/lit/ - Literature

Yes. If someone has a problem with personal testimonies, then they all they have a problem with is the idea that the personal testimony is trying to support, since they themselves will always appeal to personal testimonies at some point down the track for what they want to support.

Meanwhile, in the west, we tailor social sciences consensuses around people's feelings.
Accuracy and reliable truth is only found in hard sciences, no matter the culture.

The Jews got rollercoastered into a jerk off machine gas chamber hybrid at aushwitz trust the sources chud

>>20389457
Not all testimonies are equal. An upstanding decorated officer with a perfect record is less likely to make stuff up than some random drunk you don't even know the name of.

There's also a difference between going "here's one some guy told me" and "here's what happened: (...) source: some guy", Solzhenitsyn falls into the latter category pretty much all the time, he asserts that he's entirely factual but his assertions are supported only by hearsay.

>>20389446
I haven't read all his books but based on the ones that I have read it's the kind of thing he'd do so yes.


It's fine for me to say this because he uses the same line of thought in his work.

Yeah that's why people say that it's more of a mythology of the system rather than a strict historical academic work
Btw a lot of people who were in the gulags agreed with the 'mythology' of his book and felt that it represented their experiences

>>20389473
Solzhenitsyn had personal experience of how shitty the Russian Communist regime was. The fact he collates so many other supporting viewpoints is the cherry on top and of course it makes Commies seethe like crazy.

>>20389446
Why don't people use their real faces as their profile pictures anymore?

>>20389446
will they ban me tommorow

>>20389509
No one ever did that except boomers

>>20389473
>but his assertions are supported only by hearsay.
And how do you know that? Were you there or did someone tell you?

>>20389569
He massively contradicts both the soviet archives and every serious historian, even explicitly anti-soviet and anti-Russian ones.

For example: his estimate for the death toll of the white Sea-baltic canal is 300 000. Actual histical estimates don't go higher than around 20 000.

You might wonder what methology he used to get this number. Get this: "people were saying" 100 000 died during one winter of construction, so 100 000 died during the other obviously, and 100 000 in between for good measure.

This is the kind of shit you can pull when you take this guy's testimonies seriously.
>>20389507
Alex Jones has a deep personal experience with American society. Does this make him a reliable source? Will historians of the future look to Alex Jones for guidence?

Where did he claim to be historically accurate?

>>20389575
>He massively contradicts both the soviet archives
This is pretty good evidence what he says is true.

>even explicitly anti-soviet and anti-Russian ones.
All academics are crypto-marxists.

>>20389509
Everyone who does that always comes off as seeking attention. I'd rather use a picture I think is cool and represents my personality or mood at the moment

>>20389577
Literally the first 5 pages.
If it's an editorial thing i don't know. Newest edition as od 2020

>>20389575
Alex Jones is based and what he has said in the past has been accurate so I'd definitely suggest more people listen to him than Jewish scholars of history.

>>20389582
Why would the Soviets lie in their own internal archives that were only used by trusted party members for purposes of administration?
They only got published because the country collapsed, idiot.

I have a pretty good system. If a historian believes the Holocaust happened you can disregard everything they say.

>>20389587
Name one time he went against the grain and was also right.

>>20389591
Why would the Soviets lie? Because they were a corrupt Jewish administration who didn't care about what is true

>>20389594
Chemicals in the water are turning the frogs (and (YOU)) gay

https://www.newsweek.com/female-frogs-estrogen-hermaphrodites-suburban-waste-369553

>>20389596
>jews are so well organised they control the world
>also Jews are so corrupt they always lie to each other and make up statistics even tho they are only meant for other Jews who are all in on the same plan

sounds very inefficient to me, why can't whites beat them if they're so bad at their jobs?

>>20389598
>(and (YOU))
Couldn't find this claim in the article

>>20389446
You can tell how true something is by how hard it makes Commies seethe. Solzhenitsyn by that metric only gives pure truth in every statement.

>>20389575
You didn't answer the question.

>>20389599
>i can't understand emergent phenomena because I'm a crypto shitlib

>>20389619
Rent free

Glowies

>>20389575
>Will historians of the future look to Alex Jones for guidence?
I hope so.

Solzhenitsyn's should be seen as a work of folklore since that's exactly what it is. He went around and collected apocryphal stories someone heard from someone's brother's grandpa. It has little if any bearing on the reality of life in the USSR.

It's interesting that out of all the historical work done with real scholars and sources the anti-commie shills' go-to book is an anti-semite's collection of makebelive. Really makes you think.

>>20389754
I'd agree, but only if Solzhenitsyn were some skinny-fat academic from from New York who had never set foot in the USSR.

>>20389769
Shalamov spent even more time imprisoned, and not in a "closed research institution", but in an actual logging camp, and his works are purely autobiographical. He spits and shits on Solzhenitsyn.

Which one of them is right?

>>20389569
you really think you had something there
your brain is microscopic

>>20389778
Which works does he do this in, and to what degree? And is for more than just personal reasons?

>>20389780
>still can't answer the question

>>20389754
Oy vey, not anti semitism

>>20389797
>Which works does he do this in, and to what degree?
They were literally in correspondence, and have it's full volume. At first Shalamov praises "One day" specifically it's themes and language, but he immediately starts nitpicking about the details of prison life. He remains genial towards Solzhenitsyn for several years, in no small part due to them both being in disfavor among the Union of Writers, and planning to collaborate on a work that would eventually become the Gulag Archipelago. But as the time goes on, they disagree more and more: Shalamov writes for the home audience, Solzhenitsyn aims to succeed abroad from the get go; Solzh roasts Shalamov for being an atheist and (still, despite going through camps) a socialist, Shalamov pays in kind. Their reach their peak disagreement on the metaphysical nature of imprisonment: Shalamov interprets it as a "totally negative experience", that reduces a man to a husk of his former self and used in this capacity by tyranny in order to pragmatically destroy it's foes - he sees power hierarchies as the root of oppression, hence his enduring socialist views, while Solzhenitsyn has his model of "GULAG as Golgotha", a predetermined national sacrifice experience that purifies the people that go through it and makes them into the saviors of all through spiritual providence against those who deny it. Solzhenitsyn eventually blames the Jews. In the end, Shalamov plainly accuses him of antisemitism and compromising his own vision for the sake of courting his prospective audience, and sinks all plans of their joint work on Archipelago. They cut their correspondence from that point, and proceed to mention each other to others exclusively with strong enmity.

>And is for more than just personal reasons?
Shalamov raises the same question to Solzhenitsyn, regarding his whole body of work.

>>20389446
Yes. Only absolute brainlets take Gulag Archipelago to be entirely, literally true. It’s a collection of the Soviet people’s folklore about some of their regime’s darkest days, and a profound spiritual meditation about life in the gulag. It filters a lot of trust the science type NPCs who can’t understand the importance of emotional truths or myth.

>>20389877
The problems with the emotional truth interpretation are:
1. That's not the author's position. And not in "oy he SAYS it's all fact so he's a liar for it not being so", but in the sense that conveying emotional truth is evidently not his intention - he doesn't seek to share, he seeks to convince and be followed, and without conviction and following his project falls apart.

2. The phenomenon described and judged by Solzhenitsyn is by itself a product of another set of emotional truths, which conflicted with others and in the course of that conflict produced the horror that he describes, the conflict itself being a product of another horror like that. Which is antithetical to the intended message. Gulag Archipelago is a non-entity in a world where everybody is fighting for their promised land - it's a sermon for a world of saints and sinners.

>>20389866
So Shalamov was a dumbass atheist who clung to his socialism even when he saw first hand how destructive it is while Solzenitsyn had the more mature theistic viewpoint and didn't feel any need to play defense for the clearly wrong atheistic socialist worldview that destroyed his nation.

>>20389903
I know it’s not the author’s position. It’s my position as a reader and interpreter of the text.

>>20389921
So much for skinny-fat academics who had never set foot in the USSR, then.

>to play defense
Lel.

>>20389446
>discord
YWNBAW

>>20389754
the holocaust should also be seen as folk lore