Václav Havel, who died this past Dec. 18, was one of the great contemporary exponents of freedom lived nobly. His moral mettle proved true in both the world of ideas and the world of affairs; indeed, few men of the past half-century have moved more surely between those two worlds. In that respect, and for his personal courage, Havel reminded me of one of the American Founders—if, that is, one could imagine James Madison hanging out with Frank Zappa.
After his death, Havel’s brilliant literary deconstruction of the moral tawdriness of late bureaucratic communism, the underground essay called “The Power of the Powerless,” was widely and appropriately quoted. Another Havel essay from his days in opposition also bears re-reading: “The Anatomy of a Reticence,” the Czech playwright’s 1985 critique of the willful blindness of western peace activists about the nature of Soviet totalitarianism. Both Havel masterpieces continue to speak to us today, about the dangers of political conformity and the dangers of political utopianism.
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