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Václav [[Havel ]] ([[born ]] October 5, 1936) is a Czech writer and dramatist. He was the last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic.

Havel discerned the fraudulence of what I would call the 'interpassive [[socialism]]' of the Western academic [[Left]]. These leftists aren't interested in [[activity]]-merely in 'authentic' [[experience]]. They allow themselves to pursue their well-paid academic careers in the West, while using the idealised [[Other ]] (Cuba, Nicaragua, Tito's [[Yugoslavia]]) as the stuff of their [[ideological ]] [[dreams]]: they [[dream ]] through the Other, but turn their backs on it if it disturbs their complacency by abandoning socialism and opting for [[liberal ]] [[capitalism]]. What is of special interest here is the [[lack ]] of [[understanding ]] between -the Western Left and [[dissidents ]] such as Havel. In the eyes of the Western Left, Eastern dissidents were too naive in their [[belief ]] in liberal [[democracy]]-in rejecting socialism, they threw out the [[baby ]] with the bath water. In the eyes of the dissidents, the Western Left played patronising [[games ]] with [[them]], disavowing the [[true ]] harshness of [[totalitarianism]]. The [[idea ]] that the dissidents were somehow [[guilty ]] for not seizing the unique opportunity provided by the disintegration of socialism to invent an authentic alternative to capitalism was pure [[hypocrisy]].

<blockquote><ref>Žižek, S. (2000) [[The Fragile Absolute]], or Why the [[Christian ]] Legacy is Worth Fighting For, [[London ]] and New York: Verso. p. 56</ref></blockquote>