Psychology and Communism, People Watching, & Bravery
Today was pretty eventful.
We took the metro to the Charles Bridge and walked across it in the rain to the Anglo American University. The really interesting part of it is that I've walked across the bridge four or five times now and I don't even walk slowly to get a good look at the statues, anymore. Maybe it is because it was raining, or maybe I've already seen them. The crowds there really bother me, too, and it makes sense why locals would avoid the place like the Plague.
But on the tram ride over an older American couple mistook a few of us for Czech until we corrected them. It was cute, and I felt pretty satisfied.
At the University we met with Dr. Kabát. He is a leading professor, politician and psychologist in Prague and used to be the Czech Minister of Culture under Havel from 1992-1994. He has written a book titled The Psychology of Communism which is now on my reading list. He was a really interesting speaker, but mostly taught us the three important steps of what it takes to make communism successful.
The big promise, as he put it, is when people make promises that they cannot keep because they really cannot be counted or verified until it is too late. They promise something so far down the road they can get away with lying.
Terror and fear are important because it makes manipulation easy, as well as lying.
The culture that these things harvested made it difficult for people to come out of it in the 90's. This is part of the reason why Czechs are not very trusting, today, because of the ripple effects of communism.
The other unique thing we learned from him was what the 12 stars in the European Union Flag symbolized... Apparently they refer to a passage in John where the Virgin Mary has 12 stars around her head, which I thought was pretty cool.
We had an assignment to people watch that day... Mine went a little like this:
"Since it was raining, I went to an old pub called Obēdove just down the street from I.P Pavlova. It was an old, probably neighborhood, pub with a smoky and homey atmosphere. People came and went and seated themselves in the back rooms under slowly revolving ceiling fans and spoke in low voices as they nursed beers and puffed on hand rolled cigarettes. There were several people eating alone at several different tables, they weren’t on their phones, though they read the paper and ate and drank quietly. However, there were a few pairs of people that stuck out to me in particular.
The first pair were two young women that sat just on the other side of me. They both had leather jackets slung over the backs of their chairs and were only carrying purses. They sat on the same corner of the table, instead of across from each other, and leaned together when they talked. They were definitely speaking Czech, and were both fair skinned. They were the only people with their phones on the table, and they did look at them from time to time that signified to me that they were maybe younger than they appeared, or that they were on a time schedule.
It appeared that they were just friends meeting for an early afternoon meal in their neighborhood or maybe a local place. Neither of them were really wearing clothes that looked like they had just been at work, though people are definitely more casual here with their business attire. Unlike when I am out with my best girlfriend at home, they were quiet, and only laughed louder than an appropriate “indoor voice” once.
When they were ready to go they actually attracted the attention of the waitress and asked for the bill, which is the first time I had ever seen that happen here in the Czech Republic.
In contrast to the young women there were two men at a booth just kitty-corner to them. One appeared to be much older with greying hair and a larger build. He was wearing what I would consider traditional business casual attire and very nice shoes. Opposite him was a younger man, though they did look alike, who was wearing jeans and a t-shirt (very unusual here, I think) and a watch. He looked to be maybe my age or a little younger. The younger gentleman was doing most of the listening while the older man did a lot of the talking. It seems to me that they were possibly in a father son relationship."
Any excuse to sit and watch people and eat is a good one.
Finally, we went to Sir Toby's for free BBQ!
The food was great, but the people were better. I met a gentleman named Sunny who was from Canada. He was traveling for 31 days and then would be in India for 2 weeks. He said he had chosen to travel all by himself at the age of 20 because he had seen a quote about bravery that went a little something like this:
"Bravery is not having no fears. It is about facing your fears."
He explained to me that he had never really faced his fears before, but had stepped away from them, so now he was facing them head on. It sounded like a really unique, cool experience, and I don't think I stopped telling him how jealous I was of him.
It was an exhausting day, and I have even more, fun plans for tomorrow!
Cheers!
