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Work #1005 · Late-dissident (composed three years before the Velvet Revolution)

Disturbing the Peace

Václav Havel
1985-86 (long interview composed by mail between Havel in Prague and Karel Hvížďala in West Germany) · Czech
Long autobiographical-political interview · Twentieth-century Czech philosophical dissidence

A long interview through which Havel surveys his life, his philosophy, and his political commitments in the years just before the 1989 Velvet Revolution

Attribute Fingerprint

Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.

Attribute Disturbing the Peace (Late-dissident (composed three years before the Velvet Revolution))
Time · Extent Infinite
Time · Ontological Status Substantival
Time · Grain Continuous
Time · Freedom Non-Deterministic
Time · Traversability Linear
Time · Dimensionality One
Time · Direction Uni-directional
Space · Extent Infinite
Space · Ontological Status Substantival
Space · Curvature Flat
Space · Dimensionality Three
Space · Locality Local
Matter · Extent Infinite
Matter · Ontological Status Substantival
Matter · Conservation Conserved
Matter · Dimensionality Three
Matter · Locality Local
Observer · Time Instance Single
Observer · Space Instance Single
Observer · Knowledge Extent Partial
Observer · Knowledge Retainment Total
Observer · Physicality Embodied
Observer · Agency Both
Observer · Number Plural
Observer · Metaphysical Agency None
Observer · Moral Authority Experience
Observer · Theological Method
Energy · Extent Infinite
Energy · Ontological Status Substantival
Energy · Conservation Conserved
Energy · Dispersibility Irreversible
Information · Ontological Status Substantival
Information · Cosmic Conservation Conserved
Information · Personal Conservation Conserved
Information · Granularity Continuous

Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence

What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.

Time

Disturbing the Peace

The mid-1980s moment three years before 1989; the autobiographical arc of Havel's life from 1936 through 1985.

Space

Disturbing the Peace

Czechoslovakia (Prague especially) as Havel's political-philosophical space; West Germany as Hvížďala's exile-interlocutor space.

Matter

Disturbing the Peace

The embodied Havel — his bodily life in prison, in the theatre, in dissident community.

Observer

Disturbing the Peace

Havel as self-reflecting observer; Hvížďala as the interviewer whose questions structure the reflection.

Energy

Disturbing the Peace

The intellectual, theatrical, and political energies of Havel's career; the institutional energies of late-Communist Czechoslovakia.

Information

Disturbing the Peace

The discrete content of the nine chapters; the cumulative autobiographical-philosophical portrait.

Internal Tensions

Where each work's argument pulls against itself.

Disturbing the Peace

The book was composed three years before the 1989 Velvet Revolution that would unexpectedly bring Havel to the presidency; reading it after 1989 changes its meaning — what had seemed an account of permanent dissidence turned out to be the prologue to political leadership. Havel's subsequent presidency (1989-2003) substantially tested the philosophical-political positions Disturbing the Peace had developed.