THE GOOD AND THE GOODS
..... “A factory manufacturing good rather than goods,”.... was a childhood fantasy of Vaclav Havel, the first president of post Velvet Revolution (1989) Czchoslovakia. His biographer Michael Zantovsky in Havel: A Life wrote that Vaclav grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth. In other words his family was not short of goods even during the depression when Vaclav was a small child and later during the Nazi occupation when he was an early teen.
Young Vaclav saw that things were wrong and he wanted to repair them. This fix demanded more than “things and stuff.” Throughout his life as a writer, particularly playwright, a dissident that frequently landed in the jails of the communist government, his wish was to make his country, Czechoslovakia, if not the whole world, a “good” or at least a better place to live.
In 1989 he walked out of the infamous Pankrac prison in Prague straight to the presidential residence. His author and long time friend and associate says he was honoured to carry Vaclav’s total possessions in a string bag.
According to our materialistic thinking good and goods are often equated. Society and customers according to Margaret Thatcher are one and the same thing, indeed she is well known for stating that there is no such thing as society there are only consumers. Goods are good, she believed, and the more you can amass the better.
When the people share the goods of the nation, when its citizens are well and creatively employed and when the basic needs of the people are met by publicly financed plans such as health care and education and the welfare of its seniors and children is assured then truly that society is good,
The early Czechoslovakia that emerged from the Austria Hungary Empire after WW1 was such a country. It wasn’t perfect especially in the thirties when the world was gripped in a depression.
On my birthday I like to remind friends that I was born under a form of medicare. My birth, my subsequent health care including dental care, and my schooling was entirely covered. What a shock when we came to Canada in 1939 and found that one went to a doctor only if you could afford it. Often times of course medical practitioners especially out in the country were very generous and frequently accepted pay in kind, a dozen eggs, a side of beef or a cord of wood to compensate for services rendered.
The early Czech system could be a model for our own country where the amassing of goods is given priority over social needs. In early times the good was provided by charitable institutions and to some degree still is. When I attend the cancer clinic I am made aware of the many who have made generous donations for its establishment and I am grateful.
When I entered the ministry in the fifties churches were very much involved in charitable activities, delivering Christmas baskets to the poor, collecting and distributing used clothes and in many ways they still do. The church manse was often visited by the down and outs for help.
As I peruse my old sermons I recognize that I did not so much evangelize to fill the pews with new converts but rather emphasized the responsibility of Christians to be a force for good, to work for justice and peace. This didn’t necessarily fill the pews I admit. I was no hell-fire and damnation preacher.
I found much support for that in the message of more liberal and progressive denominations such as the United Church of Canada.
Havel did not die a Catholic rather he is best described as a non-denominational believer. Nevertheless his funeral took place in the cathedral in Prague attended by the Roman Cathollc hierarchy of the country.
Havel was from his childhood dedicated to building a good society. His main emphasis was on human rights and social justice. I hope we can keep that in mind in this election year when the emphasis seems to be on economics, goods that is, even at the price of ecology , and on security at the cost of freedom and justice. In that contest the truly Good is often
overlooked.
Hanns F Skoutajan
Spirit Quest March 6, 2015
