“Homo Sovieticus was caught in an infinite spiral of lies: pretending to be, pretending to have, pretending to believe, and pretending not to. The fakery concerned the most basic of facts and the most fundamental of values, and what lay at the bottom of the spiral was an absence: 'even to understand the word "doublethink" involved the use of doublethink.' The system destroyed the individual and the fabric of society: nothing was possible in the absence of everything, resulting, wrote [Yuri] Levada, in 'the falling standards of education, culture, morality, in the degradation of all of society.”
Quote by Masha Gessen
Work
The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia
Browse quotes and source details for this work. more
Author
Masha Gessen
Masha Gessen is a Russian-American journalist known for her in-depth reporting on Russian political and social issues. Born on January 13, 1967, she has been living in the United States since the early 1990s. more
You May Also Like
Source: The Woman in the Woods
“Patriotism is about a desire for progress, not a yearning for repetition.”
“If Metias joined the Patriots, he'd be a Hacker too. If he were alive.”
Source: Prodigy
“If there is no love for others, love of country is just a slogan.”
Source: From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence
Source: Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
Source: On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
Source: The Great Hand Book of Quotes