Vaclav Havel and the Power of the Powerless

There are at least two types of tyrannical political order. The first is one that is implemented by brute force with soldiers or police patrolling everywhere looking to enforce the ruler’s will on a frightened population. The second type of tyranny is one enforces by the people on the people. There is always a coercive force, but it does not require constant patrols by soldiers, because people (whether they believe in the tyrannical policies or not) enforce them or call in the authorities to do so.

Of the two types of tyranny, the second is the more awful. There will always be some toadies in an oppressed culture that will jump over to the other side and work with the oppressors in the first type of tyranny, but the vast majority of people will outwardly comply, but inwardly hope for and be prepared to assist a rebellion. Resistance is cheered, even in small things. This is a totalitarian system of government.

In the second form of tyranny, internal cultural forces demand absolute compliance and offer little hope of freedom. It requires the deletion of civil society—those groups that exist for non-political purposes and which hold societies together—and their replacement with government authorized programs. The second form of tyranny induces citizens, even those who do not explicitly favor the government’s policies, to enforce them through social pressure and, sometimes, by calling in the government’s enforcers. There is little room for people to live in dissent. Vaclav Havel calls this second form a post-totalitarian system.

In Vaclav Havel’s essay, “The Power of the Powerless” he describes what it means to live in a society in which dissent is impossible. He is speaking of his experience in Czechoslovakia, where he was a significant member of the resistance that eventually contributed to that nation being freed from communism.

Havel describes a simple act by a greengrocer, who one day refuses to put the approved Party sign in his windows. He does not believe that “Workers Unite” has any particular significance in a political system designed to entrap everyone in a miasma of misery. He may have already declared his allegiance in various public and semi-public ways through participation in Party activities, without ever believing the concepts. But one must go along to get along.

And yet, though many of the customers will not particularly care about the sentiment “Workers Unite,” because it has no real meaning, the minor resistance of the greengrocer in no affirming the approved common sentiment will be deemed a rebellion. In a post-totalitarian society, social auto-totality will lead to conformity, as word will spread and reach the authorities who will by force ensure compliance, often by removing the right to work. It may not be physical force that is brought to bear, but commercial and social pressure.

The crime of the greengrocer was simply to stop living the lie. He had never truly believed the slogans, like most of the population, but had simply done what was needed to get by. In that moment when he chose to stop putting up slogans, stop voting in farcical elections, and, perhaps, even positively voice an opinion at a political meeting, the greengrocer will have begun to live in the truth, but society will not allow it.

Havel writes as one who has experienced a post-totalitarian system under Communist rule. He worked against the system, though the system did not acknowledge him, and eventually became the prime minister of Czechoslovakia after the end of the Communist oppression ended.

We, however, are seeing the beginning of a very different regime of oppression that is being brought to bear on society more gradually and yet no less insidiously. At present, there is still room to live in the truth, but there are an increasing number of voices looking to make the lie the only possible way of life.

Consider, for example, the rush to ignore differences in sexual expression and the demand to support various forms of LGBTQ lifestyles. One may think those good or not, but participation in much of society is now becoming dependent on active, public affirmation of those lifestyles. There is no room for neutrality or even quietly thinking, along with many of the voices in human history, that this is an unhealthy lifestyle. Instead, employers require affirmation of “diversity” along arbitrarily invented lines, which necessarily exclude diversity of thought, or, really, any thought at all. To refuse to wear a rainbow ribbon on the culturally approved day or affirm the latest evolution in sexual ethics is a form of open rebellion, much as the green grocer’s refusal to post the sign, “Workers Unite.”

At times there is force of law behind these edicts, as with the states that are attacking bakers and florists that decline to participate in same-sex wedding celebrations, but much of the punishment for violating societal norms is meted out by regular people. This is an auto-totality. In Western culture, it is likely to get worse before it gets better.

Havel’s concerns are certainly different than those we face in the auto-totality, but the methods used by the contemporary culture to gain and maintain control are similar to those used by the Soviets in oppressing the people of Eastern Europe. Havel’s essay, “Power to the Powerless,” is informative because it provides a roadmap for those who disagree with the consensus that is being hammered over society to maintain their integrity and not live the lie.

The hope of the resistance should be to create an existential revolution, so that people see and pursue a radically different way of thinking and knowing. That is, the resistance needs to demonstrate that an alternate, moral reality exists and live in a way that points people toward it.

As Havel writes,

“Above all, any existential revolution should provide hope of a moral reconstitution of society, which means a radical renewal of the relationship of human beings to what I have called the ‘human order’, which no political order can replace. A new experience of being, a renewed rootedness in the universe, a newly grasped sense of ‘higher responsibility’, a new-found inner relationship to other people and to the human community – these factor clearly indicate the direction in which we go.”

Havel wrote his ideas on living in truth to fuel an existential revolution leading to moral reconstitution when the fall of communism still seemed unlikely. As the storm clouds of our present auto-totality continue to deepen, we may find it necessary to tighten the boundaries of our contrast communities, rebuild the moral structures within them, and live with greater integrity to demonstrate the plausibility of our moral vision for the world.

The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe

By Havel, Vaclav

Buy on Amazon

A Connection Between Higher Taxes and Freedom of Thought

Is economic freedom important?

There is a slice of American society, many of whom are on the political right, for whom economic freedom—usually characterized by a desire for a libertarian or near anarcho-capitalist society—is an ultimate good that is good in and of itself.

In response, some on the left, especially young people who have lived in the extreme prosperity of the modern West, see economic freedom as an evil to be curbed through “more effective” redistribution of wealth through violence (think the Bezos guillotine protests) or, at the very least, expansive government programs fueled by high taxes.

For some, high taxes are a comparatively small threat when the “major threat of the far right” is concentration camps and a rather pointless, though exceedingly bloody battle in World War I.

One certified blue-checked media personality recently commented: “Seems poignant that the major threat of the far left is higher taxes, while the major threat of the far right is, well, Dachau or Verdun.”

This is, no doubt, a flippant comment in a larger conversation (albeit one that occurred in public), but it is illustrative of a tendency of some to minimize the powerful effect of growing concentrations of power, whether in government or in corporations.

There is no question that there is more than an undercurrent of hostility toward civilization on the far right. However, it remains an open question whether the “major threat of the far left” is something a bit more significant than higher taxes. The violence of Antifa and some of the riots from the summer of 2020 caused by agitators from the far-left indicate that on both poles there is cause for concern.

The Value of Economic Freedom

But the question remains whether higher taxes are really an insignificant threat.

I think it is entirely possible to believe that higher taxes are not “the major threat of the far left” while still believing them to be a significant threat to a healthy society. Of course, that belief would depend on recognizing the value of economic freedom.

Economic freedom is necessary for human flourishing, but it is not sufficient for human flourishing.

An entirely free market (which the U.S. is very far from) would not make people holy and happy. In fact, as we’ve seen through the rise of modernity, economic freedom can leave people nearly as miserable (and sometimes more so) than certain forms of totalitarianism.

In the end, economic freedom does not produce happiness. However, economic freedom does enable, for those who are virtuous and especially in a (basically) virtuous society, the ability to thrive and fulfill the unique calling of being human.

The qualified value of economic freedom can be seen by the effects of its absence.

Alternatives to Economic Freedom

If, as some versions of socialism propose, the government regulates the amount of money a person can earn, then the government fundamentally has the power to police much of human activity.

All human activity is not economic. However, a great deal of human activity is economically engaged. Even “free” activities like worship depend on the economic ability to (a) afford leisure time (i.e., time not directed toward economic productivity) to gather for worship, (b) the ability for a community of like-minded individuals to cooperate and pool resources to fund a house of worship, a vocational pastor, and to support ministries that serve the common good. The economic support for these non-economic goods is enabled by some degree of economic freedom. One must have disposable income to support ideas and communities that one prefers.

Consider further that if the government holds the keys to all wealth, even through well-intentioned redistribution programs funded by confiscatory taxes, then they hold the keys to all ideologies. If disagreeing with the powers that be (especially if those powers are in favor of increased economic control of citizens) can lead to having funding choked off through job loss or increased taxation (which might be in the form of taxation of despised charitable groups, like churches, or preferential treatment of certain charities through access to grants, etc.), then freedom of thought and speech are greatly restricted.

To be clear, the political right has often made mountains out of molehills here. Bad policies like the Affordable Care Act and the Green New Deal are not usually going to lead directly to the forms of economic control that full-on communism has. They will, thus, be unlikely to immediately exert totalitarian control over human thought.

But such soft-totalitarianism isn’t beyond the realm of possibility. Though the Affordable Care Act, for example, does not necessarily entail totalitarianism, the seeds for it have been made evident by the coercive power that has been used in the name of the ACA.

Although the law itself does not actually require funding birth-control or abortifacients, the overriding concern of the regulators responsible for administration of the Affordable Care Act has been coercing, through economic and legal means, groups that object to those medical technologies to fund them. It’s not enough to ensure that workers are medically shielded from significant emergencies; many on the left are insistent that conscientious objectors be forced to fund certain ideologically preferred treatments. For example, there has been a near-pathological focus by the Left on attacking the Little Sisters for the Poor by every means available to demand they fund abortion and abortifacients in strong opposition to their conscience.

For those watching the message is clear: “Fund the ‘medical’ services we prefer or stop existing in the public square. We are willing to use the force of law to force you to comply.”

The same voices that are attempting to claw back economic freedom from people are the ones that seem to be also bent on enforcing ideological homogeneity around their preferred theories. “Cancel culture” is a real thing. Now imagine if the thought leaders that have the power to enact “cancel culture” also have the ability to cut non-preferred individuals out from government benefits.

There may be no edict that declares that one must voice allegiance to ideologies like “white fragility,” but if only meager subsistence is possible apart from government support and if support from the government requires public support for particular ideologies, then the connection between economic freedom and the more basic freedom of conscience (or thought; or speech) becomes apparent.

This seems unthinkable in contemporary America, but dramatic shifts toward public tolerance of contrary ideas has happened rapidly within the history of the past century.

Economic Freedom and Free Thinking

Economic freedom is not sufficient for free thought or the flourishing of society, but it is necessary.

In an essay for a series entitled, “Is Progress Possible?,” C. S. Lewis notes this correlation between flourishing and economic freedom:

“I believe a man is happier, and happy in a richer way, if he has ‘the free-born mind’. But I doubt whether he can have this without economic independence, which the new society [the rising democratic socialism in the U.K.] is abolishing. For economic independence allows an education not controlled by Government and in adult life it is the man who needs, and asks, nothing of the Government who can criticize its acts and snap its fingers at its ideology. Read Montaigne; that’s the voice of a man with his legs under his own table, eating the mutton and turnips raised on his own land. Who will talk like that when the State is everyone’s schoolmaster and employer? Admittedly, when man was untamed, such liberty belonged only to the few. I know. Hence the horrible suspicion that our only choice is between the societies with few freemen and societies with none.”

Or, consider Vaclav Havel’s lengthy essay “The Power of the Powerless,” in which he recounts the soft-totalitarianism of the Soviet ruled Czechoslovakia, where a rebellious act by the green-grocer could be merely not putting up the most recent socialist propaganda in the midst of his produce. The government that controls the economy controls the ability to think and speak.

Threat of Higher Taxes

So the threat of higher taxes is not, perhaps, the major threat from the far-left. Their recently demonstrated willingness to storm cafes to demand people make hand gestures to support their cause, to throw their food on the ground, and to harass them for daring to have quiet conversation with a friend or family member that doesn’t specifically advocate some twisted idea of “justice” are a much deeper threat. Along with that threat is the increasing violence of Antifa, whose methods look more and more like the sort of jackbooted thuggery that they claim to be resisting.

But the threat of an unending expansion of government along the lines proposed by some on the far left, including the outlines explicitly found in proponents of the Green New Deal, are real. It’s more than just higher taxes, but the ability to control the economy to stifle differing opinions.

It seems like hyperbole or slippery slope argumentation to some, but based on the words and behavior of the far left, the less unlikely such attempts to grasp power appear. The most virulent elements on the right and left are still marginal, though they tend to get disproportionate amounts of attention due to the nature of clicks and social networks.

The deeper question for those concerned about the negative effects of the polarized left and right is how to find common cause, create space for cooperation toward mutual concerns, and carve out appropriate space for conscience among increasingly divided understanding of good. That will require a more careful navigation of the significant dangers of the far left and right than simply labeling every disfavored policy on the left “socialism” or denying any concerns about freedom from the right as “selfish individualism” or “fear mongering.”

Freedom of Religion is Freedom of Conscience

One of the biggest problems facing Christians in the United States is a decreasing tolerance for religious viewpoints. More precisely, there is a decreasing tolerance for people actually living out the religious viewpoints that they claim to believe.

Image used by CC license. "It depends on the cage that you're in" by Guercio. http://ow.ly/1ddp300xhpi

Part of the growing pressure on religion is the fallacious assumption that religious thinking is somehow in a different category than non-religious thinking. This assumption is based on a naturalistic worldview that assumes that anything religious is inherently fictitious and therefore arbitrary.

The denigration of religious freedom because of a dismissal of religion as a category fails to recognize the significance of freedom of conscience. It threatens the ability to live in a pluralistic society because it values one totalizing worldview over all others. Opponents of religious freedom think that infringing on the conscience of believers will make the world a better place, but they fail to recognize that religious freedom is simply a subset of freedom of conscience.

The Unfounded Assumption

Making the unfounded assumption that religious thought is somehow inferior to supposedly non-religious thought allows people to argue there is no valid basis for declining to purchase potentially abortion inducing drugs or distribute them to others. When someone makes the assumption that religious thought is purely fiction, then there is no basis for not preferring the supposedly non-religious thought that is dominant in society.

By this way of thinking, religion is just make believe. Therefore, if someone bases a moral determination about a medicine which terminates a pregnancy on that religious foundation, there is no reason to honor that belief. After all, morality based on the make believe doesn’t really count, does it?

But this sort of argumentation—more often assumed than stated—begs the question.

In other words, instead of considering whether someone may have a legitimate basis for choosing not to purchase drugs that may end the life of a child, it merely states that any grounds that do not support unrestricted abortion are illegitimate because they have a religious foundation.

There are several problems with this sort of argumentation.

What’s Wrong With Discarding Religious Reasoning

First, it is incorrect to assume that only religious arguments can oppose abortion. For example, using a basic Kantian categorical imperative, an argument can be made that abortion is wrong because if everyone killed their children, then the human species would die out. Unless that is a desired end, then there is a case to be made in opposition to abortion on non-religious grounds.

There are other cases than abortion inducing drugs in which arguments made on religious grounds could be made on non-religious grounds. The fact that many irreligious people have accepted the dominant worldview that truth is merely a social construct limits the number of people making reasoned arguments contra the current societal consensus. However, unless one assumes that the dominant social construct is always correct, there is little reason to reject all other thinking (religious or otherwise) based on the popularity of post-foundational epistemological assumptions.

Second, simply because an argument has a religious foundation does not necessarily mean that is invalid. In order to rationally hold that belief, one would have to first prove that the religion itself is invalid. While some are convinced that all religion is false, the vast majority of humans in the history of the world (including most currently living) do not agree.

However, the invalidity of religion is exactly what so many contemporary moral arguments in the public square simply assume. This allows people to reject arguments they find inconvenient based on the genetic fallacy, without considering the merits of the opposing position or whether there may be legitimate grounds for dispute. In other words, religion is false, therefore any arguments based on religious principles must also be false, therefore do what popular opinion in society demands.

This is Too Important

If these were merely internet chatroom arguments about the existence of God or the eternal nature of the human soul, then the fallacious argumentation wouldn’t be as dangerous. But the problem is much more significant.

The coercive power of the United States government has grown to the point that it is impacting life or death decisions. The current administration’s regulations that require the purchase of drugs that may cause the termination of pregnancy make a huge moral statement and place a grave moral burden on many believers.

This issue is not one of trivial concern, since it is literally a life or death issue. Those that hold that terminating a pregnancy is a moral evil have reasons for objecting on the deepest level to purchasing or distributing the means by which a life is unjustly ended.

But arguments that hold that abortion is wrong are most often framed in religious terms. In the contemporary social milieu, the assumption is often made that religion is fiction, therefore religious arguments are unimportant. Therefore, any accommodation for faithful religious practice that excludes the purchase and distribution of abortion inducing drugs is invalid.

This sort of argumentation is narrowly circular and fails by being insufficiently self-reflective.

What if every religion isn’t false? What if every belief system isn’t merely a social construct? What if the question of life and death is so important that there needs to be room for dissent, especially in favor of not contributing to needless deaths? What if the social construct that assumes that religion cannot represent truth is incorrect? What if religious and supposedly non-religious thought are in the same category?

These questions are typically not asked, nor permitted to be asked in public debate. Supposedly non-religious thought has gained the ascendency in popular discussions and religious liberty has been pushed into the corner. And yet, religious liberty is nothing more than freedom of conscience.

Freedom of Religion is Freedom of Conscience

Freedom of conscience requires that we do not coerce behaviors when there is a reasonable basis for objection. This is what allows someone who is a non-religious, consistent pacifist to be excused from military service. It doesn’t mean that we have to agree with the person’s thought, but freedom of conscience requires us to leave room for those who have reasonable objections to live consistently with their convictions. There are cases to be made for exceptional circumstances, where someone might need to be coerced, but those are exceptions to a general practice.

Freedom of religion is simply freedom of conscience built on a reasonable basis that is not purely naturalistic. Just as those who believe that eating meat is murder should not be forced to purchase meat for the office barbecue, those who believe terminating a pregnancy is murder should not be forced to buy abortion inducing drugs for their employees. Similarly, those who believe that some religious services denigrate their religion should be permitted to decline participation in those services.

Religion is not another category of thought from non-religious thinking. At least, it is not for those who actually believe what their religion teaches.

This raises an important concern. Couldn’t someone falsely claim their conscience did not allow something simply because of personal dislike or bias? Yes. However, just as we must allow for some abuse of the welfare system to occur so that a necessary safety net is available for those that actually need it, we need to allow for some abuse of freedom of conscience due to irrational and unjust biases.

This is part of the tolerance needed to live in a pluralistic society. There needs to be room for people to disagree with us, even if we don’t like the basis of their disagreement. This is especially true when it comes to issues of prime significance, like desacralizing religious ceremonies and issues of life and death. If people are not free to disagree in those significant issues, then there really is no room for freedom of conscience.

We need to learn to disagree with respect, but there needs to be room for open disagreement if we are to have any legitimate freedom at all.

Secularism is not the Answer

NOTE: This is not a post about Islam. Although the story that inspired this post was about opposing Islam with secularism in France, this is not a commentary on the validity of various forms of that religion.

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I listened to an NPR story the week before Christmas that piqued my interest. The story was about an important issue in light the contemporary debate about religion, terrorism, and the public square. It dealt with an attempt by one French woman to promote secularism to young Muslims in France. 

The whole thing is about four minutes long and is worth a listen.

While the author of the article, Eleanor Beardsley, doesn't provide overt commentary on the woman's activity, this is an article that is promoting a particular view of religion. The activist, Ziaten, is promoting secularism and Beardsley is implicitly lauding it.

Here is an excerpt from the transcript that illustrates the argument:

Amand Riquier, the principal of the high school Ziaten is visiting in the northern suburbs of Paris, says so far, no students have radicalized. But teachers are always looking for the signs, such as a sudden and zealous display of religiousness.

Secularism is one of France's most important values, up there with equality, fraternity and liberty. In French schools, neither students nor teachers can come to class wearing religious symbols such as the Muslim veil or the Jewish skullcap.

Riquier says Madame Ziaten's visit is important.

"She'll be able to explain to them that secularism in schools is not meant to constrain their faith, but is a necessary principle for us all to live together in harmony and equality," he says.

Ziaten tells the students how she moved to France from Morocco at the age of 17. She tells the kids this country gave her — and her French-born children — every opportunity.

She says boys like Mohamed Mehra, and those who attacked Paris this year, were abandoned by their families and society. She says they are utter failures who know nothing about Islam.

Islam is not at war with Europe, Ziaten emphasizes. She tells the students that some are trying to turn Islam into an identity. But it's a religion, she says, and it's a private matter.

"Your identity is French," she says. "And you have a future to build in France."

Enforced Secularism

Based on this worldview, religion is a private matter. It doesn't belong in the public square. 

The argument here is that banning religious expressions in public is necessary for living together. The signs of trouble are when students begin to live religiously.

Used in unaltered form via Creative Common License: http://ow.ly/WleKO

In other words, religion is ok unless you actually live like it's true. The only forms of religion that are acceptable, by this standard, are those that don't make a difference in the way that you live.

Unfortunately, that defies the very nature of religion. Every meaningful religion makes demands. Sometimes those are consistent with the standards of the world and at other times they are not. Telling people they can't live out their faith is telling them that their faith does not matter, and that their religion isn't true. That is problematic.

In this case, it makes the assumption that the values of secularism are superior to all other religions. 

The Values of Worldviews

There is no such thing as a neutral worldview. Every worldview has values.

Beardsley acknowledges this in her article, "Secularism is one of France's most important values, up there with equality, fraternity and liberty."

The naked public square isn't naked; it's filled to the brim with values that make totalizing demands on life. In this case, one of the most significant values is 'secularism,' which in this context appears to mean denying the significance of religion.

So secularism is making religious claims, but without the argumentation. This doesn't promote liberty, it promotes a tyranny of the mind and soul. It makes absolute claims on every part of life, but without the warrant for it.

Conclusion

I've heard it said that Europe is usually a generation ahead of the US culturally. Many people make moral arguments based on what Europe does, especially about social policies. The assumption appears to be that they are doing it right and the US is dragging behind. However, before we support the tyrannical secularism that France has, we need to consider whether true religious liberty should be sacrificed for that purpose. Not allowing people to practice their religion openly and being overtly hostile to public demonstrations of faith may make it easier to live together, but it may make it harder to live.

While France's anti-religious policies may limit the radicalization of Muslims in public, it may also override the basic right to a freedom of conscience. That seems a high price to pay for peace.