People are born to struggle : Vladimír Čermák’s vision of
democracy

BAROŠ, Jiří. People are born to struggle : Vladimír Čermák’s vision of democracy. Studies in East European Thought. Dordrecht: Springer, 2023, Vol. 75, Online First, p. 1-19. ISSN 0925-9392. Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11212-022-09530-w.

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TY  - JOUR
ID  - 2246581
AU  - Baroš, Jiří
PY  - 2023
TI  - People are born to struggle : Vladimír Čermák’s vision of democracy
JF  - Studies in East European Thought
VL  - Vol. 75
IS  - Online First
SP  - 1-19
EP  - 1-19
PB  - Springer
SN  - 09259392
KW  - Agonism
KW  - Augustine
KW  - Consensus
KW  - Constitutional jurisprudence
KW  - Democracy
KW  - Political theory
KW  - Totalitarianism
UR  - https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s11212-022-09530-w?sharing_token=qJjoMyftiPlnd5k01My3A_e4RwlQNchNByi7wbcMAY6t5CdfmNC6Rwc7pgH1RhcdiA5qenFwqSDkztrAWDzi-rrLe6AZRVmNUI9GIgPpn_5Hbdj619MPPh97Tj8pimCt2mDNQK6icblRGLZ9eCNQMmYdqWKXaAmWtwET-uD8ZJM%3D
N2  - During the Czechoslovak normalization era (roughly from the 1970s to the 1980s), the Czech lawyer Vladimír Čermák, who later became a Justice of the newly established Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic after the breakdown of the Communist regime, authored a monumental piece called The Question of Democracy. Although this ambitious work has no equal in the Czech context, no attention has been paid to it in the English-speaking world. The present article aims to fill this gap by analyzing the most original aspects of Čermák’s political thought. First, I present Greek tragedy, Plato, and Augustine as the main influences on his thought, which was further shaped by Čermák’s experience with the First Czechoslovak Republic and the Communist era. Second, I show that the most important category permeating all of his intellectual project is the principle of polarity, combined with the concept of polémos as derived from Greek tragedy. Third, I focus on the consensually anchored value order of society, which is created through an interplay between positive and negative forces. Čermák’s idea that all law must be measured against the value order has deeply influenced the value-based jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court. Finally, I position Čermák’s thought in the context of contemporary political theory, arguing that the contrast with the work of the radical political theorist Chantal Mouffe is particularly illuminating. Even though Čermák and Mouffe share a similar attitude to democracy—in that the primacy of strife renders universal rational consensus impossible—I maintain that Čermák’s theory, due to its emphasis on the categories of good and evil, can be more usefully described as “secular Augustinianism”.
ER  -

Basic information
Original name	People are born to struggle : Vladimír Čermák’s vision of democracy
Authors	BAROŠ, Jiří.
Edition	Studies in East European Thought, Dordrecht, Springer, 2023, 0925-9392.

Other information
Original language	English
Type of outcome	Article in a journal
Field of Study	60300 6.3 Philosophy, Ethics and Religion
Country of publisher	Netherlands
Confidentiality degree	is not subject to a state or trade secret
WWW	URL
Impact factor	Impact factor: 0.200 in 2022
Organization unit	Faculty of Social Studies
Doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11212-022-09530-w
UT WoS	000911236200001
Keywords in English	Agonism; Augustine; Consensus; Constitutional jurisprudence; Democracy; Political theory; Totalitarianism
Tags	online first
Tags	International impact, Reviewed
Changed by	Changed by: Mgr. Blanka Farkašová, učo 97333. Changed: 28/3/2024 15:18.

Abstract

During the Czechoslovak normalization era (roughly from the 1970s to the 1980s), the Czech lawyer Vladimír Čermák, who later became a Justice of the newly established Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic after the breakdown of the Communist regime, authored a monumental piece called The Question of Democracy. Although this ambitious work has no equal in the Czech context, no attention has been paid to it in the English-speaking world. The present article aims to fill this gap by analyzing the most original aspects of Čermák’s political thought. First, I present Greek tragedy, Plato, and Augustine as the main influences on his thought, which was further shaped by Čermák’s experience with the First Czechoslovak Republic and the Communist era. Second, I show that the most important category permeating all of his intellectual project is the principle of polarity, combined with the concept of polémos as derived from Greek tragedy. Third, I focus on the consensually anchored value order of society, which is created through an interplay between positive and negative forces. Čermák’s idea that all law must be measured against the value order has deeply influenced the value-based jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court. Finally, I position Čermák’s thought in the context of contemporary political theory, arguing that the contrast with the work of the radical political theorist Chantal Mouffe is particularly illuminating. Even though Čermák and Mouffe share a similar attitude to democracy—in that the primacy of strife renders universal rational consensus impossible—I maintain that Čermák’s theory, due to its emphasis on the categories of good and evil, can be more usefully described as “secular Augustinianism”.

Links
GA19-11091S, research and development project	Name: Jak dál s veřejným rozumem? Kritiky a obhajoby veřejného ospravedlnění podle liberalismu
GA19-11091S, research and development project	Investor: Czech Science Foundation

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People are born to struggle : Vladimír Čermák’s vision of democracy

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