Slovakia - State building between national myths and the ethics of dissent Gábor Oláh Central Europe: Politics and Society Obsah obrázku kresba, skica, boty, oblečení Popis byl vytvořen automaticky EVENT -What is an event? -Recognized and unrecognized -Personal vs collective -Reportable and unreportable -Exceptional, extraordinary -Visible and unvisible -Marshall Sahlins: rupture -Threre must be achange in the structure of the society -Transformation of society -What kind of event was 1989? -Bourdieu and his theory of various types of capital is needed to understand the transformation Obsah obrázku venku, obloha, černobílá, oblečení Popis byl vytvořen automaticky Nature of 1989 Ivo Možný – Proč tak snadno PišTánek – Rivers of Babylon – the role of the underworld, how they found their place in the 90´s Good bye Lenin: 1.The events are shown and not shown, changes needed 2.The personal trauma of the mother - characteristic for the whole generation, abandoned by the régime that they believed in 3.Creation of an alternative socialism, socialism with human face, all what they wanted Nostalgia and Ostalgia -Something that is gone or never was -Leaning to the past -Picturing the past to the present and envisioning to the future Obsah obrázku venku, dav, černobílá, budova Popis byl vytvořen automaticky Representation of the event of 1989 Beasley-Murray argues that 1989 was representable and unrepresentable in the same time It was a struggle for the right to live a normal life There is a resistance against representation -Representation and grand stories make events huge and important, exceptional.. -Because it was a search for normativity and pre-revolution process was slow, there is a lack of grand stories -1989 has to be understood as the story precisely about not telling grand stories Obsah obrázku venku, černobílá, cesta, budova Popis byl vytvořen automaticky What is normativity? What is chaos and order? Elementary orientation tool in the world If we look at the events of post WW 2 and communism, we see the struggle exceptional vs bureucratic system, taking place of the organized modernity – Peter Wagner -Exceptionality became the norm -Supression of individual iniciative became the norm -Conventions became the norm -After 1956, 1968 – normalization -Occupation as abnormality -Battle of control over the normal + ideological content Obsah obrázku černobílá, oblečení, osoba, muž Popis byl vytvořen automaticky Dissent and Havel The power of the powerless Letter to Gustáv Husák Telling perfect analysis of the society, how people feel Description of the situation where the norm became corruption, the lack of respect for norms became the norm The entire political practice of the present regime [ ... ] confirms that those concepts which were always crucial for its programme – order, calm, consolidation, ‘guiding the nation out of its crisis’, ‘halting disruption’, ‘assuaging hot tempers’, and so on – have finally acquired the same lethal meaning that they have for every regime committed to entropy [ ... ]. True enough, the country is calm. Calm as a morgue or a grave; would you not say? (1991b: 72) Obsah obrázku text, kniha, mapa Popis byl vytvořen automaticky Is there a myth of CEU? What makes it unique? 1.Experience with communism 2.Cultural capital – the role of intellectuals in politics and the lack of traditional elite 3.Interrupted experience with modernity but experience with socialist modernity Obsah obrázku oblečení, osoba, boty, pohřeb Popis byl vytvořen automaticky CIVIC SOCIETY Civic society vs centralized bureucracy Advantage and disadvantage of anti-political politics The idea was to create a system opposite to the communist, cetralized bureucracy, less alienating political order. Focus on community „Living in truth“ – plurality from below, naive ideology Idea that everyone is capable of living in truth, but we seeit is easy to manipulate The Myth of Central Europe •Anti-political politics •Anti-foundationalism and pluralism •Valorization of cultural diversity •Ethic of dissent • > Obsah obrázku mrak, venku, obloha, strom Popis byl vytvořen automaticky