620
PARTISAN
I~EVIEW
crowd and to flow comfortably along with it down the river of
pseudo-life. This is much more than a simple conflict between two
identities.
It
is something far worse: it is a challenge to the very no–
tion of identity itself.
Truth, Havel concludes, has its own special power in the post-totali–
tarian system: "Under the orderly surface of the life of lies, therefore,
there slumbers the hidden sphere of life in its real aims, of its hidden
openness to truth."
While I certainly do not intend to compare the constrained expres–
sive environment of a politically correct college campus with the system–
atic extirpation of dissent characteristic of the totalitarian state, I never–
theless find the moral dim.ensions of Havel's argument relevant to the
dilemmas faced by individuals in our own society. Conventions of self–
censorship are sustained by the utilitarian acquiescence of each commu–
nity member in an order that, at some level, denies the whole truth: By
calculating that the losses from deviation outweigh the gains, individuals
are led to conform. Yet by doing so they yield something of their indi–
viduality and their dignity to "the system." Usually this is a minor matter,
more like the small sacrifices we make for the sake of social etiquette
than some grand political compromise. But, as I hope to have made
clear in the foregoing exposition, circumstances arise when £ar weightier
concerns are at stake. The same calculus is at work in every case.
How then are the demagogues and the haters to be denounced?
How can reason gain a voice in the forum? How can the truth about
our nation, our party, our race, our church come to light, when the so–
cial forces of conformity and the rhetorical conventions of banality hold
sway? How can we have genuine moral discourse about ambiguous and
difficult matters - like racial inequality in our cities or on our campuses -
when the security and comfort of the platitudes lie so readily at hand?
Though it may violate the communal norms of my economics fraternity
to say so, I believe these things can be achieved only when individuals,
first a few and then many, transcend "the world of existences" by acting
not as utilitarian calculators, but rather as fully human and fully moral
agents, determined at whatever cost to "live within the truth."
