The following is my research paper on the Czech Dissidents from my course on human rights in Prague and Krakow. It was recently presented at the Honors Colloquium which was a lot of fun. Dan and James presented with me and excerpts from Willy's paper on Potocka's phenomenology as a basis for dissidence was read (Willy couldn't present because he is in Germany). My paper is on the dissidents themselves and Dan's paper, "Coping and Resisting: A Meliorist Ethic" which I'll ask permission to post was on the Czech citizens themselves and how they lived with the Communist regime during normalization. James read his poem "Concentration" which was about Auschwitz and Birkenau. He always says "I write bad poetry" but I don't think he does. We all found his poem to be deeply moving. The whole presentation took a lie of it's own during the questions and answers session in which we all discussed and reflected upon the important of authentic human face to face contact is in order to move forward towards a healthier government, culture, community, and world. I hope you enjoy this paper. (Jenna did a sketch of Dan and I while we were presenting. Check it out)
Miguel Carter-Fisher
Human Rights in E Europe: PHI 470 and 471
Dr. Moen and Dr. Aliotta
An Ontology Informing and Informed by Dissidence
This paper will address the various attitudes of some of the Czech dissidents on the nature of truth (through solitude or through discourse), the dialectic nature between the two, and the relationship between morality and politics. It will also address Benda’s conception of an alternative polis in which culture exist outside of the formal structure of a society through the establishment of new structures, as well as another dialectic between formal government and culture. In conclusion I want to address the necessity of human rights in avoiding the alienation of labor in relation to maintaining dialectic with one’s culture, and finally the necessity of a social as well as individual consciousness.
To begin let’s take a look at Vaclav Havel and his conception of “life in truth.” For Havel an individual either lived in truth through public dialogue or lived in lie. Under communism living a lie meant participating in the “ritualistic ideological automatism of the system. (Tucker 116)” Aviezer Tucker, author of the book “The Philosophy and Politics of Czech Dissidence from Patocka to Havel” writes that according to Havel:
. . . life in a lie cannot eliminate the essential human potentiality for life in truth. Self-alienation is possible only because a repressed potentiality for authentic life in truth is always present. People can always start living in truth; in the Communist context, this could be achieved by ceasing to utter ritualistic ideological nonsense and restoring meanings to words. Life in truth reveals reality and presents a moral example for others to follow, thereby demolishing the alienation at the foundation of the Communist system. (Tucker 116-117)
Please keep this alienation under the communist system in mind because we will come back to it towards the end of this paper. For Havel living in truth is not a utilitarian act of doing what is likely to lead to favorable results but to act in a way that is essentially human. Tucker quotes Havel, “By the way, the representatives of power invariably come to terms with those who live within the truth by persistently ascribing utilitarian motivations to them – a lust for power or fame or wealth – and thus they try, at least, to implicate them in their own world, the world of general demoralization. (117)” To further illuminate Havel’s conception of truth the following is a quote from Havel’s essay “Politics and conscience.”
One such fundamental experience, that which I called 'anti-political politics', is possible and can be effective, even though by its very nature it cannot calculate its effect beforehand. That effect, to be sure, is of a wholly different nature from what the West considers political success. It is hidden, indirect, long term and hard to measure; often it exists only in the invisible realm of social consciousness, conscience and subconsciousness and it can be almost impossible to determine what value it assumed therein and to what extent, if any, it contributes to shaping social development. It is, however, becoming evident—and I think that is an experience of an essential and universal importance—that a single, seemingly powerless person who dares to cry out the word of truth and to stand behind it with all his person and all his life, ready to pay a high price, has, surprisingly, greater power, though formally disfranchised, than do thousands of anonymous voters. . . The warning voice of a single brave scientist, besieged somewhere in the provinces and terrorized by a goaded community, can be heard over continents and addresses the conscience of the mighty of this world more clearly than entire brigades of hired propagandists can, though speaking to themselves. It is becoming evident that wholly personal categories like good and evil still have their unambiguous content and, under certain circumstances, are capable of shaking the seemingly unshakeable power with all its army of soldiers, policemen and bureaucrats. It is becoming evident that politics by no means need remain the affair of professionals and that one simple electrician with his heart in the right place, honouring something that transcends him and free of fear, can influence the history of his nation.
Yes, 'anti-political politics' is possible. Politics 'from below'. Politics of man, not of the apparatus. Politics growing from the heart, not from a thesis. It is not an accident that this hopeful experience has to be lived just here, on this grim battlement. Under the 'rule of everydayness' we have to descend to the very bottom of a well before we can see the stars. (Havel, from the essay “Politics and conscience”)
So what we have in Havel is a dissident who feels that any individual can bring about positive social change through engaging their society. According to Tucker, in reference to Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” Havel was one who felt the duty to “return to the cave” and tell their compatriots (116).
This feeling was not shared by another dissident named Rezek who felt that Havel had denied truth to individuals who had no social connections and denied dissidence outside of a social context. The either or of resisting the system and living in truth, or conforming to the system and living a lie, did not work for Rezek. He felt that some individuals avoided conflict but still lived in truth. If as Havel thinks, truth is only possible through dialogue between individuals, than it is impossible to live in truth outside of society. But if truth can come through internal dialogues, as Rezek believes, there is no necessity for a social context. For philosophers like Rezek truth is a private experience, an artistic like revelation (Tucker 118). To Rezek the experience of truth requires danger and conflict which can exist outside of a political context and must be maintained to live in truth. To Rezek, going back to the “Allegory of the Cave,” once out of the cave, one must struggle to stay out of it (Tucker 119).
Personally I prefer Havel’s conception of truth to Rezek’s due to its individualistic nature and uselessness on a social level. What good are the enlightened if they treat their enlightenment as a mystical experience which cannot be communicated or influential on others? This is not to say that his standpoint is without value. Internal dialogue is as important as external dialogue and the necessity of conflict is a factor in Rezek’s which I do not believe should be too easily overlooked. Truths do come out of the necessity to solve problems.
Perhaps Tucker is making a generalization of Rezek and Havel. If so, for the sake of philosophical discourse, let’s continue thinking of what has been written of them so far not as their entire beings, but as two abstract philosophical standpoints which will lay down the foundation for the rest of this paper.
I believe that these two standpoints must be synthesized to get at a truer sense of what life in truth is or at least how we can move towards it. Two examples of the synthesizing of these standpoints are the Dissident Martin Palous, and more indirectly Havel’s play “Largo Desolato” which I believe shows the necessity of the synthesis through the mutual failure of both.
Tucker states that “Patocka envisioned Carter 77, according to Palous, as an apolitical and pre-political moral act, much like Socrates apolitics, thoroughly typical of the spirit of the polis.” This idea of pre-political moral acts and the spirit of the polis I feel are very necessary conceptions. Usually moral acts come only as reactionary, but here we see the establishment outside of the system of a moral disposition. Palous agreed with “Rezek-like withdrawal from the social sphere, but only for the sake of returning to the public sphere, as Havel would advocate. (Tucker 120)” With this I believe two dialectic systems can be unified under the same reciprocal pattern. First we have the internal dialogue one carries on with himself, and then we have the synthesis of that dialogue carried out in another dialogue externally with others. In the same fashion the Dissidents had Charter 77 which establishes a pre-political morality than is then engaged dialectically with the already existing political/moral standards. What I am now going to argue is not just the common pattern of these two forms of dialogue but also their necessity upon one another through Havel’s “Largo Desolato.”
In “Largo Desolato” the main character Leopold lives a trapped life of repetition in his flat. It is clear that he is a dissident of some kind or another who is paranoid due to his expectations of intelligence agents coming to his door. The whole play takes place the repetitious actions of Leopold and the dialogue runs in circles. Leopold is encouraged to reengage with the outside world. His friend Bertram confronts Leopold:
What happened to your perspective on things? To your humour? Your industry and persistence? The pointedness of your observations? Your irony and self-irony? Your capacity for enthusiasm, for emotional involvement, for commitment, even for sacrifice? I fear for you, Leopold- I fear for us! We need you! You have no idea how we need you, we need you the way you used to be! So I am asking you to swear that you won’t give up – Don’t weaken! Keep at it! Get a grip on yourself! Pull yourself together! Straighten up! (Havel, “Largo Desolato”)
Here in this passage the nature of Leopold’s relationship to Bertram and others is stated to be directly correlated to Leopold’s self. The line “we need you the way you used to be” packs a punch. In theory through pulling himself together (internal dialogue) Leopold should be able satisfy the external demands and reengage with the external world. But this is not the case. Later on in the play Leopold identifies his current state by quoting this passage word for word. His internal self is dependent upon the perception of others as those others are dependent upon the nature of his internal self. It is completely reciprocal and completely circular. It is a static relationship. Bertram’s statement only tells Leopold what he is not and Leopold from here does not gather what he is. His self-consciousness is empty and so are his actions. The only way it could be broken is if Leopold changes his self-consciousness and then changes his external action, or changes his external action which will ultimately change his self-consciousness. In either case novelty is necessary and the only chance he gets for novelty is robbed from him when the intelligence agents do not punish him for his actions when he refuses to obey them. External and internal dialogue, both Rezek and Havel’s paths to truth, are completely woven together. Self preservation and preservation of one’s community are inseparable.
In Disturbing the Peace Havel further illustrates the interdependency of the self and the external world.
I too feel somewhat here there is a basic tension of which the present global crisis has grown. At the same time, I’m persuaded that this conflict – and the increasingly hypertrophic impersonal power itself – is directly related to the spiritual condition of modern civilization. This condition is characterized by loss: the loss of metaphysical certainties, of an experience of transcendental, of any superpersonal moral authority, and of any kind of higher horizon. It is strange but ultimately quite logical: as soon as man began considering himself the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it. (Havel, 10-11)
This passage illustrates some very important conflicts of our time. We have the loss of a God like authority and must turn to ourselves and to one another for our morality, culture, governments, and our own personal sense of identity. On top of that this identity which we have as an opposing standpoint in the dialectic we have with the word is reduced to a static relationship, something to own, something to measure and conquer, and our own identities grow stiff. We need discovery, wonder, and difference from the world so that we in a Hegelian sense can reflect back onto ourselves through the other and become self-conscious. By becoming the “measure of all things,” and replacing our conceptual models for real life experience, which is easily done through irresponsible media and an increasingly alienated culture, we are turning the world into a grand mirror in which we try to carry on a conversation with our own reflections. Ultimately it reflects a necessity to question whether one is reflection back upon one's self through an other in which a dialogue takes place, or whether one is merely confirming one's self through an already existing model of the other.
A side point to this is various experiences I had discussing the E. U. While talking to a Polish student in Krakow she explained to me the benefits it brought through common legislation, economic interdependency and how it promotes peace, and open borders for travel. I thought wow this is really fantastic. Then while talking to a teacher of mine who teaches in various cities in Italy every summer, and is extremely Italian himself how he felt. He agreed that all the benefits were fantastic but said that it was the homogeneity which upset him in certain instances. One instance he brought up is that a certain group of cheese makers in Italy he knew could no longer grow there cheese in caves after joining the E.U. They had to meet the common standard of growing there cheese with stainless steel equipment. Now I have no proof of this incident beyond what I was told but let’s get around that by looking at it if not as a fact, then as a hypothetical. If something like this were to happen than that is a small blow to that individual culture. In light of the benefits I’d say well no big deal, regulations on food are necessary although perhaps a warning would be a better way to handle it than outlawing it, but the problem is that in our world there are many small blows which create ultimately one big one. I am not blaming this on the E.U. I am merely stating that it is a serious threat we must take into consideration during globalization. For every loss of one’s craft and culture there is a loss in humanity. Part of the human dimension to the world is lost. I am sensitive to this matter because I am a painter (in the traditional sense) and for and in a profession such as my own, you recognize the grand desert which has been created in our modern times, and feel the weight of humanity lost. When I went to see the contemporary art in the Museum of Modern Art in Prague it was the sameness of it which left me depressed. No true dialectic was involved, there was no other to reflect back onto my own self-consciousness, only the same stale inhuman walls I had seen all my life in the States. It was an empty nothing, and I having nothing, felt nothing that is, except anger and desperation.
The reason I bring this all up is because it ties directly back into the Dissidents and the Socratic Method which lies at the very foundation of the western philosophical tradition. Tucker states that the Czech dissidents recaptured something very basic about the relationship between politics and philosophy. The relationship he states must have been obvious to the Greeks in the era of Socrates and Plato. He continues that “when philosophers became academics, they had to give up some of their perfection or authenticity. In countries where they became state employees, their search for political truth became compromised by their dependence on state funds, and they became less critical of the state. Communism forced philosophers out of the confines of the academy. They had to find manual jobs, but in return they gained the kind of liberty that only the generation of Socrates had been able to exercise. (Tucker 122)” I take this to mean that philosophers like the examples of art, Leopold in Largo Desolato, and world cultures in general, are loosing their use of the other whether it is their own other in which they reflect back upon themselves, or as the other as a means to reflection. In other words, they aren't carrying a dialectic with the world. Here we come back around to Rezek and his stance that the experience of truth requires danger and conflict which can exist outside of a political context and must be maintained to live in truth.
This maintenance of the truth, staying out of the cave looking at the sun, is Socratic in that it reflects how Socrates positioned himself outside of the Athenian citizens he questioned, although Socrates was not completely out of the cave he was separated from those who were completely in the gave by the way in which he tried to find his way out. Now what is significant which Rezek leaves out is the fact that the way out of the cave for Plato and Socrates was through dialogue. This is where Havel’s conception of the path to truth comes in and in a way they are synthesized through Plato’s dialogues.
One quote which has always stood out to me ever since I began philosophy is”
Perhaps someone may say, “Aren’t you ashamed, Socrates, to have engaged in the sort of occupation that has now put you at risk of death?” I, however, would be right to reply to him, “You’re not thinking straight, sir, if you think that a man who’s any use at all should give any opposing weight to the risk of living or dying, instead of looking to this alone whenever he does anything: whether his actions are just or unjust, the deeds of a good or bad man. (Plato, 54)
This clarifies Socrates stance, and in Plato’s writings he did die for his occupation. Patocka’s students all had to rewrite Plato’s “Crito” in which they had to choose between suffering an unjust death as Socrates did, or accepting the exile offered to Socrates. This debate is reflected strongly in Rezek and Havel’s disagreement in which Rezek feels that some individuals avoided conflict but still lived in truth as stated earlier. The conflict also existed between Havel and Milan Kendura in which Havel was willing to accept imprisonment, and Kendura who was critical of the moral and political effectiveness of intellectuals under totalitarianism preferred liberty in exile (Tucker 123). Personally I believe there is a necessity for both. I see the necessity to confront the totalitarian regime, but at the same time that confrontation does not have to be made alone but can be done through the aid of foreign powers. The either or attitude fails to realize the interdependency and influence various nations have on each other politically, and economically in an increasingly global community. I will not judge the either or attitude of the dissidents so harshly seeing as I’m sure it reflected a time in which globalization was not as prominent, and exile was probably a greater distance away given the scale of the eastern block. Then again if you look back on Czech history the formation of Czechoslovakia was based heavily on getting the allies to support the cause. I believe that a productive exile can carry out a similar purpose.
From here I want to go into Benda's Parallel Polis. The dissident Benda's solution was not to attack the totalitarian regime, or to compromise with them, but to ignore them. He wanted to create alternative and parallel social, political, and economic institutions (Tucker, 127). One example of an alternative parallel institution was Samizdat music and literature which was more interesting and influential than the cultural products of official communism. Samizdat helped preserve Czechoslovakian culture as well as make global cultural contributions. Tucker states that contributions were made by "Hrabal, Klima, Kohout, Sidon, Havel, and others in literature; Bondy in poetry, Lapatka in literary criticism; and Patocka and his students in philosophy" who had, "published much, if not all, of their world-class contributions in samizdat. (Tucker, 128)"
Benda also suggested the creation of parallel educational institutions which would be an alternative to the incompetent state system, parallel economic institutions that would provide dissidents with material security and independence from the state through contributions from the west. Because of the need for western support Benda also pushed for alternative foreign policy. This aid could be used for financial assistance, educational instruction through visits to Western scholars, some of which gave lectures in private homes, but never amounted to a University. Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty also played a role as an alternative source for broadcasted information. Benda also wanted the establishment of connections to other dissidents throughout the Soviet bloc. The Charter 77 dissidents were successful in establishing contacts in Poland who they met along mountain tops on the Polish-Czechoslovakian border (129).
This relationship to Poland is important because it illustrates the ultimate reality of Benda's alternative polis. The Polish and Hungarian Communist leadership responded to popular discontent through relaxing their oppression of the society which created some space for dissidence and for movements like Solidarity in Poland. In Czechoslovakia the leadership protected itself by intensifying political power. Charter 77 dissidents faced "the full blunt of state oppression." The space in which Benda wanted his parallel polis did not exist in Czechoslovakia and totalitarian oppression isolated the dissidents from the rest of the population. Out of this came an emphasis on authenticity within the very limited community of the dissidents (Tucker, 129).
This emphasis on authenticity really struck me. Tucker states that "dissidents characterized their independence as personal and communal authenticity, free expression of one's self and free association. (129)" I now want to take this back to the the previous paragraphs in which I talked about the necessity of an other to reflect on, or in other words a Socrates like figure. I believe that this is directly tied into the Dissidents emphasis on authenticity. Under totalitarianism one's ability to express one's voice is not taken for granted. If you are going to speak, speak authentically. Too often do we take our freedom of speech for granted in the United States. This is not to say that our media is a perfect system in which all we have to do is raise our voice and the masses will hear. Infact it is very difficult for marginalized and critical voices to be heard against the flood of mainstream media. And because of this we are stuck in a very bad place. Our freedom of speech, like other human rights, are not as easily attainable as we imagine to be, and on top of that we do not culturaly put enough emphasis on utilizing those rights. An example of this to my own mind is the rejection of education and the persuit of material gain expressed in mainstream African American entertainment put up against the previous generations of African Americans who struggled just to be able to go to school fought to be allowed to read. It is tragic and I think the emphasis on authenticity is something we ought to adopt from the Czech dissidents.
But instead we have a culture that cringes far too easily. We avoid the spiritual, the sentimental, and any other value which is not readily attached to material gain. Infact our kitsch is often our avoidence of kitsch. We have a value system in which perfection is somehow attainable and somewhere above the human condition. Everything is overproduced and polished in some form or another. The following is a passage in which I think Tucker illustrates this point:
Some Western commentators (I recall a review of Letters to Olga in the New York Review of Books) just did not understad that publishing Havel's complaints about his hemorrhoids was an authentic antithesis to the Communists' hero-worshiping descriptions of their imprisoned martyrs who never had any human weaknesses and therefore lacked any credibility. (Tucker, 131)
I believe he illustrates this point because it shows that the West already exist in a position which largely does not empathize or understand the necessity for authenticity such as Havel's experience stated above. Our media portrayals of celebrities and politicians is one in which they are expected to express a certain level of perfection, and tearing them down to the level of average human is something people take great pleasure in through a whole variety of telivision shows. Implicit in it is the idea that with wealth and fame you are something greater than average, you are an ideal. So how is our media in this regard, much better than the one the Czechs went up against under the totalitarian regime?
Another issue of our culture which relates to this is pornography and when I use this word I do not mean what is commonly thought of but a much broader category. First of all I believe that the difference between pornography and erotica is that erotica is grounded in something authentic, something in the human condition. It is not a perversion of it. Secondly, sex is not the only thing in our culture that gets distorted and separated from the human condition in this way. Violence is also widely accepted and detached from authenticity by the media (news, film, telivision, etc.) desynthesizing us. So when I say pornography what I mean is on the whole our cultures unauthentic culture. We would benefit a great deal for an emphasis on authenticity.
Havel did not think that an independent society such as Benda's parallel polis was possible in Czechoslovkia, although there were forms of alternative culture and literature. This was not seen as a negative to Havel who saw in the impossibility of two independent societies in Czechoslovakia the possibility of the actions taken by dissidents to have more influcence on the general population (Tucker 130). I think this ties back in Havel's belief that living in truth is through public dialogue. Because there could not be a complete separation dialogue as opposed to alienation was possible. The idea of a parallel polis, or any form of seperatism falls much under Rezek's notion of living in truth. Ultimately I think this goes to show that it is a gradiated scale between alienation and conformity, and a balance between the two is where dialogue is possible. Culturally we have to be careful not to confuse the recognition of difference with segregation and this brings us into a broader argument between pluralism and relativism. If the parallel polis had been successful I wonder what good it could have been to the masses of Czechoslovakia. It would be relativistic, and alienate them from the people, perhaps even create an elitism amongst them. Going back to Tuckers analogy that Rezek's philosophical attitude was to stay out of the cave, and Havels was to return to bring more out into the sun, I want to argue that the conflict which Rezek said was so necessary to live in truth is not to struggle to stay in the light, but to struggle to do just what Havel argued for. To be put simply, to help others, is to help yourself. An example of this I am familiar with is in recovery programs such as AA in which one path that can be taken is to be the sponsor of another alcoholic. Another example of this is teaching in which by passing on knowledge to others and hearing what others have to say you yourself learn and grow more. This now I have it and I better do my best to keep it is a horribly prevelent attitude here in the United States. More and more people live in not just fragmented fenced in communities, but there own homes are fragmented and fence in from those within their communities. Know I know the world is not as safe as it was or atleast not as safe as it was percieved to be in 1950, but part of that problem is the means in which we try to rid it, which is through alienation. We live in a time in which people see each other and often think "I don't trust you because I don't know you and I don't want to get to know you because I can't trust you." On top of this we have political correctness which henders education, communication, and the possibility of dynamic and constructive relationships. Nothin can be done in a culture where people are too afraid to step on each others toes, and on top of that not be expected to work it out. Lets agree to disagree just doesn't cut it. Homogeneity must be let go of. It's time to be influenced and to be influential. I believe the first step to solving these problems is not just communication but communication that is as authentic as possible.
Leadership is also a very significant issue which ties into this. Benda states:
when the next crisis comes, the next moment of decision about the future of our nations, the good will of most of society (. . . this has so far been incredibly good and always brutally disappointed) will find a sufficiently clear and a sufficiently authoritative articulation . . .our political leadership must be on the same level of thinking as society. (Tucker, 133)
I think in recent years under the Bush administration many Americans are feeling the same way, if they did not feel this way already. How do you end up in a situation like the war in Iraq? I believe a large part of it has to do with alienation. The media alienated those who were against the war from the beginning, the Bush administration alienated the U.N., we alienated ourselves through going there with complete disregard for the culture and history of Iraq, and the media continues to alienate us through the use of tactics which further seperate us from the authentic truth of the situation. Lives are turned into numbers and violence is masked by charts and diagrams. So how do we even begin to have leadership which reflects us. Globally how do those without power maintain there human rights when those who do have power are so far removed. Just earlier today while driving down Albany ave. (which goes through an extremely depressed poor black neighborhood) a classmate of mine said "what the hell was that, I thought I was going to get muged" in a joking voice with a smile on his face. I was disgusted because I know that although that fear is very real, what really got to him because it gets to all of us is having to leave our safe circular campus and face the reality of those who are not nearly as privledged as ourselves. It is so difficult to even recognize them as a part of the world when I am thinking about the world of academics and art for that matter. Well our leaders so easily look past those who's human rights are trampled on by the same fault. In the world of making money as a top priority, how do you add the value of human life to the equation? It is easy and right for us to be so dissapointed as Benda expressed, but before we are too dissapointed in their overlooking us, we should also take into consideration whether we should be dissapointed in ourselves by overlooking others. We have to stop evading authenticity.
While on the topic of alienation I would like to talk about the alienation of labor as well. In Alienated Labor Marx Marx criticizes the Political economy by talking about how it separates the worker from his work, turning into a "cheaper commodity the more commodities he produces." He continues that the increase in the value of things correlates to the decrease in the value of the human world (Marx, 1086). He also writes that in such a system the worker is "related to the product of his labor as to an alien object." He writes, "Political economy conceals the alienation in the nature of labor by ignoring the direct relationship between the worker (labor) and production. (Marx, 1087)" The relationship between worker and labor is one where the labor is externalized from the worker. Marx then goes into what constitutes this externalization:
First is the fact that labor is external to the laborer - that is, it is not part of his nature - and that the worker does not affirm himself in his work but denies himself, feels miserable and unhappy, develops no free physical and mental energy but mortifies his flesh and ruins his mind. The worker, therefore feels at ease only outside work, and during work he is outside himself. (Marx, 1088)
This is a very important passage to me because it reflects the experience of many Czechs I imagine under totalitarianism. It is ironic really that the communist regime would go against whatt I perceive to be a fundamental part of Marxism. When many of the Dissidents as well as other Czech citizens were not allowed to be published, or not allowed to work where they chose, or not allowed to go to certain schools, wasn't this a form of alienating labor. It is not explicitly alienation in the sense that Marx expresses but related into it indrectly. How can the laborer internalize and find himself through his labor if he/she has to do labor that is against his/her will? This illuminates what I believe to be a very serious issue concerning human rights. How can you efficiently make sure that laborers identify with their work across the vast number of occupations and life styles? I think this is a basic human right in that it is a basic human right not to be a slave, although becoming a slave to labor in this sense is slavery not in the traditional sense, but class, economic, and in the case of the dissidents, to a degree slavery for one's views. With this I conclude that freedom of expression and the avoidance of slavery are completely bound.
Another issue which plays into this is how little control a worker may have over how static or fleeting his occupation is. Oursourcing of jobs as well as an inability to move freely both hold the worker in a bind. On top of this is the way in which we value jobs. It is socially frowned upon to be a garbage collector, plumber, or in some cases a teacher even though these are apart of a large category of occupations which are absolutely necessary to the well being of society. This is because our value systems are based on material value, or in other words how much does it pay, and we equate money with respect and dignity. This problem can be remedied by a reconstruction of our values, and an economic hierarchy that is fair to the weight and responsibility of the workers.
I think this issue reflects a larger issue than just capitalism or communism. Havel expresses this well when asked if he has a more concrete notion of a better social system:
I've already admitted to having one. The traditional political debate between the right and the left revolves around the ownership of the means of production, to put it in Marxist terms: that is, around the question of whether business enterprises should be privately run or made public property. Frankly, I don't see taht that is the main problem. I would put it this way: The most important thing is that man should be the measure of all structures, including economic structures, and not that man be made to measure for those structures. The most important thing is not to lose sight of personal relationships . . . (Havel, 13)
Ultimately the Charter 77 Dissidents did not completely overthrow the Communist party, but when the Soviet bloc collapsed they negotiated the transfer of power (Tucker, 133). What is interesting to me about this is that it shows the significance of their work as dissidents as something that did not have an obvious an immediate impact, but served a purpose when the time came. I think it expresses the necessity of a moral foundation before politics. When the Velvet Revolution happend it was not destruction and chaos because individuals like the dissidents were working to think of new systems and new values despite how futile things may have seemed. Havel ssaid "I don't think catastrophes are essential for all improvement in human thought, nor do I think they automatically produce such changes. (Havel, 18)" Too often people react to events with no foundation or center behind them. I think it shows the significance of hypothetical thought and, the ability to imagine change, as the dissidents put it "living in truth" even if it doesn't seem to make a difference at the time. Society will always need social critics to engage it in an ongoing dialectic and this role is a key role to the role of philosophers. I hope it is never lost.
Bibliography
"Vaclav Havel - Living in Truth". 03/08
Havel, Vaclav. Disturbing The Peace. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.
Tucker, Aviezer. The Philosophy and Politics of Czech Dissidence from Patocka to Havel. Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press, 2000.
Marx, Karl. "Alienated Labor." Classics of Moral and Political Theory. Hacket Publishing Company, Inc. Fourth Edition. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Michael L. Morgan, 2005. 1086-1092.
Platol. "Apology." Classics of Moral and Political Theory. Hacket Publishing Company, Inc. Fourth Edition. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Michael L. Morgan, 2005. 46-63.
In addition to covering some of the main points of this paper I tied it back into the title, one which this paper originally did not have, which involves the word Ontology. The study of Ontology is the question "what kind of beings are we?" I ended by saying that we are relational beings capable of constructing our own moralities outside of static ideologies through our own experience and authentic relationships to one another.
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