In Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s commencement address to Harvard University given in 1978, Solzhenitsyn criticizes Americans’ extreme dependence on material goods and our humanistic tendencies. After living under the oppressive regime of Joseph Stalin and being arrested for speaking out against said regime, one might think that Solzhenitsyn’s address would be to criticize his own government, but instead his critque is one of Americans. What he brought to light in 1978 can be seen clearly in today’s world. Our world is saturated with products that promise to give us everything we have been missing. People have no problem with waiting and fighting for so-called cannot miss deals, like on the annual Black Friday after Thanksgiving. That is only one …show more content…
One only has to turn on the television for a few minutes to see the advertisements appealing to our vain self-interests. For example, there is always an advertisement with unrealistic models beckoning us to buy the newest car or perfume. After wasting our money on unneeded items, we then tend to worship man and his achievements, as can be seen with the throngs of “fans” who flock to concerts to idolize celebrities like Beyonce. We not only idolize man, but also worship our achievements and obtaining the next best thing. We are never satisfied with what we have and are always yearning for more and sadly, many times at the expense of the people around us. We have been taught to keep striving and striving for greatness, when at the end all that leaves us is stressed, exhausted, and burnt out. Even the individuals whom we might consider the most successful, like the wealthy elite of the nation, studies actually found, that they are “twice as rich and no happier” (Luthar 1584). Even the people who should be the most happy are actually just as depressed, if not even more, than the rest of modern America. We are still in the pit of materialism that we were in back in 1978, and all of this can be traced back to Solzhenitsyn’s statements in “A World Split Apart” that we have let our lust for ammassing wealth consume us and are therefore the same society that Solzhenitsyn detailed in
A large parcel of the population has as their ultimate goal in life achieving well-being. Unfortunately many try to achieve it through the wrong means. For instance, in The Sirens of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut, Malachi Constant thinks he is truly happy, but what he really does is fulfill his hedonism, satisfy his shallow needs, without truly searching for a higher form of well-being. Not only does a life focused on hedonic satisfaction not achieve true happiness, it also leads, along with the urge to accumulate, egocentrism, and greed, to an unethical life. The Sirens of Titans depicts this kind of life, which is also represented throughout The Edukators, directed by Hans Weingartner. Both Malachi Constant and Hardenberg believe that money is the solution to all of their problems while ignoring the problems their own lifestyle is causing to other people and society as a whole. Happiness, our own and other people’s, is achieved by focusing our lives in the right things.
Solzhenitsyn believed that it was nearly impossible to have truly free thoughts under the prison camp conditions described in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, or in any situation where there is an authoritarian ruler. In a pris...
Excommunicated from his home country of Russia for his rejection of Communism, Alexander Solzhenitsyn presented his famous speech “A World Split Apart” at Harvard on June 8th, 1978. Addressing possible future world leaders inspired Solzhenitsyn to speak about issues relevant to their experiences with Western culture. In the midst of the Cold War, it was his goal to critique failures and exemplify the truth of his opinions in this opposite culture. While presenting valid points, Solzhenitsyn’s view of the Western world was disillusioned due to his foreign perspective and demeanor brought upon by his own austere society.
In his address, Solzhenitsyn has several intentions. He attacks the communist ways of Russia and the West and defends Christianity. He exhorts the action of keeping Christ in our hearts and dissuades the action of removing Christ. He praises those who stand for Christ and blames Communist for the downfall of the world.
The society uses one’s happiness to seek their own. Starting with the ancient Adam Smith’s theory of a market economy where commodities are sold and bought in a market freely, where sellers and buyers exchange to achieve profit, and happiness is derived from profit. Thus “happiness is both produced and consumed” (Ahmed 3). Happiness is a matter of research for corporates of big companies. They try to figure out which product makes the buyers feel the happiness they need, so that they can produce more for their own profit. So, they cunningly make commercials with people having a good time. Which when watched by the buyers they get the false sense that their life would be so much better if they bought that small bottle of happiness. Once they buy their “Pandora’s box” they hope that underneath all the unnecessary objects there will be happiness, but they are dispirited at the end. Unknowingly the markets are making the society a more dull and sad place rather than distributing
In his 17th century pem, “To Althea from Prison”, Richard Lovelace tells us that “stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.” Thus Lovelace introduces and makes the reader familiar with the paradoxical nature of freedom. This paradox is raised again when comparing two legitimate visions of the modern world: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich vividly describes and allows the reader to live through life in a prison, where an individuals rights are stripped away, and Brave New World introduces the reader to a fantasy world filled with sex, drugs, and a total lack of inhibition and self-reserve. Although apparently unrelated, both novels together describe what could be considered a modern hell. In Solzhenitsyn’s novel Shukov is stripped of his rights and his free will, while Huxley’s characters are stripped of independence of thought and brainwashed into mindless decadence. A comparison of the worlds created by Solzhenitsy and Huxley prompts us to redefine imprisonment of freedom, yet the brain that is enslaved in Huxley’s novel is truly less free than the body enchained in Solzhenitsyn gulag.
The poem “America” by Tony Hoagland reflects on how peoples’ minds are clouded by small-scale items, money, and the unimportance of those items. Metaphors and imagery are utilized to emphasize the unimportance of materialistic items in America. How America is being flooded with unnecessary goods. The poem uses examples of people to create an example and connection to the overall meaning.
"We the Living is not a story about Soviet Russia in 1925. It is a story about Dictatorship, any dictatorship, anywhere, at any time, whether it be Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, or - which this novel might do its share in helping to prevent - a socialist America." These words, written by Ayn Rand herself for the foreword to the 1959 printing of her 1936 novel We the Living, convey not only Rand's direction to the reader to keep in mind the universality of the book's theme, but also her opinion of communism in 1925 Russia and her suspicion that the United States might be headed down the same erroneous path. During her lifetime, Rand would write prolifically both fiction and non-fiction, and found a philosophical movement whose widespread appeal would spark both loyalty and controversy. However, We the Living is Rand's first, and possibly most-accessible, statement on the nature of communist oppression and the immorality associated with man's tolerance of it.
A large part of this problem is that many Americans buy into the ploys of capitalism, sacrificing happiness for material gain. “Americans have voluntarily created, and voluntarily maintained, a society which increasingly frustrates and aggravates” them (8). Society’s uncontrolled development results in an artificial sense of scarcity which ensures “a steady flow of output” (78).
The Article “Perfection Anxiety” written by A.A Gill illustrates through his findings, that while the means to have everything you desire is by no means bad , neither is it the best. Throughout the article he talks about the phenomenon of “perfection anxiety”, a condition causing it’s host’s feelings of significant ennui, a circumstance found within the abhorrently wealthy portion of the world’s citizens. This psychological disorder is found to occur when the incomprehensibly rich have realized essentially, that they have run out of things to spend their money on, continuing to spend only to appease the ever imposing expectations and judgments of the wealthy.
To Thoreau, life’s progress has halted. It seems people have confused progression with captivity driven by materialism. To Krakaeur, people are indifferent to pursing the sublime in nature. To Christopher McCandles the world around him is forgetting the purpose of life. People are blind to nature. In the eyes of these men the world is victim to commercial imprisonment. People live to achieve statuses that only exist because man made them. Fame, money, and monotonous relationships do not exist in nature; they are the pursuits of soulless fundamentalism. The truth is that people pursue meaningless goals, and people don’t want to hear or know how they are foolish. When exposed, reality is so unsettling that it seems wrong. Yet, to be free of the falseness in life is in essence the point of singularity that people realize if there is no truth in love then it is false, if there is no truth in money then it is worthless, if there is no truth in fame then it is undeserving. Without truth everything is a worthless pursuit of a meaningless glass ceiling.
...le anxious, so the desire which hidden in the depths of their hearts will be aroused. At this moment, people would try to reach their goal by fair means or foul. They would think this is a smart way to get the respected by others and it’s the easy and fast way to get what they want. In some people's mind, money is simply a digital number. They always focus on the money and the profit and ignore the people who care about you. In the result those will look down upon you and you will disappoint them. Family love and human nature is no any unit can be measure which is priceless. Blindly pursuit of fame and wealth is not as good as their eyes on contemporary life, people need learn how to enjoy the several decades of the rest of our life, and cherish everyone who worth you to cherish next to you. Be thankful and grateful and make our world more beautiful and harmonious.
We desire many luxuries and take them for granted. Our society is based largely on the materialistic wants of consumers from advertising and marketing. This demand distracts us from who we really are and should be destroyed. The filmmakers have adapted many of these meanings into the film that was
Greed and materialism stand in apposition to any manifestation of true happiness. People are under a false perception that money will solve all of their problems and as a result bring them their utmost joy and happiness. Many psychologists, philosophers, and religious figures throughout the ages have refuted this assertion. People in American society take money very seriously because it can either make or break your life choices. In order to fit in today’s society Americans feel the need to obtain material assets so that they are looked upon as being “in style” or being economically sufficient. Money and greed is the main factors that cause people to be in debt. People today work hard to obtain wealth and success not so that they can be happy but just because they want to “keep up with the Jones”. Money can only make you happy temporally because if you are working hard just so that you can buy material things you really are not going to enjoy them because all of your time and energy is put into maintaining your material wealth by working extra hard.
We think that materials bring us happiness so we tend to buy things whether it is something that is expensive to show off to other people or something to entertain yourself with. In the movie “American Beauty” the main character Frank, in serval different scenes, consistently talked about how objects took over people’s lives and how it’s just an object. In the movie, Lester finds a way to stop being materialistic and we are shown how happen he becomes. Almost all his problems were gone and he was finally living life. Society has gotten far too materialistic. Money, a piece of paper, has taken over society. People have started to live so they can work and make money so they can buy objects. This is one of many problems with our society people should work to live so they can enjoy their life’s and be free from the materialistic and consumerism society. Once again, in the movie “American Beauty” Lester’s wife Carolyn is constituently shown having panic attacks because she is not selling houses and in turn is not making money. Later, we see Carolyn admiring her completion because he is so successful and has a lot of money and expectedly end up having an affair with him. People who are materialistic do not thing rationally because if they did they would not work so much for paper and objects so its shows that they are not