Vocation and dissidence

Vocation and dissidence

“You do not become a ‘dissident’ just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances….It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society.”  Vaclav Havel

Quoted by Matthew H. Young, Lessons in Revolution from the Republic of Professors | First Things.

Havel was a playwright in Communist Czechoslovakia, and his plays got him into trouble with the leftwing authorities, which in turn led him to jail time and eventual leadership in the anti-Communist dissident movement.

What are some other cases in which “an attempt to do your work well”–an aspect of vocation–can lead to cultural or political dissidence?

"Exactly. An AI only "makes stuff up" because somewhere on the internet - a place ..."

DISCUSS: Should the Church Use AI?
"If your hammer needs a connection to the internet, it loses utility as a hammer."

DISCUSS: Should the Church Use AI?
"(At one time ex-wife.) That may be tied to something I have noticed occasionally, which ..."

“Drunk on Their Own Virtue”
"I think an important addition to our corporate confession the line, "by what I have ..."

“Drunk on Their Own Virtue”

Browse Our Archives

Follow Us!


TAKE THE
Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was sold into slavery by his brothers?

Select your answer to see how you score.