Petra Hůlová speaks at Prague Spring 50

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04/12/2018 Added

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Petra Hůlová gives her talk "1968 in 2018" at Prague Spring 50. https://praguespring50.unl.edu/speakers#petra-hulova.

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[00:00:11.030]Each August, around the date of Russian invasion,
[00:00:18.296]newspapers in my country, media in general,
[00:00:22.070]are packed with articles on the legacy of our 1968.
[00:00:27.760]They remind Czechs of the hopes of Prague Spring
[00:00:31.170]and the misery after its oppression
[00:00:34.140]of the dream and the frustration of the wickedness
[00:00:37.250]of Soviet system and idealism of Czech people.
[00:00:42.640]The story of Prague Spring is being told
[00:00:45.390]as a melodrama with nice us being cheated
[00:00:49.110]by evil them up there, where them is Czech
[00:00:52.860]or Soviet communist leadership.
[00:00:55.800]It is a lullaby that brings to our small nation comfort
[00:01:00.210]created by a story of evil by trial,
[00:01:03.550]of our fight for the better world.
[00:01:07.480]Note that it would be a complete nonsense,
[00:01:10.790]but lullabies tend not to be
[00:01:13.310]intellectually very challenging.
[00:01:16.440]So I'm trying something a little bit different here.
[00:01:21.800]Rather than commemorate the failed attempt of liberation,
[00:01:25.760]let's set forth a journey of thoughts
[00:01:28.130]to find out how can we relate Prague Spring
[00:01:31.770]to nowadays' social and political reality.
[00:01:36.250]Beware of Russia is intellectually
[00:01:39.010]not a sufficient lesson of Prague Spring,
[00:01:42.730]but rather, type of ideological hijacking.
[00:01:49.340]These articles on Prague Spring
[00:01:51.490]that flood each August Czech public space
[00:01:54.290]have one thing in common.
[00:01:57.030]International context is not taken
[00:01:59.480]into consideration very much there.
[00:02:03.140]And there has been not much of an interest
[00:02:05.140]the other way around to include Prague Spring
[00:02:07.770]into the Western story of its own 1968.
[00:02:12.010]Why so?
[00:02:13.970]Because Prague Spring and 1968 in Western Europe
[00:02:18.210]mirror each other in a way that on both sides
[00:02:22.070]of the infamous Iron Curtain causes discomfort.
[00:02:28.540]If we brutally simplify it, Prague Spring was an attempt
[00:02:33.620]to enrich leftism with rightism
[00:02:36.850]while 1968 in Western Europe strived for more leftism
[00:02:42.510]in generally right-oriented capitalist societies.
[00:02:48.110]Both movements failed because neither of systems
[00:02:52.190]was willing to change.
[00:02:54.920]Both movements left people with unfulfilled wishes.
[00:02:59.820]On both sides, there was a will of people
[00:03:02.880]to shift the system, not to smash it,
[00:03:06.240]but make it more, what was called in Prague Spring
[00:03:09.990]and mentioned already at this conference, human-like.
[00:03:17.290]People on both sides of the Iron Curtain
[00:03:20.680]showed sympathy for aspects of the forbidden
[00:03:24.270]and demonized system on the other side of the curtain.
[00:03:29.020]Hence comes the resistance to include both
[00:03:32.200]into one story because as well as Prague Spring
[00:03:37.180]was proof of resistance against some aspects of socialism,
[00:03:41.990]1968 was proof of popular disregard of capitalism,
[00:03:47.380]hardly anything mainstream thinkers
[00:03:50.340]in either part of Europe wanted to discuss.
[00:03:58.370]During the '90s, Prague Spring became together
[00:04:02.070]with the Velvet Revolution,
[00:04:04.350]a couple of most commemorated historical events
[00:04:08.240]related to previous regime, serving as an example
[00:04:11.860]of its injustice and evilness.
[00:04:15.520]Each August 21, on the day of Russian invasion,
[00:04:19.550]Prague Spring made us frustrated of unjust occupation,
[00:04:23.920]and each November brought relief and symbolic rejuvenation.
[00:04:29.270]'90s was a period of black and white
[00:04:32.360]and critical embracement of capitalism,
[00:04:35.300]time when any social or other achievements
[00:04:38.630]of previous era were dismissed
[00:04:41.030]and people critical to new political orders marginalized.
[00:04:48.880]Velvet Revolution and Prague Spring
[00:04:50.870]petrified into monuments and fear of Russian danger
[00:04:57.080]or renaissance of communism became a forming element
[00:05:01.780]of new political establishment.
[00:05:04.850]But not only that we haven't been living
[00:05:06.930]in bipolar world anymore, but neither before
[00:05:10.790]had we lived in a world of good versus evil.
[00:05:20.247]"We are living in very extraordinary times.
[00:05:24.317]"The human face of the world changes so rapidly
[00:05:28.227]"that none of the familiar political speedometers
[00:05:29.222]"are adequate."
[00:05:34.300]This is a quote of Vaclav Havel
[00:05:37.240]from his speech in US Congress
[00:05:39.880]during his first visit to US
[00:05:41.880]as President of Czechoslovakia in 1990.
[00:05:46.923]The fading of enthusiasm for a post-communist regime
[00:05:51.300]went in my country hand in hand
[00:05:53.900]with more problematic interpretation
[00:05:56.460]of Vaclav Havel's heritage.
[00:06:00.160]Since once unteachable post-communist,
[00:06:03.060]pro-democratic political elites,
[00:06:05.300]together with the practical results of their politics,
[00:06:08.750]laws their symbolic innocence,
[00:06:11.200]people started to ask questions.
[00:06:16.760]The usual critic of Havel by those
[00:06:21.992]who in general respect his heritage
[00:06:24.720]is his engagement in Iraq War.
[00:06:29.220]Yet I see Havel's main flaw
[00:06:31.460]as more broad than single act of bombing,
[00:06:36.100]of engagement and rather ideological.
[00:06:42.810]Those who know Havel's essays from his dissident years
[00:06:46.640]know Havel was not only critical to communism
[00:06:50.770]but to capitalism as well.
[00:06:53.870]Actually, he put them side by side,
[00:06:56.730]as regimes equal in their dehumanizing capacity.
[00:07:01.960]But after 1989, Havel stopped doing that.
[00:07:06.690]We can debate the reasons, but the fact is clear.
[00:07:13.300]And now a moment of pure fantasy.
[00:07:18.660]Let's try to imagine Havel using his speech in Congress
[00:07:24.290]not only to celebrate end of communism in Eastern Europe,
[00:07:28.670]but to address how under the veil of defending democracy
[00:07:33.900]US politics brutally defends its interest worldwide
[00:07:38.450]and thus facilitates the rise of overall political cynicism
[00:07:44.840]or closer to Havel's nature
[00:07:47.130]and more faithful to his interests.
[00:07:50.710]How detrimental is not only communism,
[00:07:54.270]but also deadly consumerism of capitalism
[00:07:58.040]that is capable of similarly awful atrocities
[00:08:02.270]as the system whose end Western world so much celebrated.
[00:08:13.830]Why do I imagine this?
[00:08:17.670]Because I wonder whether our current political situation
[00:08:22.080]that shows the same symptoms all over Europe
[00:08:25.740]and in a bit shifted way here in US
[00:08:28.430]and manifests as general frustration and dissatisfaction
[00:08:32.390]of people with their political environment,
[00:08:35.980]couldn't have started in the '90s,
[00:08:38.020]fueled by ignorance and self-satisfaction.
[00:08:42.480]We thought the victory of capitalism
[00:08:44.540]and democracy in 1989 marked the final stage
[00:08:48.400]of political progress, which reminds me
[00:08:51.590]of a common communist slogan
[00:08:53.680]which has been mocked at after 1989.
[00:08:57.940]With Soviet Union forever and ever after.
[00:09:03.470]How could one laugh at this slogan and at once,
[00:09:06.860]take eternality of his own regime for granted?
[00:09:14.650]We got a bit further from Prague Spring
[00:09:16.870]than you might have expected, but we are still on the track
[00:09:22.370]of what Prague Spring means for us in 2018.
[00:09:28.370]Related to current so-called rise of populism in Europe,
[00:09:33.050]Prague Spring well-illustrates fact
[00:09:35.800]that even though both communist and democratic systems
[00:09:39.410]like to boast about the will of people
[00:09:42.210]that those systems represent,
[00:09:45.140]moments of mass dissatisfaction
[00:09:47.780]prove to show otherwise in both cases.
[00:09:58.390]In that sense, I'm not the first one
[00:10:00.800]who mentioned this here, Prague Spring is well-comparable
[00:10:05.000]to contemporary tsunami of public disenchantment
[00:10:08.440]and antiestablishment emancipation.
[00:10:11.810]People both now and in 1968 were hungry for alternatives,
[00:10:16.190]disappointed and fed up with its political elites.
[00:10:21.690]But whereas Prague Spring was filled with hope,
[00:10:24.740]current wave of discontent is fueled by fear instead.
[00:10:30.400]And unlike in 1968, intellectual elites
[00:10:34.370]are not on people's side, and neither people favor them.
[00:10:41.690]To simplify even more, Prague Spring was rising people
[00:10:47.020]plus progressive intellectual elites
[00:10:49.130]against the establishment.
[00:10:51.370]Now it is people against establishment with intellectuals
[00:10:55.240]having difficulties finding their position
[00:10:58.260]or even at least being paid attention.
[00:11:08.130]Why so?
[00:11:10.420]Because people feel left behind by the intellectual elites
[00:11:13.610]the same way they feel left behind by the capitalist system
[00:11:17.490]which for many in Czech Republic failed to deliver
[00:11:20.900]significantly better life it promised 28 years ago
[00:11:24.720]and caused major social inequality.
[00:11:28.830]For years, the whole '90s,
[00:11:32.840]were Czech intellectuals muting any criticism
[00:11:35.940]of the post-communist system,
[00:11:38.040]arguing that anything was better,
[00:11:40.190]comparing to how it was before?
[00:11:44.710]Flaws of the new system, including corruption
[00:11:47.980]of ideas of Velvet Revolution were called
[00:11:51.300]necessary labor pain of the transitional period
[00:11:55.840]that as a form of excuse is doomed never to come to an end.
[00:12:02.880]We are reaping the fruits of what we've seeded.
[00:12:06.950]Intellectuals lost their credit,
[00:12:08.780]and it will take them a long time to establish it again.
[00:12:12.640]Demonstrations against xenophobia
[00:12:15.330]and populism won't help.
[00:12:18.580]They serve only as a proof of our own hypocrisy.
[00:12:23.690]Wasn't it intellectuals who were all about
[00:12:26.810]emancipation of people's voices?
[00:12:29.430]Wasn't it intellectuals who emphasized
[00:12:31.410]that everybody should participate
[00:12:33.380]in the debate about our society,
[00:12:36.810]that marginalized voices should be heard?
[00:12:40.410]So now, listen what they say and don't try to shut them up.
[00:12:47.920]Or, do openly say that democracy as we have it
[00:12:52.400]served well for some time, but its days are finished
[00:12:55.800]in favor of another system that we have more difficulty
[00:13:00.130]to imagine that the end of our capitalism.
[00:13:07.180]Possibility of change is fostered by imagination.
[00:13:11.540]In 1968, we experienced imagination
[00:13:14.850]exceeding the limits of politics defined by power.
[00:13:20.030]Power felt endangered and struck back.
[00:13:23.560]The dream was too big.
[00:13:25.380]Space for maneuvering, too tight.
[00:13:28.750]Today's European Prague Spring
[00:13:31.540]is not only fostered by imagination,
[00:13:34.880]but it fairly exceeds imagination of lots of us.
[00:13:39.400]Taboos are being crushed, political limits
[00:13:43.510]are being pushed and redefined.
[00:13:46.120]What was impossible yesterday
[00:13:47.810]is tomorrow's practical reality.
[00:13:52.520]Prague Spring got its reputation
[00:13:55.590]as a failed attempt to repair the communist system
[00:13:58.810]and the world system is crucial now again,
[00:14:04.160]as if the word system is only now becoming apparent
[00:14:08.930]after 28 years after Velvet Revolution
[00:14:11.660]finally visible and painfully palpable.
[00:14:15.490]For years, we somehow thought we were
[00:14:18.070]just living in freedom.
[00:14:21.570]Czechs in 1989 demonstrated for it,
[00:14:26.160]didn't they?
[00:14:28.870]But the greatest portion of what they got
[00:14:30.910]was capitalism that few spoke about
[00:14:33.870]until it gradually wiped out social achievements
[00:14:37.470]and fostered inequality nobody was prepared on
[00:14:41.180]and nobody wanted.
[00:14:44.900]Unlucky people, those whose factories were closed,
[00:14:49.220]and the last thing they were interested in
[00:14:51.860]was a celebrated freedom to travel
[00:14:54.570]were told for 28 years to shut up.
[00:14:58.420]Meanwhile, witnessing tunneling of state companies
[00:15:02.180]by private entrepreneurs, political affairs
[00:15:05.920]showing decadence of values,
[00:15:08.210]and overall worshiping of free market
[00:15:11.460]regardless of its practical impact.
[00:15:21.440]Frustration we face is a result of long processes
[00:15:25.850]that have been piling up in Czech society for last 28 years,
[00:15:30.200]but have been overlooked and dismissed.
[00:15:33.650]Rising inequality, amount of in-debt people,
[00:15:37.650]moral decadence of politics.
[00:15:40.510]For those who were aware of the situation,
[00:15:43.850]the current rise of populism isn't surprising.
[00:15:47.420]Some journalists like to describe the situation
[00:15:50.910]as if people went crazy.
[00:15:53.420]No, they just lost their patience.
[00:16:01.800]Now back to Prague Spring through the bridge of Russia.
[00:16:06.960]Sometimes we act and think, or rather,
[00:16:09.700]project that we act and think,
[00:16:12.340]as if we didn't have any political interests,
[00:16:15.150]as if our motivation was a true good.
[00:16:18.540]Our attitude to Russia is a good example
[00:16:21.330]of this self-delusion.
[00:16:23.560]We tend to praise Gorbachev
[00:16:26.330]for stuff that Putin calls the greatest catastrophe
[00:16:29.930]of 20th Century, the end of Soviet Union.
[00:16:35.920]Of course, Czechs and Americans celebrate it.
[00:16:39.940]It marks a victory in Cold War here in US,
[00:16:44.200]and it brought sovereignty to my country.
[00:16:47.890]But for Russia, it truly was a disaster.
[00:16:52.160]An established giant of world politics
[00:16:55.100]became overnight a limping, weak rag
[00:16:57.550]with hardly any respect.
[00:16:59.930]Whole '90s, Russia was on its knees
[00:17:02.390]and laughed at by Europe.
[00:17:04.870]In Russia, they remember that and won't forgive it.
[00:17:10.890]Nobody says it openly, but unlike weak Germany
[00:17:13.920]or weak European Union, weak Russia is good for us
[00:17:18.080]and for European Union in general.
[00:17:22.430]Under Putin, Russia got back a lot of its strength
[00:17:26.460]and international respect, which is based most commonly
[00:17:30.060]in politics on fear, of course.
[00:17:32.760]Putin seems fearless and raises fear abroad.
[00:17:36.150]Being Russian, I would have possibly appreciated,
[00:17:40.010]but I am Czech, so I don't.
[00:17:43.080]It's that I'm Czech that I don't like Putin,
[00:17:45.780]but Russians have different reasons
[00:17:47.940]for electing him than just a mental weakness,
[00:17:51.330]face-to-face brainwashing propaganda, don't they?
[00:18:03.420]People are fed up with politics.
[00:18:05.930]We know it already.
[00:18:08.040]No wonder.
[00:18:10.540]Also media, regardless on their political leaning,
[00:18:13.640]present politics as opportunist power struggle
[00:18:17.470]with ideas just only as something on the side.
[00:18:23.700]Nonetheless, we still push people to legitimize it.
[00:18:27.340]Why do we perceive those who don't vote,
[00:18:30.070]who don't want to participate in this open comedy
[00:18:33.160]as irresponsible?
[00:18:35.310]Who wants to feel like a fool again and again?
[00:18:44.290]Democracy works well until there
[00:18:47.280]works a silent gentlemen agreement
[00:18:49.420]between people and its elites, it says.
[00:18:53.410]We will do the best to defend your freedom
[00:18:56.220]and your interests, and you will respect us
[00:18:59.200]as a general authority and trust our judgment.
[00:19:03.810]It works if people feel represented
[00:19:06.320]with their interests being defended.
[00:19:09.620]The legitimacy is in crisis when it's not true anymore.
[00:19:14.010]That's the situation now.
[00:19:19.700]Some of you might know that I'm a writer of fiction,
[00:19:26.050]but I also write theater plays.
[00:19:29.040]In my last one, called Guardians of Public Good part two,
[00:19:34.120]there is a dialogue between a 20-year-old guy
[00:19:37.530]and his mom in her 50s, an eye witness of Velvet Revolution.
[00:19:44.440]She asks her son whether he knows
[00:19:47.240]what is the different between his youth and hers.
[00:19:53.080]He says that the difference is probably related
[00:19:56.410]to communism, what she, unlike him, grew up at.
[00:20:01.060]But his mom says that it's the fact
[00:20:03.490]that unlike when she was young,
[00:20:05.620]now nobody's envious of young people anymore
[00:20:11.720]because they have the most of stuff
[00:20:14.130]that everybody is scared of the most,
[00:20:18.240]and that is the future.
[00:20:30.090]In 1968, there were different worlds
[00:20:33.450]divided by Iron Curtain.
[00:20:36.120]Now we are together in the same
[00:20:37.840]globalized whole of capitalism.
[00:20:42.310]But instead of scolding and globalization,
[00:20:44.550]I have a question for you.
[00:20:48.720]You emigrants, I'm sorry, you Americans,
[00:20:53.050]not the Czech immigrants,
[00:20:57.060]in this rooms, aged over, let's say, 55.
[00:21:02.840]The question is, what were you really thinking
[00:21:07.700]of people so uncritically embracing capitalism
[00:21:11.260]after the fall of the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe?
[00:21:15.740]Didn't you consider them a bit naive, a little bit funny,
[00:21:22.800]all that overt enthusiasm?
[00:21:26.460]You, unlike Eastern Europeans, weren't thinking
[00:21:29.300]of capitalism as a paradise, were you?
[00:21:33.530]Or is it more like that in the '90s,
[00:21:36.710]everybody was full of enthusiasm about future
[00:21:39.490]regardless of nationality?
[00:21:43.120]Or was the start of capitalism in Eastern Europe
[00:21:47.000]too blurred with celebrated beginning of democracy
[00:21:50.870]that its character went unnoticed?
[00:21:56.990]Sometimes I think, why no intellectual authorities
[00:22:01.620]from the west who had long experience with capitalism
[00:22:05.840]and visited Eastern Europe in the beginnings of '90s
[00:22:08.930]or were informed about the situation there
[00:22:11.780]haven't sent a public message like,
[00:22:13.660]hey, guys, just be careful?
[00:22:15.790]This transformation from communism
[00:22:17.820]to capitalism might be damaging,
[00:22:20.820]not only when it's not made quickly enough,
[00:22:23.620]as we heard so often during the coupon privatization.
[00:22:27.770]But you better don't have an ambition
[00:22:29.510]to emulate our capitalism
[00:22:31.670]because it has given us these and these problems,
[00:22:34.540]or at least try to avoid these problems.
[00:22:37.380]Let's learn from our mistakes,
[00:22:40.310]something like that.
[00:22:42.980]Where are these warnings from the West?
[00:22:46.160]Were there these warnings from the West,
[00:22:48.200]but we in Czechoslovakia just haven't paid attention?
[00:22:52.530]Had they been not, then why?
[00:22:57.750]I am aware that by this reproach,
[00:23:00.770]I position myself where I actually hate to be,
[00:23:04.240]into a ridiculous someone who is upset
[00:23:07.080]that she wasn't taken care of the way she liked to be.
[00:23:12.140]However, for more than 28 years,
[00:23:14.970]we've been taught to look up to you,
[00:23:17.500]Western Europeans and Americans.
[00:23:20.340]It's deeply in our blood, our complex of inferiority.
[00:23:25.870]We've been taught that we've been living in shame
[00:23:28.630]for 40 years of the communism,
[00:23:31.370]where Prague Spring, even with its dark ending,
[00:23:34.140]was one of very few bright spots,
[00:23:37.140]and the only real reason to be proud on ourselves
[00:23:40.420]was Velvet Revolution in 1989.
[00:23:50.300]But isn't it actually the other way around?
[00:23:54.380]That experience of 40 years of communism
[00:23:57.400]taught us a lot about us and society in general.
[00:24:03.690]It surely was an experience we
[00:24:05.410]couldn't have obtained otherwise.
[00:24:08.680]Havel even tackled exactly this also
[00:24:11.420]in his already mentioned speech in US Congress.
[00:24:16.580]He said to US congressmen, "Your journey has never
[00:24:21.237]"been interrupted by totalitarian system.
[00:24:24.837]"The advantage you have over us is obvious at once.
[00:24:30.027]"At the same time, however unintentionally,
[00:24:32.787]"it has given us something positive,
[00:24:35.677]"a special capacity to look,
[00:24:37.727]"from time to time, somewhat further
[00:24:40.217]"than someone who hasn't undergone this bitter experience.
[00:24:45.867]"We too can offer something to you,
[00:24:48.717]"our experience and knowledge that has come from it."
[00:24:53.190]End of quotation.
[00:24:58.050]We have an experience of how people behave differently
[00:25:02.600]under different political circumstances,
[00:25:05.610]but also how some others behave completely the same.
[00:25:09.970]We know what it means, the change of a system.
[00:25:13.440]We experienced five of them only in the 20th Century,
[00:25:17.780]Austria/Hungarian Empire, First Republic,
[00:25:22.400]German Protectorate during Second World War,
[00:25:25.790]and in 1948, started 40 years of communism
[00:25:29.880]ended by Velvet Revolution.
[00:25:33.170]So we have probably, possibly in-built a certain sensitivity
[00:25:40.640]to systems in general, and we should be able
[00:25:43.640]to detect them as systems first of all.
[00:25:47.660]So I wonder, what happened with this knowledge?
[00:25:52.140]A rhetorical question, obviously.
[00:25:54.610]We actually haven't worked with it at all.
[00:25:57.620]However, the alternative meaning of Prague Spring in 2018
[00:26:05.440]that we are here to articulate directly stems from it,
[00:26:11.240]from experience of a system that manifested itself
[00:26:14.830]through revelation of its limits.
[00:26:18.110]Russian invasion in 1968 couldn't show the limits
[00:26:22.250]of Czech communist regime more clearly,
[00:26:25.240]and Russian troops stayed in my country
[00:26:27.670]for another 22 years to take care
[00:26:30.580]that these limits won't be ever crossed again.
[00:26:36.810]I often ask myself, how would I behave
[00:26:41.070]during the years of the Russian occupation
[00:26:44.240]that is called normalization?
[00:26:47.430]I often ask myself whether I would stand firm
[00:26:51.780]and publicly disagree with the invasion,
[00:26:54.450]whether I would speak out my opinion
[00:26:57.280]or collaborate with the regime,
[00:26:59.310]as did most of people out of fear.
[00:27:05.090]I ask myself, what are nowadays' dilemmas,
[00:27:09.320]where one either risks or collaborates?
[00:27:12.880]Surely, it's not in verbal critical opinion anymore.
[00:27:17.560]In capitalism, it's rather teeth-less,
[00:27:20.630]but it still has to do with collaboration and compromise.
[00:27:29.480]The opposition after the Russian invasion
[00:27:33.640]was limited onto dissident movement of intellectuals
[00:27:37.980]and so-called underground of rather apolitical young people
[00:27:41.920]who gathered around illegal music scene.
[00:27:47.780]Because of the resistance against Czech communist system,
[00:27:52.160]Czech dissident and underground scene
[00:27:54.570]was unlike majority of intellectuals
[00:27:57.280]and members of antiestablishment movements
[00:27:59.880]in the West, right-oriented.
[00:28:06.670]After the Velvet Revolution, prominent representatives
[00:28:10.040]of Czech descent got high positions in administration,
[00:28:13.860]and the Czech underground used its anti-system reputation
[00:28:18.370]to build itself a self-centered memorial,
[00:28:21.490]self-contained celebration of its courage,
[00:28:24.340]and moral superiority during communism.
[00:28:29.350]Czech underground scene rose
[00:28:31.190]in its anticommunist zealousness
[00:28:37.550]and looking into past.
[00:28:41.050]After the victory of capitalism,
[00:28:43.420]Czech underground and dissident movement,
[00:28:46.010]thanks to its rightist orientation,
[00:28:48.020]lost its claws, but its power to inspire
[00:28:51.300]is nonetheless still here with us.
[00:28:57.910]Czech underground has an important stuff to offer us,
[00:29:03.170]an ethical jewel.
[00:29:05.430]It was particularly these people
[00:29:07.660]who were risking during communism
[00:29:10.450]loss of job, their children's studies,
[00:29:13.050]years in prison, or a house being burned by secret police.
[00:29:19.240]Wasn't it especially the fact that Havel's philosophy
[00:29:22.810]was guaranteed by his everyday life,
[00:29:25.300]that gave him his reputation?
[00:29:30.800]What are we now willing to sacrifice
[00:29:33.490]if we come to the conclusion
[00:29:35.610]that life that we are expected to live
[00:29:38.800]is morally, politically, ecologically compromising?
[00:29:44.220]Are we willing to lose at least part of our comfort?
[00:29:48.330]How large is that part?
[00:29:53.770]Systems change, but they are still composed
[00:29:56.780]of the same people, people with the same nature.
[00:30:01.230]And isn't it actually nothing more
[00:30:02.890]than all the people together that create these systems?
[00:30:06.390]So where are some aspects of systems change,
[00:30:09.730]others remain the same.
[00:30:15.370]Havel was right when he, in his dissident years,
[00:30:19.730]lucidly saw through both communism and capitalism
[00:30:23.630]and emphasized they are not gender, but danger equality.
[00:30:31.720]So long I had been fantasizing
[00:30:35.420]of had I be living that time,
[00:30:38.320]would I have shown bravery during the Prague Spring
[00:30:42.140]and resistance against communism
[00:30:44.750]all the years that followed,
[00:30:47.120]or would I have obeyed the rules?
[00:30:50.210]So long I had been fantasizing
[00:30:54.140]until I actually realized I live in the world
[00:30:58.180]of great moral compromises myself,
[00:31:03.720]dilemmas that seduce and disarm with the same power,
[00:31:08.490]but more global consequences than the communist ones,
[00:31:12.620]that we live similarly as the generation of my parents,
[00:31:17.040]subjugated by our regime, but it musters a global power.
[00:31:22.230]And signs of decadence of this regime,
[00:31:28.410]unlike those of communism in my parents' youth,
[00:31:31.970]don't trigger hope for the better future, but fear.
[00:31:39.100]Havel thought that our communist experience
[00:31:44.160]might be perceived not only as stripping us of our dignity,
[00:31:49.230]but as a source of our race's sensitivity
[00:31:52.010]toward systems in general.
[00:31:55.820]This thought, unfortunately, never established.
[00:31:59.940]It's one of Havel's thoughts that as if he never said,
[00:32:04.470]yet it seems so important, especially now,
[00:32:07.630]when recognizing a tough and merciless system
[00:32:10.990]under all veils of freedoms and consume possibilities
[00:32:15.020]is harder than to uncover crippleness of communism.
[00:32:19.580]Whereas the need not to compromise
[00:32:22.070]is of the same urgency as during communist times.
[00:32:27.830]Let's at least acknowledge that now, we are there together.
[00:32:34.540]Thank you.
[00:32:36.128](audience clapping)
[00:33:03.437]All right.
[00:33:04.440]I feel duty-bound to say a few words
[00:33:07.530]as one of those people
[00:33:10.260]who got a high government job after 1989
[00:33:17.440]for his real or imagined courage before 1989.
[00:33:26.520]I wanted to thank you, Petra,
[00:33:27.920]for asking some very important questions
[00:33:32.660]and questions that are not comfortable
[00:33:35.390]to people of my generation
[00:33:41.320]because we also need to be asking ourselves what went wrong
[00:33:47.940]and what is responsible for the wave of discontent
[00:33:56.250]and dissatisfaction of young people in particular,
[00:34:02.960]in our society, in the Czech Republic,
[00:34:07.000]but not only in the Czech Republic,
[00:34:08.390]also in most countries around Europe
[00:34:11.610]and to a degree, in this country as well.
[00:34:17.650]I just want to take issue
[00:34:22.370]with some of the things that you've said
[00:34:24.670]because I think you started, you know,
[00:34:31.490]quite rightly, with what was happening
[00:34:34.810]on both sides of the Iron Curtain in 1968,
[00:34:40.892]and compared our reform process
[00:34:47.560]with the wave of discontent in Western Europe
[00:34:51.140]and in the United States.
[00:34:54.060]But as many people do, I'm afraid
[00:34:56.880]that you chose a false symmetry between the two processes
[00:35:05.210]as if they were politically and morally equal.
[00:35:11.270]They were not.
[00:35:13.589]And the easiest way to prove it
[00:35:17.320]is to look at the consequences of the two processes.
[00:35:24.820]The people who protested in Paris,
[00:35:28.950]in Berlin, in Chicago, and elsewhere
[00:35:36.160]went on to become members of parliaments
[00:35:40.250]and leaders, and ministers, and the pillars of the society.
[00:35:48.150]Whereas the people who were protesting in Prague
[00:35:53.070]went on to become window cleaners
[00:35:58.123]and people of the second or third rank in the society.
[00:36:08.140]I know of no hundreds of thousands of people
[00:36:13.150]who emigrated from the West to the East
[00:36:17.040]as a result of the faith revolts in Paris
[00:36:22.633]or Berlin or the United States.
[00:36:24.160]I know of a number of people,
[00:36:26.840]and some are sitting in this room, who--
[00:36:30.900]Huh?
[00:36:34.918]Well, we'll get to that.
[00:36:37.680]I have my own memories of Mexico City,
[00:36:42.070]but you know, you will be welcome
[00:36:44.370]to make your own point though, I'm sure.
[00:36:48.790]So this symmetry is false.
[00:36:53.550]It is also false in what you say about Vaclav Havel.
[00:36:58.910]It seems that you have not read your Havel well enough
[00:37:04.330]or attentively enough.
[00:37:06.560]Havel never says that the, never draws parallelism
[00:37:13.360]between communism and capitalism in his essays.
[00:37:19.960]What he says, that they both have common origin
[00:37:28.498]in the sinking of the Enlightenment
[00:37:31.510]and in the modern society.
[00:37:33.610]But he always considered communism
[00:37:36.880]to be a perverse outgrowth
[00:37:41.852]of this line of European development.
[00:37:46.290]And in this, it was, in his thinking,
[00:37:49.770]always something much more ominous
[00:37:53.430]and much more tyrannical than capitalism was.
[00:37:59.860]You also draw, which also often happens,
[00:38:04.400]a difference between pre-1989 Havel
[00:38:08.160]and post-1989 Havel.
[00:38:11.630]And if you went on quoting from the address
[00:38:16.380]to the joint session of the United States Congress
[00:38:18.440]in February 1990 for a little while longer,
[00:38:23.540]you would come to the passage in which Havel says
[00:38:28.140]that unless this world becomes aware
[00:38:34.910]of the moral core of all human activity,
[00:38:39.210]et cetera, et cetera, and will go on
[00:38:41.960]in its automated consumerism
[00:38:49.250]and disregard for environment, et cetera, et cetera,
[00:38:53.420]it will eventually be doomed.
[00:38:55.630]This is what Havel said in 1990.
[00:39:01.450]He always kept on warning in his speeches time and again
[00:39:06.110]against some of the aspects of the rough capitalism
[00:39:13.910]of the 1990s in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic.
[00:39:20.320]His quite famous 1997 speech to the Czech House of Deputies
[00:39:29.790]is often cited as an example of that,
[00:39:33.840]but nobody was willing to listen.
[00:39:36.140]I mean, most people at the time
[00:39:38.640]seemed to have been happy with enjoying the fruits
[00:39:44.490]of consumerism and capitalism.
[00:39:47.610]And Havel's was actually a voice
[00:39:51.930]crying in the wilderness.
[00:39:54.430]I don't want to go on and on about it.
[00:39:56.350]I could.
[00:39:57.330]But one last thing, if you allow me.
[00:40:02.070]It is not true that for 28 years,
[00:40:07.150]your generation was told to shut up.
[00:40:10.070]It's the other way around.
[00:40:12.800]Your generation was told to speak up and didn't.
[00:40:17.120]If you look at all--
[00:40:18.520]It's not about my generation at all.
[00:40:20.943]I mean, it's not about, like, young people.
[00:40:23.080]I was rather speaking about, like, the people.
[00:40:26.920]Yeah, normal people. People, but I,
[00:40:29.120]you know, you are representing
[00:40:30.430]a generation, and you are It's not about, like, youth.
[00:40:31.990]representing a generational point of view.
[00:40:37.104]And I, you probably know the studies
[00:40:39.690]as well as I do, sociological studies,
[00:40:43.350]that show that the level of involvement
[00:40:45.960]of particular young people declined
[00:40:49.530]and kept declining over most of the last 28 years.
[00:40:53.680]Now, it seems to be on the rise again,
[00:40:56.360]and I want to congratulate you on that.
[00:40:59.450]And I hope that you will speak up.
[00:41:01.670]And the fact that you're thinking,
[00:41:06.490]at least, when old men like me
[00:41:08.420]seems to be immature and flawed is no bad thing
[00:41:18.610]because that should be fitting for your generation.
[00:41:25.340]Thank you.
[00:41:27.629]Thank you, thank you for your comments.
[00:41:32.600]Well, I will just say a couple of sentences.
[00:41:38.610]Well, let's not talk about, like,
[00:41:42.010]what Vaclav Havel meant how, and he's not here with us
[00:41:47.110]to correct us anymore.
[00:41:49.567]And it's probably also not the very point
[00:41:53.760]of my paper.
[00:41:56.460]Rather, probably, more that you mentioned the difference
[00:42:02.460]of, let's say, the reparations in the capitalist system
[00:42:09.017]and in the communist system in 1968,
[00:42:12.440]that in Czech Republic, it was, like, incomparably harsh.
[00:42:18.460]That's un-disputabaly through.
[00:42:23.200]But here, I would say you, again,
[00:42:25.700]do something that I was trying to criticize in the text,
[00:42:31.080]and that is, like, justifying,
[00:42:37.773]justifying the defense of,
[00:42:45.240]or, let's say, justifying some atrocities of the system
[00:42:49.610]by comparing it with the other system
[00:42:54.680]that does something else even worse.
[00:42:57.530]I mean, I think that was what was, like,
[00:43:01.300]this kind of argumentation was going on and on when people
[00:43:06.300]were criticizing contemporary political situation
[00:43:11.100]or tunneling in economics or whatever corruption
[00:43:16.060]or social problems.
[00:43:18.010]There was always the argumentation,
[00:43:20.500]hey, look, in the communist times
[00:43:22.840]or in communist countries, this is worse.
[00:43:25.800]So you did the same with the 1968
[00:43:31.643]and the way it treated people.
[00:43:33.000]So I don't like this way of argumentation.
[00:43:36.600]And also, in general, communism and capitalism,
[00:43:41.970]they have different tools, how to, let's say,
[00:43:47.850]make people obey or how they make people collaborate.
[00:43:52.030]You know?
[00:43:52.863]In the communist times, in the communism,
[00:43:57.277]what is of great danger is opinion.
[00:44:04.080]It's like, yeah, opinion, different judgment, criticism.
[00:44:10.070]So it's being punished harshly.
[00:44:13.380]But in the capitalism, that's not really what matters.
[00:44:17.480]So the fact that in capitalist society,
[00:44:22.300]for your criticism, you don't go to prison.
[00:44:26.210]It's not a justification of its,
[00:44:29.120]it's not a proof of its good.
[00:44:33.662]It's just an example of, like,
[00:44:36.620]different strategy of the system.
[00:44:41.470]You know?
[00:44:47.389]So it's very much about the,
[00:44:52.388]what is the counter-power in the regime.
[00:44:55.170]In the communist times, it was opinion.
[00:44:58.710]In the capitalism, it's not opinion anymore,
[00:45:01.070]so don't, let's not argue that, like,
[00:45:04.820]free opinion is a proof of, like, anything
[00:45:08.480]because it's, yeah, it's teeth-less.
[00:45:14.260]It means nothing.
[00:45:15.160]So that's why anyone can say whatever he wants.
[00:45:20.280]Sorry?
[00:45:22.360]No, I mean that in the--
[00:45:26.040]No, let me explain it to you.
[00:45:29.340]I said that when you criticize something
[00:45:33.760]in the capitalist society, you can
[00:45:36.450]because your voice does not mean anything.
[00:45:40.520]It's, you are, you are not a,
[00:45:43.140]your voice is not a challenge, you know?
[00:45:45.600]Unlike in communism, where it's dangerous,
[00:45:48.740]where it's powerful.
[00:45:55.130]Thank you for your instructive talk.
[00:45:58.800]I agree with you.
[00:46:00.300]And as an older person from America or Western Europe,
[00:46:05.920]I think, you know, I, on behalf of the group,
[00:46:09.940]take some responsibility in not pointing out
[00:46:13.710]some of the flaws of the capitalist,
[00:46:17.130]the free market economy.
[00:46:18.620]But I think that, to use a word that you used
[00:46:20.780]and you used very well, those of us here
[00:46:24.590]were seduced by some of the benefits of capitalism.
[00:46:28.330]It was very hard to object to it,
[00:46:31.010]to step out of the capitalist world,
[00:46:33.680]because particularly, after the Velvet Revolution,
[00:46:38.880]things were going very, very well economically.
[00:46:41.800]People had amenities, they had luxuries.
[00:46:46.110]It was very hard for people to say,
[00:46:47.770]no, don't follow that path.
[00:46:51.240]Now, in Czech land, I understand why most people
[00:46:58.900]who had little during the 40 years of communist occupation
[00:47:03.760]could also have been seduced by the material things
[00:47:09.070]that they were obtaining, that they were unable to obtain
[00:47:12.030]during the previous generation and a half.
[00:47:15.350]But the Czech people have had
[00:47:19.450]a very strong intellectual tradition,
[00:47:23.550]and it was manifested in the Prague Spring in 1968.
[00:47:29.810]It continued until the Velvet Revolution and beyond.
[00:47:36.250]There also was the ability, which maybe people didn't have
[00:47:40.700]in the 1930s and 1940s, to watch television
[00:47:45.340]and to see what was happening elsewhere, to read newspapers,
[00:47:49.680]which they may not have been able to do previously,
[00:47:52.770]to hear people who had traveled and come back,
[00:47:55.940]to read books, to listen to the radio.
[00:47:59.680]Why is it that the intellectual class,
[00:48:02.950]with only some exceptions, were not able to find a way
[00:48:10.090]between the extremes of the free market economy
[00:48:15.020]and the extreme inequality that capitalism produced
[00:48:20.570]to find either a middle ground
[00:48:23.900]or a ground that maybe was on the capitalist side,
[00:48:29.040]but would not lead to some of the detriments
[00:48:32.240]that capitalist society brought to Western Europe
[00:48:35.740]and to the Western Hemisphere.
[00:48:37.320]What happened that, was the intellectual class
[00:48:43.410]also seduced by the material benefits,
[00:48:46.520]or what happened that Czechoslovakia
[00:48:50.750]and then the Czech Republic was led down the same path
[00:48:54.933]which you rightfully criticize as bringing the inequality
[00:48:59.540]that free market economy often does?
[00:49:02.850]Well, I think the answer is very simple,
[00:49:07.900]and I think I mentioned it already here,
[00:49:11.570]that any kind of attempt to, let's say,
[00:49:21.280]make capitalism softer in any more, like, remarkable way
[00:49:29.823]was considered and labeled as, like, crypto-communism.
[00:49:34.760]It was, like, stigmatized.
[00:49:36.360]This way of thinking was stigmatized.
[00:49:43.119]It was just this way, that's it.
[00:49:49.499]So it was kind of, sorry,
[00:49:52.070]it was sort of shameful in a way
[00:49:55.140]to come up with this idea
[00:49:56.770]because it would label you not in a nice way,
[00:50:01.240]and that's why you'd rather keep it for yourself.
[00:50:04.710]Because otherwise, most of people would not go with you
[00:50:10.640]in any way, mentally, yeah.
[00:50:15.390]Yes.
[00:50:16.370]Bruce Garver.
[00:50:18.615](speaking in foreign language)
[00:50:26.945]I, too, thank you for a
[00:50:30.570]stimulating talk and asking questions,
[00:50:35.490]certainly from a younger person's perspective,
[00:50:37.250]but nonetheless, questions that are deserving,
[00:50:40.290]careful, and critical thought by everybody in the room.
[00:50:44.130]I don't wish to sound like an old fogey, maybe I do,
[00:50:47.880]certainly chronologically, I'm in that situation.
[00:50:52.440]But I'd like to look at the thoughtful things you said
[00:50:57.700]in two ways.
[00:50:59.310]One would be in a historical perspective,
[00:51:02.740]looking back at what I've learned about Czech history
[00:51:06.660]and having studied it now for close to 55 years.
[00:51:11.520]And the other would be to look at it
[00:51:14.630]in an American's perspective,
[00:51:20.470]with what is true of our country and every other country,
[00:51:25.060]in three ways.
[00:51:27.430]And that would be a comparison,
[00:51:31.280]if we're going to compare one system to another,
[00:51:33.570]let's say, the pre-1990 Soviet system,
[00:51:39.330]or the pre-1945 German Third Reich system,
[00:51:44.840]or the pre-1918 Austria/Hungary or Imperial German system
[00:51:50.780]and those of Western Europe and the United States.
[00:51:54.700]And that, I would suggest you might look
[00:51:59.150]at what you've studied and thoughtfully interpreted
[00:52:03.970]in three different ways.
[00:52:07.070]One would be the contrast of,
[00:52:10.390]and this is what I sort of missed in your talk,
[00:52:13.560]one would be the contrast between the ideals
[00:52:19.620]that motivated the Western representative governments
[00:52:27.130]with a capitalist economy,
[00:52:30.280]regulated to a greater or lesser degree,
[00:52:33.700]to look at those ideals as means
[00:52:37.490]of achieving human betterment.
[00:52:41.540]And then look, as you've already done,
[00:52:44.410]you've done that, look at the reality.
[00:52:47.740]And as an American who's lived in this country,
[00:52:50.910]now I'm in my seventh decade,
[00:52:53.980]I'm painfully aware of the enormous difference
[00:52:58.940]between American ideals and American reality.
[00:53:03.730]And I tried to bring out a little bit of that
[00:53:05.470]in my talk yesterday morning,
[00:53:09.910]having myself been an unwitting participant
[00:53:12.560]in JFK's germ warfare experiments, for example.
[00:53:19.800]We now have, in this country,
[00:53:21.580]and I hope they will remain intact,
[00:53:25.530]legal safeguards against this type
[00:53:28.250]of creating unwitting participants
[00:53:33.870]in potentially dangerous experiments.
[00:53:39.790]This isn't to say it couldn't happen,
[00:53:42.210]but it's up to us to see that they don't.
[00:53:44.690]Now, the third way I would perhaps suggest you might
[00:53:48.280]look at these differences is to look in each case
[00:53:52.380]at the gap, if you will, or the discrepancy
[00:53:56.700]between the ideal and the practice.
[00:54:00.460]And there is always going to be this difference.
[00:54:04.640]Now, I always believed, from having lived
[00:54:06.760]in communist Czechoslovakia on total
[00:54:10.200]about a year and 3/4 on three different occasions,
[00:54:14.390]that the gap between the ideal and the reality
[00:54:17.880]was larger in the Soviet block, considerably larger
[00:54:23.470]than the gap in reality, which was big enough
[00:54:27.430]that I noticed in the United States
[00:54:29.540]or in other countries I know pretty well,
[00:54:31.460]Italy, France, and Great Britain,
[00:54:36.700]and look at that gap between the ideals and reality
[00:54:40.590]and how that's been carried out.
[00:54:43.020]Finally, to look back at Czech history
[00:54:45.150]and its controversial interpretations.
[00:54:47.200]I wrote a book on the origins
[00:54:48.840]of the first Czech political parties.
[00:54:50.360]One example of youth feeling betrayed
[00:54:52.530]by age and experience, if you will,
[00:54:55.640]is after the Mladocesi Strana,
[00:55:02.018]Narodni Svobodomyslna,
[00:55:04.876]Narodni Svobodomyslna Strana.
[00:55:07.870]How after the Omladina demonstrations of youth in 1893,
[00:55:14.630]in a sense, made an agreement with the Habsburg government
[00:55:18.430]and the Bohemian/Moravian Grossgrundbesitzer.
[00:55:22.360]Youth felt betrayed.
[00:55:23.860]Some of these men later went on
[00:55:25.500]to be founders of the First Republic.
[00:55:28.820]Czechoslovakia, the creation in 1918,
[00:55:31.970]which I think was, with all of its faults,
[00:55:34.820]an immeasurable step forward from Austria/Hungary.
[00:55:38.210]Votes for women, compulsory secondary education,
[00:55:44.310]quite a number of things, the extension
[00:55:46.950]of universal suffrage to local and regional government,
[00:55:53.020]which didn't exist.
[00:55:54.580]These are steps forward, yet I see time and again,
[00:55:57.660]a tendency to compare, and there are similarities,
[00:56:00.920]old Austria/Hungary with the Czechoslovak Republic.
[00:56:04.470]And of course, the Czechoslovak Republic
[00:56:06.040]ended in disaster at Munich,
[00:56:08.010]but we won't go into those reasons.
[00:56:09.520]But throughout Czech history, there's been this tradition
[00:56:12.560]of enthusiasm and disappointment.
[00:56:15.490]So if you'd go back maybe and reconsider your views
[00:56:18.730]in light of the longer view of history
[00:56:21.020]and keep your critical perspective,
[00:56:23.290]I would suggest that might be a good thing to do.
[00:56:26.490]I'm going to stop here.
[00:56:27.430]You might have a question for me.
[00:56:28.750]Thank you.
[00:56:33.070]Thank you for your advice.
[00:56:35.180]I'm getting so many interesting advices.
[00:56:38.884](audience laughing)
[00:56:45.920]Well, you said a lot of things.
[00:56:52.620]What you said about comparison,
[00:56:58.070]yeah, definitely, I agree.
[00:56:59.440]It's very important to compare,
[00:57:05.686]even though comparison in a way that I,
[00:57:11.400]that Mr. Zantovsky was trying to do.
[00:57:18.950]I mean, I said why I don't find it appropriate,
[00:57:24.000]but yeah, we shall compare ideals versus ideals
[00:57:28.700]and practical reality versus practical reality.
[00:57:32.340]That's true.
[00:57:34.550]The thing is that, well, one thing
[00:57:41.600]is that we have ideal of property is, you know,
[00:57:52.390]owned by the society, so everybody has access to everything,
[00:57:58.180]and that is, like, very nice.
[00:58:00.110]But then in reality, people tend often not to take care
[00:58:05.770]of stuff that is everybody's,
[00:58:08.390]and we have this experience from communist times
[00:58:11.950]when there were, like, something was everybody's.
[00:58:14.720]And people were stealing out of it
[00:58:16.817]and didn't really take care.
[00:58:19.070]So that's then the reality and the problem,
[00:58:23.750]how to implement nice ideal into reality.
[00:58:28.790]But then another situation might occur,
[00:58:32.070]and that is the situation when the nice ideal
[00:58:36.370]is actually implemented into reality,
[00:58:40.840]but actually, when it's realized
[00:58:46.580]and all its potential actually used,
[00:58:49.770]we are living in a world that is unlivable and terrible.
[00:58:55.894]Let's take an, I don't know,
[00:58:58.460]ideal of individualism.
[00:59:04.350]I saw recently quite an interesting movie,
[00:59:09.490]a documentary movie about contemporary Sweden
[00:59:13.010]that serves as an ideal for many countries in Europe
[00:59:18.950]because of its, let's say, big social programs
[00:59:25.470]and its kind of soft capitalism in a way.
[00:59:30.630]But Swedes are also an ideal of individualism
[00:59:34.810]that is in core of capitalist ideology.
[00:59:39.460]They treasure it very much.
[00:59:43.410]So they wanted to really make people
[00:59:46.400]as independent as possible in their society.
[00:59:49.840]So make wife or woman independent on man, on husband,
[00:59:58.550]make old people independent on young people
[01:00:02.820]so that they don't have to rely on them in their old age.
[01:00:10.230]So they completely, as if undid the network in the society,
[01:00:20.150]let's say, the natural or traditional network
[01:00:24.170]of relationships in the society,
[01:00:26.600]naming it network of power, of unequal power and dependency
[01:00:33.410]and said, like, oh, we want people to have relations
[01:00:37.240]based on freedom and equality,
[01:00:39.670]and we don't want anybody to be dependent on anybody else.
[01:00:44.400]So now, basically, there is a big, special,
[01:00:52.280]like, building.
[01:00:56.530]It's a special office that is focused on management
[01:01:02.160]of old people who die home alone,
[01:01:06.600]and nobody knows that they die
[01:01:09.770]because they don't have any ties to anybody anymore.
[01:01:13.020]So suddenly, there is this awkward smell in the house,
[01:01:17.450]and they break in, and they realize
[01:01:19.280]this guy died three months ago.
[01:01:22.060]And also, because it's automatized,
[01:01:26.640]the bills and everything, it was also, you know,
[01:01:33.530]introduced as a great thing, that it will be automatical.
[01:01:38.640]So everything is automatical,
[01:01:41.140]so the computer pays for everything,
[01:01:44.390]so nobody really, the system
[01:01:46.930]does not recognize that you are dead,
[01:01:51.991]and it's an implementation of the ideal of individualism
[01:01:57.710]up to its potential, up to its possibility, yeah.
[01:02:04.866]So that's another way of thinking about reality,
[01:02:11.650]not only that ideals in reality
[01:02:15.120]get crippled, like as I mentioned,
[01:02:19.610]this communist ideal of common property,
[01:02:22.260]but also when the ideals are implemented, like, 120%.
[01:02:29.410]And that, I think, is rather a problem of capitalism,
[01:02:37.020]that there are these, like, nice ideals,
[01:02:39.680]but then when they are implemented,
[01:02:42.310]sometimes it ends up in horror, alienated life
[01:02:49.920]that, like, it's unlivable.
[01:02:53.740]We have time for two things.
[01:02:56.650]One more question, and then after this,
[01:02:59.260]Petra is gonna be signing books.
[01:03:01.300]One last sentence.
[01:03:02.500]I just wanted to add that the difference
[01:03:09.070]between ideals of capitalism and communism,
[01:03:13.440]and both are interesting, is that, let's say,
[01:03:18.680]when I mention ideal of common property,
[01:03:22.390]you will or there will be immediately someone
[01:03:25.160]who will say, okay, common property,
[01:03:27.490]but let's see how it ended up in communist states.
[01:03:31.080]You know, it's like nobody took care of all this stuff.
[01:03:34.500]But when I say ideal of individualism,
[01:03:39.970]not so many people realize, you know,
[01:03:44.700]that this example I mention, when it's implemented,
[01:03:48.890]it also is not really very good.
[01:03:52.950]But people just don't think that way enough.
[01:04:15.844]Thank you.
[01:04:16.677]I enjoyed your remarks and extension
[01:04:18.760]of the discussion we were having the other night.
[01:04:20.680]I really appreciate it and been thinking about that.
[01:04:22.920]I wanted to make one historical correction
[01:04:24.920]from the American side to the original questioner to you.
[01:04:29.170]And this idea that capitalism,
[01:04:31.500]in the United States in particular,
[01:04:33.450]I'm a historian of the '60s here at the university,
[01:04:37.430]and it's just simply not true
[01:04:39.670]that the American regime is softer.
[01:04:42.370]I would argue, particularly
[01:04:43.500]when you look through the lens of race.
[01:04:46.000]So you are, right now, down the road a few miles
[01:04:49.610]from the longest serving political prisoner
[01:04:52.940]in the United States today,
[01:04:54.390]who is a member of the Black Panther Party
[01:04:56.800]who was incarcerated in 1970.
[01:04:59.170]There were many, many people that were incarcerated.
[01:05:01.830]We have created a regime since the 1960s
[01:05:04.440]of mass incarceration that has incarcerated more people
[01:05:07.790]than any Western nation in the world,
[01:05:09.830]disproportionately, African Americans
[01:05:12.390]and other people of color and the poor.
[01:05:14.340]These are simple historical realities on that,
[01:05:18.350]and I don't think that we should overlook them,
[01:05:21.250]particularly, sitting in a room
[01:05:23.261]where there are not many people
[01:05:24.360]of color sitting here and talking with us.
[01:05:26.100]So I wanna make that point very clearly
[01:05:31.690]on that.
[01:05:32.523]But I'm really interested in kind of reorienting
[01:05:34.640]to you as an artist.
[01:05:36.070]And given what you've said, and in our particular moment now
[01:05:39.710]of the seeming triumph of global capitalism and consumerism,
[01:05:46.490]and the difficult, having a myriad of voices,
[01:05:49.700]making, then, any voice kind of hard to get through.
[01:05:52.430]I wonder if you could talk just more about your,
[01:05:54.920]how you see your role and the role of artists
[01:05:59.858]in addressing the political and existential quandary
[01:06:05.160]we find ourselves in today
[01:06:07.190]and how you see your voice mattering
[01:06:10.670]in a landscape where there are so many voices
[01:06:12.990]and when it's easy for culture to be commodified
[01:06:15.350]and sold back to us, and thus,
[01:06:17.140]diluted or its power undermined and things, too.
[01:06:20.410]But I just wanted to kind of reorient back towards,
[01:06:23.050]maybe have you talk a little bit about just your thinking
[01:06:25.500]about your role as an artist and your voice as an artist
[01:06:28.280]in the kind of landscape that we find ourselves in today.
[01:06:35.450]That's a very complex question.
[01:06:40.910]Well, I just try to tackle stuff that I find important
[01:06:52.410]and relevant and also provocative, probably, in my novels
[01:06:59.850]and try to do it as good as I can
[01:07:05.410]to make people, well, to probably open up certain doors
[01:07:17.409]or, yeah, Patty mentioned it,
[01:07:21.530]that I think it was very appropriate
[01:07:25.610]like, push people out of their comfort zones.
[01:07:32.559]I find that it's, for me,
[01:07:34.730]something that artists here for.
[01:07:47.860]I just try to be sincere.
[01:07:57.900]What else can I say?
[01:08:01.290]Well, I can say a couple of words
[01:08:03.720]about book that is about to be published
[01:08:06.620]in, I think, three days in Prague.
[01:08:11.870]in Torst Publishing House.
[01:08:14.480]We have also publisher Viktor Stoilov over there.
[01:08:20.610]And it's because it's, like, political, let's say,
[01:08:25.830]and about something about contemporary time.
[01:08:28.760]It's a dystopian novel from near future.
[01:08:34.930]And it's about, there is this movement,
[01:08:41.250]this, like, radical, humanistic/feminist movement
[01:08:45.360]that takes over the discourse in the society.
[01:08:50.110]And these representatives of members of the movement,
[01:08:54.470]they say the quality of woman is spiritual,
[01:09:05.490]inner, really, a matter of character and stuff like that.
[01:09:11.930]That's what's the value of the woman.
[01:09:15.260]It's not about her beauty or age,
[01:09:21.040]as are the traditional matters of interest.
[01:09:29.260]And so that we should be, or men should be
[01:09:34.150]attracted to female on the basis of these true, real values
[01:09:38.570]and not on the basis of, like, superficial stuff
[01:09:43.510]like beauty or youth because that's, I mean,
[01:09:49.330]that's kind of obsolete and even probably unethical.
[01:09:52.820]And it's old, and we wanna be better.
[01:09:57.320]And I mean, it becomes like successful mainstream.
[01:10:02.400]That's the society.
[01:10:07.381]That's what's the mainstream-ish thinking,
[01:10:11.160]and most men, they accept it,
[01:10:14.310]while some of them, they don't.
[01:10:15.920]And they are sort of parked
[01:10:20.230]in these re-educational institutions
[01:10:23.940]where they are taught how to become,
[01:10:30.207]like, true, new man, better people.
[01:10:39.510]And the story is told by a lady who is a lecturer,
[01:10:43.680]who works as a lecturer in this re-educational institution.
[01:10:47.900]So she tells a story of the history of the movement.
[01:10:52.520]That's the name of the story, Brief History of the Movement.
[01:10:57.932]She tells us about the procedures
[01:11:00.450]that her clients have to go through
[01:11:02.990]and something about her personal life, too.
[01:11:06.340]So this, I think, is pretty political
[01:11:11.640]and deals with stuff that people think about a lot.
[01:11:21.430]Now, and what was my aim?
[01:11:28.207]Not to mock such a movement,
[01:11:29.870]not, like, laugh at it, while it's difficult to celebrate it
[01:11:35.960]because it's pretty problematic,
[01:11:39.550]but keep it in this, like, disturbing position
[01:11:45.410]of something that pushes you out of your comfort zone.
[01:11:53.000]Because, I mean, in general,
[01:11:58.810]the ideals are pretty nice.
[01:12:05.391](audience clapping)

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Petra Hůlová speaks at Prague Spring 50

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