Václav Havel, August 21, 1982:
Dear Olga,
We live in an age in which there is a general turning away from Being: our civilization, founded on a grand upsurge of science and technology, those great intellectual guides on how to conquer the world at the cost of losing touch with Being, transforms man its proud creator into a slave of his consumer needs, breaks him up into isolated functions, dissolves him in his existence-in-the-world and thus deprives him not only of his human integrity and his autonomy but ultimately any influence he may have had over his own “automatic responses.” The crisis of today’s world, obviously, is a crisis of human responsibility (both responsibility for oneself and responsibility “toward” something else) and thus it is a crisis of human identity as well. But a warning here: all this does not mean in the least that the experience of Being and the orientation toward it have vanished entirely from the structure of contemporary humanity. On the contrary: as that which in humanity is failing and breaking down, and which is constantly betrayed, duped and deluded by humanity, they are both, in fact, latently present in the structure of humanity, be it only in the form of fissures and faults that must be filled at all costs to preserve appearances—both on the surface and “inside.” The point is that morality seldom sees itself as purely utilitarian, and even less would it admit publicly to this. It always pretends, or tries to persuade itself, that its roots go deeper, even in matters less extreme than fanaticism. Would anyone, for example, dare to deny that he had a conscience? There are no two ways about it: the “voice of Being” has not fallen silent—we know it summons us, and as human beings, we cannot pretend not to know what it is calling us to. It is just that these days, it is easier to cheat, silence or lie to that voice (think of the many ways science gives us to do this!). The source of this latent regard for Being, therefore, is not merely convention (that is, a reified morality of traditions which, from the point of view of our existence-in-the-world, it would be a pointless faux pas to ignore publicly) but rather it lies deeper: in our thrownness into our source in Being from which—so long as we remain people and do not become mere robots—we cannot extricate ourselves and which—though it might exist merely as “memories of memories,” “homesickness for homesickness” or “longing for longing”—exposes us to that voice. And regardless of how selfishly we act, of how indifferent we remain to everything that does not bring us immediate benefit (the kind that is fully rooted in the world of phenomena), regardless of how exclusively we relate to our utilitarian “here” and “now,” we always feel, in some corner of our spirit at least, that we should not act that way and that therefore we must find a way to defend and justify our actions, and by some “mental trick,” gloss over its disaccord with something we are simply no longer capable of striving toward. It makes no difference whether, to that end, we invoke the somewhat mystical claim that “all is lost anyway” or on the contrary, the illusion that our bad behavior serves a good cause.
All of this—the turning away from Being, the crisis of the absolute horizon, of genuine responsibility and thus of genuine identity as well, along with heightened efforts to “satisfy” the betrayed “voice of being” by mystification—is transferred or projected, understandably, into the behavior of various “interexistential” formations as well: society, na-tions, classes, social strata, political movements and systems, social power groups, forces and organisms and ultimately even states and governments themselves. For not only do all these formations shape and direct contemporary humanity, humanity shapes and directs them as well, since they are ultimately the product and image of humanity. And just as man turns away from Being, so entire large social organisms turn away from it—if I may put it that way—having surrendered to the same steadily increasing temptation of existence-in-the-world, of entities, aims and “realities” (whose attractions are merely strengthened by surrendering to them). And just as man conceals his turning away from the world and himself by pretending that it is not a turning away at all, so these social organisms hide their turning away from the world and themselves in an analogical fashion. For this reason, we may observe how social, political and state systems, and whole societies, are inevitably becoming alienated from themselves. The difficult and complex task of serving primary moral ideals is reduced to the less demanding task of serving projects intended to fulfill those ideals in a concrete way; and, when such projects have won the day, there is a further reduction to the even more comfortable task of serving systems allegedly designed to carry these projects out; and finally, it degenerates into a situation, common enough now, in which the power that directs these systems (or more precisely “possesses” them) simply looks out for its own interests, or else the systems, in a purely utilitarian fashion, adapt themselves to the demands of that power. By now, the behavior of social power, of various establishments and finally of whole societies (which either identify with the given power, or adapt to it, or simply surrender to it) has become utterly self-serving, alienated many times over from the original ideals and has degenerated into the “realities of existence-in-the-world,” and at the same time, of course, it still persists in operating in the name of the morality of the original—and long since betrayed—ideals. One consequence of this alienating process is the enormous conflict between words and deeds so prevalent today: everyone talks about freedom, democracy, humanity, justice, human rights, universal equality and happiness, about peace and saving the world from nuclear apocalypse, and protecting the environment and life in general—and at the same time, everyone—more or less, consciously or unconsciously, in one way or another—serves those values and ideals only to the extent necessary to serve himself, i.e., his “worldly” interests—personal interests, group interests, power interests, property interests, state or great-power interests. Thus the world becomes a chessboard for this cynical and utterly self-serving “interplay of interests,” and ultimately there are no practices, whether economic, political, diplomatic, military or espionage, which, as means sanctified by an allegedly universal human end, are not permissible if they serve the particular interests of the group that carries them out. Under the guise of the intellectually respectable notion of “responsibility for everything” (i.e., for the “welfare of mankind”)—that is, pretending to relate to the absolute horizon—huge and uncontrollable forces and powers are in fact responsible only to the particular horizon from which they derive their power (e.g., to the establishment that put them in power). Pretending to serve the “general well-being of mankind,” they serve only their own pragmatic interests, and they are oriented exclusively toward “doing well in the world” and expanding and proliferating further—wherein that very expansion and proliferation which flows directly from the expansive essence of focusing on existence-in-the-world is interpreted as service to “higher things”—to universal freedom, justice and well-being. This entire mendacious “world of appearances,” of grandiose words and phraseological rituals is, again, merely the tax that one who has surrendered to existence-in-the-world pays— on the social level this time—to his “recollection of conscience,” i.e., to his duty to respond, in this formal and ritualistic fashion, at least, to the languishing “voice of Being” in his indolent heart.
The tension between the world of words and the real practices of those in power is not just directly experienced by millions of ordinary, powerless people, nor thought about only by intellectuals, whose voices those in power either ignore (in some places) or pay “too much” attention to (in others), nor is it pointed out only by minorities in revolt. The power in society can actually see it better than anyone else, but only in others, never in itself. In such circumstances, however, it is not surprising that no one believes anyone and that everyone uses the contradiction between someone else’s words and deeds to justify a deepening of the same contradictions in himself. It may even appear that those with fewer inhibitions in this regard will ultimately triumph and crush the others. So the power structures apparently have no other choice than to sink deeper and deeper into this vicious maelstrom, and contemporary people—if they take any interest at all in such “great matters” —apparently have no other choice than to wait around until the final inhibition drops away.
Naturally I am not underestimating the importance of international talks on arms limitation. I’m afraid, however, that we will never attain a peace that will permanently eliminate the threat of a nuclear catastrophe as long as mutual trust among people, nations and states is not revitalized to a degree far greater than has been the case at any time in the past. And that, of course, won’t happen until the terrifying abyss between words and deeds is closed. And that, in turn, won’t happen until something radical— I would even say revolutionary—changes in the very structure and “soul” of humanity today. In other words, until man—standing on the brink of the abyss—recovers from the massive betrayal he commits every day against his own nature, and goes back to where he has always stood in the good moments of his history: to that which provides the foundations for that dramatic essence of his humanity (as “separated being”), that is, to Being as the firm vanishing point of his striving, to that absolute horizon of his relating.
But who should begin? Who should break this vicious circle? I agree with Levinas when he says that responsibility cannot be preached, but only borne, and that the only possible place to begin is with oneself. It may sound strange, but it is true: it is I who must begin. One thing about it, however, is interesting: once I begin—that is, once I try—here and now, right where I am, not excusing myself by saying that things would be easier elsewhere, without grand speeches and ostentatious gestures, but all the more persistently—to live in harmony with the “voice of Being,” as I understand it within myself—as soon as I begin that, I suddenly discover, to my surprise, that I am neither the only one, nor the first, nor the most important one to have set out upon that road. For the hope opened up in my heart by this turning toward Being has opened my eyes as well to all the hopeful things my vision, blinded by the brilliance of “worldly” temptations, could not or did not wish to see, because it would have undermined the traditional argument of all those who have given up already: that all is lost anyway. Whether all is really lost or not depends entirely on whether or not I am lost.
I kiss you,
Vašek
