I regret to inform you that we are already living under a totalitarian regime

Read Václav Havel's words and tell me I'm wrong.

A few days ago, I came across a passage from The Power of the Powerless, by Václav Havel, in Celia Farber’s Substack.

I was stopped dead in my tracks by this passage, as it summed up so beautifully, in such a direct yet nuanced way, our reality that is currently shared in prosperous countries from the United States to New Zealand.

Havel wrote it in 1978, and he refers to the Czechoslovakian regime that inspired it as post-totalitarian. I did not use that term in my headline, as I feared it might lead people to think I meant we are living after totalitarianism. We are not. We are living through it. I cannot believe that I — part of the generation that inherited a peace dividend, that came of age after “the end of history” — am watching this all come into focus. But it’s here. It’s been here for a while.

Half the people reading that headline will read it and say, “yeah, no shit.” Yet many others reading it with shake their heads in disbelief and think, ‘what on Earth is she on about?’ That in itself is evidence of the totalitarian miasma of lies that we are all marinating in.

Instead of trying to put my own spin on Havel’s work, I’m just going to quote it extensively. I will add only this thought of my own: this work has changed my life, and I will continue to study it closely, and maybe even emulate it, for as long as I am able.

I present this without further comment.

The Power of the Powerless

Vintage London 2018

Copyright Válclav Havel 1978

The manager of a fruit and vegetable shop places in his window, among the onions and carrots, the slogan: “Workers of the World, Unite!” Why does he do it? What is he trying to communicate to the world? 

…

The slogan is really a sign, and as such, it contains a subliminal but very definite message. Verbally, it might be expressed this way: “I, the greengrocer XY, live here and I know what I must do. I behave in the manner expected of me. I can be depended upon and am beyond reproach. I am obedient and therefore I have the right to be left in peace.’ This message, of course, has an addressee: it is directed above, to the greengrocer’s superior, and at the same time it is a shield that protects the greengrocer from potential informers. The slogan’s real meaning, therefore, is rooted firmly in the greengrocer’s existence. It reflects his vital interests. But what are those vital interests?

Let us take note: if the greengrocer had been instructed to display the slogan, ‘I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient,’ he would not be nearly as indifferent to its semantics, even though the sentiment would reflect the truth.

The greengrocer would be embarrassed and ashamed to put such an unequivocal statement of his own degradation in the shop window, and quite naturally so, for he is a human being and thus has a sense of his own dignity. To overcome this complication, his expression of loyalty must take the form of a sign which, at least on its textual surface, indicates a level of disinterested conviction. It must allow the greengrocer to say: ‘What’s wrong with the workers of the world uniting?’ Thus the sign helps the greengrocer to conceal from himself the low foundations of his obedience, at the same time concealing the low foundations of power. It hides them behind the facade of something high. And that something is ideology.

Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of identity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them. As the repository of something ‘supra-personal’ and objective, it enables people to deceive their conscience and conceal their true position and their inglorious modus vivendi, both from the world and from themselves. It is a very pragmatic, but at the same time an apparently dignified, way of legitimising what is above, below, and on either side. It is directed towards people and towards God. It is a veil behind which human beings can hide their own ‘fallen existence,’ their trivialisation, and their adaptation to the status quo. It is an excuse that everyone can use, [emphasis mine] from the greengrocer, who conceals his fear of losing his job behind an alleged interest in the unification of the workers of the world, to the highest functionary, whose interests in staying in power can be cloaked in the phrases about service to the working class. The primary excusatory function of ideology, therefore, is to provide people, both as victims and pillars of the post-totalitarian system, with the illusion that the system is in harmony with the human order and the order of the universe.

….

Ideology…is a world of appearances trying to pass for reality.

The post-totalitarian system touches people at every step, but it does so with its ideological gloves on.This is why life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies: government by bureaucracy is called popular government; the working class is enslaved in the name of the working class; the complete degradation of the individual is presented as his or her ultimate liberation; depriving people of information is called making it available; the use of power is called observing the legal code; the repression of culture is called its development; the expansion of imperial influence is presented as support for the oppressed; the lack of free expression becomes the highest form of democracy; banning independent thought becomes the most scientific of world views; military occupation becomes fraternal assistance. Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. If falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.