THE VALUE OF SELF-TRANSCENDENCE IS PARAMOUNT

THE VALUE OF SELF-TRANSCENDENCE IS PARAMOUNT

1. SELF-TRANSCENDENCE IS NECESSARY TO RECOVER RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Vaclav Havel, Czech President, THE NEED FOR TRANSCENDENCE IN THE POSTMODERN WORLD, July 4, 1994, accessed, May 24, 2000, http://www.worldtrans.org/whole/havelspeech.html.

A modern philosopher once said: "Only a God can save us now." Yes, the only real hope of people today is probably a renewal of our certainty that we are rooted in the earth and, at the same time, in the cosmos. This awareness endows us with the capacity for self-transcendence. Politicians at international forums may reiterate a thousand times that the basis of the new world order must be universal respects for human rights, but it will mean nothing as long as this imperative does not derive from the respect of the miracle of Being, the miracle of the universe, the miracle of nature, the miracle of our own existence. Only someone who submits to the authority of the universal order and of creation, who values the right to be a part of it and a participant in it, can genuinely value himself and his neighbors, and thus honor their rights as well. It logically follows that, in today's multicultural world, the truly reliable path to coexistence, to peaceful coexistence and creative cooperation, must start from what is at the root of all cultures and what lies infinitely deeper in human hearts and minds than political opinion, convictions, antipathies, or sympathies - it must be rooted in self-transcendence: Transcendence as a hand reached out to those close to us, to foreigners, to the human community, to all living creatures, to nature, to the universe. Transcendence as a deeply and joyously experienced need to be in harmony even with what we ourselves are not, what we do not understand, what seems distant from us in time and space, but with which we are nevertheless mysteriously linked because, together with us, all this constitutes a single world. Transcendence as the only real alternative to extinction. The Declaration of Independence states that the Creator gave man the right to liberty. It seems man can realize that liberty only if he does not forget the One who endowed him with it.

Edward F. Findlay, Doctoral Candidate, Louisiana State University, Visiting Researcher, Center for Theoretical Study, Prague, THE REVIEW OF POLITICS, Summer, 1999, p. 403.

This theme receives a more thorough and philosophical treatment in Patocka's work, in which freedom is described explicitly as relating not merely to the individual but to the society. The free individual "comes to understand this relation of his own actions to society as a necessary assumption, and he experiences it as a feeling of responsibility." Responsibility is defined in Patocka in terms of the relationship of man to freedom; he is responsible only to the degree that he acts to protect, not simply his own freedom, but that of all of society. This is a conception quite distinct from the liberal understanding of freedom as an absence of constraints on the movement, thought, and action of the individual. With both Havel and Patocka there is an additional, ontological sense to the concept: freedom implicates the responsibility of man for the care of being. It is a freedom of human being from the dominance of the objective, freedom from the pull of the material world and from the pull of the ideological. In order to be lived freely and in truth, human life must transcend its dependence on these elements.

HAVEL’S TRANSCENDENT MORALITY FAILS

1. THE LACK OF METAPHYSICAL CERTAINTY IS BENEFICIAL, NOT DANGEROUS

Timothy J. Madigan, Editor, FREE INQUIRY, Fall 1998, p. 10.

These are all leading questions. First of all, it is demonstrably not the case that humanity overall is lacking metaphysical certitude. It is the differing certainties of the various world religions, particularly the monotheistic ones, that cause so much distress. If world religious leaders would admit they might be wrong, that might help to alleviate a good deal of tension. Hubris comes not from the assumption that humans are the crown of creation, but rather from the feeling that we are specially created in the image of a supreme being who favors us above all other living things. And a belief in an afterlife makes it easier to postpone attempting to solve dilemmas in the here-and-now. A good sense of evolutionary naturalism leads more to an acceptance that we are here by chance rather than by design, and a realization of the precariousness and interconnectedness of all beings. Many postmodernists, and premodernists as well, claim that we now live in a post-secular society. Why, then, does Havel claim that this is the first real atheistic civilization? Perhaps he is reflecting upon the official anti-religious stance of the Soviet Union, under which he came of age. The communist regime that Havel so heroically fought against misused atheism to perpetuate its own state power. But it is important to point out that other heroic figures who helped to tumble the Soviet empire, including Andrei Sakharov, Adam Michnik, Sidney Hook, and his own countryman Alexander Dubcek, were forthright atheists themselves.

Timothy J. Madigan, Editor, FREE INQUIRY, Fall 1998, p. 10.

It is a mistake to equate "atheism" (living without a belief in a supernatural realm or spiritual beings) with "meaninglessness." The loss of old certainties is a good thing, not something to bemoan, and the sort of ill-defined "spirituality" Havel recommends seems hardly likely to inspire the massive awakening he desires. Transcendence is another ill-defined word. Certainly we need to overcome an unhealthy preoccupation with our own selves, but in what way? A mutual project to save the species is indeed a worthy effort, but in order to succeed, the species needs to transcend the divisive theistic belief systems that have done so much to separate its members into warring factions. Far from leading to a lack of responsibility, atheism holds - in the words of the Humanist Manifesto II - that "No God will save us. We must save ourselves." The only real hope for the word is if the various world religions can transcend their own parochialism and exclusiveness. Havel calls for an "Existential Revolution" that would rival the Velvet Revolution. This is a worthy goal, albeit an unlikely one, What truly unites all humans is our own ignorance. If we can get the vast majority of humans to admit this, and then try to jointly work together to solve the social problems besetting us, there may indeed be workable solutions to the litany of potential disasters that loom on the horizon. It is appropriate that the literary school that most influenced Havel was the Theater of the Absurd.
3. HAVEL’S NOTION OF TRANSCENDENCE IS INCOHERENT

Peter Augustine Lawler, Professor of Political Science, Berry College, PERSPECTIVES ON POLITICAL SCIENCE, Winter, 1997, p. 33.

After presenting the two examples of postmodern scientific ideas. Havel concludes that we are recovering a "forgotten awareness" that "we are an integral part of higher, mysterious entities against whom it is not advisable to blaspheme" (PM, 615). If this conclusion inspires, It is because of its vagueness from beginning to end. Why is "entities" plural, if the goal has been to root us in a single system? It seems we are rooted in the earth one way, the cosmos another. The "one" is actually two. Havel leaves unexplored the relationship between the two forms of anchoring. He wants to solve the problems associated with the modern perception of anxious uncertainty, or homelessness. But where are we at home? A being totally at home on earth would surely not be open to the truth about the cosmos. What is the earth as such, after all, in light of the cosmos?