Living in the Truth in the Pandemic

“Living within the truth, as humanity’s revolt against an enforced position, is . . . an attempt to regain control over one’s own sense of responsibility.”

— Vaclav Havel, "The Power of the Powerless"

The coming summer heat teased us this past weekend and my wife and I couldn’t bear to stay inside. Personally, I am not afraid of this coronavirus — I made a conscious decision not to be afraid of it, because I realized that perfect prevention was impossible and we will all meet the virus eventually — so we went for a walk through emptied-out downtown Raleigh.

After checking out the future location of my wife’s new art studio, we sauntered a bit. Across a street corner, I saw this poster and almost immediately shook my head:

I rarely have the best sense of how to describe something at a given moment. It’s why I’ve avoided joining debate teams — my best thoughts come after marinating. I wanted to say this poster was the messianic state or trampling out the grapes of wrath or making the world safe for vaccine companies or some other sort of pithy saying. It never came.

Instead, I realized it had already been said:

“Obviously the greengrocer is indifferent to the semantic content of the slogan on exhibit; he does not put the slogan in his window from any personal desire to acquaint the public with the ideal it expresses. . . . The slogan is really a sign, and as such it contains a subliminal but very definite message. . . . “I, the greegrocer 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.””

— Vaclav Havel, "The Power of the Powerless"

The sinking feeling sets in. Yes, that’s it, isn’t it? This shopowner or restauranteur or whatever establishment he ran probably gave as little thought to the deeper significance of the slogans in his window as a greengrocer in a Communist police state.

Why, though? Does he really think that people standing six feet apart is going to stop a virus that seems to be evolved (or engineered?) to spread with enormous ease? Or has he simply accepted this as gospel because the government has proclaimed that this magical distance will thoroughly banish the miasmas which we now believe everyone carries with them in a miniature cloud?

Again, look to Havel:

“We have seen that the real meaning of the greengrocer’s slogan has nothing to do with what the text of the slogan actually says. Even so, this real meaning is quite clear and generally comprehensible because the code is so familiar: the greengrocer declares his loyalty . . . in the only way the regime is capable of hearing; that is, by accepting the prescribed ritual, by accepting appearances as reality, by accepting the given rules of the game. In doing so, however, he has himself become a player in the game, thus making it possible for the game to go on, for it to exist in the first place.”

— Vaclav Havel, "The Power of the Powerless"

The above poster is less about whether or not social distancing makes sense empirically than it is about the relative social position of the proprietor who hung it up. He wants to be seen as a “responsible” person, because responsible people are looked upon favorably by fellow citizens, by the press, and in culture. Also, "responsible” people don’t get harassed by the police, written up for obscure code violations, dragged through endless court proceedings, have their financial accounts audited every year, have surprise health inspections, or find themselves subject to any number of interpositions by the government. If being “responsible” is to avoid the excesses of government intrusion on one’s private life, then the corollary is that one should be responsible in the way that the government says. Hence the call for social distancing. And yet without the proprietor complying, without him on his own volition adding to the panorama of consistent, insistent messaging, the government would not be able to create the sensation of an inescapable society in which it is impossible to do otherwise than socially distance.

Of course Havel says we must be responsible. I am sure some would say that social distancing is responsible. But let us not confuse Havel’s view of responsibility with the social “responsibility” pushed in the government edicts and media-industrial complex propaganda. Responsibility ultimately springs from a moral position — it is the decision of an individual to act and to accept the consequences for it. This is as far as possible from what this poster is doing. In chiding people to be responsible, the creator of this poster actually takes no responsibility himself. He takes what a distant authority says is responsible and pushes it on someone one else. Having passed on the responsibility to be responsible, he is done; he can rest easy. For the consequences for the edicts on social distancing, mask wearing, economic lockdowns, and perhaps future mandatory vaccinations will fall on people who had no choice in the matter. When those people resist their own dehumanization by absurd protocols and social shaming, attempting to reclaim responsibility by returning to work and ordinary life, they are shamed as irresponsible. But in reality, they are the ones facing tough choices: between catching the virus at work or staying home and starving, between doing what they think is best for their own health and being as conscious as they can to not infect others. It is an fraught position, but all positions of responsibility are. What is not actual responsibility, though, is hiding behind straw men, bad data, flawed models, pet principles — and empty slogans.

This pandemic has really shown everyone’s true colors. The fact of the matter is that the United States is in a strange state; like this shop sign, there are other uncanny similarities to the post-totalitarian world described by Havel. Equally so, there are other indications that a sizeable people trust the centralized nation-state even less. My friend passed a gun store and there was a line all the way down the sidewalk, chairs six feet apart, and management handing out 4473 forms for background checks — the opposite of a socialist bread line. What happens when the unstoppable force meets the immovable object? I don’t know. But what I want to find out is, in such a clash of historic forces, where are the opportunities for living in the truth?

There’s more to write on Havel in today’s world, so stay tuned. I will update this page with links to future posts in this series.