Democratization
of Eastern Europe
Critical
Intellectuals:
THOSE WHO NOT ONLY HAVE THE ABILITY TO
MANIUPLATE SYMBOLS WITH EXPERTISE, BUT WHO HAVE ALSO GAINED A
REPUTATION OF OR COMMITMENT TO GENERAL VALUES AND WHO HAVE A BROAD
EVALUATIVE OUTLOOK DERIVED FROM SUCH COMMITMENT (LIPSET AND DOBSON,
1972).
Intellectuals
in European society
Traditionally, play a more overt
Self-conscious role in society
Can be conceived of as a class
“the
intelligentsia”
Their role:
Issuing critiques of society, politics
Gramscii “elaborating ideology”
In American
society today
The tyranny of experts, scientists, specialists
Foucault (in
Kennedy, 286)
As members intelligentsia
become more and more specialized, speak to
smaller and smaller audience. Lose their capacity to speak to whole of
society. Lose this
"expertise"?
In Eastern Europe
The intelligentsia as creators and preservers of the
Nation
As the moral conscience of the Nation
Social responsibility to speak for Nation (as against the state
-
whatever its form?)
In Marxist-Leninist
Societies
The intelligentsia as the most dangerous class
To be coopted or neutralized, liquidated
Impact
of Stalinism and Brezhnev era on Intellectuals
Moral dilemma – what
to do, when there is nothing to
be done? (Jacek Kuron’s, founder of KOR question)
Kennedy’s
Theses on Critical Intellectuals:
Critical
intellectuals are vital to healthy, vibrant civil society, hence, for
democracy.
Critical
intellectuals were important part of bringing down state-socialists
regimes.
New
groups of critical intellectuals must develop in post-Communist
societies to
ensure their lasting democratization.
Civil
Society and the State
Lockean version:
society prior to the state; market mechanisms preferred.
In classical liberal
democracy, interests of civil
society oppose politics “practices in the name of some general will or
public
opinion” (Kennedy, 282).
In Montesquieu’s
version, civil society as
“something constructed through open discussion” (Kennedy, 283)
Freedom = vigor of
public debate and its influence
over the state (Kennedy, 283)
Stalinist party,
i.e., the State, claims to act in
the historical interests of a universal class
Critical
Intellectuals of the 1980s
Physicians, peace
activists in Kennedy’s work on Poland
Natural scientists,
environmentalists important in Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Russia
The traditional
intelligentsia also played roles
e.g. in Poland, Catholic intelligentsia
Kardinal
Wojtyla, later
Pope John Paul II
Literary figures such as Solzehnitzyn, Havel