<P> Havel said the written laws in the East and West are pretty similar . The difference is in their administration . "Demanding that the laws be upheld...threatens the whole mendacious structure at its point of maximum mendacity ." People were "easily and inconspicuously locked up for copying banned books". However, "policemen, prosecutors, or judges...exposed to public attention...suddenly and anxiously begin to take particular care that no cracks appear in the (legal) ritual ." </P> <P> In later sections, Havel writes of what form opposition in such regimes could take and the nature of being a dissident in the circumstances of the time, using the example of Charter 77 . Havel's political program being a breaking with both the traditional forms of governing and opposition . He contrasts Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk's observation of the limits of grassroots organization, of so - called small works, with the example of the Polish Workers' Defence Committee (Komitet Obrony Robotników or' KOR) and of what could be achieved through an independent social life and organization to achieve "social self - defense". Such a defense throughout the then Eastern Bloc having as its basis the defense of human and civil rights . </P> <P> Havel touches upon the concepts articulated by fellow dissident and Charter 77 signatory, Vaclav Benda, who had earlier described "parallel structures" of "parallel institutions" within a society more responsive to human needs . He points out that the first person in Czechoslovakia to formulate and put into practice a concept of a "second culture" was Ivan Jirous; although Jirous was mainly referring to events such as rock music concerts . </P> <P> Havel concludes the essay with a discussion about democracy and the problems of technology . He rejects the view that the only answer to a post-totalitarian regime would be to establish parliamentary democracy . "To cling to the notion", he writes, "of traditional parliamentary democracy as one's political ideal and to succumb to the illusion that only this tried and true form is capable of guaranteeing human beings enduring dignity and an independent role in society would, in my opinion, be at the very least shortsighted ." He calls for an "existential revolution" that goes "significantly beyond the framework of classical parliamentary democracy" and that can thus be called post-democratic . "Having introduced the term' posttotalitarian' for the purposes of this discussion, perhaps I should refer to the notion I have just outlined - purely for the moment - as the prospects for a' post-democratic' system ." The post-democratic system he envisages should "provide hope of a moral reconstitution of society, which means a radical renewal of the relationship of human beings to what I have called the' human order,' which no political order can replace . A new experience of being, a renewed rootedness in the universe, a newly grasped sense of higher responsibility, a newfound inner relationship to other people and to the human community - these factors clearly indicate the direction in which we must go ." </P>

Vaclav havel essay the power of the powerless