What is a soul? Many philosophers and psychologists have made reference to the human soul throughout the ages, yet the struggle to define what it really is, continues.
I believe that the battle for our souls eternal is very real. It strikes at the very essence of our being. It goes beyond our corporeal form.
This is a battle for everything we are, everything we have ever been, and everything we could still become.
Philosophical perspectives on the soul
Writing in The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn mused on the corruption of one’s soul when befallen to totalitarianism:
…government power can perpetrate all sorts of atrocities upon human beings, body and soul, but it can never fully succeed in quenching the human spirit. Yes, some people will submit and will die spiritually. But others… will endure and prevail.
Despite all of the indignities inflicted upon them, their innate human dignity will remain intact. In this sense, totalitarianism must always fail.
This statement is as impactful on the psyche as it is eerily prescient for what we are all being subjected to at the time of writing this in the year 2022.
What does it mean to die spiritually?
Perhaps it means to betray one’s own values, principles, and morals within one’s own heart. Maybe it means for someone to be so beaten into submission, that their sense of right and wrong is superseded by fear, aggression and malice.
Fundamentally leading to an unwavering conformity to unjust suggestions, imperatives, and a disconnectedness to what it means to be a human being.