The Captive Mind

In the forward to this remarkable book Milosz writes that he wants to give the totalitarian point of view "in his own words, from his own point of view." The result is this ambitious, fascinating tour of the human mind twisted by the lies of the culture that surroundes it. It's a schizophrenic place that resembles the scarier novels of the noir writer Jim Thompson. There's nothing solid to cling to; everything dissolves into fear and loathing. Milosz turns his poetical gifts to the case studies of several Polish intellectuals who became entangled with the Communist party. Milosz doesn't name them but one is clearly Tadeusz Borowski, the author of the Holocaust short story collection "This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen." The title of that book in Polish was "The Stony World", which reflected how Borowski, an Auschwitz survivor, came to see the world--as dominated by force, without effective moral constraint. Milosz depicts Borowski as a man who sought shelter under the protection of the strongest earthly power available--the Communists--but was unable finally to justify the price of that loyalty (he committed suicide.) What keeps someone from succumbing to "Ketman" (the two-facedness that Orwell called "double-think?) Milosz implies the answer is religious faith, which allows one to trust in an objective truth beyond the lies and terror of the stony world (he was a devout Catholic.) This book is a must read for anyone who wants to keep the world from stealing his soul.

Never have I read a more vivid and convincing thesis defending the virtues of intellectual freedom. Though frequently difficult to read--the author (or the translator) shifts frequently from first to second to third person (and back again) in mid paragraph--the work is central to understanding not only the intellectual seductiveness of the "rule of philosophy" but, more importantly and generally, the dangers of intellectual conformity. Milosz's dissection of intellectuals' attraction to leftist social systems becomes a defense of open society in both the intellectual and general communities. We come to understand most fundamentally the concept of intellectual freedom, and how the elimination of it becomes the ultimate goal of authoritarian leftist politics... despite claims otherwise.
Many intellectuals believe that their interests are best served by socialism or communism. Milosz explains why they are frequently fooled into believing this, and why many of the very components of socialism and communism that intellectuals most covet--freedom from vulgar market forces and important roles in the administration of society--are the very forces that strip them of their liberty. He illustrates this process with four character examples.
Though written in the throes of the Cold War, this work could not be more timely. And though it is written as an attack on Communism (with a big "C") and is rife with often knee-jerk anti-Russian rhetoric, it's arguements can be easily applied to all forms of totalitarianism, both left and right. Mostly, Milosz is attempting to defend the chaotic human condition from idealogical molding and, considering contemporary encroachments of politics, government, and religion into the lives of human beings, this book is as valid and important today as it was in 1953. Not to be missed.

This book is an amalgam of a memoir and a satire artistically blended with a few fictionalized examples to describe the malleability of human mind vulnerable to unsolicited forces of the political order. The gist of this book is best summarized by the quotes below.

"Let us admit that man is no more than an instrument in an orchestra directed by the muse of History. It is only in this context that the notes he produces have any significance. Otherwise even his most brilliant solos become simply a highbrow's of diversions."

"All the concepts men live by are a product of the historic formation in which they find themselves. Fluidity and constant change are the characteristics of phenomena. And man is so plastic a being that one can even conceive of the day when a thoroughly self-respecting citizen will crawl about on all fours, sporting a tail of brightly colored feathers as a sign of conformity to the order he lives in"

The author presents this fragility of human existence (and their mind) with a collection of fictionalized stories of four men who succumb to the forces of changing political landscape, more or less consciously becoming victims of a historic situation.

The book, although written in 20th century around the context of WWII is still relevant today to enrich one's understanding of multiple facets of existing world order.

Czeslaw Milosz lived through "interesting times". Educated in the 1920s in Lithuania, he lived in Poland at the time of the invasion of the Nazi armies in 1939. He saw personally what happens to a people when they are ground down and deprived of sustenance. He then lived through the "liberation" of Soviet Armies coming from Russia. He saw how slowly, most of his surviving writer-friends became tools of the new Polish state.

The book covers 4 such people who are not fictitious. They are drawn from life. Milosz eventually had to break with the Polish Communist Party and go into exile, because he could no longer obey the tenants of Socialist Realism. That he is one of the most perceptive thinkers of the 20th century is obvious as you read the book. The 20th century was a long nightmare for many people in the world. Millions died from war, famine, and political decisions. Milosz saw the worst of it and lived to tell the story. And tell it well.

Reading this a second time for clarity, I found so much of what is happening today in America. But I discovered this a long time ago and was looking for answers. I knew America was heading toward Socialism but everyone I talked with about this shut me down. It's as if this is what they wanted. I couldn't believe it.
I am angry and will not forgive, those in large cities like Chicago, who are submitting to this tyranny for the sake of security. It's unforgiveable by those who have fought to preserve freedom for these fools. Probing this book, I will discuss Ethical Ketman, the ethics of this new faith. "Admissions to this order is not unlike entrance to a religious order.....the higher one stands in the Party hierarchy, the more attentively one's private life is supervised. Love of money, drunkenness, a confused love life will prevent a party member from holding important offices. Hence the upper brackets of the Party are filled with ascetics devoted to a single cause of Revolution. As for certain human tools, deprived of real influence but useful because of their names, even if they belong to the Party one tolerates or sometimes encourages their weaknesses, for they constitute a guarantee of obedience. If it were feasible to lodge all the citizens in cells and release them only for work or political meetings, that would be undoubtedly most desirable.
I found this very interesting now that Covid has wrecked our lives and how these democrats want to restrict our rights in every way. I don't even feel like I can write this review without being kicked off this site. Well....Milosz goes on to say " The "new man" is conditioned to acknowledge the good of the whole as the sole norm of his behavior. He thinks and acts like others; is modest, industrious, and is satisfied with what the State gives him; he spends his private life at home, and passes all the rest of his time amidst his companions at work or a play, observing them carefully and reporting their actions and opinions to authorities. Informing was and is known in many civilizations, but the New Faith declares it a cardinal virtue of the good citizen.
This seems to be very close to what is happening before our very eyes. To me it seems the Democrat Socialists have used Covid as the opportunity to push for total totalitarian control over us. This is what we feared would happen one day but now we seem to welcome it.

I wish I could put this in the hands of every American and Russian. Milosz wrote this during the end of the World War as the Soviet Union spread it's authoritarian version of communism to the Eastern Europe.

This book is scathing and humorous in it's treatment of that failed regime. He describes through personal experience, not only how liberals and progressives avoided the cultural police and gulags, but perhaps even more valuable, how his "comrades" changed to become part of this authoritarianism.

I cannot recommend this book high enough for anyone who has read Godfather of the Kremlin, or Putin's Kleptocracy. This book covers the very beginning of the sort of regime Putin would seem to resurrect in the name of Empire and God.

I often wonder as I read about the horrors committed by the worst regimes in history, how the people that perpetrate crimes against humanity can live with themselves. What is the motive and reasoning of those who praise the slaughter of innocents?

The Captive Mind sheds a little bit of light into these darkest corners of the human psyche. It describes the path that leads righeous people on the road to immorality, written by a man who, along with his friends and comerads, traveled that road but took another path before he came to his final destination.

They say 'those not students of history are doomed to reapeat it'. In our current national and states rights climate this is a must now read. Very readable and the passing years since it was written provide a 'proof text' for the ideas discussed.

“All over the world people are now sleeping in their beds, or perhaps they are engaged in some idiotic pastime; and one might easily believe that each in his own way is doing his best to deserve destruction. But that destruction will bring no freedom.”

I had dinner with a friend the other night. We shared stories, exchanged ideas and grumbled a lot about the current political climate and our disappointment in what could have been – what should have been. Towards the end of dinner he gifted me a copy of “The Captive Mind” by Czeslaw Milosz. My friend is somewhat older than myself, and life’s paths have taught him a thing or two. He is an intellectual – that special breed of person who seeks to know for knowledge sake and is always on the lookout for a fertile mind to share their understanding, right and wrong, without imposition or obligation. As all good intellectuals, my friend does this by carefully selecting books; depositing them before me sort of like stepping stones across a river which has become turbulent. My friend knows I am a writer; and that we share concern for issues of liberty – of the fight against tyranny – as a motivator. All this to say, what he gives me I read. In this case – jetlagged from a recent overseas trip – I used the solitude of early mountain mornings to finish this latest book.

“The Captive Mind” did not disappoint. Milosz is, of course, the Polish poet and Nobel laureate who lived in Warsaw during that singular time in history when Poland was beset by two great evils; first Nazism and then communism. An avid anti-fascist, Milosz – like so many intellectuals – made common cause for a time with communist totalitarianism. Unlike so many others, he made the difficult and dangerous decision to break with the regime when the “socialist realism” imposed by the censors became too much for his poet’s fingers to bear.

This book is a study on totalitarianism through the presentation of four mini-biographies of writers – friends of Milosz’s – who decided to surrender to the “Method”, as the soviet system of written art was called. It is not an indictment, nor is it a justification, of their decisions. It is an explanation of what goes on in the mind of a writer that makes him vulnerable to the overtures of totalitarianism – and how he often builds walls around himself that he is then unable to climb. But it is also a story of resistance – of how writers are often able to find in subservience to a great power a modicum of liberty; going beyond cognitive dissonance (which is a tool of the totalitarians) to mine their work with a tense deferential rebellion. For me, it was immensely helpful – as I have often struggled to understand why men who should be of sensitive spirit so often make common cause with the violence.

As Milosz so eloquently explains, the Soviet thought masters used the control of art to present a unified vision of the struggle for the “New Man” through the “New Faith”. To those within their dominion, they used art to demonstrate that the light would come on the other side of the (tremendously brutal) horizon. To those without they used their artists to paint a picture of internal harmony.

Of course, we see this movie still; from North Korea to Venezuela to Cuba and even the Islamic State – and it always has the same ending. Nevertheless, these failed ideas incredibly still find disciples in the modern thought police who are so quick to make exceptions and excuses for those engaged in totalitarian behaviors – falling back upon ideas of social justice and theories of victimization as excuses.

Defense of things like seizure of private property, politically motivated trials, blasphemy laws, the massacre of Christians, acid attacks, hijab laws and the flogging of bloggers is met closer to home with discussions of “micro-aggression” and a strange new political correctness – a new “socialist realism” allows no honest exploration.

This is perilous.

Free speech is essential, as Milosz explained, because it is uncomfortable. Because we are insulted. Because we disagree. It is only through free speech that we defy the totalitarians – because against our pens they are left naked, and they know it.

Czeslaw Milosz died in 2004 in California. The irony is not lost on me that this is the same year that I began my own fight against totalitarianism (first against communism and then Islamism). And it is the year I began to toy with the idea of also writing down what I was seeing. Life is a cycle, the struggle of one generation to be free is rewarded; just as another is plunged into darkness. Thankfully we have the stories of those who have gone before us – written down – to show us the way as they lead with example and nourish our own resistance. And isn’t that what the totalitarians fear the most?

This fascinating book by Czeslaw Milosz is particularly helpful in understanding how and why intelligent people can abandon their moral center and support ideas and actions that contradict their core beliefs. Even though Milosz was writing about the Stalinist USSR, his observations are alarmingly relevant to the modern political situation in many places throughout the world today, including the United States. It’s a disturbing masterpiece.