{"id":377,"date":"2008-06-26T14:30:37","date_gmt":"2008-06-26T14:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=377"},"modified":"2015-06-29T10:26:05","modified_gmt":"2015-06-29T14:26:05","slug":"dealing-with-apparent-contradictions-part-6-restraint-implicit-belief-and-stalin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/dealing-with-apparent-contradictions-part-6-restraint-implicit-belief-and-stalin\/","title":{"rendered":"Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 6 – Restraint, implicit belief, and Stalin"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/small>A story about implicit faith<\/strong>…<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n

Once upon a time, there was a virtuous and patriotic Russian peasant named Georgy.<\/strong> Georgy lived a simple life among simple people, in a village so far out in the boondocks of the USSR that World War II – what Russians call the Great Patriotic War<\/a> – passed by practically unnoticed. The farming life had treated Georgy and his family well, and he had only good thoughts towards the great leader of his country<\/strong>, Comrade Stalin.<\/p>\n

After a particularly vicious and thorough purge, Stalin’s government found itself in need of new secret police agents. Being vigorous, patriotic, single, and malleable, one of Stalin’s recruiters focused on Georgy<\/strong>. (He overlooked Georgy’s moral goodness.) Hearing about this exciting and rewarding career, Georgy was strongly inclined to make the deal.<\/p>\n

Georgy’s friend Artem, however, was more cautious.<\/strong> “Georgy – are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, you’ll be expected to do,say and believe a lot of things you haven’t yet imagined.”<\/p>\n

“Sure – well, that’s the excitement of it. What’s there to worry about? I love the Motherland. So does Uncle Joe.”<\/p>\n

“Well, Georgy, are you a communist?”<\/p>\n

“What’s that?”<\/p>\n

After a stunned silence, Artem continued. “Georgy, do you believe in the collective ownership of the means of production?”<\/p>\n

“If Uncle Joe is in favor of that, then so am I<\/em>. I’m quite into collecting myself. Stamps, for instance.”<\/p>\n

“Georgy, that’s a very, um, loyal and patriotic attitude, but how can you be sure that when you find out<\/strong> all of Comrade Stalin’s policies, you’ll agree with them, or at least be willing to carry them out? I mean, saying<\/em> that you’ll do this when you find out about them is one thing, wanting<\/em> that to happen is another, but really being inclined<\/em> that way is another. How do you know you actually are<\/em> inclined that way, my friend?”<\/p>\n

“My dear Artem, I have implicit faith<\/a> in Uncle Joe, and in all he stands for. I believe whatever he does<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

“But how do you know that you won’t disagree<\/em>, or just not agree, when you find out in detail what our Comrade Leader believes?”<\/p>\n

“I just do. I just love Uncle that much<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

“What if he tells you that the sky is green?”<\/p>\n

“He wouldn’t do that.”<\/p>\n

“But if he did<\/em>, Georgy, would you believe him?”<\/p>\n

“No.”<\/p>\n

“But for all you know<\/em>, he believes it, Georgy. If so, you don’t<\/em> believe everything Uncle Joe does, though you say you do, and you wish you did.”<\/p>\n

“That’s exactly what I do<\/em> wish. I’m going to sign up now.” And he did.<\/p>\n

Being as morally upright as he was uninformed, Georgy’s career in Stalin’s secret police was brief<\/strong>, although he went out “with a bang”.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n
Next time: Resolution.<\/em><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A story about implicit faith… Once upon a time, there was a virtuous and patriotic Russian peasant named Georgy. Georgy lived a simple life among simple people, in a village so far out in the boondocks of the USSR that World War II – what Russians call the Great Patriotic War – passed by practically… Read More »Dealing with Apparent Contradictions: Part 6 – Restraint, implicit belief, and Stalin<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,36],"tags":[69],"class_list":["post-377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philosophy","category-stories","tag-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35580,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions\/35580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}