Solzhenitsyn & The Erosion of Nations

- from an April 27, 2007 article by Thomas Allen on VDare.com-


Of course, in some ways it might appear to be simpler if nationality did not exist and everyone on earth had the same way of life. That's the presumed, unmentioned benefit of globalization and the varying ideologies that travel with it.

In contrast, [Alexander] Solzhenitsyn asserts that "the erosion of nations… will sooner lead to the entropy of the soul… not the unification of humanity". And the 20th century showed us just what that "entropy of the soul" can bring.

Commentators wisely refrain from predicting what a truly globalized world will look like in the end. [...]

But a debate is underway, perhaps out of public view, over the proper balance between the universal and the national.

The latter is still very much alive—100 years after it was supposed to die.

And every nation must face the dilemma noted by Solzhenitsyn:

"How difficult and intertwined are the ways of self-preservation and self sacrifice which alone can save humanity."