Global Cafe: Totalitarian Societies and Its Dissidents

Global Cafe: Totalitarian Societies and its Dissidents
Global Cafe: Totalitarian Societies and its Dissidents

Join us for third spring Global Cafe: Totalitarian Societies and its Dissidents. Presented by Dr. Hana Waisserova, the talk will focus on helping us understand totalitarianism through an examination of what shapes totalitarian societies, it's culture, politics, values and identities.

The talk is scheduled for Thursday, March 9th at 3PM located in Nebraska Union Colonial A. Refreshments and snacks will be served. All students, staff and faculty are welcome to attend.

Abstract: Even societies with pro-democratic proclivities welcomed authoritarian regimes that “command and rest upon mass support” (Hannah Arendt). Totalitarianism is often understood simply as the polar opposite of democracy. However, upon closer inspection, such definition turns out to be hopelessly inadequate and misleading. Both Nazi and the Bolshevik version of totalitarianism arose under conditions of modern, democratic – and egalitarian – society. Totalitarianism therefore appears to be pathology of modern democracy, rather than its polar opposite. Both systems – totalitarian and democratic – are surrounded by myths governing the production of knowledge. Even though the Cold war discourse is out-of-date, it is immensely interesting and needed to study the shapes of totalitarian societies, and its cultures, politics, values, identities have been directly influenced by totalitarian legacies. Individuals living under totalitarianism became regime supporters, proponents, gray zone survivors or opponents – and no one became a dissident overnight (Vaclav Havel). This talk discusses starting points, evolution and evolving patterns, social trends, heats and meltdowns of totalitarian societies. This talk is also to commemorate 40th anniversary of Charter 77 (Czech human rights civic initiative lead by Vaclav Havel) as a major human rights platform evolving out of dissent.