Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Huizdala
|
List Price:
$14.95
Czech Hotels Travel Price:
$11.21
Your Savings: $ 3.74 ( 25% )
Subject To Change Without Notice
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Vintage
|
Average Customer Rating: 
|
|
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 943.7043092
EAN: 9780679734024
ISBN: 0679734023
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: 1991-04-03
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: 1991-04-03
Studio: Vintage
|
|
|
|
|
|
Editorial Reviews:
|
An intimate history of Czechoslovakia under communism; a meditation on the social and political role of art, and a triumphant statement of the values underlying all the recent revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe.
|
|
|
Spotlight customer reviews:
|
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Much Broader Picture of Vaclav Havel and His Political Ideas
Comment: We Americans tend to forget that Vaclav Havel was an Artist, poet, writer and existentialist thinker long before we seized upon him as our own private "anti-communist hero extraordinaire." And as with most other things, we in the West tended to "fixate" on Havel as just the one-man anti-Communist sideshow: the singleton hero of the Prague Spring. That is to say, we saw in him only what we wanted to see -- only what was comfortable for our myopic vision and only what tended to calm our democratic sensibilities. For had we looked and drank just a bit deeper, there was a lot more of this self-made "artist turned political activist," to see than just our knee-jerk recreation of him through our own eyes as our own larger-than-life anti-Communist hero.
This book offers another vision of him that looks deeper into his very troubled, but nevertheless very important soul. Having had this book on my bookshelf, left unread for almost 20 years, this oversight alone makes me as guilty of seeing only the "shadow Havel as anti-Communist caricature," as the rest.
In this very thoughtful series of autobiographical interviews, the "deeper Vaclav Havel," comes through loudly and clearly. And here I mean of course the one just beyond the popular anti-Communist Western created veneer. Havel has always used his very subtle, supple and artistic mind to become more than just an Anti-Communist firebrand. In the grand tradition of other Europeans, and more than anything else, he is an existentialist humanist thinker, with much practical advice for democrats. However his primary concerns have never been just with the fetishized political games that superpowers play. Whether they be the brutal class-based politics of Communism which, before it committed suicide, had morphed into a softer form of equally fetishized version of socialism; or about the equally brutal racist-based capitalist consumer-driven democracies, which as they begin to see their own self-inflicted deaths just over the horizon, have also morphed into a "kinder and gentler" form of American racism, or what amounts to about the same, Mandela's softer version of South African Apartheid: Either way, none of these has been Havel's primary concern.
In this book we see Havel's real concerns spread out on the table, as he tells us how his keen sensibilities evolved until he learned to reject his own bourgeois class-based Communist upbringing. He learned to reject it because as he puts it "it gave me unearned privileges and alienated me from myself and from the rest of society in ways that could not be undone until I became aware enough to develop a refined sense of fairness, and until I could develop a "social emotion" that was antagonistic towards the class privileges I had inherited." Havel's "social emotion" was one that was also antagonistic towards unjust social barriers, and towards any pre-determined status awarded at birth, or based on the "false consciousness" of race superiority or any other forms of unearned status whose existence is designed specifically to humiliate, dominate and dehumanize others.
Although Vaclav rebellion against his parent's wealth is classic and familiar to us in the U.S., he did not blame them -- as he saw them as decent people merely caught up in and locked into the social customs and way of life of their time, perhaps in the same way that we Americans do when we use the same lament to excuse our own parent's evils of Jim Crow and slavery. Like his American counterparts, Havel too, even as a member of the bourgeois, preferred a sensibility that sided with the oppressed rather than with the ruling class of which, through inheritance, he was a member in "good standing."
However, unlike the typical American or South African racist, who would never grant moral superiority to those they oppress, even though classism was his natural inheritance, Havel opposed his social station at an almost instinctual level because with all of its undeserved advantages it was seen by him as morally inferior to those it oppressed. He also opposed it because of its inherited privileges, the sponging off of the powerless, due to its social injustices and the immoral barriers that tended to degrade man and condemned those it oppressed to the status of sub-humans. Havel said that by the time of the 1968 uprisings, he had become what he called "an emotional" and a "moral socialist." But even this was just a half way house on his journey to greater personal awareness and enlightenment.
As his social consciousness evolved he began to see the crisis of the world as deeper than just particular ways of organizing the economies, their respective peculiar social arrangements, or the politics of a particular system. What he saw long before it became obvious to the rest of us, is that both the East and West are suffering from the same dilemma: a crisis of alienation, a malaise in which man is isolated from himself; a conflict between an impersonal, anonymous, irresponsible, corrupt and uncontrollable juggernaut of power (the power of mega-corporations, mega-technology, and mega-dollars in politics and mega-churchs), and the elemental and original interests of man as a concrete individual.
In this sense, Havel sees this conflict in the same terms that Ernest Becker saw them: as a nostalgic loss of metaphysical certainties, a lack of a capacity to experience the transcendental, of any super-personal moral authority, or any kind of higher moral horizon. As he puts it: "As soon as man begins to consider himself the source of the highest meaning in the world he begins to lose his human dimension, and control of his humanity. We are going through a great departure from God, which has no parallel in history: we have become the first atheistic civilization."
But again, as in the case with Becker, we must resist the temptation to force these comments about God and the need for a return to spiritualism, into our own facile, lifeless and morally compressed Procrustean Beds. His reference to God and an "extramundane authority" is similar to that of Professor Cornel West's version of his own self-styled version of "Chekovian Christianity:" They both represent "Existentialist revolutions" more than they represent traditional rearrangements of existing religious norms of morality. Anyway you cut it, both West and Havel's versions of "God" seek to drive the moneychangers from the Temple.
Havel, Becker and West all put at the foot of our collective dilemma, man's arrogant anthropomorphism, in which he attempts to know and control everything. As we go about, bouncing between obscene consumption on the one hand and novel but obscene repression on the other, these great men all agree that we need to find a deeper sense of responsibility to the world and to something higher than ourselves. We need a new moral order based on returning man to his genuine human dimension, which can eventually lead to new social structures where personal humanity may again begins to rule supreme.
Far be it for me to suggest that these great men and their shared vision may have missed an important point: that man's humanity is not what it used to be. It has changed and been transformed in fundamental, perhaps even in irretrievable, ways. We cannot "walk the cat back" to an earlier more pristine moral time. Moral ground zero has changed, perhaps forever. Like everything else, our humanity too has been corrupted. We can't un-ring that bell; there is no way to back.
Sadly, the new humanity that we have created is what it is, period. There is lots of practical advice for democrats here, but Havel's larger message is, in my view, much more important.
Ten Stars
Customer Rating:
Summary: Human-Centric Self-Governance--Take Back the Power
Comment: Edit of 17 Apr 08 to add links.
This book should be read as an adjunct to the author's other major book along these lines on power to the powerless.
The most gripping and troubling conclusion that I drew from this book is that the United States of America is today much closer to where Czechoslovakia was in 1968 than anyone other than the Chomsky's and Vidal's might be willing to admit. We have both a federal government and a national corporate economy that thrives on elitist secrecy and blatant lies--even our non-profit sector is corrupt, from the Red Cross to United Way to many others. The people, the citizen-voters, truly have lost all power, as well as access to the information that might give them back the power, and this is indeed a black, absurdist-realist situation.
On a more positive note, the author offers up, in the course of a long series of interviews, a number of ideas that are relevant to America today, as well as to any other emerging or re-emergent democracies in the making.
1) Model of behavior. When arguing with the center of power, do not get side-tracked with ideological debates over right or wrong. Focus on very specific concrete things (e.g. term limits, campaign finance reform, neighborhood economics) and stick to your guns.
2) Popular coalitions. Non-violent non-partisan popular coalitions are the core means of taking back the power. They represent a means for bring together groups of people from widely divergent backgrounds, with genuine social tolerance.
3) Informal networks. Even under conditions of repression and censorship, informal networks of dissidents and quasi-dissidents can be effective in sharing information through samizdat publications. [With the Internet, these possibilities explode, although caution must be taken on the fringes since the Internet is easily monitored and the more radical leaders could be declared seditionist "combatants" ineligible for their rights as citizens...speaking of the Soviet Union, of course, not America.]
4) Man versus Machine. Havel reaches his own conclusions founded in Czech literature and his own experience, with respect to the urgency of restoring the kinship and human connections that used to drive politics, economics, and other aspects of organized living. He is at one with Lionel Tiger among many others, with respect to the terribly consequences of the industrial era in terms of de-humanizing decision-making and allowing remote elites to treat individual workers as dispensable cogs in the machine, whose lives matter not a whit.
5) Neighborhoods, Politics "From Below". He joins the authors of the Cultural Creatives (Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson) and of IMAGINE: What America Could be in the 21st Century (Marianne Williamson) in emphasizing the vital role that neighborhoods must play in any democracy. From political self-governance to sustainable economics to low-cost healthy agriculture to cultural cohesion, neighborhoods are the sin qua non of democracy--without active neighborhoods, one can go so far as to say, national democracy is a sham, a false theater, fully equivalent to the centralized, repressive, inefficient totalitarian control states of earlier eras.
6) Small Numbers Can Make a Difference. I was struck by how few were the original dissidents and organizers--in some cases, 20-30 in number, in others 70-80. Earlier studies have suggested that Hitler took power over millions with just 25,000 people. One can only hope that the anti-thesis is true, and that the 50 million cultural creatives can take back the power by getting serious about organizing across neighborhoods and into a national network.
7) Art and theater matter. Even under conditions of severe censorship and control, art and theater can be the manifestation of uncensored life, "life that spits on all ideology and all that lofty word of babble; a life that intrinsically resist(s) all forms of violence, all interpretations, all directives....here stood truth..."
8) Absurdity is a warning. Nihilistic and absurd theater or other works of art are a caution. They "do not offer us consolation or hope (but) merely remind( ) us of how we are living: without hope.
9) Truth can be misappropriated. The author experienced the misappropriation of his words and was both hurt and enlightened, ultimately creating a play about truth, the circumstances in which it is said, and the whom, why, and how of it.
10) Great men doubt themselves. Most touching are the author's many retrospective and current references to his insecurities, to his doubting himself even as he made history and became President of Czechoslovakia.
11) Writers live to tell the truth. This is certainly not true of most American writers who write for money, but it reflects the ideal and merits thought.
12) Change the atmosphere. If you can do nothing else, strive for a moral mobilization and a change in the atmosphere of governance, at any level. We cannot even begin to conceive the magnitude of the positive changes that can occur overnight if the people begin to speak truth among themselves. Work toward a process "in which people's civic backbones (begin) to straighten again."
13) Role of the intellectual. While I the reviewer would churlishly doubt that America has many intellectuals right now, the author's concluding words on the role of the intellectual strike me as very important: "...the intellectual should constantly disturb, should bear witness to the misery of the world, should be provocative by being independent, should rebel against all hidden and open pressure and manipulations, should be the chief doubter of systems, of power and its incantations, should be a witness to their mendacity."
Any person concerned about the corruption and misdirection of their government and their corporate as well as non-profit entities, will be provoked and inspired by this book. It speaks to the future of human life as it might be, were we willing to stand up straight and be counted at citizen-voters, active at every level beginning with our own neighborhoods.
Living in Truth: 22 Essays Published on the Occasion of the Award of the Erasmus Prize to Vaclav Havel
Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World
One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Should interest mangagers and artists too.
Comment: Other reviews are right on the money in terms of this being a very good book and of course it covers many key elements of the events and times during the changes in Czechoslovakia. However the are several key messages, and lessons for anyone interested in managing, motivating and leading people; particularly through difficult or uncharted changes. There are also some good reflections on the role, character and nature of theater and other individual and group activities in the arts.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Amazing Book, Amazing Man
Comment: This is a fine book about an amazing man. I was truly inspired by Vaclav Havel after reading this book. This book is an "easy read" even though it is largely about weighty matters. It is an interesting and enlightening book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: This book gives you a moral boost
Comment: Whenever I need a moral boost I go back and reread Vaclav Havel's
"Disturbing the Peace". This book is a series of essays by the
dissident Vaclav Havel that were smuggled out of communist
Czechoslovakia and translated by a Havel friend in the West. Vaclav
Havel was a playwright who became a Czech dissident who became leader
of the Velvet revolution (which ousted the communists) and who finally
became president of the republic.Vaclav Havel was the foremost
dissident under the communist regime. He openly challenged the ruling
government with such essays as "Power to the Powerless" and
"The Soul of Main under Communism". (Actually I forgot the name
of the latter essay. I think "The Soul of Man under Communism"
is an essay written by Oscar Wilde. But Havel did address this theme
in "Disturbing the Peace" and in essays he forwarded to the
communist rulers.) One of the most exciting parts of the book is
where Havel describes the dissident communitie's efforts to publish a
Havel essay advocating that the Czech government adhere to the terms
of the Charter 77 human rights accord to which they were a signatory.
The story is spine tingling thriller complete with car chases and
obscure drop points. It reads like a John le Carre novel except it is
real. After you read "Disturbing to Peace" I also recommend
"The Magic Lanten" by Timothy Garton Ash. This is a first hand
account of the fall of the communism as the democratic revolution
rolled across Czechoslovakia, East German, Hungary, and Romania.
Garton Ash was privy to the inner circle of people who plotted and
executed these bloodless coups. (Bloodless everywhere except, of
course, in Romania.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Czech Trips Books
Czech Trips DVD
Czech Trips Softwares
Czech Trips Magazines
Czech Posters
Czech Art Prints
Czech Travel 2008 Calendars
2008 Monthly Calendars
Czech Hotels Travel Special Resources
Czech Arts
Czech Entertainment
Czech Government
Czech Business
Czech Culture
Czech Education
Czech Health
Czech Map
Sports & Recreation
Travel & Tourism
Food and Recipes
Czech Festivals
Czech Hotels
Czech Museums
Czech Transportation
Czech Destinations
Prague, Czech
Brno, Czech
Plzen, Czech
Czech Hotels
Prague Hotels
Brno Hotels
Praha Hotels
|
Czech Hotels Travel
Maintained by: Marketer Solutions | Link Building
