The Power of the Powerless is a classic treatise on political dissent written by a man who lived under a post-totalitarian regime in the former Czechoslovakia. Furthermore, in addition to describing how to resist totalitarianism, the book also critiques the pre-supposed supremacy of Western democracies that shackle their citizens with “unfreedom”; that is, a system where people enslave themselves because they neither ask who they are nor what they should be doing. Subsequently, the “unfree” citizen is fearful, demoralized and is adept at normalization: accepting the way things are without any argument about how they should be. To call a citizen of the West “unfree” at the time of the book’s original publication (1970s) may have seemed far-fetched. Yet, history has proven Havel to be a prophet who foretold that democracy is a god who would inevitably fail.
So according to Havel, what nurtures totalitarianism? Ideology. And, because ideology is the principal guarantor of the continuity of power, it is when power serves ideology that totalitarianism rises. Totalitarian ideology is disconnected from reality and the real needs of the people, which is why the system demands that people “live within the lie.” Hence, even if an individual has a conflict of conscience, the best they can offer is concessions and smiles. It is from this perspective that Havel is not surprised by the rise of immoral State power, but he is surprised at people’s willingness to accept the lie so long as they are sufficiently protected. Many people will elect to obey to “take the path of least resistance” but it is impossible to conform to a requirement and not perpetuate it. Totalitarianism is therefore only possible with the consent of the oppressed.
The hope? That the people possess a potential the State does not: to act consistent with the truth, which poses an existential threat to the whole system of lies. The power of the powerless is the potential ability of all human beings to “live within the truth,” which is any means by which a person or a group revolts against manipulation. Because the end in mind is truth, freedom and human dignity, a genuine “dissident” or “opposition movement” is therefore by definition non-political: its genuine aim goes beyond the limits placed on it by the system (i.e, a republican/democrat, rich/poor, black/white cause). And, dissidents and the movements they create are never messianic for it is the height of arrogance proclaim, “If only we were in power, we could fix this.” Reality and utopia are mutually exclusive and any attempt to fashion paradise ends in misery.
Havel’s prophecy about technology enslaving us is mind-bending considering he wrote it 40+ years ago:
"We look on helplessly as that coldly functioning machine we have created inevitably engulfs us, tearing us away from our natural affiliations … just as it removes us from the experience of ‘being’ and casts us into the world of ‘existences’.”
The author consequently concludes that we cannot use technology to overthrow the dictatorship of technology. What the reader is left to consider is purposely living a post-technology life.
The book ends with concrete, actionable strategies that answer the question, “What is to be done?” The author also challenges us to meditate on a pressing question: if a “brighter future” is distant in the future or, on the contrary, the brighter future has been here for a long time but it is our own blindness and weakness that has clouded our vision and nurtured our apathy. Havel inspires all readers to throw down the idol of government-sanctioned salvation; instead, every individual carries personal responsibility with then everywhere they go. Accordingly, every person is capable of living in the truth and materializing parallel structures based on innate human freedom, dignity, and personal trust. A man can only trust whom he knows, which means another power of the powerless lies in decentralized, local networks out of the reach of tyrants and built from the ground up with the concrete needs of people in mind.
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Top reviews from other countries
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JoaReviewed in Germany on October 3, 2023
Parallelgesellschaften sind die Antwort auf totalitäre Regierungen
- Brett McsweeneyReviewed in Australia on April 9, 2021
Living a lie or living in truth
