Tuesday September 21, 2021; 2:15 PM EDT
- Vaclav Havel's long essay, "The Power of the Powerless" (included in a multi-author book of the same name), spends about half its pages explaining the exact kinds of power the rulers of Soviet-bloc Czechoslovakia had in their possession, how they used it to dominate their society, and how it all worked. The last half proposed that even the most powerless of the citizens under that government may have had a certain kind of power, if only they knew they had this power and knew how to use it. But what I want to point out is this:#
- On the very first page Havel says that we are accustomed to hearing the political system and the opposition described using certain words, but that these are not the words the citizens would choose. These are not the words that make the most sense to the citizens suffering under the regime. These words don't explain it right.#
- And why not? Because they aren't the words the citizens themselves use; they aren't the ideas the citizens themselves use to explain what they witness and experience.#
- And so Havel begins his potent essay by trying to clear the air of words that other powerful people use, and begin to create a space for fresh thinking based on what the less powerful people see and know.#
- I take this as a cautionary lesson from a very thoughtful political giant of the previous century:#
- Don't let powerful others foist their idea-words on you. Those words have the biases, the preferences, the self-serving justifications of the powerful woven into them.#
- Be suspicious of language you are accustomed to hearing.#