Post-Totalitarianism inThe Lives of Others

Abstract

This article argues that The Lives of Others contains a particularly powerful portrait of what the Czech dissident-philosopher Václav Havel called "posttotalitarianism." I will explore Havel's understanding of this concept and the film's evocation of its key features. In Havel's view, these regimes preserve themselves through the principle of "social auto-totality." They make every person, every citizen, an accomplice in their own oppression. Even more troubling for Havel is that these regimes do not continue to exist because of the evil will and historical misunderstandings of their originators. He suggests these horrors "can happen and did happen only because there is obviously in modern humanity a certain tendency toward the creation, or at least the toleration, of such a system." Donnersmarck's brilliant film explores how it is that people are capable of living within a lie. This leads to a consideration of an important but heretofore unexplored question: What is the meaning of the movement of a totalitarian regime to a post-totalitarian regime? Was what seemed for many in the West to be a sign of Communism's ability to moderate itself actually the emblem of its true evil?