Document: Vaclav Havel - Ethics - June 1990 - Interview

UNESCO Courier, Dec, 2001 by Michael Bongiovanni

What cause do you think intellectuals should use their power to serve?

-- On the eve of a new millennium, the most precious possession we ought to defend, and which should find unanimous support among people everywhere, regardless of their country or the system under which they live, is a certain number of human qualities, of fundamental values. And first of all, humility. Many cruel events which we have experienced at the end of this millennium, such as Hitlerism, Stalinism or the excesses of Pol Pot, show the vanity, the arrogance of groups or individuals, of fanatics or non-fanatics, of ideologues, doctrinaires, utopians. The arrogance of those who think they know how everything ought to be, who think they can decide the order of things. When reality doesn't fit in with their theories, they impose their theories and these lead straight to the camps, to massacres, to horrendous wars. This lack of humility can also be observed elsewhere than in the strict political domain. Pride is also at the root of the global ecological crisis: man imposes his will upon nature, without respe cting her laws, her secrets. There is plenty I could say on this subject.... Let us not forget the meaning of freedom, of dignity, of justice. And let us be more humble.

A video film of this interview, by Michel Bongiovanni, was made by the Centre International de Creation Video, Montbeliard-Belfort, France (director Pierre Bongiovanni).

RELATED ARTICLE: Works by Vaclav HaveL translated into English include:

Plays: The Memorandum, Eyre Methuen, London, 1981; The Vanek Plays trilogy, University of British Columbia Press, 1987; Largo Desolato, Faber & Faber, London/Grove Press, New York, 1987; Temptation, Faber & Faber/Grove Press, 1988.

Essays and other writings: Letters to Olga (1979-1982), a collection of correspondence from prison to his wife, Faber & Faber, 1983, reissued 1989; Vaclav Havel: Or Living in Truth, Faber & Faber, 1987.