tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post8733037845504481169..comments2024-03-28T18:32:05.933-04:00Comments on bensozia: Only love can save those who are infected with angerJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-17703334620704460602020-08-03T20:51:07.735-04:002020-08-03T20:51:07.735-04:00"They had every reason to be unhappy, under t..."They had every reason to be unhappy, under the most repressive system on earth"<br /><br />To suggest that the USSR was not drastically better after the end of WWII and the death of Stalin is ludicrous. It had severe faults, but it was hardly the most repressive system on earth - while figures like Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, Yakuba Gowon, and others were systematically slaughtering whole swathes of their citizenry, the average mid-Cold-War Soviet citizen lived a safe, prosperous, and fairly free life. It was far from ideal, but it was also nowhere near as bad as other people had it.<br /><br />And that's ignoring my actual point - the Soviet Union during the Cold War was staggeringly less terrible that it had been in the first half of the century, and anyone who had living memory of how things used to be would have felt grateful that life was so much improved relatively speaking.<br /><br />It's like going from being homeless and penniless, to merely being below the poverty line. Living in poverty isn't GOOD, but it's a lot better than having nothing.<br /><br />I'm descended from immigrants who came to America with nothing, and who lived in poverty and faced social and systemic racism their entire lives - but they were happy because it was better than everything that had come before for multiple generations. They were exploited, they lacked equality and freedoms and acceptance and security, they were afraid to voice their true politics at times - by all measures they were a repressed people. And yet, they were no longer peasants and they could at least vote for whichever candidate seemed more likely to leave them alone instead of make their lives hell (they knew it was fantasy to imagine someone would actually REPRESENT them and their interests). It was a step up, and they were happy because they knew and remembered how much worse things could be for them.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-43232982770149523322020-08-03T11:50:42.616-04:002020-08-03T11:50:42.616-04:00Right, philosophy and not 'phylosophy' as ...Right, philosophy and not 'phylosophy' as I wrote, sorry. I am not native English speaker, though that's no excuse.<br /><br />I don't agree that people don't wish, and try, to be happy even under extremely dismal conditions. There have always been lots of stories of love and hope in spite of a miserable life. Even in concentration camps. That 'hate' of the rich and of capitalism is one of Mr Verloren marks.<br /><br />"Alexievich's parents had every reason to be happy without needing to reflect on it". But not at all. They had every reason to be unhappy, under the most repressive system on earth. I agree (and admire) with Svetlana, she is the most lucid witness of those horrible soviet times.Mário R. Gonçalveshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10663310362534590729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-61894817915460578932020-08-02T20:36:03.234-04:002020-08-02T20:36:03.234-04:00It's hard for people to think about and talk a...It's hard for people to think about and talk about a "philosophy of life" when they are the inheritors of a legacy of suffering and death.<br /><br />Alexievich comments that her parents never talked about happiness, but her parents were some of the first who didn't live through the unimaginable horrors of earlier eras. They lived in a time that, for all its flaws, couldn't begin to measure up to the difficulties of living through WWII in the Soviet Union, or the chaos of the Revolution a generation before, or life under the Tsars a generation before that. By comparison to their own parents, grandparents, and great grandparents, her mother and father lived in wondrous ease, freedom, peace, and prosperity.<br /><br />The post-war generations were arguably the first working class Russians and Soviets to have the luxury of thinking about a philosophy of life, rather than spending all their energy desperately struggling just to survive. Veterans and survivors of WWII weren't likely to talk about happiness, because in their minds they already WERE happy, at least compared to the Dark Times when the Nazis were killing multiple tens of millions, and Stalin was killing a full twenty million of his own people.<br /><br />Everyone might have been poor, but at least the Soviets weren't dying by the millions anymore, and were successfully standing up to the Capitalists they feared so deeply (and justifiably), and were even creating history by forging ahead into outer space, as a recently industrialized society. What was there to get philosophical about? Compared to a generation before, Alexievich's parents had every reason to be happy without needing to reflect on it - just to enjoy it. So is it any wonder they never talked about happiness? It was self evident to anyone who knew what came before.<br /><br />People only think about how to be happy when they aren't trapped in a living nightmare. A serf under the Tsars didn't dwell on how to be happy - they dwelled on how to live through another winter, and when they could next get their hands on enough vodka to help them forget their troubles for a little while. Happiness? Only the rich worried about being happy. Everyone else settled for being content - or at the very least, not actively miserable.<br />G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-46097599320372596942020-08-02T19:14:05.777-04:002020-08-02T19:14:05.777-04:00Can't agree more, indeed. Threatens are either...Can't agree more, indeed. Threatens are either natural and real - we have to summon all our cleverness and capabilities to resist and win over them - or artificial and made up, which is more and more the case. Made up mostly of anger. Living under the threaten of the Apocalypse, or the Plagues, or the Y2K, or the coming asteroid, or the new Fascism, all that is made up by the Fear Business &Hollywood, the Shock and Awe line of action, and I wish love could be our best defence, that we could trust love over all that rubish; I can't go so far as that though. Love is not reliable enough. But under a poetic, idealist phylosophy, alright, John Lennon said it.Mário R. Gonçalveshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10663310362534590729noreply@blogger.com