‘There are issues for which it’s worthwhile to endure.’
A sentence that may very well be carved in stone or marble. A sentence that speaks to us instantly, no matter whether or not we prefer it or not. A sentence that units a tone: elevated and as if spoken from distant, however on the identical time with the ability to handle an innermost dimension, intimate and straight. A sentence additionally – we’ve to bear in mind – that would simply be made enjoyable of, however which might in all probability show robust sufficient to retain its dignity even in opposition to parody and mockery.
‘There are issues for which it’s worthwhile to endure.’
‘Existují věci, professional které stojí za to také trpět.’
Who’s being addressed? It’s a basic assertion, so probably it might imply every one in every of us, however rhetorically, the affect is totally different. The sentence speaks – and perhaps solely speaks – to those that need to hear it, sense it, take it on. It speaks somewhat to the few than to the numerous, and finally, perhaps the phrase speaks exactly to me, the one who is voicing it. Am I – every time it turns into severe, we’ve to change into first particular person singular – prepared to take one thing upon myself, regardless of having the presentiment that it might probably hurt me?
At first look, the wording is likely to be considerably harking back to the Socratic precept that ‘it’s higher to endure injustice than to commit it’ – one of many greatest and most frequently quoted dictums within the historical past of philosophical considering. However whereas each statements tackle ‘struggling’, there’s a decisive distinction. The Socratic phrase, prominently formulated in Plato’s dialogue Gorgias, speaks in regards to the necessity of constructing a selection. It is rather clearly expressed in passage 469c: ‘If it have been needed both to do fallacious or to endure it, I ought to select to endure somewhat than do it.’ The rationale behind this choice is that Socrates (we must always somewhat say the Platonic Socrates) is satisfied that committing injustice makes individuals totally sad. If we solely knew how sad the committing of injustices makes us, we might, with none doubt, go for the struggling and finally for its reward in happiness.
How very totally different the message of ‘our’ sentence! Neglect about any ethical reward! Don’t belief that the great deed will repay! No ethical concord, nor ethical happiness. But, and however, there is likely to be one thing that pushes you to behave, although it probably solely guarantees hurt to you. However you do it, since you need issues to be proper or, higher to say, you discover issues insufferable as they’re – unbearably fallacious, unbearably violating – and also you resolve to go in opposition to it.
Your determination, then, is just not about having sufficient information and perception to behave in a morally correct approach. This was Socrates’s query. Right here, we are able to safely presuppose that many have the required information about how insufferable sure situations are; there is no such thing as a lack of understanding, however it’s somewhat the query of whether or not one is prepared to behave accordingly. And it’s considerably clear that the choice to behave on this approach will all the time somewhat be one for the few. That is essential – the circles of dissidence are in-built solidarity, and they’re very a lot in want of solidarity (therefore the numerous title of the Polish Solidarność motion and therefore the title of this lecture, ‘Shaken Solidarity’), however the circles of dissidence additionally carry a particular mark that’s probably felt as overburdening and due to this fact might be not simply accessible.
‘There are issues for which it’s worthwhile to endure.’
This sentence – you may have lengthy guessed – comes from the Czech thinker Jan Patočka, and you will need to know the circumstances of its formulation. Patočka wrote it in a brief piece known as ‘Co můžeme očekávat od Charty 77?’(What Can We Count on from Constitution 77?). It’s dated 8 March 1977. That was a Tuesday. 5 days later, on Sunday, 13 March 1977, Patočka was useless. He had determined that there have been issues for which it was worthwhile to endure, and certainly he needed to endure for them. In the summertime of 1977, he would have turned 70.
A couple of years earlier, he had coined the by-now-iconic components of a ‘solidarity of the shaken’. It has been quoted, used, interpreted, and misinterpreted in all probability hundreds of instances by now, and the frequency is consistently rising. The slogan initially seems in his guide Heretical Essays within the Philosophy of Historical past, written in 1974/75. When the guide got here out – I ought to change the wording; when the guide grew to become accessible and readable as an underground textual content in samizdat – it was circulated in a number of dozen copies, and sometimes the precondition to be allowed to learn it was the promise to create one’s personal typewritten transcript, normally six transcripts at a time with the usage of carbon paper.
Patočka wrote quite a bit (the collected works have grown and grown through the years), however he printed little. He was primarily ‘writing for the drawer’, as he himself as soon as put it. And the drawer is just not good at implementing deadlines. However there was someone who was superb at it: the younger Polish doctoral pupil Krzysztof Michalski. With right now’s lecture, we honour his title and his function because the founding father of this institute. Michalski got here to know Patočka within the Seventies, whereas writing his dissertation on Heidegger in Warsaw. No person in Poland felt well-equipped to behave as a supervisor on that. However in Poland, they’d heard in regards to the particular fame of a pupil of Husserl and Heidegger dwelling in Prague, Jan Patočka. I shall hold the remainder quick: Michalski contacted him, and an intense alternate of letters (philosophical letters certainly) started. Michalski completed his dissertation, and he did one thing else: he pushed Patočka to put in writing what would change into his foremost work, Heretical Essays within the Philosophy of Historical past. Perhaps there would have been no Heretical Essays with out Michalski, however much more was to return from this. After Patočka’s dying, it was Michalski’s agency conviction that he would do no matter was in his energy for the dissemination of Patočka’s work. And in 1982, when the IWM was based, one in every of its first and clear missions was to do precisely that.
A Polish thinker who honours the legacy and, sure, the sufferings of a Czech thinker by founding an institute for superior examine in Vienna. Fairly a narrative.
‘Są rzeczy, dla których warto cierpieć.’
In what follows, I’ll converse in regards to the essential second when Constitution 77 was within the making and its intimate connection to a brief interval within the lifetime of one in every of its foremost authors. I’ll set out what I name ‘4 probes’ to discover the context. One might additionally name them 4 circles of examination. All 4 are centered across the identical nucleus, i.e., the assertion that there are issues value struggling for. Step-by-step – or circle by circle – it will considerably broaden the view on Constitution 77, in addition to on Jan Patočka and his mental legacy. Every circle may even relate to a rising time horizon in his life – one particular day for the primary probe, one week for the second, then a interval of three months, and finally the three years between 1974 and 1977.
First probe: At some point in March 1977
On Tuesday, 8 March 1977, Jan Patočka finds himself in a hospital within the Prague district of Strahov. He’s in a weak situation, affected by extreme bronchitis that has considerably accompanied him because the early Seventies. However the latest weeks, after the publication of Constitution 77, with him appearing as one of many three audio system for the brand new motion, have been extremely demanding in lots of regards. He has been arrested and severely interrogated a number of instances, a few of these interrogations lasting for as much as 11 hours. However it’s not solely that: for a few years, he lived the lifetime of a non-public scholar, sitting at his desk and writing, although publishing was almost not possible for him. He gained some reputation (even fame) by means of the legendary underground seminars held at non-public residences and semi-official areas in Prague. This saved him in common contact with youthful individuals, which was actually considerably important for him as a instructor and as a human being. For many of his life, he was banned from universities and never allowed to show, leading to a really non-public life and lots of unfinished papers. Personal educating within the underground was a success and a pleasure – perhaps demanding at some factors, however nothing compared to what occurred within the early weeks of 1977. Now, i.e., after his private determination that there are issues worthwhile struggling for, the outdated professor is hastily within the highlight – not solely of the authorities, however of worldwide public consideration.
When Patočka was hospitalized throughout the evening of three March, he suffered from heavy chest stress, palpitations, and shortness of breath. In the course of the evening of seven March, the medical remedy had lastly began to be efficient, and by the following morning the affected person felt higher.
What we’ve from at the present time, 8 March, is the aforementioned textual content ‘What We Can Count on from Constitution 77’. It’s a piece of some 5 pages in print, dated by Patočka himself, handwritten and smuggled out of the hospital by his household. It begins off by stating the large echo of the Constitution 77 motion: ‘We received sympathy sufficient: we hardly might have requested for extra. However the better the sympathy, the better the priority.’
What are the massive issues ensuing from this monumental echo? Individuals begin asking nagging questions: Will this declaration not make the scenario even worse? Is it smart to say respect for human rights if some people then should face even heavier persecution and a blatant violation of their human rights? Or, and that is the ultimate query by which all of it culminates: ‘May not silence serve higher than talking out?’ Nagging questions certainly, additionally questions that will need to have haunted Patočka himself for fairly a while, and I imply particularly the time earlier than his determination to affix Constitution 77. What it was – his newly discovered spirit of resoluteness and resistance; his sickness; the doable consciousness of his impending dying – we are able to solely speculate, however the reply that Patočka provides to those nagging issues is outstanding: ‘Allow us to not mince phrases,’ he begins out, then continues: ‘Submissiveness has by no means led to rest, solely to better severity. The better the concern and servility, the extra the mighty have dared, the extra they do dare and can dare. Nothing could make them chill out their grip besides a breaking of their confidence – a realization that their acts and injustice and discrimination don’t go unnoticed, that the waters don’t shut over the stones they throw. This isn’t meant as an empty trace at future vengeance, however as the decision for an perspective that’s dignified, truthful, and unafraid below all circumstances.’
It’s extremely noteworthy that to him, the thinker, the inside dimension is by far the largest achievement of the entire Constitution 77 motion. His reflections culminate in a passage that immediately speaks about struggling and why struggling within the present scenario is worth it. ‘Notice that our individuals have as soon as extra change into conscious that there are issues for which it’s worthwhile to endure, that the issues for which we’d should endure are these which make life worthwhile, and that with out all of them our arts, literature, and tradition change into mere trades main solely from the desk to the pay workplace and again. We all know all that now, not within the least due to Constitution 77 and all it has meant.’
Addendum: It’s in all probability the following day, 9 March, that Patočka solutions a questionnaire that has been despatched to him by the West German weekly Die Zeit. It’s his final piece of writing. In it, there’s the next query to the thinker: ‘What private experiences have you ever had with the state workplaces since you may have been appearing as a spokesperson of Constitution 77?’ Patočka solutions the next: ‘The state workplaces (perhaps rightly so) have handled me because the least essential spokesperson [there were three of them: Patočka, Jiří Hájek, and Václav Havel], as an outdated professor who was considerably added to the entire setup as a form of staffage. They didn’t think about the circumstance that the outdated professor had tried to keep in touch with the younger era, attempting at hand on some ideas that had been in any other case denied to them, and that he had made them conscious of the ethical aspect of all mental and political points. It appears that evidently the summons to the prosecutor in addition to the summons to the Ministry of the Inside testify to a sure change of their viewpoint.’ Let this passage converse for itself.
The texts Patočka penned on 8–9 March have been the mental and political testomony of a thinker and the final two writings of his life. For what got here subsequent, I cite from the hospital report: ‘Within the evening earlier than 11 March, the situation worsens, resulting in unconsciousness, right-sided hemiplegia, and aphasia. After a short lived enchancment of the situation, he turns into unconscious once more, adopted by terminal pulmonary edema.’
Second probe: One week earlier
Constitution 77 was printed within the very early days of January 1977, together with the names of 242 signatories, individuals of fairly totally different political viewpoints, professions, and religions. Though the unique doc was confiscated, copies circulated in samizdat and on 7 January have been printed in a number of Western newspapers, similar to Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and The Occasions, whereas radio broadcasters like Radio Free Europe and Voice of America have been additionally transmitting the Constitution 77 declaration that criticized the Czechoslovak authorities for failing to implement the dedication to the safety of human rights that it had signed in a number of worldwide agreements, most prominently within the Declaration of Helsinki from 1975. The Constitution 77 doc describes the signatories as a ‘free, casual, and open affiliation of individuals… united by the desire to try individually and collectively for respect for human and civil rights in our nation and all through the world.’ It emphasizes that Constitution 77 is just not a corporation, has no statutes or everlasting organs, and ‘doesn’t kind the idea for any oppositional political exercise.’ This emphasis on the strictly particular person, non-public nature of any motion below Constitution 77 is highlighted by Patočka in a number of of his writings, the reason is that such particular person initiative was not strictly prohibited by Czechoslovak regulation, whereas any affiliation of three or extra individuals may very well be certified as a conspiracy.
However, the Czechoslovak authorities reacted nervously and harshly. Although they thought-about the ‘outdated professor’ in all probability the least highly effective of the three audio system, they instantly began following him. Altogether, he was interrogated seven instances in January 1977: in his personal residence on 5 January, then virtually as a each day routine from 10 to 14 January, and on 17 January within the workplaces of Státní Bezpečnost (StB, ‘State Safety’), the key police power managed by the Communist Social gathering. All of the talks are fairly meticulously documented by the key police. We’ve got the protocols of the interrogations, and within the meantime, they’ve been printed in a well-documented version. Once I say ‘meticulously’, this doesn’t essentially imply ‘reliable’ however somewhat describes the extremely bureaucratic tone and character of those paperwork.
Patočka’s well being is just not good, however he does fairly properly in these interrogations. A few of them are documented by the members of the key police, like interviews, so that they learn ‘otázka’ (query) after which ‘odpověď’ (reply). He provides little info, behaves quietly and politely, stresses his ethical convictions as the primary purpose for his actions, and really a lot presents it as a non-public determination. After 17 January, the interrogations cease, which doesn’t imply that the observations cease; fairly the alternative. We’ve got about 80 printed pages with documentation by the remark groups following KANAL 5, which was Patočka’s codename. In some sense, that is all (unhealthy) routine thus far.
However then comes one essential incident that drastically accelerates the additional course of. On 1 March, one other Tuesday, precisely one week earlier than he pens his last essay on the hospital in Strahov, Patočka unexpectedly receives guests at his house. He has no cellphone and is on no account knowledgeable of their coming. It seems {that a} group of 5 Dutch journalists has come to Prague to accompany the Dutch Overseas Minister Max van der Stoel on his official state go to to Socialist Czechoslovakia. One of many journalists is Anna Francis Salomonson. A chunk by her seems within the Dutch each day NRC Handelsblad the very subsequent day, 2 March. Salomonson quotes him as saying: ‘The police need to know in regards to the individuals who began the initiative for the Constitution and who collected the signatures. My reply is all the time the identical: I’m combating for a authorized factor, and due to this fact I shouldn’t be right here. At a police station.’ And it continues: ‘You ask me if now I’m not afraid to return house? I’m continuously afraid. But when it have been concern that decides for me, I wouldn’t be sitting right here. In Czechoslovakia, concern is our each day bread.’
Clearly, the interview made the authorities livid. A Czech translation of it’s saved within the recordsdata of the StB, indicating an curiosity in pursuing the case. However there was one thing that prompted much more bother. Whereas chatting with the journalists, they developed the concept Patočka ought to meet the Dutch overseas minister in particular person. So the journalists took him and accompanied him to the Lodge InterContinental, the place Max van der Stoel was to reach quickly afterward. The minister and the thinker sat down for a really quick dialog. Its content material is just not so very outstanding. We’ve got a sound recording of it and nice pictures by a Dutch journalist. The entire dialog lasts not even 5 minutes, and van der Stoel’s last reply is pleasant (perhaps much more than pleasant, as a result of he’s a fierce advocate of human rights), however it’s also diplomatic and a bit empty (since he’s a politician and conscious of the implications). On the very starting, Patočka says a number of astonishing sentences: ‘I’m a spokesperson of Constitution 77, however really talking, I might do solely little or no till now; it was extra about writing, to elucidate the Constitution and its that means, to fend off sure misunderstandings that have been particularly generated by the massive marketing campaign that was began in opposition to the Constitution. Most significantly, we aren’t some political dissidents. We’re in opposition to this designation and we’re in opposition to the factor itself.’
From the entire speak, one can sense how absolutely unprepared Patočka is for this assembly and the way closely he’s overwhelmed by the scenario. Although it’s a actually quick chat between the 2 of them, Patočka later declares that it was one of many biggest moments of his life. On the finish of the recorded speak, you may hear the breaking of his voice. He desperately searches for phrases, attempting to carry his tears and management his feelings.
The police reply is quick and fierce. The interrogations are taken up once more, and also you already know what occurs from right here on till his dying on 13 March.
Third probe: Three months earlier
From the tense and closely burdened days within the first half of March 1977, we are going to now have a look again at what occurred three months earlier, i.e., someday in December 1976. It’s a essential second for the formation of Constitution 77. As already talked about, the declaration got here out in very early January and, as indicated by the title itself, is supposed to set an agenda for the New Yr, for the brand new time to return. Nevertheless, December 1976 can also be the second when issues for Patočka personally grew to become totally different – not less than that is what I might assume from studying the papers from that point. We all know that at a while that month, Patočka was writing a chunk with the title ‘Ok záležitostem Plastic Individuals of the Universe a DG 307’ (On the Matter of The Plastic Individuals of the Universe and DG 307) – the title turns into clearer once we know in regards to the circumstances. The Plastic Individuals of the Universe and DG 307 have been two well-known underground rock bands that have been intently linked and have been due to this fact typically talked about collectively. The members of those rock bands had been arrested in March 1976. Quickly after, Václav Havel and Jiří Němec began a public marketing campaign of their assist, as a result of they have been satisfied that the musicians’ arrest was a precedent for the suppression of mental and inventive freedom. This marketing campaign culminated in an open letter to the German author Heinrich Böll, which was dated 16 August 1976 and signed by Jaroslav Seifert (well-known for staff’ poetry, later awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1984), Václav Černý (a literary scholar), Jan Patočka, Karel Kosík (one other thinker), Václav Havel, and the writers Ivan Klíma and Pavel Kohout. The letter was printed in FAZ on 28 August 1976. The signatories are primarily a Who’s Who of Czechoslovak intellectuals of that point.
Patočka, it appears, had at that time already determined to take a stance. The marketing campaign was not less than partly profitable – a few of these arrested have been launched; others have been sentenced to jail for intervals between eight and 20 months. Nevertheless, the spirit arising from the protest and the continued solidarity with these imprisoned was a decisive issue for the formulation of the Constitution. It’s on this spirit that Patočka, in December 1976, sits down and writes ‘On the Matter of The Plastic Individuals of the Universe and DG 307’.
Paradoxically, the one direct reference to the musicians is made within the title. However the message could be very clear, and for Patočka’s requirements, surprisingly imaginative, one would possibly even say implausible, because the story he tells is nearly a fairy story. It’s the reversal of a brief story by Dostoevsky known as The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, a few sinful one that arrives on a planet of completely harmless individuals and manages to morally corrupt all of them. ‘Our cosmonauts’, which is what Patočka calls the younger individuals arrested by the Czechoslovak police, are the alternative: it’s as if they may journey to some corrupted planet (it’s not troublesome to acknowledge that it’s Planet Earth within the twentieth century), and since they’re so good-willed and contemporary at coronary heart, would possibly be capable of make a change for the higher on the entire planet. A implausible story – Patočka explicitly calls it a miracle – but in addition an articulation of determined hopes and an unrestricted solidarity for these younger individuals who ought to be allowed to precise themselves. By the way, Patočka actually didn’t like their music – for him, music had discovered its end result in Beethoven – however evidently solidarity for these oppressed had, within the meantime, present in him a resonance that transgressed such variations.
On the finish of this text in solidarity with the musicians, Patočka asks: ‘But what’s youth if not a visitor arriving from the unknown – to start life anew?… The place starting anew means, primarily, rejecting… combating in opposition to makes an attempt to make the whole lot simple, in opposition to comfort, in opposition to averaging out, in opposition to dishonesty to oneself and to others…’
Combating in opposition to comfort and dishonesty, to start anew, to dare to start anew. I assume that we are able to see how the trail is about for what he’ll say three months later in regards to the necessity to endure for what’s value struggling for…
Fourth probe: Three years earlier
The components of the ‘solidarity of the shaken’ is Patočka’s buzzword. It was in all probability by no means meant to be one, however over the past 30 years has obtained an virtually iconic that means. It derives from Heretical Essays within the Philosophy of Historical past, Patočka’s by far best-known guide. The principle reference for the invocation of a ‘solidarity of the shaken’ is to the fighters on the entrance within the First World Conflict, i.e., these for whom the seemingly limitless and meaningless combating has formed a world with none horizon and perspective. In that second of full exhaustion, Patočka holds, they notice that it should really feel simply the identical for these on the opposite aspect of the trenches. What unites them is exactly their complete shaken-ness, and a direct, very essentially humane sense of solidarity arises from that. Clearly, this historic reference is just not the one one, and the entire thought of a “solidarity of the shaken” can also be very a lot influenced by the dissident circles and the dissident experiences of Patočka’s personal time (underground seminars, intellectuals working as evening watchmen and going by means of existential uncertainties). Many extra issues may very well be stated about this iconic components and its historic references. To conclude for right now, I’ll cite probably the most well-known formulation of the “solidarity of the shaken” that the creator provides in his Heretical Essays: ‘The solidarity of the shaken is able to saying no to all mobilizing measures… The solidarity of the shaken is being constructed up in persecutions and uncertainties: that’s its frontline, a quiet one, unadvertised and sensationless… Unafraid of being unpopular, this solidarity calls silently, with out a phrase.’
As soon as once more, many additional references may very well be made to the implications and the historic and philosophical significance of those strains. Nevertheless, in accordance with the primary strategy of what I needed to say right now, I’ll explicitly draw your consideration to the final 4 phrases of those strains: ‘silently, with out a phrase’ is the decision of solidarity. I discover it most essential to emphasize this as a foremost attribute of solidarity: it’s not a lot (or shouldn’t be a lot) an expectation, a requirement. It isn’t even a philosophical description or a recipe, however somewhat an inside working and an inside combat – to not ask for solidarity, however to combat with oneself to have the ability to present and act in solidarity.
Postludium
The burial of Jan Patočka happened within the cemetery of Svatá Markéta in Břevnov, Prague 6, on 16 March 1977. The state authorities tried their greatest to make it unworthy, utilizing a helicopter and motocross bikes to create a hellish noise and make it not possible for these in attendance to grasp a phrase. Individuals have been both saved from coming into the cemetery or arrested. The police started their arrests within the metropolis centre, distant from Břevnov. Many individuals managed to get there however. The cemetery was full, and the occasions have been by no means forgotten by those that witnessed them. The key police have been taking pictures of all guests from in between the gravestones. A younger man known as Ondřej Němec – he was 17 then and already a part of dissident circles – took pictures as properly. Typically, you see in each collection of pictures – those taken by the key police and those by Ondřej Němec – the exact same individuals, however it’s outstanding how very totally different they seem. What’s it that makes those within the pictures by Němec appear like they arrive from one other planet or from a extra humane world? I assume the reply is evident: it’s a shared solidarity – and be it a shaken solidarity. It’s the ardour or compassion of the particular person behind the digicam and a shared conviction:
‘There are issues for which it’s worthwhile to endure.’
This textual content was offered on 6 July 2026 because the Krzysztof Michalski Memorial Lecture on the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna.
