Extremely Rare Find: A Good Commencement Address

By any standard, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was one of the most important figures of the 20^th Century. His writings and Christlike example are remarkable.

To explain his rarity, Solzhenitsyn’s Thursday, June 8, 1978 Commencement Address at Harvard University gives us an example of one of the only good commencement addresses on record. Moreover, it provides one of the most thoughtful indictments of our western culture, which comes “ not from an adversary but a friend,” one who knew firsthand the tortures and evils of life in the communist Soviet Union.

“A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. Of course, there are many courageous individuals, but they have no determining influence on public life.”

Find the entire speech here.