“And the only solution to this would be that the meaning of earthly existence lies not, as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering, but in the development of the soul.”
I recently finish reading the Gulag Archipelago (Abridged). The content is brutal. The stories of suffering are difficult to reconcile with my comfortable American mind. Human cruelty is exposed on every page. My heart was grieved at the wickedness of man. Two chapters was all I was able to handle on my first attempt. On my second attempt, I endured. The Gulag has a transforming effect if you endure the book.
The quote above is taken from a chapter called The Ascent. The chapter is about punishment, suffering, and the cost of survival at any cost. It is also about the ascent of the soul. Solzhenitsyn is wrestling through the realities of the camp. Many camp prisoners take on a mentality of “surviving at any cost”. Solzhenitsyn calls this an atrocity. It made people selfish, traitors, and in some cases, murderers. F…
