The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1411: Havel's 'The Power of the Powerless' - Part 3

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

52 MinutesPG-13Pete continues a reading of Václav Havel's dissident essay, "The Power of the Powerless."The Power of the PowerlessPete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's Substack Pete's SubscribestarPete's PaypalPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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If not, here's a show. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekignana Show. I am going to continue my reading of Baclav Havels, The Power of the Powerless. we are up to part nine, and I'm just going to pick right up from where I left off last time. Here we go. 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. A person who has been seduced by the consumer value system whose identity is dissolved, in an amalgam of the accoutrement of mass civilization, and who has no roots in the order of being, no sense of responsibility for anything higher than his own personal survival, is a demoralized person. The system depends on this demoralization, deepens it, is in fact a projection of it into society. He's talking about deracination. Living within the truth, as humanity's revolts against as enforced, position is, an enforced position is, on the contrary, an attempt to regain control over one's

own sense of responsibility. It all starts with the you. In other words, it is clearly a moral act, not only because one must pay so dearly for it, but principally because it is not self-serving. The risk may bring rewards in the form of a general amelioration in the situation, or it may not. In this regard, as I stated previously, it is an all-or-nothing gamble, and it is difficult to imagine a reasonable person embarking on such a course merely because he reckons its sacrifice today will bring rewards tomorrow, be it only in the form of general gratitude. By the way, the representatives of power invariably come to terms with those who live within the truth by persistently ascribing utilitarian motives 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. You're just blackpilling. You're a grifter. Havel heard all of this. He knew this. He saw this. Oh, you just want to rule over people. You just want to be famous.

You're a grifter. You're blackpilling because you're lying. You're knowingly lying about Trump. Trump's a hero. Trump's defeating my enemies. And if you don't agree with me, you're knowingly lying. If living within the truth in the post-totelitarian system becomes a chief breeding ground for independent alternative political ideas,

then all considerations about the nature and future prospects of these ideas must necessarily reflect this moral dimension as a political phenomenon. This is in parentheses. And if the revolutionary Marxist belief about morality as a product of the superstructure inhibits any of our friends from realizing the full significance of this dimension and, in one way or another, from including it in their view of the world, it is to their own detriment. An anxious fidelity to the postulates of that worldview prevents them from properly understanding

the mechanisms of their own political influence. thus paradoxically making them precisely what they are as Marxists, so often suspect of others being victims of false consciousness. The very special political significance of morality in the post-tetalitarian system is a phenomenon that is at the very least unusual in modern political history, a phenomenon that might well have, as I shall soon attempt to show, far-reaching consequences. Section 10.

Undeniably, the most important political event in Chuckles-Sovacchi after the advent of the Husk leadership in 1968 was the appearance of Charter 77. The spiritual and intellectual climate surrounding its appearance, however, was not the product of any immediate political event. That climate was created by the trial of some young musicians associated

with a rock group called the Plastic People of the Universe. Their trial was not a confrontation of two differing political forces or conceptions, but two differing conceptions of life. On the one hand, there was the sterile Puritanism of the post-Sotelitarian establishment, and, on the other, unknown young people who wanted no more than to be able to live within the truth, to play the music they enjoyed, to sing songs that were relevant to their lives, and to live freely in dignity and partnership.

These people had no past history of political activity. They were not highly motivated members of the opposition with political ambitions, nor were they former politicians expelled from the power structures. They had been given every opportunity to adapt to this status quo to accept the principles of living within a lie, and thus to enjoy life undisturbed by the authorities. Yet they decided on a different course. Despite this, or perhaps precisely because of it,

their case had a very special impact on to on everyone who had not yet given up hope. Moreover, when the trial took place, a new mood had begun to surface after the years of waiting, of apathy and of skepticism toward various forms of resistance. People were tired of being tired. They were fed up with the stagnation, the inactivity, barely hanging on the hope that things might improve after all. In some ways, the trial was the final straw. Many groups of differing tendencies which until then had remained isolated from each other, reluctant to cooperate, or which were committed to forms of action that made cooperation difficult,

were suddenly struck with the power realization that freedom is indivisible. Everyone understood that an attack on the Czech musical underground was an attack on the most elementary and important thing, something that in fact bound everyone together. It was an attack on the very notion of living within the truth on the real aims of life. The freedom to play rock music was understood as a human freedom and thus as essential, the same as the freedom to engage in philosophical and political reflection, the freedom to write, the freedom to express, and defend various social and political interests of society. People were inspired to feel a genuine sense of solidarity with the young musicians, and they

came to realize that not standing up for the freedom of others, regardless of how remote their means of creativity or their attitude to life meant surrending one's own freedom. This is in parentheses again. There is no freedom without equality before the law, and there is no equality before the law without freedom. Charter 77 has given the ancient notion a new and characteristic dimension, which has immensely important implications for modern Czech history. What Slidek, the author of the book 68, in a brilliant analysis,

calls the principle of exclusion, lies at the root of all our present-day moral and political misery. This principle was born at the end of the Second World War in the strange collusion of Democrats and communists and was subsequently developed further and further, right to the bitter end. For the first time in decades, this principle had been overcome, by Charter's 77. All those united in the charter have for the first time become equal partners. Charter 77 is not merely a coalition of communists and non-communists. That would be nothing historically new and from the moral and political point of view,

nothing revolutionary. But it is a community that is a priori open to anyone, and no one in it is a priori assigned an inferior position. That was the climate then in which Charter 77 was created, who could have foreseen that the prosecution of one or two obscure rock groups would have such a far-reaching consequences. So where we see in our system that there's certain groups that are basically pets of the system that was under the Czech system that was less, that wasn't. seen as much. So most people would look at our system and say, well, those who are quote unquote on the left are lined up with the system. They, you know, corporations are in line

line with them. And then there's a narco tyranny against others. Well, this is pretty much just tyranny against everyone. So in a way, basically, basically. Basically, the starting place that they're having to start from is, is that, yeah, we have factions. Yeah, we probably don't like each other, but yeah, we're probably going to have to go along. So this can't be, this can't be, you know, this isn't saying, oh, you have to go and, you have to go and team up with somebody who wants you dead. no those people are on the side of the system you know the way it looks like what was happening in chukoslovakia was is that everybody was just you know so you could find common cause with people who you probably weren't you probably

wouldn't like normally in like an open society and then you know when they did finally get their freedom, quote unquote, they split. From what I understand, the Czech Republic is more liberal and Slovakia is more traditional, put it that way. This is from what I understand. People can correct me. If I'm completely wrong, correct me. If you're going to hit me with nuance, please just save it.

I'm not going to read the comment. I think the origins of Charter 77 illustrate very well what I have already suggested above. That in the post-totelitarian system, the real background to the movements that gradually assume political significance does not usually consist of overtly political events or confrontations between different forces or concepts that are openly political. These movements for the most part originate elsewhere in the far broader area of the pre-political, where living within a lie confronts living within the truth, that is, where the demands of the post-totelitarian system conflict with the real aims of life.

These real aims can naturally assume a great many forms. Sometimes they appear as the basic material or social interests of a group or an individual. At other times, they may appear as certain intellectual and spiritual interests. At still other times, they may be the most fundamental interests. fundamental and existential demands, such as the simple longing of people to live their own lives and dignity. Such a conflict acquires a political character, then, not because of the elementary political nature of the aims demanding to be heard, but simply because given the complex system of manipulation on which the post-totelitarian system is founded, and on which it is also dependent,

every free human act or expression, every attempt to live within the truth must necessarily appear is a threat to the system and thus as something which is political par excellence in our system people can groups can live you know can adopt the system and the system is more is more than willing to make them their patrons because they've decided that there is a section of the population that is the absolute enemy. So they're willing to side with people who they probably hate and want dead as well because they can use them as a battering ram. It's high, low, middle kind of thing.

Any eventual political articulation of the movements that grow out of this pre-political hinterland is secondary. It develops and matures as a result of a subsequent confrontation within the system, and not because it started off as a political. political program, project, or impulse. Once again, the events of 1968 confirmed this. The communist politicians who were trying to reform the system came forward with their program, not because they had suddenly experienced a mystical enlightenment, but because they were led to do so by continued and increasing pressure from areas of life that had nothing to do with politics in the traditional

sense of the word. In fact, they were trying in political ways to solve the social conflicts, which in fact were confrontations between the aims of the system and the aims of life, that almost every level of society it had been experiencing daily and had been thinking about with increasing openness for years. Back by this living residence throughout society, scholars and artists had defined the problem in a wide variety of ways and students were demanding solutions. This is basic elite theory.

You have elites and the last thing they want is revolution. They want to be able to rule over the ashes of whatever they've burned down. and they have to take the pulse of the people every once in a while. Now, the problem is, is when you have a few elites, it's very easy to do that, but when you have many elites or an overproduction of elites, as we seem to have, well, people start to think, well, everything's fine for me, or there are those who go and islands or start building bunkers, as we've seen recently. The genesis of Charter 77 also illustrates the special political significance and the moral

aspect of the things that I have mentioned. Charter 77 would have been unimaginable without that powerful sense of solidarity among widely differing groups and without the sudden realization that it was impossible to go on waiting any longer and that the truth had to be spoken loudly and collectively, regardless of the virtual certainty of sanctions and the uncertainty of any tangible results in the immediate future. There are some things worth suffering for, Jan Pataka wrote shortly before his death. I think that Chartists understand that not only as Pataka's legacy, but also as the best

explanation of why they do what they do. Seen from the outside and chiefly from the vantage point of the system and its power structure, Charter 77 came as a surprise as a bolt out of the blue. It was not a bolt out of the blue, of course, but that impression is understandable since the ferment that led to it took place in the hidden sphere, in the semi-darkness where things are difficult to charter analyze. The chances of predicting the appearance of the charter were just as slight as the chances are now of predicting where it will lead. Once again, it was that shock, so typical of moments when something from the hidden sphere suddenly burst through the more

abundant surface of living within a lie. The more one is trapped in the world of appearances, the more surprising it is when something like that happens. Hidden sphere in that semi-darkness where things are difficult to charter analyze. Well, well, I'm doing this. What are you doing? None of your fucking business. None of your business. Oh, well, you won't tell me what you're doing, so that means you're not doing anything. Sure, run with that. You hear this kind of bullshit all the time. Part 11. In societies under the post-telitarian 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 in the independent political thought, insofar 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 pointless, because it is on the one hand entirely utopian, and on the other hand, extraordinarily dangerous in view of the unusual vigor with which any move in that direction is persecuted by the regime. Oh, well, if I do this, they'll just drone strike me.

Oh, well, you know, I like the ideas you have, They're far-fetched. I mean, that's not worked in the past. Oh, really? Yeah, these are people who are, they have regime brain. There's no helping them. And if you love them, these are people you love. Of course, you're going to keep trying.

But, I mean, you know, as Thomas says, we're not Jehovah's Witnesses. Yet even in such societies, individuals and groups of people exist who do not abandon politics as a vocation, and who, in one way or another, strive to think independently to express, themselves and in some cases even to organize politically because that is a part of their attempt to live within the truth. The fact that these people exist and work in it and itself, let me start that

over again. The fact that these people exist and work is in itself immensely important and worthwhile. Even in the worst at times, they maintain the continuity of political thought. and some genuine political impulse, if some genuine political impulse emerges from this or that pre-political confrontation and is properly articulated early enough, thus increasing its chances of relative success, then this is frequently due to those isolated generals without an army who, because they have maintained the continuity of political thought in the face of enormous difficulties, can at the right moment enrich the new impulse with the fruits of their own political thinking, Once again, there is ample evidence for this in this process in Czechoslovakia.

Almost all those who were political prisoners in the early 1970s who had apparently been made to suffer in vain because of their exotic efforts to work politically among an utterly pathetic and demoralized society belong today, inevitably, among the most active Chartists. In Charter 77, the moral legacy of their earlier sacrifice is valued, and they have enriched this movement with their experience and that element of political thinking. Some people who are working in politics are going to drop out and work outside of politics. Oh, no, but you're just abandoning the system, Joe Kent and Marjorie Taylor Green and Tulsi Gabbard? Well, is there... were they changed anything?

Were they being locked out of meetings? Because they weren't yes men? Because, oh, you can criticize Trump, but you have to remain loyal no matter what he does. You know, people who say stuff like that, they're, I mean, I'm, I'm, that actually sounds like a straw man to some of you. But that's literally a tweet.

And that person has no future at all. Maybe they'll get a job in a think tank and, you know, I don't know, and what, get caught up in that ideology, not be able to speak out, continuing. And yet it seems to me that the thought and activity of those friends who had never given up direct political work and who are always ready to assume direct political responsibility very often suffer from one chronic fault. An insufficient understanding of the historical uniqueness of the post-totelitarian system as a social and political reality. This is how often I have to tell the people closest to me

that you can't change the system from within side. Oh, we're going to take over the system and you... Okay. They have little understanding of the specific nature of power that is typical for this system and therefore they overestimate the importance of direct political work in the traditional sense. Moreover, they failed to appreciate the political significance of those pre-political events and processes that provide the living humus from which genuine political change usually springs.

As political actors, or rather as people with political ambitions, they frequently tried to pick up where natural political life left off. They maintain models of behavior that may have been appropriate in more normal political circumstances and thus, without really being aware of it, they bring an outmoded way of thinking, old habits, conceptions, categories, and notions to bear on circumstances that are quite new and radically different without first giving adequate thoughts of the meaning and substance of such things in the new circumstances, to which politics as such means now, to what sort of thing can have political impact and potential, and in what way? Because such people have been excluded from

the structures of power and are no longer able to influence those structures directly, and because they remain faithful to traditional notions of politics established in more or less democratic societies or in classical dictatorships, they frequently, in a sense, lose touch with reality. I don't want to name names, but a lot of you listening to this know what I'm talking about. I know who I'm talking about. Why make compromises with reality? They say when none of our proposals will ever be accepted anyway. Thus, they find themselves in a world of genuine, utopian thinking.

You're never going to have the perfect, people. You're never going to have the perfect. Even a marriage is between two fallen creatures, and you wonder why being married is so hard. You take a sip. Going on. As I have already tried to indicate how, however, genuinely far-reaching political events do not emerge from the same sources and in the same

way in the post-sotelitarian system as they do in a democracy. And if a large portion of the public is indifferent to, even skeptical of, alternative political models and programs and the private establishment of opposition political parties, this is not merely because there is a general feeling of apathy toward public affairs and a loss of that sense of higher responsibility. In other words, it is not just a consequence of the general demoralization. There is also a bit of healthy social instinct at work in this attitude. It is as if people sensed intuitively that nothing is what it seems any longer. As the saying goes, and from now on, therefore, things must be done entirely differently as well. So glad I read this. I forgot this existed until recently. In some of the most

important political impulses in Soviet bloc countries in recent years have come initially, that is, before being felt on the level of actual power, from mathematicians, philosophers, physicians, writers, historians, ordinary workers, and so on, more frequently than from politicians, and if the driving force behind the various dissident movements comes from so many people in non-political professions, this is not because these people are more clever than those who see themselves primarily as politicians. It is because those who are not politicians are also not so bound by traditional political thinking and political habits, and therefore, paradoxically, they are more aware of genuine political reality and more sensitive to what can and should be done under the

circumstances. I feel like I don't even have to comment in most of this. There is no way around it. No matter how beautiful and alternative political model can be, it can no longer speak to the hidden sphere, inspire people in society, call for real political ferment. The real sphere of potential politics in the post-Satilitarian system is elsewhere. In the continuing and cruel tension between the complex demands of that system and the aims of life, that is, the elementary need of human beings to live, to a certain extent at least in harmony with themselves. That is, to live in a bearable way, not to be humiliated by their superiors and officials, not to be continually watched by the police, to be able to express themselves freely, to find an outlet for their creativity, to enjoy legal security, and so on. Think about how much weaponized migration affects that.

He can talk about that in his society because his society is Czechoslovak. when you apply that here, when you hear that here, it's immediately like, yeah, but, I mean, we can't do that for everyone. You know, shit. That's kind of the whole thinking outside the box thing, isn't it? Anything that touches this field concretely, anything that relates to this fundamental omnipresent and living tension will inevitably speak to people. 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 the concrete and human here and now, and the more they fix their sights on an abstract someday, the more easily they can degenerate into new forms of human enslavement. People who live in the post-otelitarian system know only too well that the question of whether one or several political parties are in power and how these parties define and label themselves is of far less importance than the question of whether or not it is possible to live like a human being. It's the Democrats, it's the Republicans. Can I live historically? Both of them, no. One might get out of your way a little

more, but still, no. To shed the burden of traditional political categories and habits and open oneself up fully to the world of human existence and then to draw political conclusions only after having analyzed it, this is not only politically more realistic, but at the same time, from the point of view of an ideal state of affairs, politically more promising as well. A genuine profound and lasting chance for the better, as I shall attempt to show, can no longer result from the victory, where such a victory possible, of any particular traditional political conception, which can ultimately be only external, that is, a structural or systematic conception. More than ever before, such a change will have to derive from human existence, from the

fundamental reconstitution of the position of the people in the world, their relationships to themselves and to each other, and to the universe. You're going to have to feel an existential dread before you're willing to really make the kind of change that can affect the outside world. If a better economic and political model is to be created, then perhaps more than ever, before it must derive from profound existential and moral changes in society. I didn't even look ahead. This is not something that can be designed and introduced like a new car. If it is to be more than just a new variation of the old degeneration, it must above all be an expression of life in the process of transforming itself.

A better system will not automatically ensure a better life. In fact, the opposite is true. Only by creating a better life can a better system be developed. We say this. This is something we say all the time. All the time. You're going to have the most perfect system. But if you haven't fixed you, what are you going to benefit from it? Once more, I repeat that I am not underestimating the importance of political thought and conceptual political work. On the contrary, I think that genuine political thought and genuine political work is precisely what we continually fail to achieve. If I say genuine, however, I have in mind the kind of thought and conceptual work that

has freed itself of all traditional political schemata that have been imported into our circumstances from a world that will never return, and whose return, even where it possible, would provide no permanent solution to the most important problems. We're moving forward, people. The only way out is through and what's on the other side is going to be new. I didn't mean for that to run. Thinking that we're going back, show me. Show me where that happened. The second and fourth internationals, like many other political powers and organizations, may naturally provide significant political support for various efforts of ours, but neither of them can solve our problems for us.

They operate in a different world and are a product of different circumstances. Their theoretical concepts can be interesting and instructive to us, but one thing is certain. We cannot solve our problems simply by identifying with these organizations, MAGA, America First, the organization I'm a part of. that's not just identifying with them is not going to solve your problem. Throwing up a vote is not going to solve a problem. And the attempt in our country to place what we do in the context of some of the discussions that dominate political life in democratic societies often seems like sheer folly.

For example, is it possible to talk seriously about whether we want to change the system or merely reform it? In the circumstances under which we live, this is a pseudo-problem, since for the time, time being, there is simply no way we can accomplish either goal. We are not even clear about where reform ends and change begins. We know from a number of harsh experiences that neither reform nor changes in itself a guarantee of anything. We know that ultimately it is all the same to us whether or not the system in which we live, in the light of a particular doctrine, appears changed or reformed. Our concern is whether we can live with dignity in such a system, whether it serves people,

rather than people serving it. I think that it can be both. But, you know, that's my opinion. We are struggling to achieve this with the means available to us and the means it makes sense to employ. Western journalists emerge in the political banalities in which they live may label our approach as overly legalistic as too risky, revisionist, counter-revolutionary,

bourgeois, communist, or as two-es-executive. or as two right wing or left wing. He hit everything, didn't he? But this is the very last thing that interests us. One concept that is a constant source of confusion, chiefly because it has been imported into our circumstances, from circumstances that are entirely different is the concept of an opposition.

What exactly is an opposition in the post-Sotelitarian system? In democratic societies with the traditional parliamentary system of government, political opposition is 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 program. It has ambitions to govern, and it is recognized and respected by the government and power as a natural element in the political life of the country. It seeks to spread its influence by political means and competes for power on the basis of agreed upon legal regulations. In addition to this form of opposition, there exists the phenomenon of the

extra-parliamentary opposition, which again consists of forces organized more or less on the level of actual power, but which operate outside the rules created by the system and which employ different means than are usual within the framework. In classical dictatorships, the term opposition is understood to mean the political forces, which have also come out with an alternative political program. They operate either legally or on the outer limits of legality, but in any case they cannot compete for power within the limits of some agreed upon regulations, or the term opposition may be applied to forces preparing for violent confrontation with the ruling power, or who feel themselves to be in the state of confrontation already, such as various

guerrilla groups or liberation movements. An opposition in the post-Satilitarian system does not exist in any of these senses. In what way then can the term be used? One. 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 reason for this conflict may be certain differences, not very sharp differences, naturally, of a conceptual nature, but more frequently it is quite simply a longing for power or a personal antipathy to others who represent that power. That almost sounds like controlled opposition.

Two, opposition here can also be understood as everything that does or can have an indirect political effect in the sense already mentioned. That is, everything the post-Sotilitarian system feels threatened by, which in fact means everything it is threatened by. In this sense, the opposition is every attempt to live within the truth from the green grocers' to put the slogan in his window to a freely written poem. In other words, everything in which the genuine aims of life go beyond the limits placed on them by the aims of the system.

That's the war that we've been at for 100 years. That's the war that's been waged upon us for 100 years. And we've lost so far. More frequently, however, the opposition is usually understood, again largely by Western journalists as groups of people who make public their non-conformist stances and critical opinions, who make no secret of their independent thinking and who, to a greater or lesser degree, consider themselves a political force. In this sense, the notion of an opposition more or less overlaps with the notion of dissent, although, of course, there are great differences in the degree

to which that label is accepted or rejected. It depends not only on the extent to which these people understand their power as a direct political force, and on whether they have ambitions to participate in actual power, but also on how each of them understands the notion of an opposition. Again, here is an example. In its original declaration, Charter 77 emphasized that it was not an opposition because it had no intention of presenting an alternative political program. It sees its mission as something quite different, for it has not presented such programs. In fact, if the presenting of an alternative program defines the nature of an opposition of post-titalitarian states, then the charter cannot be considered an opposition.

The Czechoslovak government, however, had considered Charter 77 as an expressly oppositional association from the very beginning and has treated it accordingly. This means that the government, and this is only natural, understands the term opposition more or less as I defined it in point Z, which that is, as everything that manages to avoid total manipulation and which therefore denies the principle that the system has an absolute claim on the individual. If we accept this definition of opposition, then of course we must, along with the government, consider the charter a genuine opposition because it represents a serious challenge to the integrity of the post-Italitarian system, founded as it is on the universality of living within a lie.

The Charter 77 is basically, you know, we're not going to live. a lie anymore. We're going to live how we want. And from what it sounds like, it sounds like there are people who are going to live their truth, quote unquote. There were people who are going to be religious and tread and they were going to be basically everyone was like if you had if you had a grievance, if you were like, I want to live. I want to live like I want to live like I want live and I want to live historically, it sounds like, or, you know, I want to live in the presence or, you know, at this point in their history, any of that is a rebellion. Because they can only live their lives as to green grocer.

It is a different matter, however, when we look at the extent to which individual, yeah, let me see if we accept. Okay. I'm sorry, trying to make sure. There we go. It is a different matter, however, when we look at the extent to which individual signatories of Charter 77 think of themselves as an opposition. Okay, here we go. My impression is that most based their understanding on the term opposition on the traditional meaning of the word as it became established in democratic societies or in classical dictatorships.

Therefore, they understand opposition, even in Czechoslovakia, as a politically defined force, which, although it does not operate on the level of actual power and even less within the framework of certain rules respected by the government, would still not reject the opportunity to participate in actual power because it has, in a sense, an alternative political program whose proponents are prepared to accept direct political responsibility for it. Very important. Given this notion of an opposition, some chartists, the great majority, do not see themselves in this way. Others, as a minority do, even though they fully respect the fact that there is no room within Charter 77 for oppositional activity in this sense. At the same time, however, perhaps every Chartist is

familiar enough with the specific nature of conditions in the post-Satilitarian system to realize it is not only the struggle for human rights that has its own peculiar political power, but incomparably more innocent activities as well. And therefore, they can be understood as an aspect of opposition. No chartists can really object to being considered an opposition in this case. There is another circumstance, however, that considerably complicates matters. For many decades, a power-ruling society in the Soviet bloc has used to label opposition as the blackest of indictments as synonymous with the word enemy. To brand someone a member of the opposition is tantamount to saying he is trying to overthrow the government and put an end to socialism.

naturally in the pay of the imperialists. See that? It's like whenever you'll hear, oh, you know, we need to break the Zionist power and, you know, Iran should get to live. Third worldist. Oh, you're a Putin stooge. It's no different. This is, nothing changes.

It's the same, the reason to study history is because these people use the same tactics over and over again. There have been times when this label led straight to the gallows, and of course this does not encourage people to apply the same label to themselves. Moreover, it is only a word, and what is actually done is more important than how it is labeled. The final reason why many rejects such a term is because there is something negative about the notion of an opposition. people who so define themselves do so in relation to a prior position. In other words, they relate themselves specifically to the power that rules society and through it, define themselves deriving their own position from the position of the regime. For people who have simply decided to live within the truth, to say aloud what they think,

to express their solidarity with their fellow citizens, to create as they want and simply to live in harmony with, their better self, it is naturally disagreeable to feel required to define their own original and positive position negatively in terms of something else. And to think of themselves primarily as people who are against something, not simply as people who are what they are. I think that that's something that a lot of people fall into. A lot of people who would call themselves dissidents fall into that, where they're primarily identifying themselves as what they're against.

I'm an anti-insert word there. Instead of, I'm just a man. I'm a Catholic. I'm a Presbyterian. I'm Orthodox. I'm a father. I'm a husband. It's always what they're against.

And that's negative. negativity. And negativity, you know, people say, oh, that's blackpilling. That's blackpilling. To be seen as some, to see your identity as just being against something. I don't see myself that way at all. You do have an enemy, but I don't let that define me. Do I talk about the enemy? Sure. I'm not going to sleep at night thinking about them and waking up first thing in the morning and thinking about them. The overwhelming majority of my day has spent living my life, doing what I want to do, spending time with people I want to spend time with reading what I want to read, saying what I want to say, and genuinely enjoying my life. I

want more people to live like that. Anger, you know, I tried to speak out about anger. I've tried to speak out about anger and hate. Not because, oh, it's rude to hate people from like a regime standpoint, but it's detrimental to you. It definitely clouds your thinking. One last paragraph here. Obviously, the only way to avoid misunderstanding is to say clearly, before one starts using them, in what sense the terms opposition and members of the opposition are being used.

and how they are in fact to be understood in our circumstances. You don't even have to use the term opposition. You can call yourself something. You can say, this is what I am, this is what I stand for. And as long as it's against what the regime pushes, you're the opposition. They know it. They'll feel it. It's just that you have to get to the point.

point where you literally don't give a shit what they think or what anyone else thinks. That's it. We are up to part 13. We will start part 13 on the next reading of this, and we're about halfway done. So, yeah, thank you for listening. And, yeah, comment, especially supporters who will get this early. I love to hear your comments on this, because I think it, although it's not, although he's living in Czechoslovakia in the Soviet block, I think there's so much, so much here that we can use and apply. And there's just some universal truths.

So that's it. Talk to you on the next episode. Take care. Bye.