Rethinking Resistance with Vaclav Havel

In: Constellations: an international journal of critical and democratic theory, Band 21, Heft 3, S. 401-414

Abstract

Reading Havel's essay 'The Power of the Powerless' has always been an ambiguous experience for me. Written in an intriguing and intuitively appealing literary style, it features many original political-philosophical insights. The conceptual references, however, are underdeveloped, theoretically incoherent, and self-contradictory. And yet, Havel articulates a consistent and penetrating critique of a totalitarian regime from the standpoint of a closely connected, personally engaged critic. Adapted from the source document.