With respect to the history of sciences under communism, we understand the gray zone to mean academic practices originating from the negotiated autonomy of academia and the need to respect scientific values such as objectivity and a critical approach to reality. Our research explores the links between academic communities that were not directly involved in dissident activities but actively supported dissent initiatives (very often for a limited period of time) and were linked to transnational scientific networks or social movements. Specifically, we analyze the involvement of socially engaged scientists employed by the official research institutions in dissident activities related to the environmental sciences.
According to Václav Havel’s famous essay The Power of powerless life within a lie is at the core of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Life within a lie is characteristic for the great majority of people and is contrasted with life within the truth which is characteristic of dissent movement. In this paper, I will try to shed some light on the concept of “living within a lie.” I will show that Havel develops not one but two concepts of a lie: on the one hand, lie is deliberate pretence; on the other hand, lie is seduction by consumerist values. The first meaning of a lie is derived from Havel’s analysis of the specifics of the Soviet sphere of influence, namely central role of ideology with omnipresent demands on public support of the regime. The second meaning of a lie is heavily influenced by a critical assessment of modern society from the leading figure of the Czech underground movement Ivan Jirous and leading Czech philosopher Jan Patočka. This double meaning of a lie enables Havel to capture both specific problems of living under the communist regime and general problems of living in modern society anywhere in the world. In the final chapters of this paper, I will show that Havel is not clear about how these two meanings of a lie are connected and that there are problems resulting from these unclarities both for Havel’s analysis of the communism and his proposed solution of the crisis.
The Czech dissident movement included thinkers who searched for a morally pure, parallel polis, and who felt comfortable within its isolation. The philosophers of Charter 77 (Jan Patočka and Ladislav Hejdánek especially), by contrast, rejected the idea of being morally superior to their opponents. It is interesting to consider where Václav Havel stands at this crossroads. Havel very much cooperated with the above-mentioned philosophers and was inspired by them in his own writing and agency. On the other hand, Havel undoubtedly performed a certain moral-existential concept of dissent. In this paper I examine Havel’s existential concept. In particular, after distinguishing between two existential approaches in Havel’s writings, I analyse two fundamental philosophical critiques of Havel in the work of Ladislav Hejdánek. According to Hejdánek, Havel 1) identifies intellectuals with non-politicians, i.e. he is governed by the incorrect dualism of the political versus the non-political, and 2) is self-focused and moralising, i.e. he keeps too much within his own self (subjectivity) and “a given” (existent, objective) world. Given this critique, I will systematise Hejdánek’s objections and suggested solutions. In the first case, I see the solution in a more detailed distinction: we should distinguish between politics and non-politics (intellectuals) but also non-political politics. In the second case, we should look for the essence (focal point) of man not in his morality but outside it: man should orient himself “out of his self”.