…the calamity of an autonomous, irreligious humanistic consciousness. It has made man the measure of all things on earth – imperfect man, who is never free of pride, self-interest, envy, vanity, and dozens of other defects. We are now paying for the mistakes which were not properly appraised at the beginning of the journey. On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility. (…) Only by the voluntary nurturing in ourselves of freely accepted and serene self-restraint can mankind rise above the world stream of materialism. (Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, A World Split Apart, Commencement Address At Harvard, June 8, 1978)

Notes:

a) Solzhenitsyn observes that “we are now paying for the mistakes which were not properly appraised at the beginning of the journey”. He is referring to the mistake that was made in “the turn introduced by the Renaissance (…) [when] we recoiled from the spirit and embraced all that is material, excessively and incommensurately.” But was this a beginning in historical time? How so? Did a beginning in history result in an essentially different history thereafter? Or are beginnings not in history, but somehow before and below history where the gigantomachia rages?

b) ‘Self-restraint” means the acceptance of limitations. Limitations can be positive because enabling the “Supreme Entity” at origin to be “Complete” – and therefore essentially plural. ‘Complete’ entails having all of one’s parts (so that an entity lacking parts could never be ‘complete’ or ‘incomplete’). But at origin, ‘having parts’ entails an essential plurality that is at home there.

c) Essential limitation is positive in a further important sense. What Solzhenitsyn calls the “calamity of an autonomous, irreligious humanistic consciousness” is itself limited. A new beginning departing from such “calamity” is possible at any moment.

d) Essential limitation is “the space of the door” and it is this space which enables essential transformation.

The World Split Apart segments continue here.