Beauty Vanquishes Lies
Discover more from Mindset Shifts—Essays by Barry Brownstein
Beauty Vanquishes Lies
"ONE WORD OF TRUTH OUTWEIGHS THE WORLD.”
In his Nobel Prize in Literature acceptance lecture, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said: “Let us not forget that violence does not and cannot flourish by itself; it is inevitably intertwined with LYING… Whoever has once announced violence as his METHOD must inexorably choose lying as his PRINCIPLE.”
If the enemies of humanity choose lies, we can combat them by not enabling their lies and by honoring the creative divine within. Solzhenitsyn said,
The simple act of an ordinary courageous man is not to take part, not to support lies! Let that come into the world and even reign over it, but not through me. Writers and artists can do more: they can VANQUISH LIES! In the struggle against lies, art has always won and always will. Conspicuously, incontestably for everyone. Lies can stand up against much in the world, but not against art.
Solzhenitsyn added, “In Russian, proverbs about TRUTH are favorites. They persistently express the considerable, bitter, grim experience of the people, often astonishingly:
ONE WORD OF TRUTH OUTWEIGHS THE WORLD.”
If you follow classical music, you know that most contemporary classical music, with notable exceptions such as music by Arvo Pärt, Alan Hovaness, Aaron Kernis, and Einojuhani Rautavaara, is comprised of subsidized, atonal chaotic noise. When these ugly pieces are programmed, the audience pretends the emperor has clothes and dutifully claps for what most of them loathe or are baffled by. The desire to fit in drives the concertgoer’s pretending.
British child prodigy, composer, conductor, and pianist Alma Deutscher is another exception. Her beautiful music is invariably tonal, accessible, and meaningful. Her music touches the heart and inspires; thus her music is full of truth. I offer, as a brief respite from the horrors of the world, her recent performance in memory of the victims of Oct. 7, 2023.
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Beauty Vanquishes Lies
I hesitate to listen to the music you share here, because I KNOW it will rip out my heart, and I don't want to cry.
Thank you for this. I have an unread copy of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago" that I purchased sometime in the last year. I remember when it came out back in the 1970's and the response of my father and older brother. During and after the time they were reading it, I remember how it weighed on them.
I think I need to take the challenge I placed upon myself by purchasing a copy, and sit right down and commit to the time to read this book. But I admit it. I have angst. The reality of what he and others faced under the Stalinist regime of the USSR is formidable. A testament to the horrors of what human beings can inflict on one another.
Truly beautiful music by Alma Deutscher, but it has had the effect I feared: Tears, melancholy, with all the encompassing questioning of what is going on in this world?
Thank you.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was my favorite author in college in the 70’s. He gave me peace when I was listening to my l biased left wing professors whom didn’t like me to question their opinions ( my grades suffered in some classes because of that). I’ve read all his books and each of them helped me overcome the ‘resistance’ as you stated in a previous essay.