The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1420: Havel's 'The Power of the Powerless' - Part 6

Episode Date: September 10, 2026

57 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. This is part six of my reading of the Power of the Powerless by Baklav Havel. We're up to part eight. And I'm just going to jump right in. Part 18. Is the basic job of the dissident movement? If the basic job of the dissident movement is to serve the truth, that is, to serve the

real aims of life, and if that necessarily develops into a defense of individuals and their right to a free and truthful life, that is, a defense of human rights and a struggle to see the law is respected, then another stage of this approach, perhaps the most maturestern, stage for all is what Vakloff Benda called the development of parallel structures. I don't like the term human rights and stuff like that, but, you know, I mean, hey, it was a different time, different circumstances as well. When those who have decided to live within the truth have been denied any direct influence on the existing social structures, not to mention the opportunity to participate in them, and when these people begin to create what I have called

the independent life of society, this independent life begins of itself to become structured in a certain way. Sometimes there are only very embryonic indications of this process of structuring. At other times, the structures are already quite well developed. I think this is very applicable to today. What are you saying right here? Their genesis and evolution are inseparable from the phenomenon of descent. even though they reached far beyond the arbitrarily defined area of activity usually indicated by that term. What are these structures? Ivan Juras was the first in Czechoslovakia to formulate and apply and practice the concept of a second culture. Although at first he was thinking chiefly of nonconformist rock music and only certain literary artistic or performance events

close to the sensibilities of those non-conformist musical groups. The term second culture very rapidly came to be used for the whole area of independent and repressed culture, that is, not only for art and its various currents, but also for the humanities, the social sciences, and philosophical insights. What better example is there than of Thomas' book, The Nuremberg system? basically just blowing it out on on amazon people wanting to read it people downloading our episodes our two episodes on it together two so far so yeah yeah it's going to go far beyond bitcoin which has been around for a while and well i don't even want to get into it but um you know

and then there is just people like Emily, I don't know how to pronounce her last name, I apologize, Usis, who's using AI to make cartoons. And yeah, I mean, these are, these are all things that are looked at by the regime as dissent. looked at it by the regime as worse than that, but we would recognize it as dissent on it to itself. This second culture, quite naturally, has created elementary organizational forms, Samistad editions of books and magazines,

private performances and concerts, seminars, exhibitions, and so on. In Poland, all of this is vastly more developed. there are independent publishing houses and many more periodicals, even political periodicals. They have means of proliferation other than carbon copies and so on. In the Soviet Union, Samistat has a longer tradition and clearly its forms are quite different. Culture, therefore, is a sphere in which the parallel structures can be observed in their most highly developed form. Benda, of course, gives thought to potential or embryonic forms of such structures in other spheres as well. From a parallel information network to parallel forms of

education, private universities, parallel trade unions, parallel foreign contacts to a kind of hypothesis on a parallel economy. On the basis of these parallel structures, he then develops the notion of a parallel polis or state, or rather, he sees the rudiments of such a polis in these structures. Just go back here. So embryonic forms from a parallel information network to parallel forms of education. Parallel information network. Podcasting, the internet, forums, the internet, social media, the internet. I mean, the internet, when he wrote this, the internet existed, but it existed in a very primitive form that was only used for the military. And then what do we have here? Parallel

forms of education, like private universities. What about homeschooling? We've been doing this stuff already. You can actually see if you're looking that people figured this out a long time ago. And they've been building stuff outside the system. I'm old enough to remember when homeschoolers were considered to be lunatics. I knew somebody who was taken away from her family because they wanted to homeschool. and they basically had to run away and drop off the map. So, yeah, all of this basically builds up,

has already started building here. At a certain stage in its development, the independent life of society and the dissonant movements cannot avoid a certain amount of organization and institutionalization. This is a natural development, and unless the independent life of society is somehow radically suppressed and eliminated, the tendency will grow. Along with it, a parallel political life

will also necessarily evolved. And to a certain extent, it exists already in Czechoslovakia. Various groupings of a more or less political nature will continue to define themselves politically to act and confront each other. These parallel structures, it may be said, represent the most articulated expressions so far of living within the truth. One of the most important task the dissident movements have set themselves as to support and develop them. I mean, living within the truth. I mean, isn't that what, when someone says find your people, when someone says clan up, when someone says the future is local and it is nullification, what are we talking about here? We can learn from this.

Once again, it confirms the fact that all attempts by society to resist the pressure of the system have their essential beginnings in the pre-political area. For what else are parallel structures than an area where a different life can be lived, a life that is in harmony with its own aims, and which in turn structures itself in harmony with those aims? What else are those initial attempts at social self-organization than the efforts of a certain part of society to live as a society within the truth, to rid itself of the self-sustaining aspects of totalitarianism, and thus, to extricate itself radically from its involvement in the post-totalitarian

system. Yeah, I mean, I would say, I don't know how different it was. I'd have to really, really start digging into books about the Czech system. But I mean, they didn't have the kind of federalism or, you know, federalism is probably a bad word, but the kind of localism. that we have. Sure, your local government can be within the system, but local government is also something that is easily, more easily, subverted and used for one's own purposes. So, yeah, what else is it but a nonviolent attempt by people to negate the system within themselves and to establish their lives on a new basis, that of their own proper identity. Call yourself what you want. You don't have to be wrapped up in the labels that the post-world,

you know, the post-war consensus wants you to be wrapped up as. They just want you to be anti-fascist. That's it. Not even talking about antafa. I'm talking about anti-fascist. Can they define fascism? What's, what? What? What? What? What? You're not, what? We're not. I'm talking about anti-fascist. I'm talking about anti-fascist. Can they define fascism? What's a threat to their power? What's a threat to their structure? That's pretty much it at this point. Yeah.

Anything from the right that's a threat to their structure. Anything from the left that's a threat to their structure is communism. Is it? I mean, very few of those people actually know what communism is. and economically, you know, it's not viable. But they've done a good job of adapting that for social issues. And that's just the way you fight that is to live within the truth. And does this tendency not confirm once more the principle of returning the focus to actual individuals?

After all, the parallel structures did not grow up. a priori of a theoretical vision of systemic changes. There are no political sex involved. But from the aims of life and the authentic needs of real people, in fact, all eventual changes in the system. Changes we may observe here in their rudimentary forms have come about as it were de facto from below, because life compelled them to, not because they came before life, somehow directing it, or forcing some change on it. Yeah, it's all just going to rise up. It's what you saw during COVID.

Even politicians and state-level politicians were forced or felt compelled to resist. And there were some states that were better than others. Were there perfect states? No, you're never going to have the perfect. But, I mean, I lived in Georgia at the time. Georgia was better than New York, and I went to New York during COVID. Florida was better than Georgia.

Sure, Florida did shut down for a couple weeks, but then DeSantis just, like, turned on a dime. And Alabama was better than some, you know, there were states that were better. There were areas that were untouched. Were they perfect? Again, there's no such thing. Historical experience teaches us that any genuinely meaningful point of departure in an individual's life usually has an element of universality about it. In other words, it is not something partial, accessible only to a restricted community, and not transferable to any other. On the contrary, it must be potentially accessible to everyone.

It must foreshadow a general solution, and thus, it is not just the expression of an introverted, self-contained, responsibility that individuals have to and for themselves alone, but responsibility to and for the world. Thus, it would be quite wrong to understand the parallel structures and the parallel polis as a retreat into a ghetto and as an act of isolation. I think that because of the way our government was set up and the way that their government was set up, that to a certain extent, yet it doesn't have to be universal. In my opinion, you can do this with your own people. As a matter of fact, it would be doing it alone doesn't work.

Ask me how I know. It just doesn't work. So you have to find your own people. Oh, but they might be feds. Okay, then die. What else are you going to do? Post on Twitter all day? Have at it.

But, blah, where am I? it would be wrong, in short, to consider it an essentially group solution that has nothing to do with the general situation. Essentially groups, well, I don't agree with that. Such a concept would, from the start, alienate the notion of living within the truth from its proper point of departure, which is concerned for others, transforming it ultimately into just another more sophisticated version of living within a lie. I don't know what he's trying to get at here, but... We're wrong and short in an essentially group solution that has nothing to do with the general situation. Okay. Well, he's, I mean, is he saying here that, you know, if you are going to do this, you have to do it right?

You have to know why you're doing it. If you're doing it for the wrong reasons, it's not going to work. Such a concept would from the start of L.A. Make the notion of living within the truth. Yeah. Yeah. It has to be done for the right reasons and done within the truth. In doing so, of course, it would cease.

to be a genuine point of departure for individuals and groups, and would recall the false notion of dissidents as an exclusive group with exclusive interests, carrying their own exclusive dialogues with the power, exclusive dialogue with the powers it be. In any case, even the most highly developed forms of life and the parallel structures, even the most mature form of the parallel Polis can only exist, at least in post-otelitarian circumstances, when the individual is at the same time lodged in the first official structure by a thousand different relationships, even though it may only be the fact that one buys what one needs in their stores, uses their money, and obeys their laws. Certainly one can imagine life in its baser aspects flourishing in the parallel polis,

but would not such a life live deliberately that way as a program be merely another version of the schizophrenic life within a lie which everyone else must live on one way or another? He's basically saying you have to do this 100% or not at all. Would it not just be further evidence that a point of departure that is a point of departure that is not a model solution that is not applicable to others cannot be meaningful for an individual either? Pottaka used to say that the most interesting thing about responsibility is that we carry it with us everywhere. That means that responsibility is ours, but that we must accept it and grasp it here now, in this place and time and space where the Lord has set us down, and that we cannot lie our way out of it by moving somewhere else, whether it be to an Indian ashram or to a parallel Paulus. If Western young people so often discover that retreat to an Indian monastery fails them

as an individual or group solution, then this is obvious because and only because it lacks that element of universality, since not everyone can retire to an ashram. Christianity is an example of an opposite way out. It is a point of departure for me here and now, but only because anyone anywhere at any time may avail themselves of it. Is an example of an opposite way out? It is a point of departure from me here and now, but only because anyone anywhere at any time may avail themselves of it. In other words, the parallel polis points beyond itself

and makes sense only as an act of deepening one's responsibility to and for the whole as a way of discovering the most appropriate locus for this responsibility. not as an escape from it. Basically, what he's saying is, is that doing, like, what did they used to call it. Oh, I forget what, it was like, basically like Zionism, you go and you set up somewhere and you have no care for anything else. But, Chuck Lovacca is a different, I don't know how applicable to this.

this is because Czechoslovakia is different than here. We have different states. We have different cultures. We have different, I mean, multiracial, multicultural. And it's been that way from the start when it comes to definitely when it comes to culture. So I don't know how, I don't know how applicable this is. I mean, there is, you do have a chance to save your own, especially when I don't know what crime was like in, say, Prague under communism,

but, I mean, we have cities that they're just not part of America. They're not part of the American ideal. They're not part of the American identity. So, yeah, I get what he's saying, and it appears to have work. there that you don't go and hide yourself away because the whole system needs to change. But the one thing difference you do have here is that there are different, I mean, anyone who says that there aren't better estates to live in than others is just lying. Or delusional.

Let's take a sip. Part 19. I've already talked about the political potential of living with. and of the truth and of the limitations on predicting whether how and when a given expression of that life within the truth can lead to actual changes. I have also mentioned

how irrelevant trying to calculate the risks in this regard are. For an essential feature of independent initiatives is that they are always initially at least and all or nothing gamble. Nevertheless, this outline of some of the work done by dissonant movements would be

incomplete without considering, if only very generally, some of the different ways this work might actually affect society. In other words, about the ways that responsibility to and for the whole might, without necessarily meaning that it must, be realized in practice. In the first place, it has to be emphasized that the whole sphere comprising the independent life of society and even more so the dissonant movement as such is naturally far from being the only potential factor that might influence the history of countries living under the post-fatatitarian system. The latent social crisis in such societies can at any time, independently of these movements,

provoke a wide variety of political changes. It may unsettle the power structure and induce or accelerate various hidden confrontations, resulting in personal, conceptual, or at least climactic changes. It may significantly influence the general atmosphere of life, evoke unexpected and unforeseen social unrest, and explosions of discontent. Power shifts at the center. Power shifts at the center of of the bloc can influence conditions in the different countries in various ways. Economic factors naturally have an important influence, as do broader trends of global civilization. An extremely important area, which could be a source of radical changes and political upsets, is represented by international politics, the policies adopted by the other superpower and all the

other countries. The changing structure of the international interests and the positions taken by our block. That's something that's important for us to understand. The person who's saying, well, the reason we're not winning the Iran war is because we're not dropping nukes, realize that that person shouldn't be listened to and probably should be in an institution, almost definitely should be in an institution. It's not the way the world works. Sure, people plan. it. Daniel Ellesberg talked about that, talked about how basically his job was planning how to win a nuclear war. Does that sound insane? Yeah, to normal people, it sounds insane. But you have to understand that other countries, and we know this as well as anyone, affect what's happening

at home. I mean, look at what outsourcing did. What outsourcing did. It grew other countries into powers that have more power than we do when it comes to manufacturing. We can't even manufacture on the scale or at the speed that a Russia or China can. And China manufactures a lot of the parts that we use for weapons. I'm not saying they're making all our weapons. It's saying parts. So, yeah, very well. the change that we, a lot of us wish to see here, can be put into motion by a foreign power.

Will that be good for us? Who the fuck knows? Anyone who's telling you, oh, it wouldn't be good for us because this, that, this, that, this, this, this, this, and this. They're just giving you their opinion. You don't have to believe them. You don't have to believe my opinion. I just, there are very few people whose opinions I look at and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's obviously right. Well, I mean, yeah, it's personal.

Even the people who end up in the highest positions are not without significance. Although, as I have already said, one ought not underestimate the importance of leading personalities in the post-Satilitarian system. There are many such influences and combinations of influence and the eventual political impact of the dissonant movement is thinkable only against this general background and in the context that this background provides. That impact is only one of the many factors and far from the most important that affect political developments, and it differs from the other factors, perhaps only in that its essential focus is reflecting upon that political development from the point of view of a defense of people and seeking an immediate application of that reflection. Here's what he

said right here. I agree with them. Changing out of leading personalities in a system. How have things gotten better since, I'll be generous. 1973. Have things gotten better? Yeah. May elections since then? How many populist movements? Maybe it's not the personnel. Maybe it's not the personnel. Maybe the personnel you see aren't even in charge. The primary purpose of the outward direction of these movements is always, as we have seen, to have an impact on society, not to affect the power structure, at least not directly and immediately.

Independent initiatives address the hidden sphere. They demonstrate that living within the truth is a human and social alternative, and they struggle to expand the space available for that life. They help, even though it is, of course, indirect help, to raise the confidence of citizens. They shatter the world of appearances and unmasked the real nature of power. They do not assume a messianic role. They are not a social avant-garde or elite that alone knows best and whose task it is to raise the consciousness or the unconscious masses. That arrogant self-projection is, once again, intrinsic to an essentially different way of thinking, the kind that feels

it has a patent on some ideal project, and therefore that it has to write to impose it on society. That whole thing there is about the quote-unquote influencer. He's telling you how things need to be in order to make things work properly, just get me elected, just get this guy elected. I'm not going to lie to you. One of the things right now that I tell people that I'm, I like is to make lists of anybody who is accusing other people who are giving their opinion of lying.

Because those people can never be allowed back in. Yeah, it's time to make lists. And anybody who jumps to know they're lying? Who else says that? What other group accuses everyone of lying? nor do they want to lead anyone. They leave it up to each individual to decide what he will or will not take from their experience and work. If official Czechoslovak propaganda described the Chartists as self-appointees, it was not in order to emphasize any real avant-garde ambitions on their part, but rather a natural expression of how the regime thinks, its tendencies to judge others according to itself.

Since, judge others according to itself, lie all day, so they tell their apparatchiks to accuse everybody else of lying. I mean, when you're being lied to all day, even by people that you think are working for you, there's something in your subconscious is going to tell you that everyone's lying, except the person who's lying directly to you. Let me start the sentence again. If official Czechos of Akpropaganda describe the Chartis as self-appointees, it was not in order to emphasize any real avant-garde ambitions on their part, but rather a natural expression of how the regime thinks. Its tendency to judge others according to itself, since behind

any expression of criticism, it automatically sees the desire to cast the mighty from their seats and rule in their places in the name of the people. The same pretext the regime itself is used for years. These movements, therefore, always affect the power structure as such indirectly, as a part of society as a whole, for they are primarily addressing the hidden spheres of society, since it is not a matter of confronting the regime on the level of actual power. I've already indicated one of the ways this can work, and awareness of the laws and the responsibility for seeing that they are upheld is indirectly strengthened. That, of course, is only a specific instance of a far broader influence the indirect pressure

felt from living within the truth, the pressure created by free thought, alternative. values and alternative behavior and by independent social self-realization. So he's talking about an awareness of the laws and the responsibility for seeing that they are upheld is indirectly strengthened. It almost seems, and I don't know if I've said this before, so I apologize, if I'm repeating myself in this series, but it almost appears like they, like the powers it be learned from this

and basically said oh you want us to enforce the laws fuck you a narco tyranny for you fuck you yeah that's another thing you can learn from reading this things that worked

for them you can see that being attacked in anything that may be that relates our situation it's attack they're not all geniuses but some of them learn. Not going to pretend this is like some high IQ cabal, but just like every other cabal and every other group, paredo distributions work. And you're going to have, you have a couple

people who are really, really, really smart and know what mistakes they've made in the past, they can head them off. The power structure, whether it wants to or not, must always react to this pressure to a certain extent. Its response, however, is always limited to two dimensions, repression and adaptation. Sometimes one dominates, sometimes the other. For example, the Polish flying university came under increased persecution in the flying teachers were detained by the police. At the same time, however, professors in existing official universities tried to enrich their own curricula, with several subjects hitherto considered a taboo, and this was a result of indirect pressure exerted by the Flying University. The motives for this adaptation may vary from the ideal,

the hidden space has received the message and conscience and the will to truth are awakened, to the purely utilitarian. The regime's instincts for survival compels it to notice the changing ideas and the changing mental and social climate and to react flexibly to them. Which of these motives happens to predominate in a given moment is not essential in terms of the final effect. They want to survive. So they're going to throw you breadcrumbs if they see it as being in their best interest. If their best interest is to crush you, they'll do that too.

Adaptation is the positive dimension of the regime's response, and it can and usually does have a wide spectrum of forms and phases. Some circles may try to integrate values of people from the parallel world into the official structures to appropriate them, to become a little like them while trying to make them a little like themselves, and thus to adjust an obvious and untenable imbalance. In the 1960s, progressive communists began to discover certain unaccognized, acknowledged cultural values and phenomena. This was a positive step, although not without its dangers, since the integrated and appropriated values lost something of their independence and originality, and having

been given a cloak of officiality and conformity, their credibility was somewhat weakened. Yeah, you, this is the dissident who decides what Zionists. you win. I mean, how's that working out? Was price of diesel? Anybody book a flight recently? See the prices? Anybody thought about traveling? I've been like, maybe I shouldn't. Been like, oh, I can afford it. It's just, why should I go somewhere when the country that you're a citizen of is bombing other people? like literally murdering civilians. You don't think that can blow back. As someone who traveled after 9-11, internationally,

well, sometimes it's just questions. Sometimes it's very friendly. Sometimes it's not. In a further phase, this adaptation can lead to various attempts on the part of the official structures to reform, both in terms of their ultimate goals and structurally. Such reforms are usually halfway measures. They are attempts to combine and realistically coordinate serving life and serving the post-totalitarian automatism. But they cannot be otherwise.

They muddy what was originally a clear demarcation line between living within the truth and living with a lie. They cast a smokescreen over the situation, mystifies society, and make it difficult for people to keep their bearings. This, of course, is not alter the fact that it is always essentially good when it happens because it opens out new spaces, but it does make it more difficult to distinguish between admissible and inadmissible compromises. He's actually calling for purity spiraling. What a terrible man! Oh! He's calling for purity spiraling in this, in infiltration. Another and higher phase of adaptation is a process of internal differentiation that takes place in the official structures. These structures open themselves to more or less institutionalized forms of plurality because the real aims of life demand it.

One example, without changing the centralized and institutional basis of cultural life, new publishing houses, group periodicals, artist groups, parallel research institutes and workplaces, and so on, may appear under pressure from below. Or another example, the single monolithic youth organization run by the state as a typical post-titalitarian transmission belt disintegrates under the pressure of real needs into a number of more or less independent organizations, such as the union of university students, the union of secondary school students, the organization of working youth, and so on. There is a direct relationship between the kind of differentiation which allows initiatives from below to be felt, and the appearance and constitution of new structures which are already parallel, or rather independent, but which at the same time are respected,

or at least tolerated in varying degrees by official institutions. These new institutions are more than just liberalized official structures adapted to the authentic needs of life. They are a direct expression of those needs, demanding a position in the context of what is already here. In other words, they are genuine expressions of the tendency of society to organize itself. In Czechoslovakia in 1968, the best known organizations of this type were KAN, the Club of Committed Non-Communists and K-231, an organization of former political prisoners. The ultimate phase of this process is a situation in which the official structures as agencies of the post-totelitarian system, existing only to serve its own.

automatism and constructed in the spirit of that role, simply begin withering away and dying off to be replaced by new structures that have evolved from below and are put together in a fundamentally different way. So watch one fail. Do it right the next time. Certainly many other ways may be imagined in which the aims of life can bring about political transformations in the general organization of things and weaken on all levels the holds that techniques of manipulation have on society. Here I have mentioned only the way in which the general organization of things was, in fact, as we experienced it ourselves in Czechoslovakia around 1968. It must be added that all these concrete instances were part of a specific historical progress, which ought not to be thought

of as the only alternative, nor is necessarily repeated, particularly not in our own country, a fact which, of course, takes nothing away from the importance of the general lessons, which are still sought and found in it to this day. While on the subject in 1968 in Czechoslovakia, it may be appropriate to point to some of the characteristic aspects of developments at that time. All the transformations, first in the general mood, then conceptually and finally structurally, did not occur under pressure from the kind of parallel structures that are taking shape today. Such structures which are sharply defined antithesis of the official structures quite simply did not exist at the time, nor were there any dissidents in the present sense of the word. The changes that took place were simply a consequence of pressures of the most varied sort, some thoroughgoing, some partial.

There were spontaneous attempts at freer forms of thinking, independent creation, and political articulation. There were long-term, spontaneous, and inconspicuous efforts to bring about the interpretation, the interpenetration of the independent life of society with the existing structures, usually beginning with a quiet institutionalization of this life on and around the periphery of the official structures. In other words, it was a gradual process of social awakening, a kind of creeping process in which the hidden sphere is gradually opened out. There is some truth in the official propaganda which talks about a creeping counter-revolution in Czechoslovakia, referring to how the aims of life proceed. The motive force behind this awakening did not have to come exclusively from the independent life

of society, considered as a definable social milieu, although of course it did come from there, a fact that has yet to be fully appreciated. It could also simply have come from the fact that people in the official structures who more or less identified with the official ideology came up against reality as it really was and as it gradually became clear to them through latent social crises and their own bitter experiences with the true nature and operations of power. I am thinking here mainly of the many anti-dogmatic reform communists who grew to become over the years of force inside the official structures.

Neither the proper conditions nor the race on Detra existed, for those limited self-structuring independent initiatives familiar from the present era of dissident movements that stand so sharply outside the official structures and are unrecognized by them in block. At that time, the post-Sotilitarian system in Czechoslovakia had not yet petrified into the static, sterile, and stable forms that exist today, forms that compel people to fall back on their own organizing capabilities. For many historical and social regions, the regime in 1968 was more open. The power structure, exhausted by Stalinist despotism and helplessly groping about for painless reform, was inevitably rotting from within quite incapable of offering any intelligent opposition to changes in the mood,

to the way its younger members regarded things into the thousands of authentic expressions of life on the pre-political level that sprang up in that vast political terrain between the official and the unofficial. From the more general point of view, yet another typical circumstance appears to be important. The social ferment that came to a head in 1968, never, in terms of actual structural changes, went any further than the reform, differentiation, or the replacement of structures that were really only of secondary importance. It did not affect the very essence of the power structure in the post-satilitarian system,

which is to say its political model. the fundamental principles of social organization, not even the economic model in which all economic power is subordinated to political power, nor were any essential structural changes made in the direct investment instruments of power, the army, the police, the judiciary, etc. On that level, the issue was never more than a change in the mood, the personnel, the political line, and above all changes in how that power was exercised. everything else remained at the stage of discussion and planning.

The two officially accepted programs that went furthest in regard were the April 1968 Action Program of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and their proposals for economic reforms. The action program, it could not have been otherwise, was full of contradictions and halfway measures that left the physical aspects of power untouched. And the economic proposals, which, while they went a long long, way to accommodate the aims of life in the economic sphere, they accepted such notions as a plurality of interests and initiatives, dynamic incentives, restrictions upon the economic command

system, left untouched the basic pillar of economic power, that is, the principle of state, rather than genuine social ownership of the means of production. So there is a gap here where no social movement in the post-Sotelitarian system has ever been able to bridge, with a possible exception of those few days during the Hungarian uprising. What other developmental alternative might emerge in the future? Replying to that question would mean entering the realm of pure speculation. For the time being, it can be said that the latent social crises in the system has always, and there is no reason to believe it will not continue to do so,

resulted in a variety of political and social disturbances. Germany in 1963, Hungary, the USSR, and Poland in 1956, Czechoslovakia in Poland in 1968, and Poland in 1970 and 1976. All of them very different in their backgrounds, the course of their evolution, and their final consequences. If we look at the enormous complex of different factors that led to such disturbances and at the impossibility of predicting what accidental accumulation of events will cause that fermentation in the hidden sphere to break through to the light of day, the problem of the final straw. And if we consider how impossible it is to guess what the future holds, given such opposing

trends as, on the one hand, the increasingly profound integration of the block and the expansion of power within it, and on the other hand, the prospects of the USSR disintegrating under pressure from awakening national consciousness in the non-Russian areas. In this regard, the civil Union cannot expect to remain forever free of the worldwide struggle for national liberation. Then we must see the hopelessness of trying to make long-range predictions. In any case, I do not believe that this type of speculation has any immediate significance for the dissonant movements, since these movements, after all, do not develop from speculative thinking, and so to establish themselves on that basis would mean alienating themselves from

the very source of their identity. As far as prospects for the dissident movements as such go, there seems to be very little likelihood that future developments will lead to a lasting coexistence of two isolated, mutually non-interacting, and mutually indifferent bodies, the main polis, and the parallel polis. As long as it remains what it is, the practice of living within the truth cannot fail to be a threat to the system. It is quite impossible to imagine it continuing to coexist with the practice of living within a lie without dramatic tension. The relationship of the post-satilitarian system, as long as it remains what it is, and the independent life of society, as long as it remains the locus of a renewed responsibility for the whole and to the whole, will always be one of either latent or open conflict. In this situation, there are only two possibilities. Either the post-totelitarian system will go on developing, that is, will be able to go on developing, thus inevitably coming closer to some dreadful Orwellian vision of a world with absolute manipulation,

while all the more articulate expressions of living within the truth are definitely snuffed out, or the independent life of society, the parallel polis, including the dissonant movements, will slowly but surely become a social phenomenon of growing importance, taking a real part in the life of society with increasing clarity and integrity, influencing the general situation. Of course, this will always be one of many factors influencing the situation, and it will operate rather in the background in concert with the other factors and in a way appropriate to the background. Whether it ought to focus on reforming the official structures or on encouraging differentiation, or on replacing them with new structures,

whether the intent is to ameliorate the system or, on the contrary, to tear it down, these and similar questions, insofar as they are not pseudo-problems, can be posed by the dissonant movement only within the context of particular solution when the movement is faced with a concrete task. In other words, it must pose questions, as it were, ad hoc, out of a concrete consideration of the authentic needs of life. To reply to such questions abstractly and to formulate a political program in terms of some hypothetical future would mean, I believe, a return to the spirit, and methods of traditional politics, and this would limit and alienate the work of dissent, where it is most intrinsically itself and has the most genuine prospects for the future. I have already emphasized several times that these dissonant movements do not have their point of departure in the invention of systematic changes, but in a very real everyday struggle for a

better life here and now. The political and structural systems that life discovers for itself will clearly always be, for some time to come at least, limited, halfway, unsatisfying, and polluted by debilitating tactics. I'm going to repeat that sentence again. The political and structural systems that life discovers for itself will clearly always be for some time to come, at least, limited, halfway, unsatisfying, and polluted by debilitating tactics. It cannot be otherwise and we must expect this and not to be demoralized by it. It is of great importance that the main thing, the everyday, thankless and never-ending

struggle of human beings to live more freely, thankfully, and in quiet dignity, never impose any limits on itself, never be half-hearted, inconsistent, never trap itself in political tactics, speculating on the outcome of its actions or entertaining fantasies about the future. The purity of this struggle is the best guarantee of optimum results when it comes to actual interaction with the post-totelitarian structures. Sorry, it's not like I was rushing to finish that section. It's just all of that needed to go together. So, I mean, I don't know that I can comment anymore than he already has. other than, you know, he's talking about a system.

Are there people in that system? Sure. Is that system run by people? Yes. The question most people fail to ask when they're like, we need to get involved in politics, and we need to take over the system and use it for our means.

Can you? Will you? I think that's a that's a question you should be asking when it comes to national policy. All right. I'll be back.

We'll be finishing this up on the next episode. So it'll be seven episodes. Cool. And I hope you all have a good weekend. It is coming out on Thursday. So have a good weekend. And I'll be back with more Thomas reading, reading of his book.

make that's the next episode after this and then that next episode after that will probably be finishing this out and then have other plans get mr. Bagby back here and yeah so thank you and take care of yourselves and please take into consideration what he's the points that he's making I wouldn't be reading this if I didn't think it was important Take care. Bye.