ABSTRACT
In a speech he gave in 1965 Vaclav Havel (1991) critiques “a way of thinking that turns away from the core of the matter to something else” (15). In the speech, later published as an essay, “On Evasive Thinking,” the former president of Czechoslovakia offers as an example some commentary published after a woman in Prague was killed when a stone window ledge came loose and fell on her. The commentator argued that, of course, window ledges ought not fall, but also praised the fact that public criticism of such events was then possible and spoke about the enormous progress Czechoslovakia had made as a country.
