…in early democracies, as in American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual  human rights were granted on the ground that man is God’s creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Such was the heritage of the preceding one thousand years. Two hundred or even fifty years ago, it would have seemed quite impossible, in America, that an individual be granted boundless freedom with no purpose, simply for the satisfaction of his whims. Subsequently, however, all such limitations were eroded everywhere in the West; a total emancipation occurred from the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice. (Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, A World Split Apart, Commencement Address At Harvard, June 8, 1978)

Notes:

a) Solzhenitsyn opposes “responsibility”, “limitations” and “sacrifice” to “boundless freedom” and “total emancipation”. In terms of the gigantomachia, he rejects the boundless and total claims made by the giants and the gods for themselves and against the other, in favor of the child’s notion of a belonging-together of “both” at origin. Were the two not peacefully bounded there, they could not be two and they could not hold together – which is exactly the claim of the giants and of the gods.

b) At origin, it is “limitation” which allows first the two to be two and which enables them to relate to each other there in peace. “Limitation” can be therefore be positive and enabling in our worlds of concern exactly and only because it is positive and enabling at origin.

c) The limits and borders in the gigantomachia and, consequently, in history constitute “the space of the door“.

d) Solzhenitsyn specifies one of the essential aspects of limitation in “Live not by lies“: “The circle–is it closed? And is there really no way out? And is there only one thing left for us to do, to wait without taking action? Maybe something will happen by itself? It will never happen as long as we daily acknowledge, extol, and strengthen–and do not sever ourselves from–the most perceptible of its aspects: Lies. (…) And the simplest and most accessible key to our self-neglected liberation lies right here: Personal non-participation in lies. (…) This opens a breach in the imaginary encirclement caused by our inaction. It is the easiest thing to do for us, but the most devastating for the lies. Because when a person renounces lies this cuts short their existence. Like an infection, they can exist only in a living organism.” Limitation is here seen in a dual perspective, both of which depend upon limitation having an ontological foundation. Objectively, the hold of lies should not and cannot prevail because it contradictes what is real and true. Subjectively, we are called and empowered by this basis in the real to oppose this hold. Solzhenitsyn long maintained that he would live to see a non-communist Russia. He has done so in a kind of existential argument for his claims.

e) Limitation plays an essential role in Heidegger’s work as well, particularly in sections 65, 74 and 75 of SZ. A discussion of these sections will be added to Gegantomachia in the near future.

The World Split Apart segments continue here.