Tantalizing Liberty: Post-totalitarianism and its Relevance to the Problems of Contemporary Democracy

More than thirty years ago, the countries of the Eastern bloc experienced a significant societal rebirth in rejecting of totalitarianism. Over the years, these policies have taken steps that have led them to the current state of legal democracy and late capitalism. But every system we know has its perversions and inevitably leads to a social crisis. In his ‘state-destroying’ work The Power of the Powerless, Václav Havel presents several concepts that helped him describe the totalitarianism that the countries of the Eastern bloc experienced: ‘post-totalitarian system’, ‘post-democracy’, and ‘dissent’. This paper argues in favor of the relevance of these concepts for the contemporary world, although, it will be claimed, its cruelty and inhumanity are much more subtle than in the regimes we have known so far. The primary objective of this article is to draw parallels between well-known totalitarian regimes and the current (neo)liberal democracy through the conceptual framework of post-totalitarianism. Originating from the period preceding the fall of the Iron Curtain, this notion takes historical evolution into account, focusing on the CEE regions post the Iron Curtain era/after the regime change. The author applies Havel’s insights and theories to analyze this historical trajectory and asserts that we inhabit a system inherently containing totalitarian elements, where the fulfillment of liberty hangs on an unreachable branch. Consequently, this study delves into the possibilities for societal development or change within today’s post-totalitarian system, by having recourse, among other arguments, to Havel’s notion of post-democracy.