The Term "national Idea" Is An Unclear One. One Might Think Of It As A Widely Shared Understanding Among A People As To The Desired Way Of Life In Their Country, An Idea That Holds Sway Over The Population. A Unifying Concept Like That Can Be Useful, But Should Never Be Created Artificially Or Imposed Top-down By The Powers-that-be.

-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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The Term "national Idea" Is An Unclear

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The Term "national Idea" Is An Unclear One. One Might Think Of It As A Widely Shared Understanding Among A People As To The Desired Way Of Life In Their Country, An Idea That Holds Sway Over The Population. A Unifying Concept Like That Can Be Useful, But Should Never Be Created Artificially Or Imposed Top-down By The Powers-that-be.

Topic

Country

Thinking

Top Down

Human Nature Is Full Of Riddles; . . . One Of Those Riddles Is: How Is It That People Who Have Been Crushed By The Sheer Weight Of Slavery And Cast To The Bottom Of The Pit Can Nevertheless Find Strength In Themselves To Rise Up And Free Themselves First In Spirit And Then In Body While Those Who Soar Unhampered Over The Peaks Of Freedom Suddenly Lose The Taste Of Freedom, Lose The Will To Defend It, And, Hopelessly Confused And Lost, Almost Begin To Crave Slavery?'

Confused

People

Pits