Courage, Heroism, and the Postmodern Paradox

Jirina Siklová Courage, Heroism, and the Postmodern Paradox I SHOULDN’T THINK I WAS INVITED TO CONTRIBUTE TO THIS SPECIAL issue in order to write about the concept of heroism in antiquity, or C. G. Jung’s for that matter, let alone analyze the theme of heroism as treated in the speeches of George W. Bush or his intellectual oppo­ nent, Noam Chomsky. What is expected of me, more likely, is to help develop an understanding of how courage and heroism were perceived by the citizens of those states of a central and eastern Europe that is now described as post-Communist. I am not sure whether I am to deal with the state of mind prior to the revolution of 1989 or up to the pres­ ent. There is a notable lack of data for the latter. It is a difficult task because the lives of citizens in the Czech Republic have undergone a very rapid transformation. Often we assess quite differently actions that were absolutely clear to us before the events of 1989. And we are ashamed not only of past weakness and even collaboration with the old regime, but also of civil courage, hero­ ism, moral stances, and exalted language. We want to adapt to the West as quickly as possible and what we thought in those days is no longer “modem,” or even postmodern. When the Czech secret police (StB) came to arrest me one night in 1981 and as they were leading me away in handcuffs, I quoted to my son the words of Jan Patocka: “Our people have once more become aware that there are things for which it is worthwhile to suffer, that the things for which we might have to suffer are those which make life social research Voi 71 : No 1: Spring 2004 135 worthwhile.” When my now grown-up son recently reminded me of it, I felt sheepish about my sentimental pathos. But he reassured me: “I was an adolescent then and it seemed quite appropriate and ‘normal’ at the time.” In those days we knew nothing of the contradictions in demo­ cratic societies or about postmodernism. Ours was a world of black and white and the Western culture to which we had no access was marvel­ ous. Even if we did not always act accordingly, we all knew what was true and false, good and bad. First and foremost we tried to draw on our own interrupted traditions, on the prewar plurality of cultural values and, in terms of politics, on a democratic system of government and human rights. Expressions such as “postmodern culture” were incomprehensible labels for us. After 1989 we used to enthusiastically repeat Vaclav Havel’s favorite saying: “I believe that truth and love will triumph over lies and hate,” often with tears in our eyes. Now, 15 years later, again it has become a sort of “pubertally emotive” slogan that we do not say aloud any more. What a shame we’ve changed so much! A shame? Conviction of the unskeptical and unquestioning variety is the basis of every ideol­ ogy. And ideology is also the tool o f every totalitarian system and dictatorship, whether fascist or communist. For this reason we are still frightened of all ideologies. I was not in a position to follow the development of thought over the past decades of the last century and so am not familiar with the various currents, but I have a feeling that there is a certain similarity between the rebellious generations formed in the West in the 1960s, especially those concerned with the struggle for human rights and the rights of minorities, and those that developed in the countries of central Europe that were part of the Soviet bloc. The people who molded thinking in the West sobered up from their revolutionary inebriation and abandoned their attempts to change the whole of society and unmask capitalism. They then often went to the other extreme o f conformism and individualism, which they justify as postmodernist. In our situation under communism it was easier: it took heroism and courage to protect individual opinion and not conform to the regime of so-called real socialism. But heroism...