Jihna Siklova Courage, Heroism, and the Postmodern Paradox

I
SHOULDN'T THINK

I WAS INVITED TO CONTRIBUTE TO THIS SPECIAL

issue in order to write about the concept of heroism in antiquity, or C. G. Jung's for that matter, let alone analyze the theme of heroism as treated in the speeches of George W. Bush or his intellectual opponent, Noam Chomsky. What is expected of me, more likely, is to help develop an understanding of how courage and heroism were perceived by the citizens of those states of a central and eastern Europe that is now described as post-Communist. I am not sure whether I am to deal with the state of mind prior to the revolution of 1989 or up to the present. There is a notable lack of data for the latter. It is a difficult task because the lives of citizens in the Czech Republic have undergone a very rapid transformation. Often we assess quite differently actions that were absolutely clear to us before the events of 1989. And we are ashamed not only of past weakness and even collaboration with the old regime, but also of civil courage, heroism, moral stances, and exalted language. We want to adapt to the West as quickly as possible and what we thought in those days is no longer "modem," or even postmodern. When the Czech secret police (StB) came to arrest me one night in 1981 and as they were leading me away in handcuffs, I quoted to my son the words of Jan Patocka: "Our people have once more become aware that there are things for which it is worthwhile to suffer, that the things for which we might have to suffer are those which make life

social research

Vol 71 : No 1 : Spring 2004

135

worthwhile." When my now grovra-up son recently reminded me of it, I felt sheepish about my sentimental pathos. But he reassured me: "I was an adolescent then and it seemed quite appropriate and 'normal' at the time." In those days we knew nothing of the contradictions in democratic societies or about postmodernism. Ours was a world of black and white and the Western culture to which we had no access was marvelous. Even if we did not always act accordingly, we all knew what was true and false, good and bad. First and foremost we tried to draw on our owTi interrupted traditions, on the prewar plurality of cultural values and, in terms of politics, on a democratic system of government and human rights. Expressions such as "postmodern culture" were incomprehensible labels for us. After 1989 we used to enthusiastically repeat Vaclav Havel's favorite sa)dng: "I believe that truth and love will triumph over lies and hate," often with tears in our eyes. Now, 15 years later, again it has become a sort of "pubertally emotive" slogan that we do not say aloud any more. What a shame we've changed so much! A shame? Conviction of the unskeptical and unquestioning variety is the basis of every ideology. And ideology is also the tool of every totalitarian system and dictatorship, whether fascist or communist. For this reason we are still frightened of all ideologies. I was not in a position to follow the development of thought over the past decades of the last century and so am not familiar with the various currents, but I have a feeling that there is a certain similarity between the rebellious generations formed in the West in the 1960s, especially those concerned with the struggle for human rights and the rights of minorities, and those that developed in the countries of central Europe that were part of the Soviet bloc. The people who molded thinking in the West sobered up from their revolutionary inebriation and abandoned their attempts to change the whole of society and unmask capitalism. They then often went to the other extreme of conformism and individualism, which they justify as postmodernist. In our situation under communism it was easier: it took heroism and courage to protect individual opinion and not conform to the regime of so-called real socialism. But heroism and courage require

136

social research

the conviction that what one is saying is really true. And we had that. I'm not so sure today.
IN 1 9 6 8 , DURING THE "PRAGUE SPRING," WHEN MANY TRIED TO REFORM

the Soviet version of socialism, dozens of enthusiastic West Europeans traveled to our country, including writers, journalists, and students, seeking to offer assistance to democratic socialism or "socialism with a human face" as it was then called. Some of themmore of them perhaps than uswere led by their disgust Mdth capitalism to believe or wanted to believe in an alternative socialist organization of the world. We were poor and the country's prospects were far from clear. When we asked them what their motivation was, they told us, "You have an idea, a mission, a vision; the 'only' thing we have is a high standard of living." After they had abandoned their dream of total change, former supporters of the New Left in Germany, France, and also the United States acquired a fear of slogans, banners, proclamations, and heroic deeds. This subsequently led many of them to deny any interpretive models and it may also be the reason postmodernism is supported chiefiy by that disillusioned generation. The price for that "liberation" from ideas about unidirectional progress was emancipation from heroism of all kinds, from the possibility of asserting general truths and making sacrifices for their implementation. It has also meant accepting subjective and objective justification of every somersault in one's own opinions. Western intellectuals have thereby "gained" enormous individualism, the fragmentation of all communities into monads of individuals, as well as a nostalgia for a sense of community and the loss of an ability to formulate noncommercial goals; they have turned into voluntary homeless intellectuals. Even the countries of the Eastern bloc saw a trend toward pragmatism in the socialist regimes of the last third of the twentieth century, one from which dissidents and a narrow group of people belonging to the "nomenklatura" were excluded (Siklova, 1990). But not even the top leadership of the Gommunist regimes propagated heroic models.

Courage, Heroism, and the Postmodern Paradox

137

such as Stakhanovites, Builders of Socialism, or self-sacrificing partisans. Although the Communist regime lasted for over 40 years, it underwent change. During its first 20 years^the period of Stalinism the Communist Party and government literally foisted heroes on us. During its second 20 years, the period knov^m as "normalization" in Czechoslovakia, heroic models were entirely abandoned. References to moral values and any kind of brave assertion of personal opinions and ideals were regarded as a threat to the political regimes. Even the war films of those years tended to focus on the doubts of the protagonists and call into question death on the battlefield rather than glorify selfless heroism. The regime was clearly maintained by the police, corruption, and the party machine. By then, slogans about "taming the vnnd and rain" or "agitating for a happy future" were forgotten. Officially, the situation was known as "real socialism""real" because even according to the official declarations of the party at that time, there was only one, really existing socialism. At the compulsory demonstrations of assent, where the party and government were exalted, none of the participants were expected to display enthusiasm. These events aimed to force citizens to demonstrate their conformity. That was sufficient. I recall one colleague at work, a member of the party, who was almost too fervent in his defense of the policies of the Czechoslovak Communist Party and the Soviet Union, both in private life and in front of his superiors. Some party officials began to suspect he might be mentally disturbed. In January 1969, Charles University student jan Palach burned himself to death in protest against the occupation. After his funeral, which literally turned into a national demonstration, he was soon forgotten. Citizens adapted to the new regime and heroes like Palach were an inconvenience. Censorship was strict and no further sacrifice of that kind would have any impact on public opinion. Indeed, during the first years no one received any news about such heroism. Circumspection and pragmatism took precedence over ethics. In these countries even heroism was of a very intimate kind. The sort of courage that was valued included someone openly speaking up

138

social research

in favor of a colleague threatened with the sack or if they copied a text and passed it on for others to read. A kind of parallel society came into being, what Vaclav Benda termed a "parallel polis," where matters such as courage and treachery could be discussed. The moral codes that the citizens in opposition subscribed to were the international conventions on human rights, which were not officially published at that time, let alone publicized. Even heroism was on an intimate scale. A courageous act was someone refusing to testify or saying "almost nothing" at an interrogation. But it was greatly appreciated! At the end of the 1970s, when a number of people were jailed for signing the Charter 77 manifesto or lost their livelihood, it took courage to employ them or people like them, or to refuse demands from the regional party committee for so-and-so to be sacked, or to make it possible for "banned people" to publish under assumed names. Is that heroism? It certainly was then! During a house search, the wife of the Protestant pastor jan Simsa tried to hide a personal letter from the philosopher jan Patocka by putting it into the top of her blouse. When the secret police agent carrying out the search went to reach for the letter, her husband, the pastor, slapped him in the face. For that he was sent to jail for a year. Only people close to him and a few hundred dissidents knew the real reason for his sentence. We admired him for it. In those days heroism was the attempt to assert, at least in one's private life, values we regarded as right. But we were not able to infiuence what the philosopher Milan Simecka called "Big History" (Simecka, 1985). Once more there were discussions in private about whether, in her attempts to bury her brother Polynices, Antigone did not actually complicate the lives of others and whether it was no more than a "provocative" gesture. People were manipulated by indirect pressures, and indirect forms of coercion, such as barring their children from education, or preventing them from changing their apartment or installing a telephone (Simecka, 1984). But these restrictions are not the stuff of antique tragedy. Yet today, scarcely 15 years after the regime fell, the young have no idea what courage consisted of in those days.

Courage, Heroism, and the Postmodern Paradox

139

FOR US, HEROISM AND COURAGE WERE SIMPLY STICKING TO ONE'S

opinions and maintaining the values we believed were right. Heroism and courage, as well as betrayal, were topics solely for private debate. And they were discussed vwthout pathos but with great intensify. Those who did not conform to the regime could not make their views known through the media, so they vwthdrew into their private lives. Even though such information could never reach the media then, people did learn about heroism of that sort. They were specific deeds, involving a small group. After all, censorship in those days was so pervasive that even invitations to graduation or formal balls had to be submitted to the censor for approval, lest they contain some secret message. Even the wording of death announcements had to be chosen fixjm approved standard phrases. It was also at the end of the 1970s that a debate was conducted among the dissidents, or rather the democratic opposition, about the nature of courage and bravery. And it was not confined to the people of Czechoslovakia but involved the Poles too. It could well be that Vaclav Havel was actually prompted by Adam Michnik to initiate this discussion about heroism and courage under "real socialism." At that time Havel wrote his famous essay, "The Power of the Powerless," and other authors wrote in response or in parallel texts that refiected the views on courage and bravery current at the time (Havel, 1985). That debate gave rise to a wave of repression, including arrests and sackings, directed at those who had signed Charter 77 or expressed their dissent in some way (Simecka, 1984). Even some of the protagonists who made up that resistance feared they might be needlessly jeopardizing their loved ones or other likeminded people and asked themselves, "Is it worth it?" "Heroic deeds are not appropriate to everyday life," leading dissident and writer Ludvik Vaculik v^nrote at the time; "heroism is acceptable in exceptional situations, but these must not last too long." Heroism frightened people, and it provided them with the excuse that they were not fitted for it and preferred constructive activify. The point was to preserve the nation, not to sacrifice it. Other contributors to the debate even voiced the fear that a certain privileged group would be created if others started to regard them as heroes.

140

social research

Havel opposed those who expressed such antiheroic views in secret or semipublic debate and indirectly repeated the opinions he had publishedopenlyin the autumn of 1968, shortly after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. "On account of what will happen tomorrow we ought not forget what will happen in twenfy years time." Many people are devoid of convictions, ideals, or opinions or fear failure; they prefer to withdraw into themselves and not be an actor, or an active subject of history. So even when they do not agree with that which is occurring around them they simply accept the role of being objects of history. They defend this position on the grounds of "achieving what is possible," saving lives and enabling the majorify to survive. And as Havel had already written in November 1968, "I always realize that no lives were saved, that the moral consistency of the nation was dislocated for a long time, being racked by the reproach that it had failed to assert its will and stick by it to the end." At the root of that debate on heroism in the late 1970s and early 1980s was the fear that the dissidents or supporters of the democratic opposition might find themselves in the position of paragons, heroes worthy of emulation, and thereby make things difficult for those who "could not afford" that sort of heroism. They did not want a situation in which others were simply spectators of their courage, since it would only alienate them. The actual activify of those dissidents/political opponents of the regime (here and in the other post-Communist countries) derived from a profound and undisputed conviction that the stances they adopted were right. At the time most of them did not have the courage to doubt their views. Doubt would have undermined them. We did not want to hear any doubts in those days, in the same way that Antigone did not want to hear the arguments of her uncle Creon when she tried to bury her brother. Creon (in jean Anouilh's version, at least) proves to his niece and daughter-in-law-to-be that her brothers PoljTiices and Eteocles were a pair of rogues and that it was not certain that the stinking corpse outside the gate of Thebes was really her brother's. Antigone was weak and isolated and could not afford the luxury of doubt.

Courage, Heroism, and the Postmodern Paradox

141

Something similar applied to the people then in opposition, and because they were powerless they needed deep-seated convictions to bolster their identify. Those who are convinced they are in the right can be condemned to death without feeling threatened, or even guilfy. Individuals, groupseven generations and entire cultural erassometimes pass through phases in which they require definite contours for their own convictions. They need clear truths that they can relate to. In such phases it is fairly easy to be a hero and even have the courage to sacrifice oneself! Likevwse, the banks of a river near its source are sharp and clear-cut, where the water first creates a channel, and only when the river becomes a mighfy watercourse in the lowlands can it meander and its banks lose their clear contours. Whether we like it or not, every social position, status, or role carries certain privileges. Then and now conformify ensures a social status and prosperify, however relative. Then and also now nonconformifyexpressed, for instance, in involvement in the underground cultural scene or in opposition political groupsmeant minimum prosperify but maximum social autonomy and individual authenticify, which won the respect of other members of that particular group. In that way the individual also obtained social acceptance and admiration, which can be a source of satisfaction and even motivate heroism and courage. History is meaningless per se, but its subject can "confer" meaning on it. And it could be that something similar applies to the meaning of one's own life, or to heroism at particular periods of history.
SIMILAR DEBATES TOOK PLACE AMONG THE DISSIDENTS IN HUNGARY

and Poland. Looked at through the eyes of a diflFerent sociefysuch as the West or today's younger generationthat kind of discussion and heroism appear incomprehensible. The bravery of those people had no media parameters. No one knew them; nobody from the general public, let alone international opinion, heard about their heroism. It was not possible to publish those views, but "open letters" could be exchanged and then dozens of copies made by someone else "without the author's consent" and passed to other fiiends. It was a somewhat strenuous form

142

social research

of communication, but one that was appropriate to our situation, albeit anachronistic in the last third of the twentieth century. Nonetheless, the discussion of courage and attitudes regarding it was similar among the West European and Euro-American intellectuals and those "behind the Iron Curtain." At the end of the 1960s, opposition to the status quo came into being in both parts of this civilization. In the West it centered on the "Frankfurt School" and movements for minorify rights and universal human rights, and it described itself as the New Left (or that was the somewhat oversimplified label applied to it as an overall phenomenon). In central Europe, in the countries that then belonged to the Soviet bloc, an analogous generation sought to reform socialism and preserve it as an alternative to capitalism. In 1968 that attempt failed in Czechoslovakia and Poland alike. Those endeavors (as in Hungary after 1956) meant for many a loss of their former livelihoods, an end to their careers, emigration, and sometimes death. The New Left in the West felt similar disenchantment at the impossibilify of implementing an ideal sociefy. Members of the New Left also wanted to change sociefy and also failed. However, the "reformers" of Western capitalist sociefy had the opportunify to discuss their disillusionment and revise their views. I have not yet had the chance to study in detail the changes in postmodernism and my views are a refiection of the information I have gleaned from various anthologies and the press, but my feeling is that those who later leaned toward present-day postmodernism emerged from those experiences. Western intellectuals thus rid themselves of ideological commitments of all kinds, and also freed themselves from fanaticism, ideological dependence, and naive notions of unidirectional progress. But for decades those of us in Czechoslovakia, or in the other now post-Communist states, had no opportunify to keep track of that intellectual development. We developed in isolation, albeit along parallel and, in my view, similar lines. The attitude to heroism and courage in our countries is likely to be similar to that in the West, but it will be based more on actual experience and disappointment connected vnth realify, rather than on philosophical reflection. In this part of the world, the analogous process

Courage, Heroism, and the Postmodern Paradox

143

of separation from the phase of needing heroes was delayed by the lack of ft^edom here and it first started in the mid-1990s. It is sad, but not fragic. The changes of 1989 ushered in a period in all the post-Communist countries and the Soviet Union during which those who had rejected maintaining a consensus with the previous regime were revered and admired for a certain time. That "hour of glory" was brief, however. It soon gave way to an actual aversion to those who had previously stood out from the crowd. Today, if someone wants to go into politics it is almost advisable to deny one's dissident past. The point is that people find it hard to identify vnth the heroes of the resistance to the old regime. For the average citizen, and particularly for those who want to be successful, anyone who took an active part in the opposition is also a reminder that it is possible to act and live with greater courage and less conformify. That's why Vaclav Havel, Adam Michnik, Andrei Sakharov and even Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn are honored and esteemed more abroad than in the countries in which they were active. The former dissident "heroes" are inhibited by the fear of being charged with elitism and most of them are reluctant to recall their past services (Siklova, 2003). Frequent changes of regime relativize moralify. Social anomie is a state in which old values and customs no longer apply and new ones have not yet been internalized. And that process of transformation was also affected by our fragmentary knowledge of postmodern philosophy. In the West, postmodernism had been developing over two decades at least. And then it fell into our moral vacuum, undermining the certainties of those who had maintained certain moral stances and asserted them with courage. It also provided new ideological arguments for those who had no particular convictions or who had always conformed. It provided them with an ideology that justified their previous behavior. That superficial understanding of postmodernism also provides them the opportunify to ridicule the recent heroes of the 1989 revolutions in the Communist countries, what T. G. Ash has called the "year of miracles" (Ash, 1990). Czech Senate Chairman Pefr Pithart is critidzed for membership in the Communist Parfy as a student before 1968, at a time when he was convinced that the parfy could be changed and when he was already an

144

sociai research

active opponent of the conservative elements in the political leadership of the day. He spent the next 20 years opposing the regime as a dissident, helping bring about its demise. It was a period that lasted 10 years longer than his erstwhile parfy membership. Petr Pithart never changed his values, but the course of events has meant that we assess his commitment at a given moment differently. And he likewise judges it difterently also. Now he is stigmatized for his former parfy membership, while those who always conformed score political goals against him. One of these people recently told me that "I never got involved in anything because I was scared to. Now I'm glad because I'm not derided. I'm sorry for you dissidents. You've had no satisfaction, either moral or economic. What properfy have you restituted? I pify you, because I reaped only benefit from your activify." That was one of the sincerest expressions of appreciation of those who had constituted the democratic opposition and now stand on the sidelines. The conformists who are now involved in business or continue in politics are once more better oflfthan the former "heroes." The only consolation is that but for Antigone no one would have ever vmtten about Creon.
HEROISM IS EITHER AN INSTANT REACTION ON BEHALF OF ANOTHER

human being or a communifyon the basis, naturally, of internalized values (since a psychopath never responds to a call for help by lending a hand)or a conscious long-term endeavor to achieve a specific goal that is deemed important enough to be worth the sacrifice of other values, including one's life. Such an approach is virtually impossible unless we are convinced that what we are asserting is truly right. And where such goals require courage or even heroic actions, skepticism is an insurmountable obstacle. Whereas the skepticism among Western intellectuals is conditioned by postmodern philosophy and interpretation, in the post-Communist countries similar skepticism derives from the fact that high profile ideals are flouted in practice. To ask what heroism and courage (as well as betrayal, with which they are inseparably connected) consist of in the post-Communist countries is in itself an awkward, or rather a very "unmodem" question. As

Courage, Heroism, and the Postmodern Paradox

145

early as 1989, the Swiss philosopher and political scientist Hans Magnus Ensenzber^er wrote that nowadays the intellectual cannot simply criticize and go against the stream, because the significance of deeds and decisions, as well as the flow of information, actions, and their interpretation, are changing all the time (Ensenzberger, 1989). "Flexibilify is gradirally being elevated into a cardinal social virtue." Those who think that the only way to confront "the system" is through frontal attack, whether conservatives or revolutionaries, are deluding themselves; this stance makes sense only if one believes one knows the meaning of history. Events and deeds constantly change their context. It is virtually impossible to go on holding the same opinion indefinitely. The subject has the right and dufy to adopt a diflFerent evaluatory stance when viewed against his or her knowledge of other facts and circumstances. The question as to whether one should swim with the current or against it seems outmoded to Enzensberger because it can only be asked at the cost of major oversimplification. More natural, in his eyes, is to "wdndsurf through the sea of opinions," going now with the wind, now against it If an active individual is not simply to conform, the anti-establishment nonconformifywhat the Czech vulgarly describe as "pissing into the wind"is not enough. Nonconformify can be a feshionable and even nardssisfic stance if one fails to match one's deeds to one's conscience or internalized convictions. In my view, one can only speak in terms of courage if someone's proclaimed stance is not mere gratification of his or her ego, but instead is aimed at preserving and upholding supra-individual values and solidarify with the communify at large. But this takes me away from postmodernism again. It is not difficult to ridicule those ideals, whether from pragmatic motives or on the grounds of postmodern philosophy. That this ridicule is simply striking an attitude is proved by the evident interest shown in heroes by viewers and readers in the West and elsewhere in Europe, even if only on the television screen. And that interest in some cases also extends to the protagonists of events in countries where values are almost naively explidt, and skeptical attitudes to the goals people fix do not yet prevail. Hegel once wrote that a slave is a person unwilling to sacrifice his everyday bourgeois happiness for a higher ideal. Frequent regime

146

sociai research

changes relativize the appraisal of actions, and traditions are not firm, when they are not actually forgotten. In postmodern times we are therefore obliged every day to decide repeatedly whether our actions are right or not. It is tiring. We suflFer from a dearth of unquestioned rituals. It is harder to define heroism in the post-Communist countries than it was under the old regime. We do not pretend to be familiar with postmodernist philosophical slogans, but we have gradually come to similar conclusions on the basis of our experience. During the Communist totalitarian regime it was dangerous to espouse or promote one's own views and there was an element of heroism in that. Today it is much more diflficult in the post-Communist countries to find reasons for courage and heroism than it was in the past. The old moral values no longer apply, the new ones are vague and based on an overgeneralized definition of human rights that does not correspond to the pluralify of today's world (Siklova, 2003). Nor have they yet to be internalized. Maybe we should not even pose the question about what courage and heroism consist of nowadays. That would be very postmodern. A culture based on such vague principles and values will scarcely stand up to those who are deeply convinced (as we were) that they are in the right and will espouse unrelativized values. When refiecting on the less than rosy prospects of our EuroAmerican civilization, I am always comforted by the thoughts of the ancient Roman philosopher Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius ("the last Roman scholar"), who, imprisoned at the beginning of the sixth century, not only took leave of life, but also mourned the fact that Roman culture would not withstand the barbarians from the north and the civilized world would come to an end. But, surprise, surprise, the Huns, Gauls, and other barbarians have "improved" somewhat, after all. I am glad I grew up and lived at a time when Antigone was more admired than Creon. But I am so infiuenced by current changes and my experience of life under communism that I can understand Creon's point of view too. I can understand him, but I would not like to emulate him, even if he were declared the "first saint" of postmodernism.
Translated from the Czech by Gerald Turner.

Courage, Heroism, and the Postmodern Paradox

147

REFERENCES

Ash, Timothy Garton. We the People: The Revolution of 89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague. London: Penguin, 1990.

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus. "Vermutungen uber die Tlirbulenz." Vor der Jahrtausendwende. Ed. Peter Sloterdijk. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1989. Havel, Vaclav. "The Power of the Powerless." The Power of the Powerless:
Citizens against the State in Central-Eastern Europe. Ed. John Keane.

Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1985. Siklova, Jifina. "The 'Gray Zone' and the Future of Dissent in Czechoslovakia." Social Research 57:2 (Summer 1990): 347-364. . "Everyday Democracy in the Czech Republic: Disappointments or New Morals in a Time of Neo-Normalization." The Moral Fabric in Contemporary Societies. Eds. Grazyna Skapsa and Annamaria OrlaBukowska. International Institute of Sociology. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003.
Simecka, Milan. The Restoration of Order: The Normalization of Czechoslovalda,

1969-1976. London: Verso, 1984. . "0 velkych a malych dejinach." Kruhovd obrana. Milan Simecka. Kohi: Index, 1985.

148

social research