Vaclav Havel Archives - Public Seminar

Philosophy

From Karl Mannheim and Daniel Bell to Vaclav Havel

June 10, 2024 • by Alex Rossen

Among the many reckonings of [the twentieth century] was a reckoning, not merely with Marxism—but with the process of ideology-making itself....

History

A plea for sustaining the infrastructure of hope

January 31, 2024 • by Elzbieta Matynia

Though surrounded by these largely man-made fires, we’ve at least been trying to put them out. It would be so much easier, though, to fight these fires if they were not fueled by massive efforts to dismantle the democratic order....

Democracy

Oppression, Resistance and High-Tech Totalitarianism

December 16, 2020 • by Teng Biao

But most censorship does not directly involve such happenings. It involves fear of such happenings. Perry Link had a classic metaphor - He described the CCP's censorship system as an “Anaconda in the Chandelier”. The silence of the anaconda crouching overhead means “the big brother is watching you!” So everyone will automatically ...

Oppression, Resistance and High-Tech Totalitarianism

Democracy

Testament of our Revolution

What we can learn today from the Czechoslovak Experience of 1977

March 12, 2020 • by Martin Palouš

-James Dodd On February 21, 1990, Václav Havel -- still under arrest less than four months previous as a “subversive element” -- addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress in his new capacity as Czechoslovak President. He was welcomed as a leader of the Velvet Revolution, which brought to an ...

Feature

Reflections on the Development of a Post-truth Regime

Donald Trump and the politically correct

July 27, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas; i.e., the class which is the ruling material force in society is at the same time the ruling intellectual force.” Marx and Engels, The German Ideology We sociologists know that each idea, each creative expression, each truth claim appears ...

Reflections on the Development of a Post-truth Regime

Democracy

Democracy Dies in Darkness

A keynote address from the Dramaturgies of Resistance conference

February 28, 2018 • by Elzbieta Matynia

I have been fascinated by a dimension of political life that occurred in the latter part of the twentieth century in both non-democratic and democratic contexts. I think of this dimension -- something I experienced myself -- as closely related to the politics of hope, and I call it performative. Just ...

Feature

A Post on Friendship, Love and Power

On the Power of the Powerless in Dark Times

February 2, 2018 • by Jeffrey C. Goldfarb

“There are a great many things which cannot withstand the implacable, bright light of the constant presence of others on the public scene; there, only what is considered to be relevant, worthy of being seen and heard, can be tolerated…there are very relevant matters which can survive only in the ...

Feature

A Pre-History of Post-truth

East and West

September 1, 2017 • by Marci Shore

The end of “The End of History” arrived together with the end of belief in reality. The Cold War world was a world of warring ideologies; in the twenty-first century, both American capitalism and post-Soviet oligarchy employ the same public relations specialists catering to gangsters with political ambitions. As Peter ...

Feature

Compromising with Trump

Democracy Lessons from Havel and Michnik

February 1, 2017 • by Joshua Cherniss

Some critics of Trump have called for intransigent resistance; others have counseled openness to compromise in the hopes of taming or co-opting the administration. Even those who doubt that President Trump will prove to be the pragmatic problem-solver he and some supporters have promised must recognize the hunger to believe such promises. President ...