Václav Havel: A Heart in the Right Place

Abstract

The author looks at Havel’s The Power of the Powerless in the context of Czech twentieth-century political fiction and the criticism that his writing and political activity has received. He also introduces other works, essays and plays, by the author that aid the assessment of statements made in The Power of the Powerless. The last quarter of the article discusses Havel and New Age ideas and endeavors to look at The Power of the Powerless in that light, but also to understand how a person who argued most of his life against the elements of ochlocracy in his own country could in spiritual matters become something of an ochlocrat himself.