This paper explores the notion of “power” prevalent in Václav Havel’s understanding of the post-totalitarian regime. With this notion of power, which is “seeping” in nature, rather than rooted solely in an individual agent’s actions, the role of the individual in the formation of the political “we” becomes a central issue. The starting point is Havel’s well-known example of “the greengrocer,” that illustrate how Havel pictures the way out of the post-totalitarian regime as one in which individuals move from living a lie to living in truth. I show how Havel’s talk about truth and authenticity, and his emphasis on a life in truth (which may appear judgemental, naive and cliché-like) is best understood. The wrong way to understand this is simply to say that people who merely obeyed that government, as the greengrocer did, are to be held accountable because they did not put up a fight against their oppressor. Such an understanding goes wrong because it fails to take into account the complexity of the relationship between power and language. In contrast to this, I argue that the central issue here is not that particular agents are to be held responsible for countersigning messages that they think are false. More precisely, I argue that the moral difficulty here is that the greengrocer’s deeds, which appear as countersignatures of the regime, are possible because the messages conveyed are “innocent” on the surface, in a “literal” sense. The moral dimension of the greengrocer’s actions, aiming to shed light on the complex relation between the government and the individual, is revealed as located in a field of tension between inherited sense and new projections. This, in turn, can help us to see the real nature of the transition Havel’s grocer undergoes when he moves from living a lie to living in truth. It is not a matter of negating a false statement or utterance, nor of replacing it with a true one. It is a matter of realising that the responsibility for meaning is, ultimately, ours – and that the way in which he, the grocer, is one of us is something that has to be earned.
This study discusses the limits of Marx’s reinterpretation of Hegel’s conception of dialectics as a self-mediation of the fundamental by way of historical reality: we will show Marx’s disessentialisation of the (already quite monistic) Hegelian absolute spirit, and the consequences of Marx’s conception of consciousness as of a conscious being for the concept of culture, reduced that is to interest-conditioned, “ideological” praxis and its self-reflection. The study thus subjects to criticism the reduction of objectivi¬ty to totality in György Lukács, the founder of modern western Marxism; it points to the residuum (in no way objectively unlicensed) of self-positing subjecti¬vism in his “class-consciousness”; and it compares this immanentist conception with, on the one hand, the utopian conception of Ernst Bloch, foreshadowing Derrida’s stress on the auto criti¬cism of Marxism as a philosophy of the historicity of categories (as Lukács himself theo¬retically understood it!), and, on the other hand, with the dialectical non identity of the possible of Theodor W. Adorno. By reflecting on Marx’s concept of (historical) consciousness (of conscious Being) through critical insight into its most (in our view) signi¬ficant interpretations of the 20th century, the study attempts to capture the limi¬ts of the monistically-conceived dialectic for democratic social pra¬xis, preserving the “principle of hope” in the openness of the unsubsumable individual.
Studie se zabývá krizí vládnoucích elit na konci období takzvané normalizace v Československu (1970–1989). Dokládá jejich neschopnost formulovat společné zájmy a najít průnik jejich postupně se rozcházejících hodnot, cílů a strategických postupů. Po načrtnutí mezinárodních souvislostí (zejména sovětského kontextu) přistupuje autor k pokusu vysvětlit, proč byly pozdně komunistické elity v Československu tváří v tvář politicko-ekonomickému projektu přestavby tak bezradné. Proces rozpadu jejich sebevědomí sleduje autor na příkladu diskuse k zákonu o státním podniku z roku 1987, v níž se asi poprvé odhalily různé zájmy jednotlivých skupin pozdně komunistického establishmentu, a na tematizaci „vnitřního nepřítele“, dokládající klesající schopnost účinně stigmatizovat opoziční skupiny a zdůvodnit jejich perzekuci. Autor se v článku snaží obhájit tezi, že postupný rozpad oficiálního komunistického jazyka spolu s prosazováním hodnot založených na individuálním výkonu a efektivitě měl své specifické vyústění. Jelikož představitelům vládnoucích elit, uvyklým přijímat předem hotová autoritativní rozhodnutí, chyběly schopnosti reagovat na nenadálé situace, přestavbová destabilizace ideologie i moci v nich vzbuzovala pocity nejistoty, „zklamání“ či „nepřipravenosti“. Článek nechce vyvozovat zhroucení komunistické diktatury z dezintegrace elitních skupin. Nabízí však historickou genezi této dezintegrace, která hrála ve zhroucení diktatury významnou roli, neboť bránila elitám „starého režimu“ semknout síly v situaci významných geopolitických změn roku 1989. and Michal Pullmann.
The article presents, in an integrated form, the main lines of Hejdánek’s thinking regarding ideology. It is based on published and unpublished texts and on sound recordings from his “apartment” seminars. Hejdánek does not approach ideology as being a fixed, ready-made system of tenets or dogmas, instead seeking a deeper understanding of the ideological mode of thought. The rise of ideologies is, according to him, a modern phenomenon, and Hejdánek considers it to be a kind of reprise of the myth in the modern age. He shows what is the precondition for the possibility of ideology, how ideology conditions human consciousness and how we can free ourselves from its power. According to Hejdánek, the starting point for this does not lie in a struggle with ideology on its own turf. Ideology can be overcome only by something that stands in radical opposition against it – that is, by the development of people into spiritual beings by way of truth, conscience and faith. and Článek v ucelené podobě představuje hlavní myšlenkové linie Hejdánkova uvažování o ideologii. Opírá se o vydané i nevydané texty a o zvukové záznamy bytových seminářů. Hejdánek nezkoumá ideologii jako určitý hotový systém pouček či dogmat, ale sestupuje k hlubším předpokladům ideologického způsobu myšlení. Vzestup ideologií je podle něj teprve novověký fenomén a Hejdánek jej pokládá za jakousi novodobou reprízu mýtu. Odhaluje, co je podmínkou možnosti ideologie, čím si ideologie podmaňuje lidské vědomí a jak se můžeme vysvobozovat z její moci. Východisko podle Hejdánka nespočívá v souboji s ideologií jejími vlastními prostředky. Ideologie může být překonána jedině něčím, co se postaví do radikálního protikladu proti jakékoli ideologičnosti – tedy rozvojem člověka jako duchovní bytosti skrze pravdu, svědomí a víru.
I have argued in the past that there has been a massive failure of nerve in the study of religion in the context of the modern research university; that it failed to live up to the scientific objectives enunciated for the field in late nineteenth-century European academic communities. The "comments" here on the current state of the science (or sciences) of religion constitute, in part, a kind of informal critical history of the field known as "Religious Studies." I suggest here that the overall development of the field might actually indicate a positive trajectory since its inception in late nineteenth-century Europe. This essay, therefore, may mitigate somewhat my recent claim (with L. H. Martin) that it is highly unlikely that the scientific study of religion will actually some day come to dominance in religious studies departments in our modern universities.
Výkon politickej moci má v dejinnom priereze viac, či menej intenzívne, ale porovnateľné účinky.Politická moc zvykne na človeka pôsobiť „psychotropne a návykovo“ tak, že v praxi tendujú počiny jej vykonávateľov k narúšaniu privátnej sféry adresátov verejnomocenského pôsobenia. Nie sú dnes väčšie pochybnosti o tom, že konštitučná demokracia je v súhrne schopná zabezpečiť a vynútiť ochranu privátnej sféry jednotlivca efektívnejšie ako nedemokratické režimy.Ale ak také účinky demokratická schéma ústavnej realizácie politickej moci vyvoláva, nie je to z dôvodu, že by bol proces realizácie práva v jej rámci hodnotovo neutrálny. Alebo inak, že by pojmové spojenie demokracie a právneho štátu eliminovalo požiadavky
na konkrétnu kvalitu obsahu realizácie verejnej moci. Predsa narúšaniu privátnej sféry jednotlivca nemusí byť formálne bazírovanie na princípe legality schopné osve zabrániť. Preto, že obsah regulačného rámca je tak, či onak politickým rezultátom. Pritom je princíp právnej istoty sťažňovým pilierom konštitučnej demokracie tak, že definuje jej povahu nevyhnutne, ale nie výlučne.Veď práve v tých prípadoch, v ktorých oprávnený decízor procedurálne perfektne zíde z takpovediac hodnotovo neutrálnej a odosobnenej cesty realizácie práva sa svojvôľa zvykne manifestovať zreteľne. Takpovediac preto, že tak ako v iných druhoch režimov je intersystémový presah právneho a politického zreteľný aj v konštitučnej demokracii.Ozrejmime. and Execution of political power has from the historical point of view more or less intensive but comparable effects. The political power is capable of affecting its possessors in a “psychotropic and/or addictive” way so they incline to interfere with the private sphere of those who are subjected to them. Nowadays there are no serious doubts that Constitutional Democracy is in comparison with non-democratic regimes able to ensure and enforce protection of individual privacy more effectively. But this is not because the process of realization of law in Constitutional Democracy is value-free. Neither it is due to the fact that conceptual link between Democracy and Rule of Law eliminates the requirements for particular quality of process of realization of political power. Indeed, formal insistence on the principle of legality in itself does not effectively prevent political interferences with private sphere of individuals because legal regulations themselves are just another results of a political process.Nevertheless the main pillar of Constitutional Democracy is the principle of legal certainty. That means – principle of legal certainty defines its nature necessarily but not wholly. Precisely in those cases willfulness manifests clearly in which authorized body is in a legally perfect procedure diverted from the path of “so called” value-free and depersonalized process of realization of law.Only “so called” because like in other types of regimes in the Constitutional Democracy is the intersystem overlap of legal and political sphere evident. Let us explain.
Kritickú diskurzívnu analýzu (KDA) autorka predstavila predovšetkým z hľadiska súboru teoretických predpokladov, ktoré konceptualizujú vzťahy medzi diskurzom, poznaním, ideológiou a sociálnym subjektom. Poukázala na varietu predpokladaných súvislostí medzi subjektom a diskurzom, a to v kontexte posunu od štrukturalistickej paradigmy k postštrukturálnej, od jednostrannej determinácie k determinácii dialektickej. Z hľadiska metodologického autorka poukázala na tie teoretické zdroje (sociolingvistická teória jazyka, pragmadialektická teória argumentácie), ktoré prispeli k premene analýzy diskurzu na kritickú, systematickú a transdisciplinárnu metódu analýzy textu v makro a mikrospoločenských súvislostiach. V závere autorka naznačila výzvy, ktorý KDA (vrátane interdisciplinárneho a transdisciplinárneho prístupu) pre sociálnu psychológiu predstavuje.
This article discusses the methodological aspects of Marx’s theoretical approach. It draws on the epistemology of Gaston Bachelard, and especially on the interpretation of Louis Althusser. It examines in detail Bachelard’s concepts of connaissance commune and epistemological rupture, and also Althusser’s distinction between “Generalities I” and “Generalities III”, while putting these concepts into the context of Marx’s critique of political economy. A significant focus here is also the distinction between “real object” and “the object of knowledge”, as well as the concepts of Darstellung, structural causality and overdetermination (surdétermination). The article demonstrates that Marx’s method of the historicising and denaturalising theoretical categories can be an effective instrument in de-ideologising the areas which Althusser characterises as “theoretical ideology”.
With the help of current archaeological results and by means of the reinterpretation of core textual traditions relating to the issue of cult, centralization, and monotheism, this study analyses the development of Jahvistic religion in Southern Levant with particular emphasis laid on interactions between Judah and its neighbouring territorial entities, Israel, Philistia and Moab. The author points out that a demonstrably aniconic form of monotheism was a reality only from the very final phasis of the existence of the Kingdom of Judah at the earliest and that the very concept of monotheism had been preceded by the idea of centralization adopted from the north, from the Omride dynasty ruling in the 9th and early 8th centuries BCE in Samaria. Though the close relation between Israel and Judah are concealed in a conventional reading and understanding of biblical texts, detailed analysis focused on the ideological decoding of these texts along with the use of archaeological data and the reading of other ancient textual sources results in a more complex image of religion in the region under consideration.