Lost in the Translation

ALEKSANDR Solzhenitsyn has the type of personality that stands out in any crowd. Even seated among his fellow honorary degree recipients at Commencement last June, as illustrious a group of political figures, authors and scientists as you're likely to find...there seems to be something remarkable about the man.

It was not just the long beard or simple brown suit that caught your attention. What made you really stare was the animated intensity of the man, the eyes, the bearing, the passionate sense of self-righteousness that emanated from him, all making him appear somehow larger than the others.

When he rose to speak to the thousands of students, parents and alumni assembled in the Yard for the Associated Harvard Alumni ceremony, those qualities were each magnified. For Solzhenitsyn did not simply give a speech at Commencement, he delivered a fervent sermon. Like a prophet, he believed every word he said.

That, of course, made you kind of uneasy, listening to the man as you hid beneath your umbrella, seeking refuge from the off-and-on rain showers. He denounced the West, its loss of will and courage, the dangerous extent of its freedoms, its moral and spiritual decline. You huddled for cover.

His words came across in muffled streams of Russian, with the simultaneous translation intruding a second later, and much louder, over the public address system. The two grated together, making it difficult to hear.

And it seemed that many did not even want to hear--not just at Harvard but across the country. For weeks after the address--especially in the Midwestern heartland where indignant, patriotic feathers are most easily ruffled--the editorial pages of the big-city dailies and small-town weeklies alike over-flowed with letters. Most supported Rosalynn Carter's response to the Solzhenitsyn speech, an earnest argument on the evening news that America is still strong and wholesome as ever.

But beyond the obvious, the defensive kneejerk refusal to listen to Solzhenisyn, there is another reason why a Western audience--whether in Cambridge or Ohio--had such trouble hearing. Solzhenitsyn, after all, is profoundly a man of Eastern culture, and his ideas simply do not mesh with the mental and philosophical constructs of the West.

Solzhenitsyn argues that the West's spiritual decline began during the Renaissance, when the currents of humanism started to give modern man a sense of autonomy from any higher forces above him. The Renaissance, he says, ended the Middle Age's complete repression of man's physical nature. "Then, however," Solzhenitsyn adds, "we turned our backs on the Spirit and embraced all that is material with excessive and unwarranted zeal."

What Solzhenitsyn seeks is a return to aspects of man's spiritual nature, or, as he says variously, "things higher, warmer and purer," "the Superior Spirit," or the "Supreme Complete Entity." He wants some higher principle which will help guide individuals to achieve their human potential. Western materialism which he believes promotes only weakness and mediocrity, has no place in his scheme of things.

Solzhenitsyn in turn has a deep religious faith in a Truth operating in the political system. The humanist Western mind, however, finds it impossible to accept this trust, because it believes that any political "Truth" can only be a working hypothesis, defined by those who happen to be in political or economic power at the time. Such a Truth carries with it the roots of oppression.

The West accepts the situation that Solzhenitsyn criticizes--the lack of courageous, independent decision-making, the absence of strong leadership and moral certitude--precisely because it prefers to muddle along as democratically, and with as much respect for the unorthodox, as possible. Again, while Solzhenitsyn denounces the uncontrolled power of the Western press to distribute superficial and misleading information hastily, the West cannot see this point; it speaks out instead for a press that is as independent as possible. Alternate visions of reality, it knows, depend on alternative sets of data, on the free exchange of information, on diversity.

ULTIMATELY, the humanist Westerner must confront Solzhenitsyn with the argument that any "higher" spiritual ideal, with which he would replace legalistic and materialistic concepts, must still be defined, explained, and promoted in the political system by someone working. That person will, by successfully defining, explaining and promoting, inevitably come to a position of power. And whether it is political, economic, or religious, such power easily leads to exploitation.

So Solzhenitsyn seeks the universal Truths that the Westerner believes will result in elitism and autocracy. He thinks in terms of an Eastern synthesis, a "Supreme Complete Entity," whereas the Westerner, more skeptical and analytic, views reality as being based on the individual. The contrast of opinion is hardly a new one, but at Commencement this past June it was played out sharply.

That irreconcilable difference in opinion was surely the big reason why Western ears have a hard time listening to Solzhenitsyn and taking his prophecies seriously.

Solzhenitsyn, indeed, is a self-styled prophet of doom, and such pessimists are hardly used to warm receptions. But, unlike Biblical prophets, who reputedly spoke to all in their native tongues, this fails to translate very well to the West.