Václav Havel’s Search for Emancipatory Governmentality

ABSTRACTThis paper deals with the political philosophy of Václav Havel, mainly its relation to ethics and what Michel Foucault called governmentality. Besides using his analytical framework, Foucault’s politics are engaged with to highlight similar trajectories of two intellectuals dealing with related dilemmas of ethics and politics. As a dissident of communist Czechoslovakia Havel, developed a profound critique of modernity, but also discovered technologies of the self, exclusive to dissidents, which empowered them in their moral struggle against the regime. The Velvet Revolution in 1989 ascended Havel to the presidency of the republic, a position from which he quickly embraced and disseminated neoliberal governmentality. The final section deals with Havel’s use of human rights in the later years of his presidency, being a justification for military interventions and comparing them to Foucault’s conceptualisation of rights. Human rights discourse is the culmination of Havel’s lifelong quest for the ethical foundation of politics and it is the source of most difficulties and potentialities associated with this project.KEYWORDS: HavelFoucaultgovernmentalitydissidenceneoliberalism Disclosure StatementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Bělohradský, “Od Havla k havlismu a zpět.”2 Havel, Dálkový výslech, 133–44.3 Brennan, The Political Thought of Václav Havel; Gümplová, “Rethinking Resistance with Václav Havel”; Tucker, The Philosophy and Politics of Czech Dissidence.4 Brennan, The Political Thought of Václav Havel, 171–8.5 Eyal, “Anti-Politics and the Spirit of Capitalism.”6 Cf. Keane, Vaclav Havel.7 For a discussion on Foucault’s alleged affinity to neoliberalism see Becker, Ewald, and Harcourt, “Becker on Ewald on Foucault on Becker”; Dean and Zamora, The Last Man Takes LSD; Sawyer and Steinmetz-Jenkins, Foucault, Neoliberalism, and Beyond.8 Lemke, “The Birth of Bio-Politics,” 202.9 Vighi and Feldner, Žižek: Beyond Foucault, 77–8.10 Foucault in: Dean and Zamora, The Last Man Takes LSD, 46.11 Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, 108.12 Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 2.13 Foucault, “Technologies of the Self,” 19.14 Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, 10–11.15 Foucault, “Interview with Michel Foucault,” 295–6.16 Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 91–2. In a lecture, Foucault said: “what socialism lacks is not so much a theory of the state as a governmental reason, the definition of what a governmental rationality would be in socialism, that is to say, a reasonable and calculable measure of the extent, modes, and objectives of governmental action.”17 Havel, Do různých stran, 57.18 Ibid.19 Steger and Replogle, “Václav Havel’s Postmodernism.”20 Havel, ’94, 105–6.21 Havel, Dopisy Olze, 134.22 Bělohradský, “Dva odkazy Václava Havla”; Brennan, The Political Thought of Václav Havel, 14–15.23 Havel, Dopisy Olze, 315–7.24 Ibid., 283–4.25 Foucault in: Dean and Zamora, The Last Man Takes LSD, 82–3.26 Havel, Moc bezmocných, 22; Havel, Do různých stran, 237.27 Foucault, “Iran: The Spirit of a World Without Spirit,” 255.28 Jirous, “Zpráva o třetím českém hudebním obrození.” Jirous, a leading figure of Czechoslovak underground, was a proponent of the so-called “second culture.” According to him: “The goal of the underground in the West is the direct destruction of the establishment. The goal of the underground in our country is the creation of a second culture. Culture, which will be totally independent from official channels and societal prestige and hierarchy of values, which the establishment uses to govern. Culture, which can’t have the destruction of the establishment as its goal, because it would accept their terms.”29 Havel, Dálkový výslech, 111.30 Havel, Moc bezmocných, 14.31 Ibid., 17. Post-totalitarianism is a term Havel uses to describe the Czechoslovak regime after it moved away from using totalitarian techniques in the 1950s.32 Ibid., 10.33 Ibid., 15.34 Ibid., 22.35 Foucault, “Truth and Power,” 61.36 For example the play Vyrozumění (The Memorandum), which is about the introduction of a new constructed language, or Zahradní slavnost (The Garden Party), which deals with the emptiness of the official ideological jargon37 Havel, Do různých stran, 53.38 Suk, Politika jako absurdní drama, 227.39 Havel, Dálkový výslech, 13. Havel described himself as a socialist until the mid-1970s, later saying that socialism was for him rather a moral category.40 Battěk et al., “Sto let českého socialismu.”41 Havel, Moc bezmocných, 28.42 Ibid., 62.43 Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, 200–2. Foucault was never content with the term counter-conduct, and even considered the term dissidence to refer to this concept.44 Ibid., 191–216.45 Eyal, “Anti-Politics and the Spirit of Capitalism,” 61.46 Havel, Do různých stran, 56.47 Ibid., 55.48 Going back to the sacrifice made by Jan Hus, reformer of the catholic church, who refused to renounce his teaching before the Council of Constance in 1415. Because of that he was burned alive before the council.49 Havel, Dopisy Olze, 294.50 Havel, Dálkový výslech, 120.51 Havel, Moc bezmocných, 39.52 Tucker, The Philosophy and Politics of Czech Dissidence, 116.53 Bělohradský, “Od Havla k havlismu a zpět.” “Dissent introduces an anti-political conflict into society because it pulls the whole society into a struggle for an alternative centre of society, for different values, it splits society into two entities, each with its centre and its periphery.”54 Havel, Dopisy Olze, 341.55 Havel, Do různých stran, 57.56 Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 92.57 Havel, “Převzetí čestného doktorátu Sciences Po, Institutu politických věd.” By Havel’s own admission the dissident “effort seemed futile, because it was not backed by any instrument of power or any visible support from any valid part of the society.”58 Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, 218.59 Ibid., 216–33. According to Foucault homo oeconomicus appeared in liberal thought in the 18th century as a model for a rational actor whose behaviour is subjected to the theory of utility and is an ideal partner for exchange. Neoliberalism transforms this model into a homo oeconomicus that is primarily an entrepreneur of himself, utilizing his work and body precisely as a capital.60 Ibid., 269.61 Ibid., 32.62 Hanley, The New Right in the New Europe, 171.63 Power and Weinfurter, Thatcherismus v českých zemích, 112.64 Havel, Moc bezmocných, 56.65 Tucker, The Philosophy and Politics of Czech Dissidence, 164.66 Dean and Zamora, The Last Man Takes LSD, 133–44.67 Havel, Dopisy Olze, 356–7.68 Lemke, “The Birth of Bio-Politics,” 202.69 Shamir, “The Age of Responsibilization,” 7.70 Havel, 97, 86–90.71 Havel, Vážení občané, 47–8.72 Brown, Undoing the Demos, 210–8.73 Havel, “A Call for Sacrifice,” 4. This article came out in Foreign Affairs in English translation by Paul Wilson. Peculiarly, the referenced sentence continues “including even the quest for larger and larger domestic production and consumption.” This is not the case in the original Czech manuscript where the sentence ends as is referenced in this article. The original manuscript can be found in Havel, 1992 & 1993, 168–75. as well as in the archive of Václav Havel library.74 Eyal, “Anti-Politics and the Spirit of Capitalism.”75 Ibid, 78–85.76 Havel, Projevy, 166; Havel, Vážení občané, 161.77 Havel, Vážení občané, 167.78 Becker, Ewald, and Harcourt, “Becker on Ewald on Foucault on Becker,” 6.79 Havel, ’96, 32–3.80 Moyn, The Last Utopia.81 Ibid., 224.82 Odysseos, “Human Rights, Liberal Ontogenesis and Freedom,” 766.83 Havel, Letní přemítání, 74.84 Williams and Havel, Critical Lives, 175.85 Havel, “Sovereignty Bound.”86 Ibid.87 Mainly the Helsinki Accords signed at the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in 1975.88 Havel, “Sovereignty Bound.”89 Bělohradský, “Dva Odkazy Václava Havla”; Žižek, “Attempts to Escape the Logic of Capitalism.”90 Lemke, Foucault, Governmentality, and Critique, 67. Foucault “intervened quite frequently to demand respect for established rights: the right to abortion, the right to asylum, the right to be represented by a lawyer. On some occasions Foucault even invoked new rights. In several interviews on gay rights and sexual self-determination, he demanded the legal recognition of same-sex relationships.”91 Ibid.92 Foucault, “Two Lectures,” 108.93 See Patton, “Foucault, Critique and Rights”; Pickett, “Foucaultian Rights?”94 Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” 785.95 Ibid., 781.96 Foucault, “The Social Triumph of the Sexual Will,” 159–60.97 Žižek, “Attempts to Escape the Logic of Capitalism,” 6.98 O′Farrell, Michel Foucault, 131.99 Dean and Zamora, The Last Man Takes LSD, 149.Additional informationFundingThis article is supported by Charles University’s grant SVV-260727 (“Conflict, communication and cooperation in contemporary politics”).