With passing of Vaclav Havel last Sunday I went back and quickly refreshed my memory and paged through his essay “The Power of the Powerless” from 1979. (I actually possess genuine copy of a samizdat edition which I helped put together sometimes around 1986).
I was astounded! It is an old document, but I found it surprisingly refreshing and inspiring. In the center is a sharp analysis of how power operates, how it exercise control over society, how it presents itself as just, fair and democratic, while not being anything of it, giving people impression of freedom, while catching them in snares of corrupted and corrupting power. In many places you can just substitute plutocracy for totalitarianism and Havel’s analysis reads as if it was written today.
But this document is not only an analysis. It also has a programmatic edge. It shows that even in quite adverse conditions it is possible to start forming small islands of alternative living (life in truth), dissident/alternative culture, seeds and saplings of truly civic society.
Just like in East Germany, Poland, or Czechoslovakia, churches have marvelous possibilities to participate, model and to shape this long-term intellectual and spiritual quest for waking up people and empowering the powerless and creating alternative models of living together.
Will you be interested in seminar discussion (Book discussion) of this interesting document?
--------------added on 2011-12-23
I was astounded! It is an old document, but I found it surprisingly refreshing and inspiring. In the center is a sharp analysis of how power operates, how it exercise control over society, how it presents itself as just, fair and democratic, while not being anything of it, giving people impression of freedom, while catching them in snares of corrupted and corrupting power. In many places you can just substitute plutocracy for totalitarianism and Havel’s analysis reads as if it was written today.
But this document is not only an analysis. It also has a programmatic edge. It shows that even in quite adverse conditions it is possible to start forming small islands of alternative living (life in truth), dissident/alternative culture, seeds and saplings of truly civic society.
Just like in East Germany, Poland, or Czechoslovakia, churches have marvelous possibilities to participate, model and to shape this long-term intellectual and spiritual quest for waking up people and empowering the powerless and creating alternative models of living together.
Will you be interested in seminar discussion (Book discussion) of this interesting document?
--------------added on 2011-12-23
I would like to invite those interested for a home seminar on January 8th at 7p.m. In the spirit of the dissident nonpolitical politics we will gather for tea and discussion of this interesting document. Please contact me soon about your interest.
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