Integrity and Political Responsibility

Dissidents from the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland, among others, considered integrity of thought and word to be exercises of political responsibility. The work of the philosopher or author was political engagement, just as such, since tyranny was possible because of ideology, "the lie". Political participation and freedom remained for those who thought and spoke the truth as they understood it.This seminar explores a select group of dissidents, each of whom encouraged the "solidarity of the shattered" through the political responsibility of intellectual, existential, and spoken truth.