Blog

The Power of the Powerless V

Richard Barnes

This concludes the series of posts on Václav Havel’s consequential 1978 essay.

We have seen that in a totalitarian or “post-totalitarian” system, it is relatively easy for most people to conform to what those in power require of them. 

Havel uses the example of a sign that private citizens are required to post every day. Even though they may not agree with or support the sentiment proclaimed by the sign, they nevertheless post it because they do not want to make waves, or they do not want to offend others, or they need their livelihood, or simply because “I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient.”

Submission to lies goes to the point where millions are controlled by an ideology which they have accepted because it provides an explanation for or a “harmony with the human order and the order of the universe.” 

So, they continue to post the sign knowing that between the ideology and the reality there is “a yawning abyss”. Furthermore, they cannot tolerate anyone who questions or denies the system or the ideology that undergirds it. To question or deny will cause the entire edifice to come tumbling down.

And so, they prefer to live within a lie; a life permeated with hypocrisy and falsehoods. It is a different sort of quiet desperation than suggested by Thoreau, but it is a desperation nonetheless.

And yet there remain many who yearn to live free and to walk in the Truth. They know — at least inchoately — that Truth and Liberty are integral.

But how can they walk in Truth if the entire ideology, narrative, and means of communications are consubstantial with the power structures that possess and enforce the system?

Well, truth is their power and that is what will enable them to walk as free men and women, albeit not necessarily without a price.

Havel observes that this weapon — Truth — is unique because it is in the breast of everyone, including those in power. A quick test of this is to simply tell the truth to anyone who would rather continue to walk in lies. The thoughtful, inquisitive response is rare. The usual reaction is mockery, shunning, denunciation, anger, even violence.  They react thusly because they sense, correctly, that the lie they have chosen to live under is threatened. 

And, since Truth also resides in the hearts of the power structure, when you invoke it, you strike at a critical center of lies.

I would urge you to parcel out the time to read the essay completely as Havel develops these thoughts much further than the woefully incomplete summaries I am able to give it here.

We will conclude this series of posts with something of a test. I will list several statements of fact regarding that which has consumed most of the “Free World” for the past 21 months. I will not develop these statements, but I can assure you that they are documented by published research and studies and sources: official and unofficial; professional and amateur; scholarly and nonacademic.

The purpose in listing the following is to enable each of us to examine our reactions with honesty:

Deaths by age: Covid cumulative vs. car accidents in one year (2019):

    Ages 1-4: 71 vs 435

    Ages 5-14: 202 vs 847

    Ages 15-24: 1,965 vs 6,031

Mortality rates: 

    Ebola: 70%, all ages

    Smallpox: 30%, all ages

    The Great Influenza (“Spanish flu”): 10% – 20%, all ages

    Covid: .05% – .01%, depending on age

Vaccine protection duration

    Tetanus and diphtheria — Booster after 10 years

    Measles and rubella — Life

    Hepatitis A — 20 years or more

    Hepatitis B — 30 years or more

    Covid — A fraction of the above, depending on source

Danish randomized control trial on masks: “… masks did not reduce infection rate…”

CDC definitions have changed:

    Vaccines (changed 4 times since 2012; twice in 2021)

    Covid Deaths

    Gain of function 

Highest vaccination rates have highest case rates:

    Countries

    U. S. States

Covid deaths include:

    Murder suicide in Grand County, Colorado

    Motorcycle fatality in Travis County, Texas

    Many more such examples throughout the country

Do not take my word for the above; look them up for yourselves (but do not use Google. Duckduckgo will work). If you find a gross error, please advise (rmbarnesr@gmail.com) and I will check and happily correct if proved wrong. 

However, if you find them to be true, then determine to live within the Truth. Say what you really think. “Express solidarity with those whom [your] conscience commands you to support.”

“Living within the lie can constitute the system only if it is universal. The principle must embrace and permeate everything. There are no terms whatsoever on which it can co-exist with living within the truth, and therefore everyone who steps out of line denies it in principle and threatens it in its entirety.”

Heda Margolius Kovaly’s Under a Cruel Star, is her story of life in Prague, Czechoslovakia, first under the Nazis and then under Communists. Hers is a good example of seeking to live in the Truth, at great cost including isolation from former friends and very real danger from the establishment.

Mrs. Miller, Bat Guano, and Beforehand Rebukes

Richard Barnes

I do not remember her first name, if I ever knew it, that is. Back then, for us youngsters, it was strictly “Mr.” and “Mrs.” and “Miss”.

But I do remember her.

She was from New Mexico. And boy did she resent Florida’s having “stolen” their state motto, “The Sunshine State”, from New Mexico! She said she could prove the theft too! Although I never asked her for evidence.

Once, after I handed in a picture project on hygiene, she called me to her desk and, remaining seated, gently began explaining why she thought I had missed the point. I had drawn a picture of a refrigerator. Through the open door, one could see the shelves labeled with the names of the items that belonged on each: eggs, milk, soft drinks, butter, and so forth. 

“The fact that some of these items may be misplaced, does not affect cleanliness,” she said.

“Oh, I know. What I was showing was that if you leave the refrigerator door open, food can spoil,” I replied, silently wondering what items I had drawn so poorly that she thought they were misplaced!

She looked up at me as I stood with a genuine look of surprise that she would not have understood the intention of having drawn an open refrigerator door. Then she leaned back on her chair and laughed.

“Ah! I see. OK. Yours is a valid observation. Leaving the refrigerator door open is not good. You can go back to your desk.”

That same year, we took a field trip to the Orinoco to explore the Bethlehem Steel port facilities. That was one of my most memorable school trips, though, if you ask me why, I wouldn’t be able to tell you even if my life depended on it. I remember boarding the van, riding there, searching around the port, and riding back. Maybe I so enjoyed the camaraderie with my fellow classmates that the trip just floods my memory banks with good thoughts.

And then there was that night that some hooligans (my friends) did some mischief at the club. I don’t recall the mischief, but boy do I recall the tongue-lashing Mrs. Miller gave the class the following morning! I recall that because I had no idea what she was talking about.

It must have shown on my face because she snapped at me, “Ricky, don’t act like you don’t know! You were part of the gang!”

I was crestfallen. One of my friends noticed it and demurely raised her hand to say, “Mrs. Miller, it is true that Ricky was not a part of the ruckus. He was there at the beginning but left soon after the trouble started.”

My dejection was replaced by white hot anger! My “friend” was lying, and she knew it. I was not there at all. But she obviously was! She even smirked at me — when Mrs. Miller wasn’t looking, that is.

I am chuckling and laughing as I write this. What was so important to me at the moment, is now a childish memory. Actually, it became a good memory, for which I thank both Mrs. Miller and my friend.

A year later, I myself became a hooligan one afternoon when several of us, hunting for bats, managed to fall through the club ceiling causing quite a mess on the tables, chairs, and floor below. I’d never before (or since) seen so much guano rain down. And the company executives who just happened to be inspecting the premises that very day were also impressed with the bat droppings and the shocked kids hanging from or watching down from the now very visible attic. Our daze in trying to figure out how to clean up the mess was extremely short-lived, as we were peremptorily instructed to go. Immediately! We quickly obeyed.

So, Mrs. Miller’s rebuke was well deserved, even if it was a year too early! As the film noir puts it: “The postman always rings twice”.

My work took me to New Mexico often in recent years. It is one of those places that pull at you, like Venezuela. The West does that to many of us. I thought of her often during those trips.

I think Mrs. Miller was in El Pao only one school year. At least that’s what I remember.

But for some reason I do remember her. And I appreciate her.

Field trip to the port. My friend, Jimmy Shingler is at left. Mrs. Miller is to his left, second row. I am just in front of her in front row. My liar friend is also in the photo. But I won’t tell! (Photo courtesy of James Shingler)
Another photo from that trip (Photo courtesy of James Shingler)
The Orinoco River (Photo courtesy of James Shingler)
Madeline and Eileen, two young ladies from El Pao, circa 1967. The club is in the background. (Photo courtesy of Caroní Contini)
New Mexico sunset
Bat guano in the attic. Not pretty. It’s even worse on the furniture.

The Power of the Powerless IV

Richard Barnes

This is our fourth in a series of posts on Václav Havel’s seminal 1978 essay of the same title.

In our last post we saw Havel’s use of an example: authorities require everyone to post a seemingly innocuous sign. To avoid any trouble and to not buck any authorized narrative, citizens dutifully post the sign in their shop windows or homes and go about their business with few pausing to research much as to the truth of the sign or, if they have researched or reflected, they obediently refuse to complain that the sign is not really true or that the citizen does not believe it.

Havel sums up that citizen behavior as, “I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient.”

This attitude enables people to deceive their consciences and “their true position and their inglorious modus vivendi…” subjecting them to totalitarianism and keeping them there.

It keeps them there, furthermore, via the power that ideology wields over a nation’s population. This ideology may have taken a century or more to take hold. But it cannot be ignored. It is “a very pragmatic but … dignified way of legitimizing what is above, below, and on either side…. It is a veil behind which human beings can hide their own fallen existence, their trivialization, and their adaptation to the status quo.”

It provides people “with the illusion that the system is in harmony with the human order and the order of the universe.”

But, “between the aims of the post-totalitarian system and the aims of life there is a yawning abyss: while life moves toward plurality, diversity, independent self-constitution, in short, toward the fulfillment of its own freedom, the post-totalitarian system demands conformity, uniformity, and discipline.”

Any attempt by someone or by a family or by a church or by any organization to overstep its predetermined role or roles is regarded by the post-totalitarian system as an attack on itself, a denial of the system. And it must be stamped out.

“Ideology, in creating a bridge of excuses between the system and the individual, spans the abyss between the aims of the system and the aims of life. It pretends that the requirements of the system derive from the requirements of life. It is a world of appearances trying to pass for reality.”

“This is why life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies: government by bureaucracy is called popular government; the complete degradation of the individual is presented as his ultimate liberation; the use of power to manipulate is called the public control of power, and the arbitrary abuse of power is called observing the legal code; the repression of culture is called its development; the expansion of [the State] is presented as support for the oppressed; the lack of free expression becomes the highest form of freedom; farcical elections become the highest form of democracy; banning independent thought becomes the most scientific of world views….”

“Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.”

“Individuals need not believe all these mystifications, but they must behave as if they did, or they must at least tolerate them in silence, or get along well with those who work with them. For this reason, however, they must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it. For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.”

A university student in Czechoslovakia put her understanding of unthinking actions well: “Totalitarianism creates a sense of disparity between the minds and actions of ordinary people, and leads them to live a life without reflection and a life that cannot be reflected.”

However, there are usually, if not always, people who desire to live free under ordered liberty. People like the generations of America’s colonial and early republic eras.

Under a “post totalitarian” system or regime, such people are powerless.

Or they seem to be but are not.

They have a mighty weapon which they can wield.

That weapon is the Truth. That is the power of the powerless.

And it must be employed wisely, confidently, and fearlessly. Wisely, because one must recognize the power of ideology in the post-totalitarian system. This recognition will help one to behave with understanding yet without compromise. Confidently and fearlessly because the Truth is known by all, even by the regime which is so intent on maintaining its apparatus of power.

The powerless who wield this weapon, in effect, insist on living within the Truth.

Václav Havel speaks to joint session of Congress, February 22, 1990. Vice President James Danforth (“Dan”) Quayle and Speaker of the House, Thomas Stephen Foley behind him.

Do You Have Beer?

Richard Barnes

In past Thanksgiving times, we have quoted from William Bradford’s journal to tell of Squanto and of Bradford’s first Thanksgiving proclamation (here and here). 

Bradford’s journal lists the 102 Mayflower passengers and then, heartbreakingly, tells of the deaths of half their number that winter of 1620 – 1621. By the spring of 1621, only 53 remained. And the small group did their best to appear to be more: they buried their dead in unmarked graves, they shot their muskets at different spots, making it seem that many more were shooting, and so forth.

The first contacts between Europeans and the native tribes of those parts occurred about a century before the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620. Similar to the Mountain Men in the 19th Century American west, traders and fishermen sailed or otherwise explored along the coasts of New England in the 16th century, seeking furs, fish, and other raw materials. And they unknowingly prepared the way for those who would come later. In the case of the Mountain Men, their footsteps, trails, and dealings with the Indians later guided or hindered pioneering families in the west; similarly, their forebears, the European traders and fishers, guided or hindered the Pilgrims and Puritans in the 17th century east.

The Pilgrims arrived at what is now Plymouth Rock. That region was known as Patuxet (“little falls”). About a decade before, the tribe that lived there had been wiped out by a plague. There was one member of that tribe who was not present: Squanto. He and nineteen others had been treacherously betrayed and sent to Spain as slaves by Thomas Hunt, an English mariner.

Bradford’s comment pithily summarizes the Pilgrims’ opinion of Mr. Hunt: “… like a wretched man that cares not what mischief he does for his profit ….”

However, Providence had its reasons. Squanto was set free in Spain and made his way to England where he learned English. He eventually sailed back as an interpreter to Thomas Dermer. But he found his tribe completely annihilated.

And that brings us to Samoset.

Chief Massasoit of the Massachusett Indians had a decision to make: expel the Pilgrims or form an alliance with them? Although his tribe had not been directly affected, the memory of men like Hunt was recent and portentous. 

Squanto told Chief Massasoit about the wonders he had seen and experienced in England and urged him to seek peace with the Pilgrims. The chief then consulted with Samoset, a satrap or lesser chief of the Abenakki Indians from present day Maine. The chief sent Samoset as his emissary to the Pilgrims.

In mid-March, 1621, Samoset walked confidently into the Pilgrim colony and asked, “Do you have beer?” The alarmed Pilgrims were immediately put at ease when they heard their mother tongue spoken by this half naked “savage” who had learned to speak as they from mariners along the coast.

Samoset spent some time with them, telling them about the terrain and the other tribes that surrounded them. He left them, promising to return. And he did so, this time with our friend, Squanto. They both told the Pilgrims that Chief Massasoit and sixty men would be coming to visit them. That startled the Pilgrims yet again, but they learned there was no cause for alarm.

William Bradford’s good friend, Edward Wilson, spoke with the chief, using Squanto as translator. The parties agreed to a treaty which lasted decades, neither side ever violating the terms.

Edward Winslow’s letter to his “loving and old friend” tells us much about these events and the First Thanksgiving. We will close this post with the concluding paragraphs of that letter, dated “this 11 of December, 1621” (emphasis mine):

“We have found the Indians very faithful in their covenant of peace with us; very loving and ready to pleasure us: we often go to them, and they come to us; some of us have been fifty miles by land in the country with them … yea, it hath pleased God so to possess the Indians with a fear of us, and love unto us, that not only the greatest king amongst them called Massasoit, but also all the princes and peoples round about us, have either made suit unto us, or been glad of any occasion to make peace with us, so that seven of them at once have sent their messengers to us to that end …. [They] have yielded willingly to be under the protection, and subjects to our sovereign Lord King James, so that there is now great peace amongst the Indians themselves, which was not formerly, neither would have been but for us; and we … walk as peaceably and safely in the wood, as in the highways in England, we entertain them familiarly in our houses, and they as friendly bestowing their venison on us ….

“… so I take my leave, commending you to the Lord for a safe conduct unto us. Resting in Him

Your loving Friend,

E. W.

Jeremiah Johnson, the 1972 film is, in my opinion, the best Robert Redford movie. He plays a Mountain Man and does so with grit and a character development arc from comic naiveté to vengeful anger. As you watch it, remember, it was men like him who prepared the way for those who’d come after and settle and develop and more.
Signing of the Mayflower Compact. Edward Wilson stands at center with his right hand on the table and left hand holding the ink jar
The Pilgrims were put at ease as soon as Samoset asked for beer.

The Power of the Powerless III

Richard Barnes

We have seen (Part I and Part II) that Václav Havel, in his 1978 essay, The Power of the Powerless, defines “dictatorship” as something well beyond the classic, superficial image of a small group of people, usually military, who take over a country. The modern dictatorship is more of secular religion in the devotion and loyalty it demands from its subjects. As he puts it, this religion, this ideology “has a certain hypnotic charm” and those under its sway will not tolerate dissent.

“In terms of the physical aspects of power, this has led to the creation of … intricate and well-developed mechanisms for the direct and indirect manipulation of the entire population….” 

“Of course, one pays dearly for this: … the price is abdication of one’s own reason, conscience, and responsibility, for an essential aspect of this ideology is the consignment of reason and conscience to a higher authority. The principle involved here is that the center of power is identical with the center of truth.”

Havel then seeks to illustrate what he means by the above.

A grocery store owner opens his shop and dutifully places the sign that is required to be placed in all shop windows: “Workers of the world, unite!” But, why does he place it? Is it because he has invested time in deep studies of the philosophy and history of the concept behind the phrase and out of conviction he places the sign? Well, no. All stores have the sign, after all. It is quite uniform across the country.

What the grocer is really saying with his sign is “I, grocer, live here and I know what I must do. I behave in the manner expected of me. I can be depended upon and am beyond reproach. I am obedient and therefore I have the right to be left in peace.” 

Of course, the grocer’s message is “directed above, to [his] superior, and at the same time it is a shield that protects [him] from potential informers….”

What is the sign really saying?

“I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient.” That statement would reflect the truth, but he would not only be embarrassed to post it, he would be placed in danger if he did so.

But the official sign allows the grocer to express his loyalty innocuously. After all, what’s wrong with the workers of the world uniting?

“It hides him behind the facade of something high. And that something is ideology.”

“Ideology offers … the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier to part with “identity, dignity, and morality.” It enables people to deceive their conscience and “conceal their true position and their inglorious modus vivendi, both from the world and from themselves.”

Havel used the illustration of a sign. Today he would use the illustration of any of the easily debunked shibboleths being mandated upon us and upon much of the world.

They are a veil. 

How can one pierce that veil?

Can you say shibboleth?
The phrase used by Havel to illustrate his point