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
- Автор: Lapeyrouse Stephen Ludger
- Год: 1990
- Язык: английский
- ISBN: 0-9628048-0-0
- Жанр: История
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“If my efforts in this work are adequate to the task, I wish to make substantial intellectual contributions towards a clear description of how essential and profound a spiritual, philosophical and psychological relation exists, between characteristic highest (“vertical”) conceptions and aspirations — and tasks — of Mankind in America and Russia. The hope is that such understanding could contribute, essentially, towards a clearer, creative, and mutually-beneficial spiritual orientation — in thoughtful and heartful individuals of both nationalities — which might lead to a more conscious spiritual meeting of “Russian” and “American”; and thereby, possibly, promote an alchemical blending of the American Mind and Russian Soul, American Individuality and Russian Community. Such a greater clarity towards a greater spiritual realization, and more complete wholeness, in some men and women of each country, and thereby, perhaps, in portions of Mankind as a whole.” — the Author
However this may be, it is certain that spiritually suffered, and otherwise, deep-souled individuals in America, and throughout the West, can surely see, and enter into the Russian soul; though the “clarity” of the experience depends on the individual.
“…to sway the destinies of half the globe.”
It seems almost as if in fact insightful individuals [85] of the nineteenth century, both in Russia and in Europe, were somehow very near to truth when, in their “philosophies of history”, they speculated on how the nations and peoples of the West and Russia, seem almost to have been providentially separated and developed, to realize differing inner and outer lives. Differing, that they might, in some future time, meet and join each other, as contrasting compliments, necessary completions to each other; both portions needed to complete the whole Man, the entire humanity of Man.
Considering the conditions of world power which existed after World War II, it is remarkable to consider the thought, from 1835, of Alexis de Tocqueville, who, in regard to America, the United States of America — perhaps following Crèvecoeur’s Letter XI in his important 1782 publication: Letters from an American Farmer [86] — concluded volume I of his famous Democracy in America with a brief consideration of the destinies of America and Russia:
The Anglo-American relies upon personal interest to accomplish his ends and gives free scope to the unguided strength and common sense of the people; the Russian centers all the authority of society in a single arm. The principle instrument of the former is freedom; or the latter, servitude. Their starting-point is different and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe. [87]
Later in the century Alexander I. Herzen held a similar understanding, developing it even more fully. The future power and conjunction of the United States of America and Russia required, he stated, no uncanny prophetic sense to recognize, [88] for it was apparent in the facts and realities of the world and history. As he wrote in 1865:
The North-American States and Russia represent two solutions which are opposite but incomplete, and which therefore complement rather than exclude each other. A contradiction which is full of life and development, which is open-ended, without finality, without physiological discord — that is not a challenge to enmity and combat, not a basis for an attitude of unsympathetic indifference, but a basis for efforts to remove this formal contradiction with the help of something broader — if only through mutual understanding and recognition. [89]
Beneath, however, the contrasts and complements of the American and Russian people — as well as those of other nations — as to their history, practical life, civilization and order, e.g. social organization, customs and mores, economic patterns and directions, political powers and structures and so on, lies the deeper, subtler psychological contrast, and potential relation…
Spiritual Mathematics: “American” + “Russian” =?
This work attempts to give some orientation, clarification, and solicitation, for an independent renewal of the spiritual life of Man, in both America and Russia. In the materially-prosperous, but soulfully-lacking and spiritually-impoverished West (the USA and elsewhere included), and in the materially impoverished, but soulfully-rich and spiritually-potent Russian (and European) East, a new spiritual life is deeply needed by the human and inhuman conditions of our civilization, nations, cultures and time. In the United States of America, the “American Dream” requires, at its spiritual core, a free, independent activity in pursuit of the realization of “greatness” in the individual soul. In Russia, a vital spiritual presence and orientation, in the Russian Soul and culture, must lead Russia into her future — the spiritual core of the idea of the “Third Rome”, still calls her upward!
A recognition, reverence and realization of the spiritual, the “vertical”, in each society is needed. And though there is much more than enough, in each nation alone, to be accomplished in this direction; what if each nation’s unique characteristics, are indispensable for a complete spiritual development of the other?
National identity in our time, for the individual and collective, is so strong and pervasive a presence — in our psychologies, societies, cultures and intellectual lives — that we have lost much sight and sense of our common humanity. [90] It is much more immediate in our time, to be a citizen of this or that nation, than to truly identify, inwardly, with Man, or Mankind as a whole. So it seems basic and fundamental, to our cramped, secular visions, conceptions and understandings of our civilization and historical time, to be an “American”, a “Russian”, a “German”; or a “Japanese”, “Australian” or whatever; and to think of, and understand other portions of humanity, with such identifications. This manifests, for example, now, in America; in an unconscious presumption, that there could be nothing we might learn from the Russians, whose political and economic (“horizontal”) system is such an obvious failure. But if one looks at humanity as a whole, then it might be asked whether an “American”, a “Russian”, or other, is not a certain, unique development of a portion of humanity; and that one part of Mankind, or other, might well have developed a unique, vital element in its own humanity, which is essential to Mankind as a whole.
In regard to America and Russia, what I am suggesting here, is that, while each nation has its own spiritual characteristics, tasks and burdens; there is present between them, a potential alchemical blending of the best of “Russian” and the best of “American” — not at all meaning thereby to exclude “mixtures” of Russian and American with the characteristic outer lives and inner psychologies of other nations [91] — which could help to bring about a more complete human being, in regard to individual psychology and social community, and thence, possibly as well, affecting the broader cultural and intellectual life of human civilization. [92] (Recognizing that such ideals can not be expected to be realized, easily, in any broader scale of humanity.)
Before it will be possible to try to say what such an alchemical mixture of American and Russian might mean, or how it might be effected; it is necessary that we attempt to gain some deeper insight and understanding of the contrasting psychologies, the differing “national characteristics”, of America and Russia. By selecting and examining certain fundamental portions of the intellectual and spiritual histories of both peoples; deep insight can be gained into these questions. By looking into the thought of clear, characteristic, “representative voices” of each country, we shall come to find intellectual foundation to better recognize, understand and articulate certain contrasting, yet complementary aspects of their national psychologies.
For America, the United States of America, we shall have Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) speak. (At the Washington Summit in December of 1987, Emerson was cited in the speeches of both [93] then President Reagan and by then General-Secretary (now President) Mikhael Gorbachof.) For Russia we shall listen to the thought of the (so-called) “Slavophiles”: Ivan Vasilevich Kireyevsky (1806-1856) and Alexsei Stepanovich Khomyakov (1804-1860). By comparing their ideal conceptions of Man, we shall be able to gain insight into one deep and essential area of the contrasting, yet complementary national characteristics of “American” and “Russian”. If my efforts in this work are adequate to the task, I wish to make substantial intellectual contributions towards a clear description of how essential and profound a spiritual, philosophical and psychological relation exists, between characteristic highest (“vertical”) conceptions and aspirations — and tasks — of Man in America and Russia. The hope is that such understanding could contribute, essentially, towards a clearer, creative, and mutually-bentficial, spiritual orientation — in thoughtful and heartful individuals of both nationalities-which might lead to a more conscious spiritual meeting of “Russian” and “American”; and thereby, possibly, promote an alchemical blending of American Mind and Russian Soul, American Individuality and Russian Community. Such a greater clarity and consciousness, in both countries, could thus possibly contribute towards a greater spiritual realization, and more complete wholeness, in some men and women in each country, and thereby, perhaps, in portions of Mankind as a whole.
[85] Herder, Franz von Baader, Ernst von Lasaulx, Vladimir Soloviev, et al.
[86] See J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Letters form an American Farmer, (originally published 1782); Letter XI: “I received yesterday a letter from Philadelphia, by which I understand thee art a Russian; what motives can possibly have induced thee to quit thy native country and to come so far in quest of knowledge or pleasure? Verily it is a great compliment thee payest to this our young province, to think that anything it exhibiteth may be worthy thy attention” “I have been most amply repaid for the trouble of the passage. I view the present Americans as the seed of future nations, which will replenish this boundless continent; the Russians may be in some respects compared to you; we likewise are a new people, new, I mean, in knowledge, arts and improvements. Who knows what revolutions Russia and America may one day bring about; we are perhaps nearer neighbors than we imagine.” (p. 189) “…in the neighborhood of our towns, there are indeed some intelligent farmers who prosecute their rural schemes with attention, but we should be too numerous, too happy, too powerful a people if it were possible or the whole Russian empire to be cultivated like the province of Pennsylvania. Our lands are so unequally divided and so few of our farmers are possessors of the soil they till that they cannot execute plans of husbandry with the same vigour as you do who hold yours, as it were, from the Master of Nature, unencumbered and free. Oh, America!” explained I, “thou knowest not as yet the whole extent of thy happiness: the foundation of thy civil polity must lead thee in a few years to a degree of population and power which Europe little thinks of!” (p. 192; Penguin American Library, 1981)
[87] Cf. Democracy in America, Vol. I, Vintage Books, p. 452. There are many editions of this work, in a host of languages. It was originally published in French, in Paris in 1835; this was followed quickly by an English translation. It would be interesting to know the precise origins of Tocqueville’s thoughts here; as it would be to compare his work to that of the Marquis de Custin on Russia.
[88] Herzen: “Incidentally, there was no need for the gift of prophecy…We had only to look objectively at the whole world. America and Russia were the first to meet our eyes: Both countries abound in gifts, forces, flexibility, and a spirit of organization, and in persistence which knows no bounds; both are poor in their past; both began their march by breaking with tradition; both expanded across unbounded valleys seeking for frontiers; both countries advanced from opposite sides across immense spaces marking their way with cities, towns, villages, colonies, reaching the coasts of the Pacific Ocean, this “Mediterranean of the Future” as we once called it and as it was — to our great satisfaction — frequently referred to by American journals.” Cited in Max Laserson “Herzen on Russia and America”, in The American Impact on Russia, ch. XI, p. 219.
[89] “Alexander Herzen’s Parallel between the United States and Russia”, by Alexander Kucherov, in Essays in Russian and Soviet History, ed. J. S. Curtiss, p. 47; [Herzen, “Pis’ma k puteshestvenniku”s, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem, ХVIII, 107-8.].
Herzen essentially concurred with Tocqueville in his description of the future conjunction of America and Russia. But, in addition to comparing and contrasting the two nations in greater depth, he also “located” the region of their meeting. As Herzen had written earlier in the “Bell”(Kolokol) in his article entitled “America and Siberia” (commenting on an American article — from Philadelphia — which directly considered the historical relation of California and the Amur region [far eastern “Russia”]): “both countries, advanced from opposite sides across immense spaces, marking their way with cities, towns, villages, colonies, reaching the Pacific Ocean, this “Mediterranean of the Future” as we called it and as it was — to our great satisfaction — frequently referred to by American journals.” (Cf. December 1, 1858 issue of Kolokol (Bell). Cited in Max Laserson, “Herzen on Russia and America”, in The American Impact on Russia, p. 216, 219.) As he described it in a letter to Giuseppe Mazzini (February, 1857), he looked forward to the time when ships flying the US flag would anchor in Siberian harbors.(Cf. Kucherov, p. 47.)
[90] For one crucial example: The divisions of Europe, which began after Charlemagne, eventually lead to the fratricidal “World Wars” in Europe.
[91] In no way does this work intend to be exclusive of other nations and cultures. The relation of the Russians, to, not only the United States of America, but also to Western, Central and Eastern Europe, is especially to be considered. For a serious recent consideration of this question — from a spiritual perspective which merits much more profound audience and consideration than it has received — of East, West and Middle-Europe — including other possibilities as to the impact which “Germany” might have had on European history, beginning in the nineteenth century, see Christoph Strawe, Der Umbruch in der Sowjetunion — Mitteleuropäische Perspektiven, 1988; especially e.g., p. 18, footnote 24.
[92] I do not in any way wish to imply that this combination shall lead to some easy “utopian” solution of the problems of both nations and peoples; for impure human nature shall remain. Still, perhaps the complementary relation, could help towards “balance” in some vital, resolutive ways.
[93] Michael S. Gorbachof spoke the following, at the Washington Summit, on Dec. 8,1987: “We can be proud of planting this sapling which may one day grow into a mighty tree of peace; but it is probably still too early to bestow laurels upon each other. As the great American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson said; ‘The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it’.” Cf. The New York Times, Dec. 9, 1987.