GABOR TAMAS RITTERSPORN gnation is completely justifiable it only concems certain constituent elements of social and political mechanisms whose more or less unconscious agents the majority, perhaps, of dissidents are. Nothing characterises dissidence against discriminatory, repressive and violent aspects of the exercise of power better, perhaps, than the types of activity through which it gains expression, and the professional groups from which it arises. The critiques of excesses find expression almost exclusively in literary and critical activities and in declarations on social and political issues: critics being recruited from among writers, artists and academics and aspirants to such careers as well as from among scientific and technical specialists in the State apparatus. Bus even though their works and declarations may succeed in unveiling the most revolting aspects of the exercise of power, even the best qualified dissident specialists cannot manage to get beyond a critique of certain techniques and institutions which are organic products of the social and political system to the conception of a counter-strategy for the use and development of all the techniques and institutions which reproduce and improve the system. Given the structural and functional coherence of the techniques and institutions and the crucial importance of this coherence, it is unlikely that its constituent elements can be fitted, such as they are, into a counter-strategy of use and development capable of changing the system. But in only attacking certain elements of this organic coherence the opponents of discriminatory, repressive and violent methods of the exercise of power appear to suppose that elimination of these elements would be enough to reform the system radically. They do not seem to consider that, given the crucial importance of the coherence of the system's techniques and institutions, mere elimination of certain of their aspects is not only unlikely to change it, but would even necessitate their replacement by other elements fulfilling the same function. As writers, artists, scholars, aspirants to such careers, and scientific and technical experts, the dissidents agitating for the abolition of certain abuses of the exercise of power are conscious that these methods very seriously limit their opportunities for carrying out their social, political and professional activities. They get involved in the dissident movement in their defence of these opportunities and, particularly in the case of scientific and technical experts publishing literary works and 36
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTExMDY2NQ==