Sázka na svobodu – Přibáň Jiří (2024)

This Czech-language book contains thematically arranged essays that Jiří Přibáň published over the past decade, including the essay that gives the collection its title. He explores the idea of staking everything we care about, including our lives, on freedom, and the role of chance in modern society. The more people recognise this fundamental social experience, the more they paradoxically try to create fixed points and declare certain values permanent and unchanging. Přibáň criticises moral fundamentalism, which fuels passions leading to political violence and social destruction, while also rejecting moral relativism and cynicism. In opposition to moral absolutism, he presents the possibility of an ethical life that puts our existence at risk while giving it meaning, viewing ethics as a defence against every form of absolutism and totalitarianism. The author returns to the Czech writers who have deeply influenced his thinking and writing, including Milan Kundera, Václav Bělohradský, Václav Havel, Petr Pithart and Jiří Gruša. Other essays examine European developments over the past decade, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as broader questions about how contemporary society understands politics and constitutional and political institutions. The concluding sections address the relationship between ethics and morality, and between law and politics. Přibáň critically analyses the rise of moral fundamentalism in contemporary political and ideological movements and emphasises the importance of freedoms in a pluralistic world where values are both irreconcilable and constantly reassessed. Drawing indirectly on Karel Čapek’s pragmatism, he proposes replacing the imaginary factories of absolutes with ecological and renewable sources of humanity, and declares that he is willing to stake not only his freedom but also his own life on this ethical task.