During Professor McAdams dinner party Havel and John Stuart Mill begin to disagree over what type of government compels citizens to live in the truth. According to Havel, a post-totalitarian government gives more chance to compel its citizens to live within the truth. Havel goes on to say that the citizens in a liberal democracy create their own lie and chose to live within it. While John Stuart Mill states that in a liberal democracy gives you the most access to live within the truth. Between the two arguments Havel’s appears the most true, because while a liberal democracy might give the most opportunities to live with the truth, it does not compel you to live within the truth as a post-totalitarian society does.
In a liberal democracy there is a presence of freedom that exists within its society. The lie that citizens live within in a liberal society is a lie of their own making. According to Havel “the crisis is hidden from people and the more deeply do they become immersed in it” (208). This lie is to meant to mask the illusion that in the West we are not truly free, we are instead being exploited in ways more “subtle and refined than the …show more content…
However, in a post-totalitarian government the lie that the citizens live within is a creation of the government, it was created to keep everyone in line. Thus in a post-totalitarian government the lie has been present for so long that it is now the unquestionable truth. Also, the citizens in this type of government have come to accept anything that the government says as the truth, there is no other truth to be found and no one can object it. However, Havel speaks about a beer brewer in Power of the Powerless, this beer brewer is an example of someone in a post-totalitarian who felt compelled to step out of the lie and into the
In a liberal democracy there is a presence of freedom that exists within its society. The lie that citizens live within in a liberal society is a lie of their own making. According to Havel “the crisis is hidden from people and the more deeply do they become immersed in it” (208). This lie is to meant to mask the illusion that in the West we are not truly free, we are instead being exploited in ways more “subtle and refined than the …show more content…
However, in a post-totalitarian government the lie that the citizens live within is a creation of the government, it was created to keep everyone in line. Thus in a post-totalitarian government the lie has been present for so long that it is now the unquestionable truth. Also, the citizens in this type of government have come to accept anything that the government says as the truth, there is no other truth to be found and no one can object it. However, Havel speaks about a beer brewer in Power of the Powerless, this beer brewer is an example of someone in a post-totalitarian who felt compelled to step out of the lie and into the