More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Cowed by life under Communist Party rule, a greengrocer hangs a placard in their shop window: Workers of the world, unite! Is it a sign of the grocer’s unerring ideology? Or a symbol of the lies we perform to protect ourselves?
Though Havel himself was never a Marxist, Czechs and Slovaks of his generation believed that Marx could be invoked to reform and humanize the country’s Soviet-style system. In the late 1960s, the Czechoslovak Party leadership believed that ‘socialism with a human face’ was possible. The Soviet leadership, Leonid Brezhnev in particular, was of another opinion. In August 1968, a Soviet (Warsaw Pact) invasion dispersed the loose association of Marxists, democrats, nostalgics and hippies whose proposals, texts, marches and happenings were collectively known as the Prague Spring.
Havel saw a ‘crisis of contemporary technological society as a whole,’ a modern ‘unfreedom’ in which individuals enslave themselves because they do not ask themselves who they are and what they should be doing.
For Havel, then, the restoration of civic life began from truth.1
Each of us is responsible for truth, Havel maintained; we cannot delegate that responsibility to an outer world that we imagine to be entirely separate from ourselves nor to an inner world that we imagine to be completely private.
Havel’s reference points in The Power of the Powerless are therefore as quotidian as can be: brewing beer, playing music, buying groceries, watching television.
Havel’s colleague knew that it was better to keep his head down, but could not restrain himself from offering advice to his superiors. This was the example Havel gave of what he called ‘living in truth.’
In normalization, ideology works not as a unifying belief or as an inspiring vision but as ‘a bridge of excuses between the system and the individual.’
The system is totalitarian not because some individual has total power, but because power is shared in conditions of total irresponsibility. There is no clear line between evil and good, power and servitude, Party and people, because ‘this line runs de facto through each person, for everyone in his or her own way is both a victim and a supporter of the system.’
Freedom is not doing the things that you are inclined to do. It is reflecting upon what you ought to do, as your unrepeatable self, and just occasionally taking a risk and doing that thing.
Dietl was the most important normalizer. In his serials he took policies that would have been portrayed by earlier Stalinists as heroic, such as the collectivization of agriculture or the demolition of old town centers, and turned them into the backdrop for soap operas.
First, Havel’s criticism of technology seemed overwrought in the time and place of its writing. ‘We look on helplessly,’ he writes, ‘as that coldly functioning machine we have created inevitably engulfs us, tearing us away from our natural affiliations.’
The second objection was that Havel expected too much from his greengrocer. Havel imagined that, one day, his greengrocer would realize the weight of the responsibility he bore, remove his sign, and so begin the transformation of society. In the reality of communist Czechoslovakia in 1978 such a greengrocer would have been informed upon by his colleagues, neighbors, or some passerby, and punished in a way that would have encouraged conformity. The
Even this very superficial overview should make it clear that the system in which we live has very little in common with a classical dictatorship. In the first place, our system is not limited in a local, geographical sense; rather it holds sway over a huge power bloc controlled by one of the two superpowers.
In the second place, if a feature of classical dictatorships is their lack of historical roots (frequently they appear to be no more than historical freaks, the fortuitous consequence of fortuitous social processes or of human and mob tendencies), the same cannot be said so facilely about our system. For even though our dictatorship has long since alienated itself completely from the social movements that gave birth to it, the authenticity of these movements (and I am thinking of the proletarian and socialist movements of the nineteenth century) give it undeniable historicity.
One legacy of that original ‘correct understanding’ is a third peculiarity that makes our system different from other modern dictatorships: it commands an incomparably more precise, logically structured, generally comprehensible and, in essence, extremely flexible ideology that, in its elaborateness and completeness, is almost a secularized religion.
The principle involved here is that the centre of power is identical with the centre of truth. (In our case, the connection with Byzantine theocracy is direct: the highest secular authority is identical with the highest spiritual authority.)
Fourth, the technique of exercising power in traditional dictatorships contains a necessary element of improvisation. The mechanisms for wielding power are for the most part not established firmly, and there is considerable room for accident and for the arbitrary and unregulated application of power. Socially, psychologically, and physically conditions still exist for the expression of some form of opposition. In short, there are many seams on the surface which can split apart before the entire power structure has managed to stabilize.
Finally, if an atmosphere of revolutionary excitement, heroism, dedication, and boisterous violence on all sides characterizes classical dictatorships, then the last traces of such an atmosphere have vanished from the Soviet bloc.
The circumstances I have mentioned, however, form only a circle of conditional factors and a kind of phenomenal framework for the actual composition of power in the post-totalitarian system, several aspects of which I shall now attempt to identify.
The slogan is really a sign, and as such it contains a subliminal but very definite message. Verbally, it might be expressed this way: ‘I, the greengrocer XY, live here and I know what I must do. I behave in the manner expected of me. I can be depended upon and am beyond reproach. I am obedient and therefore I have the right to be left in peace.’
The slogan’s real meaning, therefore, is rooted firmly in the greengrocer’s existence. It reflects his vital interests. But what are those vital interests?
Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them.
The primary excusatory function of ideology, therefore, is to provide people, both as victims and pillars of the post-totalitarian system, with the illusion that the system is in harmony with the human order and the order of the universe.
Ideology, in creating a bridge of excuses between the system and the individual, spans the abyss between the aims of the system and the aims of life. It pretends that the requirements of the system derive from the requirements of life. It is a world of appearances trying to pass for reality.
If ideology was originally a bridge between the system and the individual as an individual, then the moment he or she steps on to this bridge it becomes at the same time a bridge between the system and the individual as a component of the system.
Naturally, power struggles exist in the post-totalitarian system as well, and most of them are far more brutal than in an open society, for the struggle is not open, regulated by democratic rules, and subject to public control, but hidden behind the scenes. (It is difficult to recall a single instance in which the First Secretary of a ruling Communist Party has been replaced without the various military and security forces being placed at least on alert.)
Position in the power hierarchy determines the degree of responsibility and guilt, but it gives no one unlimited responsibility and guilt, nor does it completely absolve anyone. Thus the conflict between the aims of life and the aims of the system is not a conflict between two socially defined and separate communities; and only a very generalized view (and even that only approximative) permits us to divide society into the rulers and the ruled.
In everyone there is some willingness to merge with the anonymous crowd and to flow comfortably along with it down the river of pseudo-life. This is much more than a simple conflict between two identities. It is something far worse: it is a challenge to the very notion of identity itself.
He rejects the ritual and breaks the rules of the game. He discovers once more his suppressed identity and dignity. He gives his freedom a concrete significance. His revolt is an attempt to live within the truth.
He has shown everyone that it is possible to live within the truth. Living within the lie can constitute the system only if it is universal. The
How does the power of truth operate? How does truth as a factor of power work? How can its power – as power – be realized?
The Prague Spring is usually understood as a clash between two groups on the level of real power: those who wanted to maintain the system as it was and those who wanted to reform it. It is frequently forgotten, however, that this encounter was merely the final act and the inevitable consequence of a long drama originally played out chiefly in the theatre of the spirit and the conscience of society.
One thing, however, seems clear: the attempt at political reform was not the cause of society’s reawakening, but rather the final outcome of that reawakening.
The profound crisis of human identity brought on by living within a lie, a crisis which in turn makes such a life possible, certainly possesses a moral dimension as well; it appears, among other things, as a deep moral crisis in society.
In societies under the post-totalitarian system, all political life in the traditional sense has been eliminated. People have no opportunity to express themselves politically in public, let alone to organize politically. The gap that results is filled by ideological ritual. In such a situation, people’s interest in political matters naturally dwindles and independent political thought, in so far as it exists at all, is seen by the majority as unrealistic, far-fetched, a kind of self-indulgent game, hopelessly distant from their everyday concerns; something admirable, perhaps, but quite
...more
Abstract projects for an ideal political or economic order do not interest them to anything like the same extent – and rightly so – not only because everyone knows how little chance they have of succeeding, but also because today people feel that the less political policies are derived from a concrete and human ‘here and now’ and the more they fix their sights on an abstract ‘some day’, the more easily they can degenerate into new forms of human enslavement.
understood as a political force on the level of actual power (most frequently a party or coalition of parties) which is not a part of the government. It offers an alternative political programme, it has ambitions to govern, and it is recognized and respected by the government in power as a natural element in the political life of the country.
1. Occasionally the term ‘opposition’ is applied, mainly by western journalists, to persons or groups inside the power structure who find themselves in a state of hidden conflict with the highest authorities.
The final reason why many reject such a term is because there is something negative about the notion of an ‘opposition’.
Obviously, the only way to avoid misunderstanding is to say clearly – before one starts using them – in what sense the terms ‘opposition’ and ‘member of the opposition’ are being used and how they are in fact to be understood in our circumstances.
1. They express their nonconformist positions and critical opinions publicly and systematically, within the very strict limits available to them, and because of this, they are known in the West.
4. They are people who lean towards intellectual pursuits, that is, they are ‘writing’ people, people for whom the written word is the primary – and often the only – political medium they command, and that can gain them attention, particularly from abroad.
5. Regardless of their actual vocations, these people are talked about in the West more frequently in terms of their activities as committed citizens, or in terms of the critical, political aspects of their work, than in terms of the ‘real’ work they do in their own fields.
In short, they do not decide to become ‘dissidents’, and even if they were to devote twenty-four hours a day to it, it would still not be a profession, but primarily an existential attitude. Moreover, it is an attitude that is in no way the exclusive property of those who have earned themselves the title of ‘dissident’ just because they happen to fulfil those accidental external conditions already mentioned.
To institutionalize a select category of well-known or prominent ‘dissidents’ means in fact to deny the most intrinsic moral aspect of their activity. As we have seen, the ‘dissident movement’ grows out of the principle of equality, founded on the notion that human rights and freedoms are indivisible.
This explanation, I hope, will make clear the significance of the quotation marks I have put around the word ‘dissident’ throughout this essay.
Masaryk believed that the only possible starting point for a more dignified national destiny was humanity itself. Humanity’s first task was to create the conditions for a more human life; and in Masaryk’s view, the task of transforming the stature of the nation began with the transformation of human beings.
The point where living within the truth ceases to be a mere negation of living with a lie and becomes articulate in a particular way, is the point at which something is born that might be called ‘the independent spiritual, social and political life of society’. This
In terms of traditional politics, this programme of defence is understandable, even though it may appear minimal, provisional and ultimately negative. It offers no new conception, model or ideology, and therefore it is not ‘politics’·in the proper sense of the word, since politics always assumes a ‘positive’ programme and can scarcely limit itself to defending someone against something.
