Towards the Spiritual Convergence of America and Russia: American Mind and Russian Soul, American Individuality and Russian Community, and the Potent Alchemy of National Characteristics

Thoughts

The Spiritual Call in the “American Dream”,

What is the prevalent, popular image of the achieved “American Dream”, the successful, accomplished “good life”, in the United States of America? Is it not some variation on the image of living in a large, luxurious, private home, surrounded by land, lawn, and trees; with all the fashionable interior decorations, and inside and outdoor amenities — and servants — which make life easy, comfortable, convenient, and enjoyable; plus many of the various playthings and goods of leisure and entertainment such as a pool, boat, tennis court, etc, etc; plenty of food and clothes, etc, etc. And of course a good lucrative job — if one must work at all — which brings in, preferably, much more than enough money to support one’s “lifestyle”, and as much leisure and vacation time as possible.

Yet, what if an exhaustive concern with the successful acquisition of this “American Dream”, requires such labor, that it leads to psychic, spiritual, social and cultural impoverishment. What if the psychic and spiritual cost, to an individual — and society-, of the grand luxurious home and the materially-rich lifestyle in “this world” [22], is infinitely greater than the labor necessary to acquire the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars it requires to gain and maintain such “success”? What is the spiritual result, of the kind of activities, interests and involvements with life, pursued in such homes, in a nearly exclusive concern with an earthly-physical enjoyment of life, with little or no concern for inner development, soul refinement, self-education or similar? What if such worldly worry, commitment and involvement entails, that when one “passes” — as shall all flesh — from “this world”; that one finds oneself to live in some psychic shanty shack, in a spiritual slum in the “life beyond death”? An individual’s possessions, real estate holdings and properties are considered primary assets in this world; but how many Americans are sufficiently interested and concerned, so as to read Dante’s “real estate” prospectus [23] concerning future “properties” in the spiritual worlds; and worry the inner possessions which they will or will not bear in themselves through the grave of death.

Americans build their “homes” on earth, with the materials of earth and nature. The “American Dream” is certainly not primarily sought in the “Kingdom of Heaven”, by way of soul and spirit. It exists, and is pursued in “this world”; this side of death. It is predominately, a “horizontal” conception; at least as it is commonly conceived. It is certainly not such a “vertical” conception of life as was present in Medieval Christendom. But it might be well, or better, if it were; if somewhat more grave consideration were given, as to how “homes” are built in that world, into which many sincerely hope and pray that they will someday journey in the “hereafter”. Is not the common ideal image of an accomplished ‘“American Dream’ come true”, some leisurely, pleasurable, materially plentiful, comfortable earthly life in some “paradise”, “Shangri-La”, or “Garden of Eden”? Is this not, generally speaking, the goal towards which many, many Americans — consciously or unconsciously — work and aspire; and which it is their desire to acquire and enjoy? (Many seem to have forgotten, however, a small aspect of the story of the Garden of Eden. For it is said to be guarded by an angel, — with a flaming sword. It is dismaying to consider how many imagine it as some place surrounded by a golf-course; or a peaceful, sensual life on an island filled with luscious fruits, and palm trees wisped by a gentle breeze.)

That “home”, which is the preponderate worry, labor and goal in America — and much of Western and human culture — is, indeed, an earthly home. It is certainly not the common conception, of the aspiration and goal of the “American Dream”, to imagine it as the psychic building of some spiritual estate of inner properties. Working and striving to live in some exclusive, luxurious residential area of our earthly civilization, is profoundly different from striving to build a satisfying home, to which the biblical inscription inside of the main reading room at the University of California Berkeley, gives indication:

This concerns, rather, a very different, inner house [24], to have as one s life s goal!

Few have accused recent Americans [25] of being too “medievally” preoccupied with life in the world to come. Our occupations are predominately with the “Kingdoms of this world”. Indeed, Americans have come to be known, characteristically, as concerned with an earthly, material life on earth. If long, hard and devoted hours of soul and spiritual labor is required for achieving a “high standard of living” in Heaven (there are, it seems, also other locations!); then America should perhaps seriously re-evaluate its “American Dream”, and the labor it directs towards such realization-especially if it is concerned with its spiritual economic (eco+nomy [26]) future and security!

The loss of a deep, central spiritual (“vertical”) sense, labor, concern and evaluation of life — which is a characteristic not only of America, but also of expanding portions of the modern, “enlightened” world — has led to many of the misconceived excesses, which seem to have become commonly accepted as parts of our civilization, culture and daily lives.

Certainly the national government of the United States of America does not force us into some radical earthly secularly — as was, and is the case, undo aggressive atheist regimes [27]. Indeed, it fundamentally leaves us free to worry, individually and as a people, our own personal “religious” concerns and beliefs: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment or religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…” [28] Which has the effect that the spiritual achievement or failure, condition and future, of the United States of America, is the responsibility of the American people themselves. We shall soon see how such an idea, and ideal, is an original, vital, essential element of the idea and realization expressed in the term “American Dream”.

No government — however much it may successfully strive to solve the problems of human society and civilization — shall ever be able to solve the questions and problems of the meaning and purpose of life, and death. If we, in the USA, listen to “Washington” for such words of sense and truth, as can only be spoken by some living spiritual source; then we shall surely hear wrong counsel. The President of the USA is not, and should never be imagined as being, as he is sometimes called: “the spiritual leader of our nation”. He is a political head of state, in a nation which is, in origin and by nature, a worldly, secular state. We have no traditional spiritual leader in common, to which all our people give some fealty. In other words, the President speaks — though it seems perhaps a bit odd to use these ideas to express it — for a “kingdom” which is very much “of this world”. The office certainly does not pretend to “the Divine Right of Kings” [29]. (Whoever is President, holds their own individual personal stance towards “the kingdom which is not of this world”.) It is disoriented, misconceived and deeply erred, to imagine otherwise. The President is, indeed, the leader of our nation; but he is most definitely not the Voice of God to America. We are not, here, in the United States of America, lead in our spiritual lives, by some King, Czar, Pope, Ayatollah or other spiritual leader, who is common to us all. (Though there is a great pluralism of religious leaders of many religions, in this country; we all partake of no one such leader, common to all.)

And here we come, face to face, with one of the deeper problems of the USA; the pluralism of “Gods”. We have, as a nation, people and culture, few commonly shared “ultimate truths” to our lives as Americans; unless you consider MacDonald’s hamburgers, baseball, television news, sit-coms and malls, or “your god”, as anything but shallow secular substitutes for deeply shared experience, ideas and ultimate values. Indeed, though our dollars, secular government, civic ceremonies and occasions, do often state, in one generally acceptable way or other “In God We Trust”; this is all fine, only so long as we does not inquire too clearly, just what each of us, amongst our millions, understand by “God”. So we maintain, politely and politically, our generic “God”, to bless and guide the public occasions of our state and society. And while this is, perhaps, “a necessity of state”, it is hardly an adequate relation of a society to “God”.

There is a tremendous need, and call, for a renewal of “moral values” in the USA in our time. But to the degree that such values are founded in and sustained by religious belief in “God” or other, we shall hardly be able to simply reestablish common religious values; for we do not have a common religion — not to mention the large quantity of secular agnostics in our society. Social, civic, humanitarian “morality” is about the most that can be commonly preached to all, in this secular nation. But it is doubtful — to this author at least — that any such revival of civic virtue and morality, will ever be an adequate substitute for religious morality and injunction; and thus this shall remain a continuing problem for America. [30]

Americans, considered as a whole, are woefully ignorant of history, even their nation’s own. Government reports [31] have documented these lamentable conditions, which have long dismayed and pained those sensitive, educated souls here, who revere truth and knowledge, understanding and mind, art and culture. The majority of people seem, as if, “engulfed” in some more or less solipsistic “present”; one in which only their own immediate experience, time and perspective, have any real meaning and value to them. A problem — reconsidered — by the American educator Benjamin Ide Wheeler, in an article, almost a century old:

Regrettably, in our time, it is not even possible to assume, that the “ants and frogs”, know of “Socrates”, [33] not to mention the Phaedo. If it is somewhat more understandable that some such “otherworldly idealist” — as common understanding imagines Plato to have been — is poorly known by our worldly populace; perhaps it is not too much to expect that they know, or learn, somewhat more of the “idealistic” history of that “American Dream” towards which they devote so much of their lives in achieving. For, surprising though it may be to many, the apparent primary source [34] in the twentieth-century, of this expression: “American Dream”, gives clear and challenging answers concerning the questions of the loss of a spiritual sense in society; the position of politics in relation to God; the decline and possible renewal of moral values. Yet the answers are not sought for in some great political or religious “father figure”, nor in some great utopian social scheme; they are not sought for in some shared “God”, or cosmology. The answers are sought elsewhere…

Of all that could be considered from American history (which seems so irrelevant to so many), let us consider this primary historical, literary source of the expression “American Dream”; and see, not only how well it is understood by us today, but also, what it says to and of our society.

The expression “American Dream” has, of course, many precursors and related conceptions — and not only in Western culture. The Puritans’ idea of a “citie on a hill” [35] is one such important earlier relative. But the particular expression, “American Dream”, seems to have received its current, formal literary and intellectual “solidity” — and wide publicity — from a work by the American historian James Truslow Adams [36], in 1931. In his The Epic of America — which was published in what turned out to be only an early year of the Great Depression — the expression was taken out of whatever general colloquial use it may have had before and during that time, and placed solidly into the terminology and vocabulary of America’s intellectual life. In the “Epilogue” to his examination of American history, Adams wrote:

The American Dream is, states Adams, “a dream of a social order in which each man and woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable,…” This is an aspiration, a hope, a plan, a “dream” — an ideal, of a social order, a societal structure, a social environment wherein the individual human being should be able, as an individual, to freely live, think and act, in the world, in whatever they of their own capacities can, and of their own volition, would. But to James Truslow Adams, the “American Dream” was not and is not, realized by the mere successful acquisition of “material plenty”. Material plenty is the basis upon which the “American Dream” is to be realized:

And how is this “better and richer and fuller” to be determined; one may inquire with Adams. We shall find that the answer to this question, which Adams — that individual who seems to have, as it were, “launched” this particular expression into the domain of serious public discourse — gave, is seriously deeper, more challenging, and demanding, than that which most of us imagine as an “American Dream” realized. It is, in essence, a spiritual challenge; but not to God, от Jesus, or the President…

and “We the People”

When James Truslow Adams is describing what he considers to be unique of America before the world: the “American Dream”; his idea is, as I have mentioned, a modern American version of an idea which goes very far back into cultural, mythological and civilizational history. It is essentially, a modern, American, earthly, historical re-expression, of the ancient and perennial imagination of another, better world and life. [39] The general idea of a dream of “a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man,…” is widely held, in one way or other, in the mythologies of the world’s cultures.

But the idea of the “American Dream” has a special character and focus. It is a secular “dream”; of a social order which allows great worldly freedom. Other and older civilizations, Adams states, had “barriers” and “classes” which precluded, usurped or thwarted the free development of the “simple human being”. Here, in America, the individual should be able to develop freely, and fully, as, simply, a human being. We shall soon see just how crucial and important such development was, to his idea of the realization of the American Dream.

As Adams articulates the dream, and how it is to realized and maintained; he examines the condition of American society, historically and contemporarily, around him. The high, noble character of the “American Dream”, as he conceived it — and to which he helped give voice — begins to be revealed gradually, by that which he critiques [40] of American society.

He laments, for example, how “business and money-making and material improvement” had come to be viewed as ends in themselves; and how the pursuit of such worldly accomplishments had come to be seen as “virtuous” [41] in themselves. He castigates America for blind “unthinking optimism”; and for ignoring the darker and “sordid” realities of our history and lives. He denounces anti-intellectual tendencies amidst the culture; the predominance of a tendency towards quantity and material development, over quality and “spiritual values”; and how we forget the past, in our rush towards the future. Utilitarian tendencies in education; the dissolution of moral values; the stubborn attitude which looks at the world simplistically-avoiding rigorous examination of directions and goals; all receive his criticism.

He repudiates, especially strongly, the economic-business view of Man and society; wherein Man is considered and treated primarily as a “consumer”. He criticizes this misconception, in relation to the deeper questions of the nature of the human being.

He laments the growth of uniformity and timorousness in men — in contrast to the “strong individualism” required in earlier pre-industrial days; calling for an equivalent strength and independence today. He rejects the degrading influence, on independent, intellectual creativity and literary life, of economic motives and realities; “The theory of mass-production breaks down when applied to the things of the spirit,” [43] he wrote; for such leads to the degrading of needed standards for all of society.

A materially “high standard of living” — to use an expression which, I believe, is of more recent date — is only the basis upon which the “American Dream” to be realized. It is certainly not the end, nor the goal; not to James Truslow Adams, whose articulation of the expression helped crucially to launch it into the language of America’s twentieth-century selfconception. A materially “high standard of living” is the base upon which should be realized a “high standard of living” of person, in their own soul, mind, culture and, ultimately, spirit.

“We cannot become a great democracy by giving ourselves up as individuals to selfishness, physical comfort, and cheap amusements.” It is a question, says Adams essentially, as to what is a worthy, noble life, for the individual (as a human being) and society of the United States of America; and what are the higher values by which a society may live and thrive, and how are they to be determined. The answer to these questions, Adams answers so:

A “genuine individual search and striving for the abiding values of life”. So that it is to the individual human being, and their striving, towards which Adams looks to determine the true and important values in life, and how the “American Dream” is to be realized. “If the American dream is to be a reality” we must strive as individuals for a higher “communal spiritual and intellectual life”. He states further:

This entire quote merits long and thoughtful consideration.

It is important to note, that, after Adams rejects leaders in politics and business, he does not then look towards some great religious figure, nor to any ready, utopian ideology of any sort; in order to help us to determine what is a “genuinely satisfying life, a ‘good life’ in the old Greek sense,…” He looks, rather, to the individual human being: the simple human being, who must search and strive to discern the better and richer life, and who must participate in raising “our communal spiritual and intellectual life”. The individual human being, who, in multitudes, must “develop some greatness in… [their] own individual souls”. This is the actual core idea, the spiritual core of the idea of the “American Dream” — by that person who helped definitively place the expression before American mind, and solidly into the language of the American people. It is a call, to the “simple human being” as such; that they develop “to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable”. And it is the fully developed human being, which, in multitudes, must seek to determine, “through experience and perhaps disillusion”, what is to be the “good life” in America.

Here Adams’ conception verges on a secular “religious vision” for America, and of the simple human being in America. His thought is not so much a description, as a call, an injunction, a summons to human beings in America. Hence, per Adams, the idea and realization of the “American Dream”, is inextricably involved with the lives of individual human beings-and with their own inner lives; their own spiritual lives and striving.

This is all quite far away from the general description of the current popular image of the ideal realization of the “American Dream” which we presented above [48]. Whatever else might be said, the predominate, contemporary image of the ideal, successful life, and the ideal of the individual, here in America, is not that of some wise, learned sage. It is not the cultured, self-educated man or woman of letters and mind, soul and spirit, towards which our society aspires and labors, towards which it gives reverence and praise, and around which ù orients itself. It tends rather more to so view financially wealthy individuals, with “megabucks”, a grand estate(s), material plenty and a glamorous [49] lifestyle. This “rich” individual, is more the “role model”, the pinnacle of “success”, for our society; die ideal is certainly not some gadfly sage, or Holy man.

Certainly, there are those for whom die first portrayed image of the achievement of the “American Dream” would not be considered full or complete, as to their conception of it [50]. However, it is certain that few Americans are well-aware of the literary origin — or its actual content — of that dream about which so many talk, and towards which so many labor.

The term “American Dream” is certainly one of the more familiar and common expressions in use m America, which attempt to describe our life and society, at its best So that it is quite unfortunate — but very revealing -, that it is truthfully and well understood by so few. It is more than safe to say, that very few, if queried, would accurately imagine the original literary content, and injunction, which I have here recounted. The material aspect of the American Dream is well known, but not so…the spiritual call in the American Dream.

As Adams gave voice to it, the “American Dream” will not come true “unless we, as multitudinous individuals, develop some greatness in our own individual sorts.” As he saw it, that which America “held of hope and promise for mankind”, depends on multitudinous individuals, who are willing to travel the “long and arduous road”, to ‘develop some greatness in their own individual souls’.

This is, essentially, a call and a challenge; towards an independent spiritual life. And it is another, deeper call to “We the People”!

West Needs East?

Outer greatness and inner greatness. These are very far from necessarily being the same realization. As the much-castigated quote, above, from Solzhenitsyn’s speech at Harvard in 1978, indicates, some of the more deep and forceful Russians are well aware of this distinction. Even James Truslow Adams, in the Epilogue to his The Epic of America — published when Stalin had only been in full power for two years, and addressing America, from his perspective in America — presents an understanding which is complementary to Solzhenitsyn’s:

We might immediately ask, what might such a “wisest leader” be like? Who could know and articulate such a philosophy of life? To cite Adams, if we are to find ‘wise leaders’ to “propound a sane philosophy of life”, we must look to those individuals, who have indeed “develop[ed] some greatness in [their] own individual souls”. Such persons are to help us discern what is the “good life”, what are the real values in life. The quote by Solzhenitsyn merits rereading; and meditation.

If it is still true and fair to say of America, as Adams did in 1931: “Are our letters and philosophy to remain the child until the Gorgon faces of evil, disaster, and death freeze our own unlined ones into eternal stone?” [52]; it could certainly not be said of Russia, that she “is a child who has never gazed on the face of death.” And it is here, I contend — in spite of however forcefully, critically or disparagingly such ideas may be rejected by intellectuals of America — that America, and the comfortable West, has truly important, real, essential, vital lessons to learn from the Russia and the European East, with its life experience, suffering, knowledge and wisdom, to which Solzhenitsyn gave voice before the Harvard elite. But that which the West might learn from this East, is certainly not such as will help it towards the acquisition of valuable real estate property and possessions in “this (horizontal) world”! But it might, indeed, deeply contribute, towards an understanding of an inner greatness, which verges closely onto the “vertical”.

The West needs the East! — even if it does not clearly recognize this itself. Perhaps, in some ways, it may need the East, in soul and spirit, just as profoundly as the dire conditions of material and practical need and life, in the European East, require real help, knowledge and assistance from the West.

On December 10, 1989, on the popular American television program “60 Minutes”, there was shown, for the first time, a filmed view of “Perm 35”, a labor camp in the Soviet “Gulag” system. Natan Sharansky, who had been incarcerated in this camp, gave comments and observations on the footage shown. At the conclusion of this rare film, when asked his thoughts of seeing again this labor camp, he stated to the interviewer Mike Wallace:

Similar, thought-provoking descriptions are also to be found in the writings of others, who have gone through such experiences, as many would normally imagine as the maximum of unfreedom and trial: Soviet imprisonment.

“…Experienced a fulfilling happiness, undreamed of by people outside the prison walls.” It is safe to say that the inner experience, the meaningfulness and the “goal” of life, in a successfully achieved “American Dream” — as that is commonly conceived: with the “pursuit of happiness”, “enjoying life”, etc., — is dramatically other in character and reality, than that which these people experienced during some of the most precious moments of their lives. The best moments, of “happiness”, in such lives, are profoundly contrasting. [55]

Consider how different are the insights to, and experience of life, in relation to a normal conception of a “meaningful life” in America — especially in a fulfilled “American Dream” — to:

One finds here, a completely different relation to one’s self, and life. It seems, almost, that it could be said, that one finds a difference so great as that between enjoying and suffering life. Such experiences of individuals, are not in any way that of any outer success, achievement or “greatness”. (Which are primary elements of the modern idea and experience of “happiness”.) Indeed, it is quite the opposite. Perhaps you might name this experience, in truthful symmetry — if from a limited perspective — an “American Nightmare”.

In the successful American Dream, the individual can often govern, control and order the world around them, in what is often truly an extraordinary amount of “freedom” of activity. In the other, one’s control is limited to one’s inner self. A maximum of outer freedom contrasts with an maximum of unfreedom.

The inner life, the integrity, the morality, the inner humanity of persons who went through such ordeals, was tried in the extreme. The respect, recognition, and audience, due such souls, is somewhat other in character, than that merited by “Hollywood Movie Stars”, globe-trotting rock musicians, multinational billionaires, and others of the world’s “rich and famous”. It is an obvious fact, that outer richness, does not necessarily entail, inner wealth and value. But it must be clearly recognized, that the first is predominately a “horizontal” accomplishment, while the latter is much closer to the “vertical” (e.g.“…such days and nights filled with the most profound questions concerning human life, nor felt so close to the essence of cosmic life.”) The strength, the inwardness, the inner greatness of those who survived such trials, with their integrity intact, is a kind which is so inward, so near to death; that it is probably amongst the closest to the edge, that die human being can experience life this side of death. It is a question of human depth; the inwardness of the human being in such an extreme.

Such extreme depth of (physical and inner) experience and suffering, is certainly not the goal of many; whether they desire the worldly American Dream, or not. Indeed, some deliberate desire for such a terrible “nightmare”, would seem to be somewhat malpsychic. But are we not spiritually mistaken, in not earnestly listening to those who have, indeed, already experienced the terrible “Gorgon faces of evil, disaster, and death”? Who have so deeply experienced the deepest questions of life and death, good and evil? Do not the best of such survivors, have tremendously valuable lessons to offer us, as to the relations of the spiritual and earthly in life? Of ‘this world’ and ‘that world’? Can we ignore those who have been so tested of “inner greatness”? Can, and will, America, and the West, learn from the suffering, and the soul and spirit of Russia and the European East [57]? Or does America naively dream, that life, world and reality, shall allow it to remain…

“…a child who has never gazed on the face of death.” [58]