Europe, the very idea is a series on the philosophical notion of Europe and what reflection upon it can lend to the sphere of concrete politics.
Czechoslovaks carry their national flag past a burning Soviet tank in Prague, Jan.,1968. Wikicommons/ CIA. Some rights reserved.The 1960s represented a watershed
moment in Jan Patočka’s life and work. From 1968 (the year of the
Prague spring) onward, his philosophy takes on a practical as well as
theoretical purpose. His philosophical research aims at the understanding of
the human condition through a historical analysis, which is not addressed from
a chronological point of view but from rather an anthropological one: history
is the history of the human. In fact, we can understand the human condition
only through the knowledge of history and its mistakes. The aim of a study of
history was not simply then to reveal the events of the past and their logic,
but to make humans conscious of their role in the world, in order to try and
improve it.
Now, following Patočka’s
example, we begin our historical analysis from one of the seminal events in
modern history: the Industrial Revolution. Thanks to men like Copernicus and,
later, Newton and Galileo, there was in the sixteenth century a bringing into
question of the previously dominant theory and the development of scientific
method in a form that we would recognise today. Human civilisations, empowered
by this new knowledge, take on the task of dominating nature and its processes
at an unprecedented pace and scale. As a result, science and technological
development play an increasingly central role in the development of European
civilisation, reaching a sort of frenzied pace of development during the
nineteenth and twentieth enturies kicked off by the industrial revolution.
In science, European
civilization had–Patočka thought–unveiled its essence. The
problematic aspect for Patočka was not scientific progress itself but the
fact that this type of empirical knowledge, obtainable only from data analysis,
was invading more and more of human life, trying to creep into the spiritual
component of human life and implement a correlative absolute rationalization of
the surrounding world.
To avoid the full
colonisation of human life and the world by instrumental technological reasoning
– taking for
granted that this is indeed something to be avoided – Patočka
proposed a form of ethical action, care
for the soul. Care for the soul is a possibility that opens up to the
individual a path which allows him to overcome this stalemate between
technological rationality and the spiritual dimensions of human life through
philosophical praxis.
Philosophical praxis
Patočka’s aim
was a contemporary reinterpretation of the Socratic lesson. Care for the self
is, according to the philosopher, the root of Wwestern metaphysics and
consequently the proper fate of European rationality. This manifests itself
primarily in philosophical practice, with its ability to be open to dissent
and, therefore, to oppose political power, and to escape social subjugation. In
the experience and activity of political dissidence, care for the soul realized
itself through basically denying the falsehoods imposed by the authorities and
exalting truth above any imposed scheme. In fact, the care for the soul
consists in the ability to think independently, with the denial of old schemes,
now empty, and to go in search of a new absolute sense that would restore
meaning and hope to the lives of men. Its centrepiece is the question: what
sense? what purpose?
It is a path completely
exposed to the negative that sees the emptying of meaning of life itself since
overcoming this hazard is the only way to show the possibility of dwelling in
truth as the essence of life. The absolute sense that results can be reached
only through an attitude of detachment, through the problematization of all
ready-made responses, thanks to discipline and abnegation. This exercise,
apparently unproductive as it is so difficult to do, has not only an ethical
and moral meaning, but also practical and political.
Intelligence is always
closely linked to a moral attitude, to a choice between what is right and what
is wrong. Being authentic or not, and therefore being spiritual, depends on this
choice. What distinguishes the intellectual in the real sense of the word is
the ability for independent thought. This implies a continuous renewal of the
objective and subjective point of view, in order to find the suitable means in
view of determined and acceptable ends.
By contrast, the modern
model of the intellectual is the scientist, and the intelligencia today
is a technical intelligence. The intellectual crisis rooted in this situation
is due to this focus exclusively given to the material sphere and its means,
neglecting any spiritual aspect that had previously marked the intellectual.
Thus, intellectuals have undermined their autonomy by renouncing their own means
of self-determination.
During the second half of
the twentieth century we have witnessed the destruction of the Stalinist
system; the end of the Vietnam War, in which student protests played a role in
the United States, and, in Czechoslovakia, the internal reform of Novotný’s regime. All these involved the clash with writers and intellectuals. 1968 was
also the year of the student riots and their questioning, through the
opposition of both academic and corporate apparatuses. It became increasingly
clear that the role of intellectuals was changing: they had taken on a
different weight and role in society and in the ruling class.
Intellectuals were no
longer in a condition of impotence, but the intellectual could now play a
prominent role in political life, contributing to the creation of new moral
content and giving society and politics a new direction. Intellectuals could make
themselves concretely available to society only if they were aware of their own
strength, without giving in to apathy, without losing the ability to debate or
"the taste to ask questions”. It’s for this reason that Patočka never
wanted to leave his city: only in Prague he could have put into practice his
teachings, also inspiring the opposition to ‘the Party’.
In this situation the
intellectual acquires an essential role. Opposition becomes a hallmark of the
intellectual. In fact, in a highly politicized context dominated by socialist
propaganda, a paper, philosophical or political, could represent a threat to
the dominant regime, and these were often banned by the censorship apparatuses
of the ruling party. For this reason, clandestine literature became the primary
form of communication for the dissident intellectual.
This phenomenon, that
initially arose spontaneously, slowly assumed more organized form. It is
important to emphasize that, in a situation of total lack of freedom, it arose as
a free activity, completely devoid of any economic interest and social
recognition, but only due to the sense of individual responsibility, to an
ethical commitment.
Samizdat, which literally
means “self-published”, is one
of the most symptomatic examples. Samizdat publishing allowed for the spread of
clandestine writings banned for being in some way hostile to the Soviet regime.
This form of intellectual dissidence was the dominant current of Czech
literature of the twenty-year period from the Seventies to the Eighties and
became an example of how philosophy can actualize itself and succeed, through
the influence of the individual on the individual, in creating a movement able
to produce political change.
Political involvement
became the natural development of Patočka's philosophy. Thanks to his personal
commitment, as spokesman for Charter 77, Patočka became the example of a thinker who is able
to make praxis emerge from the scope of the theory. Patočka’s intention
was to become the reference point of the initiative and the Charta itself is
the result of an afterthought, prompted in the Chartists, by Patočka's
reasoning.
The element common to the
members of the Charter 77 movement is the belief that political action, to be
effective, must be the consequence of an ethics. Czechoslovakia, since the late
1940s, was part of the Soviet bloc, as a conglomeration of nations controlled
by a superpower that imposed common policies, subordinating the interests of individual
states to its own. These type of dictatorships, as defined by Havel, were post-totalitarian
dictatorships. They found their historical roots in the socialist movement of
the nineteenth century, and were bound by a strong secular ideology through the
mechanism of a direct and indirect manipulation of people. The only way to
really oppose this form of political power, was to interfere with the very
personal and individualised series of actions and daily gestures that ensured
the operation of the regime as often repeated acts.
Dissent had to seek to
deconstruct the myth of passive obedience and depersonalization by reclaiming
the possibility of independent intellectual activity, and indeed care for the
soul. Those who performed "dissident" actions freed themselves from
the oppressive repetitions of everyday life under “normalisation”, but in
doing so they did not flee to an otherworldy realm of ideas, but rather became
witnesses and stimulants for the concrete.
What the philosopher
claims, these were not heroic acts, but actions made up of singular gestures
that, precisely thanks to their avowedly unpolitical nature, become that grain
of sand that could obstruct the inner workings of the regime.
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