| SVU |
CZECHOSLOVAK SOCIETY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES |
Otto Ulc
I have yet to meet an outsider from other than English speeking orbit who after
hearing the standard salutation How are you? does not feel compelled, obligated to
respond with a report about one's health. The realization of a total vacuity of this
greeting takes some time to settle in. Hardly a day passes without a phone call from
strangers trying to extract a contribution for a limitless numbers of charitative causes
or to sell me goods and services I do not want and certainly do not need. After hearing
their automatic How are your, Otto (my almost unpronounceable surname being mercifully
omitted) I respond with a puzzling counterquestion "Why do you want to know?"
Or, even more maliciously, I elaborate: "I appreciate your asking. Since you
expressed interest to know, today I am worse than I was yesterday but definitely do feel
better than I would feel tomorrow." Usually, such a conversation does not
register long duration.
A year ago, a journalist offered me a ride to Prague, back from the
countryside. Alas, his driving skill, characterized by ineptitude matched by
carelessness, led to a sorry result: the car was catapulted off the road, was
substantially smasched and the passengers partially damaged. I managed to walk away
with only minor abrasions, bruises and a neck pain. Back in the United States, an effort
of recuperation commenced. At the physiotherapy center each such
customer upon entering responded to the How are you? empty phrase with an equally
meaningless, misleading assurance I am fine - just fine. If so, why do they bother to
come, to seek evidently superfluous services? So wondered an outsider who took such a
verbal exchange too literally.
The Czechs are of a different breed. To a question How are you
doing, how are the things? they provide the standard evalution Stoji to za hovno -
It's worth of shit. Not infrequently, such an excremental pessimist then elaborates
that he just bought]a new apartment, a car, obtained a new wife or mistress, was promoted
in his job, and the more money he now makes, the less effort he has to expend.
Nonetheless, the life worth of shit.
Public opinion surveys confirm this gloomy outlook. Close to half
the Czech nation claims not to have noticed the difference between the communist and
post-communist conditions of life, a life in freedom or in a totalitarian cage. Of
those, nearly half are ready to cast their vote for the candidates of the Communist Party,
to provide them once again with an opportunity to install such a cage, to be outfitted
with a straitjacket. Yet, according to a survey conducted in January 1999,
overwhelming majority (92%) of the same people claimed to be content living in their
fatherland - this is a stark contrast to a preference expressed by the populace in other
post-communist states .(Notably, in Albania. It was reported that vast majority of
the Albanians would emigrate, if given an opportunity.) How
to decipher this seeming contradiction if not a split personality among the Czechs?
Maybe it is no contradiction at all but an expression of preference to a cage offering a
comfort of familiarity, an abandonment of the onerous burden of freedom.
A self-evident truth on a verge of banality: bread or caviar alone do
not suffice to guarantee a content, pleasurable living. How much happiness can
bestow millions of dollars, a mountain of gold, to an old dying man/woman? How to
measure happiness, satisfaction, contentment of life, its sense of purpose - where
is the reliable yardstick of the quality of life? As a college teacher
who was spending mere six hours a week in a classroom, I compared my situation with that
of a fellow exile, now a private entrepreneur awash with money and saddled
with a seven day working week, from dawn to dusk and beyond. We had no
difficulty in agreeing whose quality of life was preferable, more enjoyable. American
media present a rating of states, counties, cities and towns as to their estimated
quality of life. A variety of criteria are employed, such as housing, employment
opportunities, average income, quality of health services, schools, culture, and
criminality.
As a freshly minted American pensioneer I now have more money than ever
before. Though such betterment is not about to bring me to extasy, one is practical
enough to realize that it is preferable to live without rather than with financial
worries. On the other hand, an opposite of such an obvious observation is equally valid:
the same way material wealth is no guarantee of contentment to an individual,
it is no guarantee to an entire coomunity, to an entire nation. Example: The highest per
capita income in the world is not in Switzerland or oil-rich sheikdom of Abu Dhabi but in
the Republic of Nauru, a miniature coral island (8.2 sq.mi.), population 5,000.
Deposits of phosphates, extracted by imported foreign labor, guarantee the natives
a carefree existence with absolutely no taxation, with plenty of services provided
free of charge. Yet, highest income does not guarantee the highest
quality of life. The islanders own luxury automobiles which they drive on
dilapidated, barely passable road. A luxurious variety of electronic appliances on the one
hand and erratic supply of electricity on the other hand. All food, water
included, is imported. The natives gave up agricultural activities long ago, and
their traditional diet - fresh fish and vegetables - was replaced by canned food and beer,
huge amount of beer. The result is dying of wealth. - the populace suffering
record obesity, diabetes, blindness, gout, cancer, high blood pressure, and high
suicide rate. The average life expectancy has dropped to 50 years for men and 55
years for women.
Sri Lanka, an island in the Indian ocean, first time I visited when its
name was Ceylon, not yet tormented civil war, a continuous ethnic
conflict between the Singhalese majority and the Tamil minority. By talking to the
natives, one was impressed by their high literacy rate, by the cleanliness of their modest
village dwellings. With such observations I concluded that their quality of life was
higher than that in some oil-rich regions in the Arab orbit, registering a ten times
higher per capita income.
The ruler of the himalayan kingdom of Bhutan recently announced to his
subjects that the transition from the traditional way of life to the modern era will
not be measured by a vulgar material GNP - Gross National Product) but by GNH - Gross
National Happiness. How to measure and weigh which amount of criteria - ranging from the
extent of available personal freedoms, state's benevolence or its eventual oppressive
habits, number of prisons, prisoners, nightmares and ulcer of those not yet behind bars?
Subjective feeling of complacency of its lack of has been an issue of
concern of the European Union for already a decade. A book with a title Subjective
Well-Being Across Cultures , authored by Ronald Inglehart, University of Michigan, and
Hans-Dieter Klingeman from a reseach center in Berlin, was scheduled for publication in
the year 2000. The two scholars started in 1981 to assemble a team of experts analyzing
altogether 65 countries. The New York Times published (September 19, 1999) some details
such as the finding that during the early stage of economic development, the level of
income plays a more significant role than in the subsequent developmental phases.
Rather surprisingly, on the European continent more contentment is to be found in its
northern parts than in the sunny south.
The subjective feeling of well-being is the strongest in the Scandinavian countries
(Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland) along with The Netherlands, Switzerland and
Ireland, a country with a noticeably lower standard of living.
A lower level of contentment prevails in Germany, France, and Italy.
This "modestly content" outlook is shared by the Americans and the
Canadians. This study confirms a wide disparity in the feeling of accomplished life
satisfaction in stable established democracies in comparison to authoritarian regimes
including the postcommunist regimes in which only tenuous or still
non-existent mode of democratic governing.. Obtained data confirm the assumption of
the precarious state and outlook of the Russian society which finds itself below the level
of Nigeria and Bangladesh.
This unenviable state of mind also characterizes the Iberian
corner of Europe considered a part of Western Europe. In Portugal, the feeling
of anxiety, pain, suffering, even tragedy, are viewed an integral matter of life-long
experience. Melancholy can season the soul and inspire great literature or music, it may
play a role of a potent impuls of artistic creativity but is short of providing the
society with much of happiness. Antonio Monteiro, the delegate of Portugal at the
United Nations, commented that national music known as fado also means one's lot, fate
(from the Latin fatum, I presume), that the most frequently used word in Portuguese
is sausade - a feeling to miss something in life but one can live with this feeling
that hurts and comforts at the same time. "Just ask someone on the streeet, How are
you? Culturally, nobody will tell you, I'm fine, I'm happy - nobody. That is the way the
Portuguese are," the diplomat elaborated.
This kind of attitude sounds familiar to the Czech
ear. The Czechs who nowadays are delving into their supposedly Celtic roots may in
addition discover some Iberian ones. During the totalitarian past, in the period of
the so-called "normalization" that followed the Soviet punitive invasion in 1968
to get rid of the experiment of socialism with a human face, an American capitalist
familiar with the situation in the subdued gloomy country, commented: " The way you
work, you truly manage to live magnificently." More than metaphysics we may
well resort to mathematics for the beginners: to an equation in which feeling of
satisfaction equals the reality, its true accomplishments, divided by original expectation
of easy rosy betterment to come. The dreams did not materialize, hence the reality is to
be punished and so are such dreamers.
E N D
back to the top of this document
~~~ This document is part of SVU Website (www.svu2000.org) ~~~