Our Most True Identity
Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s “The Gulag Archipelago” is a stark expose of Stalin’s mass imprisonment of his own people.
Somewhere between 15 and 18 Million Russians were held as prisoners under Stalin. Many of them were political prisoners, and others were held for such charges as “theft of socialist property”, “labor desertion”, and in Solzhenitsyn’s case — making critical comments about the government in a letter to one of his colleagues.
Regarding the actual arrest of these prisoners Solzhenitsyn writes:
“The traditional image of arrest is also trembling hands packing for the victim — a change of underwear, a piece of soap, something to eat; and no one knows what is needed, what is permitted, what clothes are best to wear; and the Security agents keep interrupting and hurrying you: “You don’t need anything. They’ll feed you there. It’s warm there.” (It’s all lies. They keep hurrying you to frighten you.) The traditional image of arrest is also what happens afterward, when the poor victim has been taken away. It is an alien, brutal, and crushing force totally dominating the apartment for hours on end, a breaking, ripping open, pulling from the walls, emptying things from wardrobes and desks onto the floor, shaking, dumping out, and ripping apart — piling up mountains of litter on the floor — and the crunch of things being trampled beneath jackboots.
And nothing is sacred in a search! During the arrest of the locomotive engineer Inoshin, a tiny coffin stood in his room containing the body of his newly dead child. The “jurists” dumped the child’s body out of the coffin and searched it. They shake sick people out of their sickbeds, and they unwind bandages to search beneath them.”
Stalin imprisoned, starved, and otherwise murdered tens of millions of his own people. In the man-made famine in the Ukraine (“Holodomor” — 1932–1933) there were hung signs that read “To eat your own children is a barbaric act.” Why? Well, because enough starving adults had taken to such an incomprehensible course of action that hanging signs to remind them against cannibalizing their own children became necessary. An estimated 7 Million Ukrainians starved to death. The predominance of Russian progenitors in Eastern Ukraine is due to Russian migration to the region after the famine ended in 1933.
Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, in Cambodia, arrested and executed people who wore glasses, and knew second languages — because they were seen as being overly intellectual. It was the enforced triumph of the ignorant over the educated; both figuratively and literally.
The 20th century was, in all likelihood, the worst century ever for humankind: The Nazi conquest of Europe and Holocaust, the Japanese invasion of the South Pacific, including the horrific Rape of Nanking in China, Mussolini’s conquests into Africa, Mao’s “Great Leap Forward" and the subsequent famine which killed 10’s of Millions. Each of these atrocities have filled volumes, and could fill endless more. In the end, Millions upon Millions of human beings were dead — and we squandered the potential of all of those lives, and snuffed out untold generations.
It’s important to remember these things, or as seems to be the case for many people, learn them for the first time.
It’s an often-quoted trope “Those who don’t learn from history are bound to repeat it”. What, perhaps, is missing from that is why they are bound to repeat it. The simple answer is because not only are we capable of repeating it; we are prone to repeating it. We are so quick to picture ourselves as the heroes of history, and not the villains. As Victor Frankl once declared “Every Nation is capable of committing a Holocaust”, and we are fools if we think our nation, and this generation, is not capable of such.
As far as I can tell, the horrors of the 20th century happened because people began to identify, above all else, as a member of a group. When someone identifies, primarily, as a member of a group they abdicate a certain amount of personal responsibility, and accountability for their own actions, and the abstract Group becomes the ultimate moral authority.
For example — who is to blame for the Nazi Holocaust, that cost the lives of some 6 Million Jews? Was it Hitler? Well, certainly. That scumbag deserves every bit of scorn that can be laid on his head so long as our descendants shall speak of him. Yet, it’s a fact that, without the myriads of complicit henchman, the Holocaust would not have occurred. Hitler, to my knowledge, never turned on the Gas to any Gas Chamber at Sobibor or Auschwitz. He never executed Men, Women, and Children at point-blank. It was “normal” people who did that. Soldiers. Germans. Hitler may have articulated and disseminated the murderous ideology of the group, but it was regular people who allowed themselves to become possessed by it and abdicate their own moral authority in service of their group ideology.
When group identity (above any other identity) becomes paramount then critical thinking ceases, deference to group authority above individual moral agency occurs, and ideological possession is pervasive. As Carl Jung said “You don’t have ideas — ideas have you”. The Group Identity is the vehicle through which possessive ideology manipulates the minds of the masses — like a virus in it’s host.
The greatest identity, therefore, that one can assume is that of Individual. The assumption of this identity is synonymous with the responsibility associated with it. In other words, the recognition and the acceptance that you, and only you, are responsible for your life situation and your own actions. If things aren’t right, it’s not because of someone else (most likely) it’s because of you. Certainly, life isn’t fair. It’s tragic, in fact. In addition, there are some malevolent people in this world who would do us harm. Blaming others, however, is a fruitless endeavor. It’s simply probably not true that other people are to blame for our own situation.
I’ve heard so much of problems being described as “Systemic” or “Institutional”. The problem with framing reality in such a way is that our Systems and Institutions are abstractions, and in a very real sense, are incapable of acting of their own accord. People do, however. The individual people within systems or institutions are capable of action, beliefs, ideas, attitudes, etc. — not systems or institutions. As such, the best way to combat or reform systemic or institutional problems is to focus on the primacy of individual choice and identity.
There is no way to hold Systems or Institutions responsible for their behavior — because they don’t have any behavior. They are a mirage.
The conceptualization of society as nothing more than groups of people with competing ideologies is directly responsible for the death of Millions upon Millions of lives, historically. It is a zero sum game, and it is the stupidest conceivable thing we could be doing at this point in history. Yet, here we are — where everyone is defined by their group: Race, Gender, Religion, Sexual Preference, Political Affiliation, etc. If you identify, primarily, with your categorical assignment within these arbitrary groupings you assume the ideology that goes along with it.
The answer, in my view, is less insistence on rights of groups — and much, much more emphasis on the responsibilities of individuals. There is, and should be, a cause and effect relationship with behavior. In other words, our actions should have consequences. Consequences are necessary so that we can learn from our good and bad decisions. If our actions are, primarily, being carried out in service of our group, then the actions are not really ours — and the consequences of those actions are borne by the group (whose authority we were acting under) then no one is responsible — neither collectively or individually. This is the phenomenon responsible for the greatest crimes of humanity.
The Mossad found Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi War Criminal, hiding in Argentina — and extradited him to Israel for Trial. He was tried, and executed. Yet, as author Hannah Arendt noted — “Eichmann displayed neither guilt for his actions, nor hatred for those trying him. He also claimed he bore no responsibility because he was simply “doing his job”.
While on the witness stand in Eichmann’s trial, Yehiel De-Nur (former prisoner of Auschwitz) suddenly fainted. Decades later, speaking with Mike Wallace about the incident De-Nur noted that he fainted because he realized that Eichmann was not the god-like army officer who had sent so many to their deaths. This Eichmann was an ordinary man. “I was afraid about myself,” said Dinur. “… I saw that I am capable to do this. I am … exactly like he.”
As such, who is responsible for the crimes of humanity? Everyone who does not so choose to do differently. Everyone who identifies, above all else, as a member of a group — and God have mercy on their souls if said group is not possessed by a murderous ideology.
Today, it should be understood, that so much of the crusading that occurs in the name of social justice has the facade of morality, and benevolence — but anyone who undertakes such causes must realize that they, too, are capable of holocaust. As such, they’d better make damn sure that their intent is pure, and their hearts are genuine. It is not hard for me to imagine, for example, that the seemingly selfless and moral theories and explanations about race, power, and wealth, etc. being promoted in today’s social justice circles are not so much about concern for the “oppressed” as it is about hatred for the “oppressors”. We now seem to be collectively hunting a boogeyman — and it is the direct result of ideological possession by way of identification with a group.
The sum of human interaction is not Group against Group. The appropriate level of analysis for questions of morality is at the level of the individual. Our country was founded on the notion that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
So, stop being a Sheep. Stop buying the narrative that you are your group. Focus on yourself. Insistence on systemic or institutional change will do nothing — because systems and institutions are merely groups of people. Lead by example. “Get your own house in order before you criticize the world”. Make sure that the way you behave, and the words you speak, are honorable, truthful, kind, and move our world a little closer to Heaven than further down into the bottomless pit of Hell. This is, and always has been, the only way we can change the world.
