It is, you see, the single-most important treatise on the evil of torture - thanks to its stark description of the twisted mentality of it's administrators. It is written in the superior and passionate prose of a Christian intellectual who lived to tell.
(You can almost hear him spit on the ground as he recounts his gruesome story.)
For anyone interested in apologetics the book is indispensable. When one realizes the depravity that overtakes, possesses and eventually destroys the inner man, the reasons are self-evident as to why we should never allow such tactics to be used in the name of "justification" for the greater good.
The book is a fascinating study on human depravity and the corrupting influence of sadistic power given to little men.
I love our military guys as much as anyone, but the portrait of evil presented in that breathtaking book convinced me that we must never tempt anyone in our military with a likewise fate. To do so is to do them a grave disservice.
Put simply, human nature cannot be trusted to handle the power of evil.
I know what I'll be reading soon.
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JPod,
I'm honored to pull you out of the woodwork. And yes, I wrote that in all seriousness.
Solz. saw human depravity at its worst. Why is it inconceivable that our men/women are (potentially)capable of being carried away by evil's sadistic spell as S's torturers were?
I'm merely considering the possibility of it as a warning against that temptation.>
Another public service from Scott Lahti! Thanks, Scott. I'll be looking into those things.
By the way, are all of Solzehnitsyn's novels now available in translations that Solzhenitsyn approves? I have the impression that First Circle or Cancer Ward is not yet available thus - - Help?>
First Circle abd Cancer Ward are definitely available although whether he's approved them I don't know.
I hope the version of Gulag is the full three volume 3000 pager. An absolutely stunning work I cannot think of praise high enough for it.
Very Russian, great long paragraphs, sentences and diversions and all the more effective for that.
I lived in Russia in the 90s and I first read Gulag when locked up in my apartment while there was a pro-communist coup attempt going on in hte streets outside. Quite horrifying to read it and know that there were people sufficiently nostalgic for those years that they were carrying guns outside my door.
I've met people who survived the camps and it's something you have to talk about very quietly, even now in Russia.>
Anne Applebaum's _Gulag_ is also important. She writes that the single most effective form of torture, the one that broke virtually everyone, was "the conveyer": a form of continuous interrogation/sleep deprivation which no one can withstand more than 2 -3 days. It was her description that convinced me that a lenghty interrogation is acceptable, but that extended sleep deprivation is definitely a form of torture.>
"Put simply, human nature cannot be trusted to handle the power of evil."
And yet we authorize the government to steal through the power to tax. We authorize the government to subjugate people through the power to imprison. We authorize the government to kill through the power to wage war. And we authorize the government to lie through the power to engage in espionage.
It amazes me that so many seem to miss all this.>
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