Address by Vaclav Havel President of the Czech Republic in acceptance of "Open Society" Prize

Budapest Vidago, June 24, 1999

Mr. Rector,
Ladies and gentlemen,

A few weeks ago the Czech team won the world ice hockey championship. Their victory was widely celebrated in the streets of our country. While following the news coverage of these celebrations, I will admit that I had - as I often have on occasions such as this - rather mixed feelings.

On the one hand, I rejoiced that Czech society of today, otherwise rather apathetic and skeptical, is capable of such an enthusiastic identification with representatives of its State and, thus, with the State as such. I was happy to see that an elementary patriotism is still present in us and that people are still capable of putting their hearts into something and going out into the streets to celebrate a piece of good news even though the success was obviously not bringing them any direct personal gain.

On the other hand, however, a number of unpleasant questions came to mind. For example: While people everywhere were chanting "We have won!" did it not mean that they were claiming credit for somebody else's accomplishment and construing that victory, without justification, as an assurance of their own exceptionality? Who actually won? "We", meaning all, and particularly those who celebrated in the streets; or, the players who represented the Czech Republic? Were we truly witnessing pure joy in the success of our fellow citizens promoting the good name of our country; or, for many people, was it merely an occasion to nurture illusions about themselves? Aren't such massive celebrations simply an expression of an unwillingness to take personal responsibility for the world, and of a need to dissolve instead in the collectivity of a pack with its collective pride and collective irresponsibility? Isn't this merely an outburst of a darkly archetypal love of our own tribe, which appears to us to be the best of all simply because this is the tribe we belong to, without having to do anything for this affiliation? Aren't the boys who asserted, as part of the nation-wide celebrations of that ice hockey victory, our national exceptionality by beating up a few people of a different colour of skin, only a more visible sprout of a less visible, but all the more dangerous, phenomenon which lies dormant in this kind of euphoria?

Perhaps the fight between Open Society and its enemies, as described by Sir Karl Popper, takes place also within a crowd celebrating an ice hockey victory and, in a way, even in the soul of every person participating in these celebrations.

It cannot be helped, but Hegel - in Popper's opinion a philosophical rogue - was probably right in one thing: reality is ambiguous. It is indeed tremendously difficult to discern the boundary between a moving, uplifting, sympathetic and thoroughly natural solidarity within a certain community, such as a nation, and a pack mentality which allows thousands, or millions, of cowardly and immature individuals to hide behind a "we" that automatically relieves them of any personal liability. Where does patriotism end and nationalism and chauvinism begin? Where is the line between civic solidarity and tribal passion? Where is the limit beyond which spontaneous rejoicing in a remarkable success of our fellow citizens and a thoroughly respectable experience of a sporting activity turn into a theft of somebody else's performance by a crowd lacking ideas of their own and shrinking from personal responsibility?

And, moreover: It is equally difficult to ascertain the boundaries between a number of other phenomena that are, in various ways, linked with the ideal of an Open Society.

For example, how can we recognize the moment when a set of living ideas degenerates into an ideology? How can we recognize when principles, opinions and hopes begin to petrify into a rigid mass of dogma, precepts and conceptual stereotypes? How can we recognize when interest in the truths of the world is being displaced by mere prestige and inordinate pride that do not allow a person to make even the slightest correction of a view that he, or she, has once expressed? How can we recognize the point when conceptual thinking, a sine-qua-non in any good politics, begins to turn into social engineering as an attempt of the arrogant reason of an individual to plan the life of a society?

An Open Society - that is, a society of free human beings exercising free association, a society that does not defer to the dictate of any ideology or any particular interpretation of history and supposed historical laws but solely to the imperative of human judgement and of the basic moral principles - requires an open human being with an open mind; and, by the same token, also generates and forms this kind of personality.

But, again: How can we recognize when people are still freely sorting and absorbing all that makes up their world, and when they begin to resign their freedom to simply go along with their dark passions and prejudices; to follow simplifying, but impressive, ideological paradigms; to dully yield to the seductive lures of demagogues and populists? How can we recognize when a politician ceases to reflect our natural feelings or sentiments and begins to shamelessly use or abuse them for his, or her, own gain?

It is known that somewhere in the beginning of today's round of Balkan horrors there was an aggressive enthusiasm of the Serbian and Croatian football fans.

How can we recognize when such an agreeable and natural thing as identification with a local sports club begins to change inconspicuously into a dark prelude to ethnic hatred, ethnic cleansing, ethnic wars and ethnic atrocities?

In my opinion, Europe failed to recognize that moment in time. This, I believe, is the reason why - after ten years' delay - it had to resort to a most unpopular course of action in order to achieve something that could most probably have been achieved much more easily, if the meaning of certain warning signals had been understood in a timely manner, and if adequate consequences had been drawn.

This did not happen. To a certain extent, this failure is understandable. Reality is indeed ambiguous, and it is immensely difficult to always distinguish its different faces and to immediately discern at which point a fan's good-natured jubilation transforms into the rage of a deprived soul with an inferiority complex.

At the same time, we are entering into an era when this type of differentiation will become increasingly important. Given the global character of today's civilization, any minor hatred can easily turn into a global catastrophe.

Where should we look for guidance? How can we discern the dividing lines?

There are no exact directions. There are probably no directions at all. The only things that I am able to recommend at this moment are: a sense of humour; an ability to see the ridiculous and the absurd dimensions of things; an ability to laugh about others as well as about ourselves; a sense of irony; and, of everything that invites parody in this world. In other words: rising above things, or looking at them from a distance; sensibility to the hidden presence of all the more dangerous types of conceit in others, as well as in ourselves; good cheer; an unostentatious certainty of the meaning of things; gratitude for the gift of life and courage to assume responsibility for it; and, a vigilant mind.

Those who have not lost the ability to recognize that which is laughable in themselves, or their own nothingness, are not arrogant, nor are they enemies of an Open Society. Its enemy is a person with a fiercely serious countenance and burning eyes.

I wish for us all, and especially for the young students of the Central European University, that we may keep good cheer, one of the basic instruments of defence against madness and evil.

I am grateful for the award I am receiving today - an honour which I deeply appreciate because of the ideals with which it is associated. I promise you that, as a holder of this award, I shall refrain from inordinate pride and shall not lose anything of the doubts that I have had about myself all my life.

Thank you.