Presentation of A Resilient Society: Between Helplessness and Tyranny

The crises we are going through force us to think about what kind of society we are, and – if we are to face them – whether we have anything to draw. In public debates we encounter various analyses of Czech society: we are described as a divided, fragmented, narcissistic or impoverished society; in other contexts, there is talk of a fluid, accelerated, opportunistic or exhausted society. The documentary research that gave rise to the book Odolnáspolečnost. Mezi bezmocí a tyranií (A Resilient Society: Between Helplessness and Tyranny) explored, via interviews with influential actors in various spheres of public life, what the preconditions are for being a resilient society. Rather than an academic interpretation of the term “societal resilience”, or a general opinion survey, this research adopted a different approach. It focused on a detailed mapping of practical knowledge about what works in Czech society, what is available but needs to be further developed, and what we need to change, if we want to avoid two extremes in relation to crises: falling into powerlessness in the face of them; or replacing crises with a struggle for domination of one over the other.