Power Of The Powerless Rhetorical Analysis

Vaclav Havel wrote his essay “The power of the powerless” as a description and critique of the totalitarian communist government and its system. He states that Communism is different to the other types of dictatorship as it is alike a “secularized religion” rather than the usual dictatorship, which do not have any social of historical background and come to power just by the military power. He also described how the individuals are responsible for getting under the autocratic regime due to their agreement to live in a society of consumers, where the supplier is the government, expecting everyone to go with the strict order of life. In case those individuals decide to participate in that and “live within a lie”, they are bounded with the communism.

Here comes the struggle between the personal dignity of an individual and his threat against not completing his job. Thus, the person hides behind the initial slogan uniting all the workers of the world, which makes the person presume that he is protected by the regime and he is an important part of a huge powerful system. He puts that slogan not because he certainly believes in it but because this it what everyone around him does. These slogans might not be understood by the publicity but their presence affects them subconsciously, without their own recognition. Moreover, these people are putting those slogans on because they are not addressed to the publicity but more to the supervisors above. And those above, seeing that those people are following the order, have to provide the workers with a “shield” of protection in return. Such slogans “form part of the panorama of everyday life. Of course, while they ignore the details, people are very aware of that panorama as a whole. And what else is the greengrocer 's slogan but a small component in that huge backdrop to daily life?” And this panorama a person has in his mind forms the ideology, which has been brought to him. “Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them… It is a veil behind which human beings can hide their own ‘fallen existence’, their trivialization, and their adaptation to the status quo.” The ideology and its slogans are meant to be not only the signs if the regime but also its assurance to unite people in one order and keep them in this way. The metaphysical order ensures the system to exists in a