Speaker 1: if you know a veteran suffering from PTSD, call Camp 737 00:52:32,520 --> 00:52:38,400 Speaker 1: Hope at eight seven seven seven one seven PTSD and 738 00:52:38,480 --> 00:52:42,800 Speaker 1: a combat veteran will answer the phone to provide free counseling.