In an inspired synthesis of my previous two posts—or what would have been an inspired synthesis, if he hadn’t actually written the piece first—Michael Knox Beran (writing for City Journal) argues that Senator Obama is the “post-masculine” version of the collectivist demagogue. Like his spiritual forbears, Obama projects a quasi-divine power to relieve suffering; he pours contempt on moral “absolutists” in the name of an impatient pragmatism that will brook no obstacle to the realization of “communal values”; he exhorts the people to purge themselves of petty antagonisms for sake of a blissful collective regeneration. But unlike the political shamans that blighted the last century, Obama does not have the effulgent virility of which we have grown so wary. His manner is not imperial, but calm, comforting, almost motherly.

Most interesting to me is Beran’s highlighting of Obama’s relativistic rejection of “the West’s traditional morality.” Beran notes that the West’s moral vision is an obstacle to collectivist schemes both because it places strict limits on what can be done as a means to realizing a utopian vision and because it inculcates a strong sense of human proneness to sin and error, making that vision seem absurd.

(A prime example of mendicant crowd-surfing.)

But, more often, life as a friar is just plain down-to-earth:

–Photos by Br. Maciej Chanaka, OP

“I hope some athletes have compelling personal stories that can be set to delicate piano music.” That’s what Steven Colbert said on his show before the start of the Olympics last Friday, and it’s funny, because, well, it’s true.

And many viewers, myself included, watch because there is a human element to every event, every race. Humanizing stories of Olympic athletes are so poignant partly because the athletes seem so remarkably different from us.

After watching Michael Phelps break world record after world record, and the ever-buoyant Shawn Johnson spinning and tumbling her way to the top of the leader board, it can become easy to view them as more superhuman than human–as some advanced form of life that was sent to earth to remind me how incredibly out of shape I am.

And that’s why the backstory is important. Just when couch potatoes like me are convinced that we share nothing in common with the athletes we enjoy watching so much, we’re reminded that these people are very much like you and me.

This Olympic season, one story is especially moving–the story of Oksana Chusovitina, a gymnast from Uzbekistan who is now competing for Germany in her 5th Olympics:

No matter how much her legs screamed or back ached, she couldn’t stop. Her son was dying, she had no insurance, so she couldn’t stop. The medical bills were stacked to the sky, and she had no money.

Gymnastics once saved Oksana Chusovitina. Now, she needed it to save her boy, stricken by leukemia.

“If I don’t compete, then my son won’t live,” Chusovitina said shortly after her son Alisher was diagnosed with cancer before his third birthday. “It’s as simple as that. I have no choice.”

It was 2002, and Chusovitina, a product of the former Soviet Union’s sports machine, had carved out a life twisting and flipping through the air for Uzbekistan. When her son fell ill, she moved to Germany, where better medical care saved him. . . .

You can read the whole article here. It’s an amazing story and certainly worth a read. Chusovitina may be an amazing athlete, but her story is about more than backflips and somersaults. It’s about love and sacrifice, things that will last longer than the cheer of the crowd.

After you read our own essay about the “unshakable optimist,” of course!

From Edward Ericson, coeditor of The Solzhenitsyn Reader, here is an excellent reflection on the cultural truth-telling of the great man.

A taste:

One of the exaggerations that many cultural sophisticates hold about Solzhenitsyn is that he was a dour Jeremiah figure hurling thunderous judgments at a wayward world. He did some of that; his courage earned him the right. “No one can bar the road to truth,” he declaimed in 1967, as his combat with brute force raged, “and to advance its cause I am prepared to accept even death.” Dedication to a mission in life moved him beyond the potentially hedonistic platitude that “you have only one life” to the counter-principle that “you have only one conscience, too.”
. . .

What could the guardians of “the lie” do with this truth-telling renegade? They could kick him out of their paradise. It is a real loss for a literary artist not to be surrounded by his native language. Yet, in the end, exile was a paltry, pathetic punishment for the enormity of his offense. The Soviet leaders did guess correctly that this sometimes-prickly fellow would become a burr under someone else’s saddle. The West of course welcomed him like a conquering hero. But soon enough he alienated some; he had his cultured despisers. The impatient man’s tone too readily turned stentorian, peremptory; he was inattentive to the social niceties that lubricate good relationships. Still, he was much more sinned against than sinning.

The squalls of yore are fading. Time will tell if this week’s evenhanded obituaries signal merely momentary respect for the newly dead or augur better days ahead for Solzhenitsyn’s reputation.

In his struggle with the Soviets, Solzhenitsyn had the last laugh. He had predicted through all his 20 years in exile that he would return to Russia in the flesh. He set three requirements for his return: that his citizenship be restored, that the charge of treason be dropped, and that all his works be published at home. In other words, the Soviet Union would have to collapse first. All of this happened just as he predicted, and he moved back to Russia in 1994. Such prescience is rare.

FT readers, hungry for more, might also want to reread these articles from our archives: “Traducing Solzhenitsyn” and “Solzhenitsyn and Modern Literature.”