sternized state occurred a mere decade ago, and it should be expected that the virtues of liberal democracy have not been incorporated into the heart and mind of every Czech citizen. As Robert Zuzowski puts it, change of habits lags behind institutional change - the iron law of social life. 1 Zuzowski, Political Change in Eastern Europe since 1989 - pg. 101 After forty years of Communist rule where a strict dichotomy of the public and private sphere existed, it is easy to see how many are reluctant to take the plunge into the public sphere, especially since the elite structure is not conducive to popular participation. A recent study in the New Democracies Barometer found that widespread skepticism predominates of the fifteen institutions across nine Estern and Central European countries.2 journal of politics, may 1997 v59 n2 p418 (william mishler; richard rose) Even though the levels of trust varied amongst nations, the results clearly indicate the trend towards skepticism. Petr Bisek of Impuls 99, a public affairs and cultural lobby, recognizes the legacy of the Communist Party in the realm of public and political life, People are skeptical and tend not to participate in public life because it makes no sense to them.3 The Prague Post, November 17, 1999, velvet past, stormy future, christopher p. winner The political realm was off-limits under Communism, it was a shadowly world of suspect. The purges of the Communist Party during the 1950s left a lasting legacy of the inherent danger of the political world. In an interview with Tomas Samek, a Prague native and U.Va. graduate student in the linguistic anthropology department, he remarks that, the public sphere is regraded as disgusting, and that is reinforced by schizophrenic diglossia. Czech people use two variants of Czech (common, spoken Czech and the more elevated, public Czech) one which nobody believes. The Czech which nobody believes is the official, written Czech that...
