Live Not By Lies

Translator: Ruan Yifeng

Originally published in the Washington Post, February 18, 1974, page A26

For a while, we did not dare to speak. , just secretly exchanging ideas through samizdat publications. We would occasionally gather in the smoking room of the Academy of Sciences and complain to each other: "What is the government playing? What does it want to do with us?" We are surrounded by overwhelming boasts about the highest achievements in the universe, but in reality, poverty and depravity can be seen everywhere. This government also supports puppet governments in backward countries and incites civil war, and we foolishly provide money. In the end, it was us who were sent to the battlefield to fight him, and they forced you to go. Is there a way out for us? They judge whomever they want. They put normal people in lunatic asylums. They are in control and there is nothing we can do.

The situation could not get any worse. A total spiritual death is coming to us all. Physical death will soon come too, and there will be no escape for us or our descendants. But as always, we were still timidly putting on a smile and showing effortless obedience. Can we stop this? Do we really have no power?

In order to get our share of the insatiable rations, we hopelessly abandoned our humanity and gave up all our principles, our souls, all the struggles of our predecessors, and all the belongings of our descendants. Opportunities were thrown away just to allow myself to survive pitifully. We lack loyalty, pride and enthusiasm. We are not afraid of nuclear weapons, nor are we afraid of World War III. We are already refugees in the ruins. We are only afraid of doing something courageous as a citizen.

We are afraid of falling behind the crowd and taking an independent step. We were afraid that we would lose our bread, our heating, and our Moscow residence registration overnight.

We have been brainwashed in various political studies and have been taught to live an obedient life. If you want to live well, you must be obedient. The individual cannot escape his time and society. Every day life tests one's conscience. What do they want from us? Are we really powerless?

No, we can, we can do everything. But in order to avoid getting into trouble, we would rather lie to ourselves. The ones who deserve to be blamed are not them, but ourselves. But you can object, even a puppet can think freely. Our mouths are sealed, no one wants to hear our opinion, no one comes to ask us. How can we force them to listen to us? It is impossible to change their minds.

In an election, it is natural to not vote for them. But there are no elections in our country. In the West, people can go on strike and protest in the streets, but here these are suppressed. For us, some things are scary even to think about. What would happen if a person suddenly quit his job and took to the streets? Over the last century, in the painful history of Russia, other more radical paths were tried, but they did not suit us and we really did not need them.

The era of relying on axes to do things has passed. Everything is completely different now. Only those who are young and self-righteous will think that they can achieve their goals through terrorism. Bloody riots and civil war are no longer viable. If someone still teaches us to do this, we can only say thank you. We now know that bad methods lead to bad results. Please keep us innocent!

Has the exit been closed? Is there really no other way out? Are we just going to sit there and watch? Imagine that wonderful results will happen naturally? As long as we choose to accept the lie, celebrate the lie, and reinforce the lie day after day (instead of breaking with it), nothing will ever be different and life will not be any different.

At first, when tyranny first appeared, its face was filled with confidence, as if it was waving a flag and shouting: "I am tyranny. Get out of the way and make way for me. I will crush you to death." However, tyranny will soon grow old and lose confidence in itself. In order to maintain its face, it has to find lies as allies, because it is unable to put its terrible minions on everyone's shoulders every moment. It demands that we submit to lies, that we become permanently part of them. That's all the loyalty it demands.

The simplest and easiest way to regain our freedom from self-destruction is for you as an individual to never participate in lies. Although lies are overwhelming and ubiquitous, you can't expect to get support from me.

As long as we don't cooperate, there will be a gap in the iron cylinder-like encirclement. It's the simplest thing we can do, but in the case of lies, it's the most devastating. Because as long as people don't lie, lies can't exist. It's like a contagious disease that only lives in those who are willing to lie.

We don’t make drastic moves. The situation is not yet mature enough to allow us to take to the square and shout out the truth or express our feelings loudly. This is not necessary.

Despite the danger, let us refuse to say something we disagree with.

This is our path, the simplest and easiest to follow. It only requires us to re-examine the inner timidity that is already rooted in our nature. It is much easier to achieve than the Satyagraha advocated by Gandhi, although it is not advisable to say so.

Our way is not to talk about those things that are already rotten. As long as we don’t put the bones of dead ideologies back together, as long as we don’t sew the rotten sacks back together, we will see how quickly lies wither and collapse.

Let those things that should be exposed be exposed naked to the whole world.

Although each of us is timid, let us make a choice. Either you consciously become a servant of lies (of course, this is not because you agree with lies, but because you have to support your family and you have to raise your children in lies), or you take off the coat of lies and become A person who is true to himself and is respected by your children and contemporaries.

From now on, you

* will not write, sign, or publish any sentence in any way that in your opinion is not true.

* Do not say or encourage others to say any sentence that you think is not true, either in private or in public, in the form of propaganda, guidance, teaching, or theatrical performances.

* Do not describe, cultivate, or disseminate any idea that you think is a lie or a distortion of the truth, regardless of whether it is in the form of painting, sculpture, photography, technology, or music.

* Do not quote anyone, either spoken or written, for personal gain or personal success, unless you fully agree with the quote or it accurately reflects the truth.

* Do not attend any rally or march that goes against your will, nor raise your hands in support of any slogan or slogan that you do not fully accept.

* Do not raise your hand to endorse any proposal that you do not sincerely support, and do not vote publicly or secretly for anyone who you feel is unworthy or whose ability you doubt.

* I do not agree to be dragged into any discussion that may rape public opinion or distort facts.

* If you hear any speaker blatantly lie, or spread ideological garbage and shameless brainwashing propaganda, you should immediately withdraw from the conference, lecture, performance, or movie screening.

* Do not subscribe to or purchase any newspapers or magazines that distort facts or conceal the truth.

Of course, it is impossible to list all possible and actual variations of lies. However, a person who lives purely should be able to easily see what is true and what is false.

If you choose this way, your life will change dramatically from the beginning. For some, they will soon lose their jobs. For those young people who want to find the truth, their youthful years will soon become very rough, because the content they are asked to recite is full of lies, and you have to make a choice.

For all those who want to live honestly, there is no third way. On any given day, any one of us, even in the least ideological realm of technology, is faced with at least one of these choices. Either choose the truth or a lie, choose spiritual independence or spiritual slavery.

Anyone who is too timid to defend his soul is not worthy of saying that he has "progressive" views, nor of calling himself a scholar, artist, general, or other honorific title.

He could only say to himself: "I am an obedient person, I am a coward. As long as I can have enough food and clothing, I can do anything you say."

Even such a resistance is The slightest of all resistances is also the least easy to do. But it is still much easier than self-sacrifice or a hunger strike. Your body and your eyes will not be harmed, the heat will not be cut off in your home, and the supply of bread and clean drinking water will not be cut off.

The Czechoslovak people are the great people of Europe, and we betrayed and deceived them. They proved to us that as long as there is a brave heart, even the weakest body can stand up against tanks. (Translation note: This refers to the Prague Spring of 1968.)

You said it was difficult to do this? But it is the easiest of all possible methods. For your body, this is not an easy choice; but for your soul, it is the only choice. There are already such people, dozens in number, who have adhered to the above standards for many years and lived only by telling the truth.

So, you are not the first to take this approach, you will be one of the people who have already done it. If we work together and work closely together, the road will be easier and shorter for all of us. If there are thousands of such people, there will be nothing they can do to us. If there are tens of thousands of such people, then we will find that our country has become completely different.

If we are scared out of our wits, then we should stop complaining that others are oppressing us, it is ourselves who are doing it. We have to hunker down and wait while biologists make our monkey brothers more evolved so that they can read our thoughts about how worthless and hopeless we are.

If we chicken out and dare not even engage in lying, then we are worthless and hopeless. Pushkin's satire is perfectly applicable to us:

"Why should we give freedom to animals?"

"Their destiny from generation to generation is to put on shackles and accept whipping."< /p>

Original link: /blog/2009/07/live_not_by_lies.html