The greengrocer’s choice
In 1978, Czech dissident Václav Havel wrote about a greengrocer who hangs a sign in his shop window: “Workers of the world, unite!” He doesn’t believe it. Nobody reads it. The grocer does not hang it to persuade customers. He hangs it because the authorities expect people to display loyalty to the system. The sign tells anyone who passes, “I know the rules. I’m going along.” Taking it down could draw suspicion and put his livelihood at risk.
Havel’s insight was that the whole system rested on millions of small acts like that one: ordinary people going along. When people displayed loyalty they didn’t feel, their daily compliance made the system seem acceptable. The grocer’s choice to remove the sign would break that performance. Havel called that choice “living within the truth.”
We don’t live under that kind of regime but have our own version of the sign in the window. It’s the shrug that says, “My vote doesn’t matter.” It’s letting the loudest voices and the biggest ad budgets decide for us. Staying home is its own way of going along.
Voting is the opposite. It’s one person, alone in a booth, making a choice no one else can make. It’s about schools our children attend, the roads we drive, the taxes we pay and the community we hand over to whoever comes next.
Havel’s lesson applies to leaders too. Choosing candidates who live within the truth, who tell the truth even if it costs them votes, shapes the world we live in for the better.
Havel’s grocer risked his livelihood by refusing to go along. All we risk is a few minutes out of our day. Please vote on Nov. 3.