Vaclav Havel: The Power of the Powerless

Hanover College History Department ^ | 1978 | Vaclav Havel

[ConservativeDude]

Vaclav Havel "The Power of the Powerless" (1978)

A SPECTER is haunting Eastern Europe: the specter of what in the West is called "dissent" This specter has not appeared out of thin air. It is a natural and inevitable consequence of the present historical phase of the system it is haunting....

[ConservativeDude]

Take down any slogans which have been thrust upon you.

Resist.

And out of the ashes, eventually.....

[ConservativeDude]

from the final paragraph:

“The original and most important sphere of activity, one that predetermines all the others, is simply an attempt to create and support the independent life of society as an articulated expression of living within the truth. In other words, serving truth consistently, purposefully, and articulately, and organizing this service. This is only natural, after all: if living within the truth is an elementary starting point for every attempt made by people to oppose the alienating pressure of the system, if it is the only meaningful basis of any independent act of political import, and if, ultimately, it is also the most intrinsic existential source of the “dissident” attitude, then it is difficult to imagine that even manifest “dissent” could have any other basis than the service of truth, the truthful life, and the attempt to make room for the genuine aims of life.”

[Gen.Blather]

I sit behind Prius’ and Subaru’s at traffic lights. Their bumper stickers read like Soviet propaganda. Green this, Labor that, Save the xxx, A Baby’s a choice, Vote Obama/Biden. The cars themselves are political statements, “I am saving the environment. You are killing it with your bigger car.” But the bumper stickers are pure adherence to the secular faith. “I am one of us, the great many. You can’t criticize me.”