We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable.

We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable.

    - Alexander Solzhenitsyn

In 1973 Alexander Solzhenitsyn nominated Andrei Sakharov for the Nobel Peace Prize (which Sakharov was awarded in 1975 though he was not allowed to leave the Soviet Union to receive it.)  

Solzhenitsyn's nominating letter has been titled Peace and Violence.  His original text to the Nobel Committee in Russian was not available for many years and presumably the above version of the quote is a translation of the translation from Norwegian.  Eventually the original Russian text became available with the following translation from the original Russian. 

It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes. It may even lie on the surface; but we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions — especially selfish ones

While a more direct translation of Russian-to-English and probably technically more accurate, it is definitely the same sentiment.  But the Russian-to-Norwegian-to-English version is actually the more artful.  

It is even more interesting to look at the quote in its original context.  Best to read the whole letter, only five pages.  The immediate section of the letter is a discussion of the nature of war and terrorism and repression.  It has a striking salience in our age.  

Solzhenitsyn was speaking of violence and rejection of truth in a context of the Soviet Union.  In our age we are facing violence and rejection of truth from critical theorists such as Antifa and BLM and the hidden postmodernists in city councils and academic settings seeking to force racist struggle sessions on the populace and defunding the police.  The names and particulars have changed over fifty years but the nature of the struggle between advocates of humanity and freedom and truth versus violent statists who depend on the purity of adherence to a lie remains much the same.

But here, as in the doubtful classification of wars as 'permissible' and ' impermissible', we at once run up against a selfish contradiction of the truth: certain groups of violent men insist that only those forms of violence that they themselves use should not be counted as a threat to peace (but rather as a benefit even). 

Let us take as an example the terrorism of the past few years. While remaining watchful and on its guard where war is concerned, mankind has shown itself to be slack and uncaring with regard to other forms of violence-and confusion is so complete that it is unwilling in practice to reject terrorism by mere individuals. And what it even more remarkable: a worldwide humanitarian organisation was not able to carry through even a moral condemnation of terrorism! Against such a condemnation a selfish majority in the UN marshalled doubts about definition: well, is all terrorism damaging? And where is the scientific definition of terrorism? 

As a joke one might suggest the following: 'When we are attacked, it is terrorism, but when we attack - it is a partisan freedom movement.' 

But let us be serious. People have been refusing to accept as terrorism a treacherous assault under peaceful conditions against peaceful people by military forces that have been surreptitiously armed and are frequently dressed up in civilian clothes. They demand that we study the aims of the terrorist groups, the base that supports them and their ideology, and then perhaps accept them as sacred ' guerrillas ' (in South America they have even gone so far as to give them the comic description ' urban guerrillas'). 

Of course, as it grows and conquers larger areas, terrorism will turn at one stage or another into guerrilla warfare (to regain territory or take the war or revolution onto foreign territory), and the guerrilla activities will turn into regular war, which is directed from across the border by military units. Because of the general indivisibility of violence, such shifting changes are bound to exist and one can easily imagine the problems of definition, especially for those who have an emotional interest in not arriving at the truth, but rather in justifying one or another form of violence.

It is almost chilling.  We have had two or three months of riots and violence in our major cities while the mainstream press have been reporting "mostly peaceful protests" despite the hours of video of flames and shooting and smoking ruins and broken bodies.  

How is this not the same as "certain groups of violent men insist that only those forms of violence that they themselves use should not be counted as a threat to peace (but rather as a benefit even)."  Mostly peaceful protests is the old, old lie resurrected.

At the same time, academia and city councils and select corporations and grifting individuals advance the lie of a nation riddled with endemic and systemic racism as a justification for violent riots and mob violence on peaceful citizens in their cars and in their homes.  How is this not an example of the same dynamic when "a worldwide humanitarian organisation was not able to carry through even a moral condemnation of terrorism!"  

And how is this not a description of Antifa, the vanguard of critical theory forces?  "People have been refusing to accept as terrorism a treacherous assault under peaceful conditions against peaceful people by military forces that have been surreptitiously armed and are frequently dressed up in civilian clothes."

Universities and K-12 public schools and Fortune 500 companies and local city councils and Federal agencies are forcing students and employees to participate in racism training, forcing them to go through Maoist struggle sessions in which they confess their non-existent racist sins.  To experience indoctrination in critical theory, particularly critical race theory.  How is this not the same as "They demand that we study the aims of the terrorist groups, the base that supports them and their ideology, and then perhaps accept them as sacred 'guerrillas'"? 

And the media lying and the tech companies shadow-banning and censoring content and Universities de-platforming professors who do not toe the new sacred theology of critical theory.  How is this not a description of "those who have an emotional interest in not arriving at the truth, but rather in justifying one or another form of violence."

Woof.  While respecting the individual and his remarkable life story, I have not ever been much of a fan of Solzhenitsyn the author and philosopher.

But he sure hit the nail on the head here.  And it is so remarkably pertinent fifty years later.