Brewing the Truth

As Václav Havel notes, contemporary despotism attempts to conscript each citizen as an agent as well as a victim of oppression. To the extent that we get along by going along with approved untruths, we increase the pressure on others to join us in our retreat from human dignity. On the other hand, Havel warns,

How Not to Resist Modern Despotism

Václav Havel was the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic. Initially, his career was in drama of the literary sort, but it took a decisively political turn when he was imprisoned for fostering dissent against the communist despots oppressing his people. His 1978 essay, “The Power of the Powerless,”